Canyon Road Read Online Free PDF

care if you don't care! Here, try it on."
    Sage handed the blue velvet gown to Tina.
    "Thank goodness I wore this strapless foundation," Tina said as Sage helped her slip it on over her hair. Then Sage zipped it up.
    "Looks pretty good back here," Sage said.
    "That's half the battle, but things look pretty bad from up here." Tina turned around, the bodice stays were concave where they should be convex.
    "Oh-oh," Sage said.
    "Oh-oh is not what I had in mind for tonight."
    "Turn around." Sage unzipped the back part way, then over-lapped the two sides. She looked around into the mirror.
    "How's that? Looks fine, I think."
    "Yeah, it looks okay," Tina said. "Titled; 'Scarecrow in Blue Velvet.' I was so proud of losing that weight and now I look kind of spindly. Don't you have anything from when you were spindly Sage, say about twelve years old?"
    "When I was twelve, I was poor. We're going to make this work. This dress has a little bolero that goes with it. I'm going to baste this together."
    "Sew me into it? That's one way to make me think twice about doing... anything I ought not be doing."
    Within half-an-hour, Sage and Tina drove the limo through the Williamson gateway, both of them giggling as Sage insisted on carrying out the chauffeur routine to the hilt, getting out and going around to open Tina's door.
    Sage handed the doorman her invitation and she and Tina entered a gigantic circular entry room, three stories high and bathed in a kaleidoscope of colors from the circle of stained glass windows around the dome far above.
    "Oh, wow, Sage! Wow, wow."
    "Excellent word choice, Tina."
    "People live like this?"
    "People do. You may as well brace yourself. The whole place is fairly... ah, exotic."
    "Wow, Sage," Tina reiterated.
    "Are you broken?" Sage edged Tina through the doorway and coaxed her up one of the two circular stairways winding around the walls of the domed entry.
    "Where are you taking me?" Tina whispered as they rustled up the stairs.
    "To the lady's room. We need to freshen up."
    "Oh, yeah, that's right, after all, we just drove four miles and are exhausted and wind-tossed."
    "That's more like my Tina," Sage said. "I thought I lost you altogether there for a minute."
    "You did ,for a minute."
    Sage led Tina into a massive peach-colored room, walls of peach-tinted mirror, peach carpet, peach ceiling, peach crystal chandeliers.
    "Well, Sage, I can't even say wow anymore. I can just die in peace."
    "Oh no. You have to see the rest, and then you can die."
    "Look at you in that black and white in this peach light, you look like sherbert. I look like mud."
    "Will you stop running yourself down? You look fabulous. But I don't need to tell you. You'll see soon enough when all the heads turn."
    "As long as you're standing beside me, sure."
    "Nope. And I'm going to leave you alone to prove it."
    "No, no, don't leave me alone! Anyway, I'm perfectly happy to be the moon to your sun, to glow in your reflected light."
    Sage giggled. Strains of classical music came to them at a distance. "Enough poetry, Tina. There's the orchestra, it's a good time to make an entrance."
    Sage let the way through a maze of rooms, halls and stairways.
    "How do you know this place so well? I'd think you'd have to live here for years to learn your way around."
    "I had the head butler take me on a tour once. It's pretty logical when you've been over the whole place."
    "I feel like I'm in that Esher drawing where all the people are going up and down stairways that are upside-down and sideways and no one falls off, or runs into anyone. Why do I see so many people far away, but I don't see anyone around us?"
    "Because we're going the back way."
    Sage went down yet another stairway, closed-in with only a dusky light coming from the noisy room below.
    They came out in a huge, bustling kitchen.
    "Hi, Robert," Sage greeted a monumentally officious-looking butler.
    "Hello, Miss Elgin, I'm very glad to see you decided to come, and so will Mr.