Beauty Read online

  Zara sat back, finally letting go of my hands and looked away. “No doubt she’ll be your friend,” Zara snipped. The envious edge to her voice made me even more uncomfortable than the way she treated Christine.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “I’ve seen how the girls look at you. They think…” Zara paused. “They think you’re a whore and they all want a taste.”

  I shrunk into a ball, wrapping my arms around my knees, dropping my head. “That’s not true. I’m not a whore. I’ve been saving myself for my one true love—for the prince of my heart.”

  Zara smirked and pushed me against the back of the wall as she stood and opened the door to the small closet, promptly closing it.

  “Sorry, Beauty,” Christine said as she took her doll by the hand and left me alone.

  In the darkness, I listened to the rumblings in the banquet hall. I knew the queen would be looking for me and it wouldn’t take much for her to find me tucked away in the closet—even if Zara didn’t tell on me.

  As if on cue, the door flew open and Anna stood with her hands on her hips, glaring down at me. “What are you doing in here? Get up. Get up now!”

  I tried to get to my feet, but tripped on my robe and fell face first into the banquet hall. The catcalls of the others hurt almost as much as the blow to my head as it bounced off the hard floor.

  Immediately, I felt the strong arms of Edmund around my waist hoisting me to my feet. I took one look into his eyes and watched a bright aura encapsulate his head. I disconnected from the rest of the world, far away in some strange region of space. And then the darkness came.

  3

  ELIZA

  2014

  My real estate agent, Brian, laid all that I’d received for the half million dollars I’d just mortgaged in front of me. It felt as if there should be more. I knew that with a house as old as this one, there would be no garage door opener and no kitchen appliance warranties. There was literally only the structure itself and the hope that I could restore it to its former glory.

  “All right, Miss Lovelace. Here is the manual to the security system. I suggest you change the code when you get there. The old tenants might want to come back and visit you without permission. And here’s your set of keys for the front door and the subsequent doors inside the house,” he said with a gratified smile.

  “Thank you.” It was all that I could muster from my dry throat. Signing my life away had been more stressful than exciting. It was fast, and not the way I’d imagined. I was embarking on a new life in Baltimore and for some reason, it didn’t feel right, right from the start.

  “Our pleasure, Eliza. I’m sure you’ll be very happy there.”

  I reached for the small brass ring that contained seven skeleton keys. “Let’s hope so.”

  The brass keys were heavy and I felt the weight of them in the palm of my hand, smiling past my apprehension. Finally, it seemed as if I’d received something substantial for my money.

  “What sort of plans do you have for the property?” asked the seller’s attorney. She was a weasel of a woman in a stiff navy suit. Her hair was tied so tightly to her head it was even giving me a headache. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Not at all,” I replied. “I’m kind of a rehab addict. I love old spaces and I love fixing them up. When I saw this house, I just knew it was where I needed to be. Can’t really explain it. It just spoke to me. It will be my largest project to date.”

  “I see,” she said. “And I understand you are a writer or something. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. Well, I’m lots of things—writer, carpenter, part time investigator.”

  “Really?” Brian chimed in. “What is it that you investigate?”

  I knew the moment I’d said investigator it was a mistake. I’d only been on one ghost hunt with my best friend Jess. I needed to quickly explain and get the hell out of there. I’d promised Ray I would meet him at three and it was already five after. By the time I fought the traffic in downtown Baltimore I would surely be late—something he abhorred. “My best friend is a paranormal investigator. I tag along sometimes…well one time.”

  The room sat silent. I knew eventually someone would break it, but it wasn’t going to be me.

  “You mean like, ghosts?” the weasel asked, screwing her mouth into a tight wad and cocking her head. At once, I liked her even less, curling my lip as I looked back to her.

  “Paranormal phenomenon.”

  “That’s very interesting, Miss Lovelace,” said Brian. “You never told me you were a ghost hunter. You know, one of the last tenants broke their lease and got out—said he felt like there was something…you know…there.”

  “You never told me that,” I said looking back and forth between the two of them.

  “Disclosing pixie dust and make believe is not expressly required by Maryland law.” The weasel gave me a half smirk and a chill raced through me. I shook it off as I stared at the signed papers in front of me and felt the coolness of the heavy keys in my hand. Now was not the time to panic, I’d just signed my life away.

  “Well,” I said, standing and catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the meeting table. My blonde hair was mussed, no doubt from the trip to the weasel’s office in my truck with the windows down. I whipped the ponytail holder from my wrist filled with stacks of quirky bracelets and quickly turned my mess of hair into a sophisticated bun. “I don’t believe in that kind of stuff. I shouldn’t have mentioned the ghost hunting in the first place. The one hunt I participated in was a bust. There was no ghost—only a cold and lonely old building,” I said with a nervous laugh. “It’s just something I did for fun. And I’m an author,” I said looking back to the weasel who seemed hell-bent on letting me know my place. I wanted to tell her I wrote all my law school friends’ briefs when they were struggling in school, but I thought the better of it. If I’d heard it once at a cocktail party, I’d heard it a hundred times: I could write a book.

  “Yes,” I’d reply. “All you have to do is open a vein and bleed.”

