Burnt Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

about everywhere. It was a lush blue velvet night and the mothy, warm darknesswas fragrant with the thick scent of ivory magnolias in a bowl at the table’s center.
    “Ron at Quelques Fleurs got them for me,” Finch’s mother said. “God knows where this time of year. But the garden at night
     has a kind of Moorish feel to it, I’ve always thought, and that thick, waxy smell always seems to me sort of exotic and Oriental.
     Besides, it covers up the bug spray. Wouldn’t you think the damned mosquitoes would be gone by now?”
    The evening did seem out of the world entirely to Crystal. Shawls and soft sweaters had come out to bloom over the women’s
     shoulders, and the men had drawn polo shirts over their swimsuits. There was absolutely no sound besides the gentle lap of
     the pool and fountains and the droning of cicadas and the talk. Not a single street noise penetrated into the enchanted duskiness
     behind the house. There was not even the chink of silver on fine china. The perfectly broiled filets in mustard sauce Corella
     passed around were served on paper plates.
    “Nobody but you, darling,” said one of the older women to Caroline.
    “Well, it’s just a little backyard cookout, after all,” she replied.
    The evening seemed endless to Crystal, stopped in time. Swimming in candlelight. She sat near one end of the table, with Finch
     opposite his mother at the far other one. His friends were grouped around them. They drank what looked to be endless glasses
     of a pale green wine, and leaned in to talk to one another so that the candles underlit their sun-flushedfaces, and laughed, and chatted, and laughed some more. Crystal smiled brilliantly the entire evening. None of the talk seemed
     to be about her.
    Oh, they tried. She could see them remembering, breaking off in mid-warble and turning to her and saying something like, “Are
     your men in Lytton as awful as they are here? Well, of course they are. All men are awful.”
    And Crystal smiled.
    All of them were, like Finch, out of college and into their lives. Crystal caught mention of bond sales and law clerking and
     volunteering at the Junior League. But all the talk seemed to center on schools.
    “Do you remember him from freshman year? He told everybody his father was in oil and it turned out that he ran a gas station
     in Opp, Alabama, for God’s sake….”
    “… no, no, he did date her for a long time, but he ended up marrying some girl he met at his cousin’s debut in Newark. I didn’t
     know they
had
debuts in Newark….”
    “… swear to God she did; I saw it with my own eyes. She was at the Old South Ball with Corny Jarrett and they were doing this
     really fast jitterbug and he swung her around and one stocking just popped right out of her bra and dangled down the front
     of her dress to her waist. It looked like somebody was stuck down in there trying to get out….”
    A long silence fell into the candlelight and they all stopped and wiped their eyes and shook their heads and then, as if given
     a cue, looked over at Crystal.
    “Oh, my God, we are all so rude,” chirped a curly haired,snub-nosed girl who was, Crystal thought, some kind of docent somewhere, whatever that was.
    “We’ve just been sitting here all night yucking it up about our own precious selves and leaving you out completely. You must
     think we’re barbarians….”
    “No, no,” Crystal said, still smiling. “It’s all so interesting.”
    “So where did you go to school?” the docent said, seeming to quiver slightly with interest.
    They all looked at Crystal.
    Crystal played her ace. She had been wondering desperately how to work it into the conversation. Her smile faded slightly
     and she looked down.
    “I haven’t gone. Not yet. My… my mother is very ill and I’ve just sort of been, you know, sticking close. She… I… don’t think
     it will be forever….”
    There was a hush, and then they flocked to her and hugged her and kissed her cheeks and