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died in a car wreck. It’s really sad.” Both of us stared out the window and watched him disappear into the house.
    “Oh, my God, it sounds just like
Passion Heals the Lonely Heart
.”
    “What?”
    “
Passion Heals the Lonely Heart
, by Gussie Foyette. You don’t read her books?”
    “No.”
    She looked at me like I had just asked her to suck eggs.
    “I read a lot when I was in school, not romance. My English teacher loved Shakespeare. Oh, and Hemingway. She loved him, too.”
    “Does Hemingway write romance?”
    “Some, but not the kind—”
    “Well, I didn’t think so. I’ve read just about every romance written in the last five years, not to mention everything Gussie Foyette’s ever written. I can’t believe you’ve wasted your time reading those guys when you could have been reading Gussie Foyette.
    “Anyway, what I was saying is that this situation has
Passion
written all over it. You got yourself the gorgeous grieving hunk of man, Trevor Waynewright. That would be the owner. Then there’s the beautiful young woman fate sent his way, Angelina Bouvier.That would be you.” I smiled and could feel myself blushing. “It’s all right here, plain as day. You got your estate in the English countryside there, your old Victorian mansion here in Davenport. If you take out the indentured servants, the horse-drawn carriages, and the bastard son by Trevor’s chambermaid, it’s the exact same story.”

5

    The white princess telephone by the bedside table never rang unless Sara Jane called to say she was coming over. But it was there, right beside the alarm clock, reminding me every morning that I should call Mama. I’d tried to ignore it for almost a whole week. Twice I picked it up and dialed her number, then put it back on the cradle before it rang. I was sick to death of being tormented by that old telephone first thing every morning, so I finally picked up the receiver and called home.
    The line crackled with the tension, or maybe it was just because the princess phone was old. The boulder that was in my stomach the day I left the mountain was replaced by butterflies having a knock-down-drag-out. I trembled hard, holding the telephone with both hands. It rang maybe a dozen times. Somebody picked up but didn’t say anything.
    “Mama?”
    I could hear Judy Garland in the background singing “Me and My Shadow.” The song was from her
Alone
album and was meant to be more playful than sad, but the way Mama had it cranked up made it sound staticky and morbid. She’d probably put it on the record player the morning I left and had kept it on, just waiting for me to call.
    “Mama, I can hear you breathing.” Still no answer. “Okay then, I just wanted to call and tell you I’m okay and—”
    She slammed the receiver down like she was using it to kill bugs, lots of them, and then the connection was lost. Since she wasn’t standing in front of me with those great big Judy Garland eyes, I was surprised at how much I didn’t hurt, how easy it was to just tell myself Mama was bat-shit crazy and wasn’t worth the worry.
    I propped the door to my place wide open. It was six thirty and already hot. The window beside my bed stayed open all the time because the window unit in the living room only pretended to be an air conditioner. Every time I turned that thing on, it made a god-awful noise, but I never complained to Winston about it. It would have been the perfect opportunity to see him up close, hear his voice again. Maybe present myself as a living sacrifice. But that wasn’t what I had in mind for our first real conversation.
    I heard the screen door to his kitchen open. It sounded like an old cat whose tail had been stepped on and would have kept right good time with the window unit when it was running. I sprinted back to my bed and peered through lace curtains that moved about in the breeze just enough for me to see him sitting there in an old swing, drinking coffee. His arm was draped over the back