  Brian was already on his feet, and weasel finally followed, extending her hand to me. “Best of luck to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Let me walk you out, Eliza,” Brian said as he showed me to the door.

  “It’s fine. I know the way. I’m already late.”

  With a nod, he said the words I suppose only a real estate agent would at a moment such as this. “After you fix her up and decide to sell, let me know.”

  I dropped my head, bringing only my eyes to meet him. “I plan on being in the house for a really, really long time. But thanks.”

  My red Chevy truck rolled to a stop at the house on Park Avenue. I glanced at my disgruntled, on again-off again boyfriend standing on the sidewalk, hands hanging from his hips. Right now, we were on and I had told myself I needed to try harder to be the girl he wanted—the girl he needed. It was difficult enough just being me, let alone being what someone else expected me to be. Yet, his sandy brown curls, blue eyes and tight body were hard to stay angry with. What was worse—he knew exactly how to use them.

  “You’re gonna to be late to your own funeral, Lizzie. You know that don’t you? I mean seriously. The casket is going to be empty and the minister will say, ‘Let’s just start without her.’”

  I gave him a loving sneer but said nothing before gathering everything I’d received from Brian at the closing. I swallowed hard and shut the door to the truck to look up at the three-story historic stone home in Bolton Hill. It was a happening little area of Baltimore with a lot of history. I was certain my new house had its own story to tell—I just didn’t know what it was. Not yet.

  “You’re too impatient, Ray. I’m only ten minutes late.”

  “You said, three,” he replied pulling his hand from his hip and consulting his watch. “It’s three thirty. Three thirty three, to be exact.”

  “I said three…twenty-two. You must not have been listening.”
r />   He dropped his head and smiled. I could tell he was ready to give up the fight. “No one in their right mind would ask to meet at three twenty-two, Lizzie.”

  Standing on my toes, I kissed his tan face, a parting gift from our week in Aruba where we’d decided to make a go of it—yet again. I was going to be more sensitive to his needs and he wasn’t going to judge me. Still, I was uncertain as to how it would work out. We were two artists, a writer and a painter. There wasn’t enough room in our old apartment for both of our egos and our work. So, after a windfall inheritance from an uncle I’d become estranged from in my older years, I decided that what we needed wasn’t couple’s counseling, but more square footage and something to occupy my time when writer’s block would creep in—as I knew it would—as it always did.

  Ray responded to my kiss by leaning into it and giving me a love pat on the butt. “Let’s see what half a million gets you.”

  I held up the set of seven skeleton keys and smiled. “It gets you this. And,” I continued as I walked backward toward the house and opened my arms as if showing off a car in a game show. “It gets you this. Seven thousand square feet of one hundred and five year old stone and sticks.”

  Ray smiled and drew me in close for a tight hug and a drugging kiss. He pulled away and stared, stroking my hair with his hand. “Eliza Lovelace,” he began. “I want to make this work. You and me, okay? You and me.”

  “Horatio Huxley,” I replied, matching his formality. “I want to make this work too. You and me. Just us three.”

  He smiled and stroked my flushed cheek. It was September, but the Indian summer had a hold on the city and the temperature had been in the high eighties. Between the anxiety of signing away my life and the kisses Ray was giving me, beads of sweat had formed along my hairline.

  “Just us three?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I took his hand and led him up the steps of our new home. “You, me and Park Avenue.”

  “You know when I was in art school in New York City, I always wanted to say I lived on Park Avenue.”

  “Now you can,” I said as I punched in the code Brian had given me at closing: 31920. The door let out a positive sign: three long tones.

  “Welcome to your new home, Lizzie.”

  “Welcome to our new home.”

  A stale blast wafted across my face. The trapped air smelled of lost dreams and mildew. I smiled. It was as if the house was calling to me to make it happy again. I had every intention of doing just that.

  “We’re going to need a lot of charcoal to get that smell out of here,” Ray said as he walked past me, pushing the protruding button that was the light switch on the wall—a relic of the home’s ancient wiring.

  A single bulb illuminated from the brass chandelier that hung in the foyer. It was one of the things I loved about the old place. Lots of the original pieces of the home had been taken out and retrofitted when it was divided into four apartments, but the entrance hall had somehow escaped the demolition hammer that had been wielded in unkind ways.

  Two more original items had remained: an old, out of tune grand piano that was missing keys and sounded like it belonged in a demented cartoon, and an enormous round oak table with a marble top. According to the selling agent, it was assembled inside the home and no one had ever been successful in taking it apart to get it out. So it remained in the dining area, just as it had for almost one hundred years.

  “The smell will go away as we take out the walls that were built in the shoddy renovations,” I said as I ran my hand along the curlicue of the mahogany staircase where it met a plank of exposed oak peeking from under the molding green carpet.

  “Who would want to cover up these floors?” Ray asked as he stooped to pull back the rancid shag from the corner closest to the door.

  “Seventies people,” I said with a laugh. “I can’t wait to get started.”

  “I can’t wait for you to get started too. Please tell me there’s at least one area that’s inhabitable for us while we work on this place.”

  I looked up the twirling staircase that led all the way to the darkness of the third floor. “Of course. I would never have bought the place if we couldn’t move in now. Besides, I can write half the day and then rehab the house on the weekends and in the afternoons.”

  “Not to rain on your parade, Lizzie but if you’re only rehabbing this house to avoid writing, then I can tell you it’s going to be a disaster.”

  “What’s going to be a disaster? The house or the book?”

  “Yes.”

  I walked past him shaking my head. “Have a little faith in me, please.”

  “I have all the faith in the world,” he replied as he followed me into the original kitchen, turning on another light before leaning against the wall. Glancing up he pointed to the single bulb that swung high above our heads. “No expense was spared on the lighting budget I see.”

  “Ray,” I sighed. I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture and my gut instinct told me he was heading down that too familiar road.

  “I just want you to remember your publisher in New York. Remember that place we left? Well, they’re expecting a book out of you in the next six months. You don’t want to give back the advance do you? That’s your renovation money, Liz.”

  I stood with my back to him and stared out the kitchen window that overlooked the neglected garden. Mostly weeds and gnarled thorns, Brian had informed me upon the first showing that a glorious rose garden had once graced the back of the house. I could even find articles about it in the old Baltimore Sun’s gardening section of the newspaper. I didn’t have a green thumb, but it came with the house I was in love with.

  “Lizzie. Did you year me?”

  Hesitating, I didn’t want to look Ray in the eye, Instead I turned the brass star with the engraved H looking for evidence that the hot water heater was still functioning as it had during the inspection. “I can’t believe you’re saying this to me right now. Can’t we just enjoy this moment?”

  Turning, I faced him. Standing in his classic stance, hands on hips, head cocked to the side he smiled at me. It drove me crazy to see him question my intentions and at the same time, he knew hooking his hands in his jeans was a huge turn on for me. It was sexual-psychological warfare—and he was a skilled fighter.

  “I am enjoying this moment,” he replied with a devilish smile as he walked toward me with the look I knew all too well. He moved into my body like a crashing wave, overtaking me all at once and with an uncontrollable force that was driven by a power higher than human emotion. It was a force of nature. He kissed me hard, running his tongue across my lips and his hand down my back, cupping my bottom before giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “I think we should christen each and every room of this monstrosity,” he said kissing his way down my neck.

  Ray made me crazy in the head and weak in the knees, all at the same time. It had always been a mystery to me how one man could push so many of my buttons—all the good ones and the bad. “And you want to start in the kitchen?” I said as I tilted my head to the side, giving him better access to my collarbone, which seemed to be his next destination based on the way he pawed at me looking for easy access.

  Slowly lifting my shirt, I raised my arms and obliged his wish. Reshaping the underside of my breast with his hand he moved into me again with another desperate kiss. “I want you. Always.”

  Raising the sheer floral skirt I’d chosen to wear to the closing above my waist, he wrestled my panties with one hand until he got them to my knees, quickly picking me up to sit me on the old Formica counter. Clearly a misguided renovation choice by one of the previous owners, the countertop was worn and cool to the touch.

  I worked feverishly to unbuckle him, longing to free one of my favorite parts of Ray.

  Easily unclasping the front of my bra and pushing the straps over my shoulders, he moaned into my neck, sending a wave of excitement through my core.

  “Baby, we are going to be so happy here,” he said, as I
worked his boxer-laced jeans off his hips. I nodded but didn’t say a word.

  Pushing my legs apart, he moved into me as I reached for the faucet to turn off the water still running in the sink beside us.

  “Leave it,” he said before dipping his hand into the wetness and running it across his face and through his hair. The water ran down the front of his white t-shirt, causing it to cling to his muscular frame. I found myself involuntarily groaning in approval.

  I smiled and followed his lead, cupping my hand under the lukewarm water bringing it to my face, allowing it to run down my breasts.

  He moved against me, hot, wet, abandoned. “God, I love you, Lizzie.”

  “I love you, too,” I whispered, my lungs shallow with air.

  Rocking his body into mine, I gasped and let go of every fear and anxiety I’d carried with me for the past few days, allowing the callous business side of buying the Park Avenue house to merge with the emotional attachment I felt to the old building.

  Releasing my head, I looked to the ceiling as Ray moaned, “Yes.”

  The single light bulb hung on a frayed cord from the embossed tin ceiling tiles and I found myself unconsciously staring into the threaded filament. Across the room a shadow in the corner of the kitchen caught my eye, but quickly dissipated when I refocused my gaze.

  I released my grip on Ray’s neck as he continued to move into me in a measured insistent rhythm and watched the bulb sway back and forth. It was hypnotic—the light moving from side to side, illuminating a trail with each deliberate motion.

  As Ray’s passion reached a fevered pitch the light grew brighter as the tungsten wire heated into a white-hot glare. “Oh God, Lizzie,” he gasped, warning me that he was ready to abandon himself to the pleasure of our lovemaking.

  “Yeah?” I whispered, not taking my eyes from the light now moving fluidly across the room as if it were a park swing.

  At once and without warning, the bulb exploded with a crack that rang through my ears leaving me deaf with the exception of the high pitch whine that lingered behind.