Read Online Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant - Free Book Online

lamps, pondering the suggestion of the Fireworks Accusation—that Artemisia Guile might know us better than we know ourselves—Archie Idlewilde labored underground in secret, probably searching for the right words to break her spell. He never understood.
    * * * *
    For thirteen days, between the Fourth and July 17, we saw a spike in Artemisiana, a burst that some construed as the last push before a revelation. Chalked sidewalks, spray-painted walls, carved-up trees, even a gatorboard-mounted poster tacked up on the side of Town Hall. She even struck the Perry Monument in Veteran's Plaza early on a Sunday morning, painting across the bronze breast the Perry Assertion: “FALL FOR ARTEMISIA GUILE.” Then, without explanation, when we were never more raw with curiosity, when we were about to burst with the urgency of Artemisia Guile—she fell silent.
    "I can't help but be reminded of my kid brother,” Archie wrote, applauding the apparent demise of the Artemisia Guile hoax, “who after playing with a new toy for a few weeks, wears out all the fun in it, and tosses the toy aside in favor of the next new thing."
    Bill Bliss’ timeline calls this period of abstinence the Hiatus.
    Our lives went on without her. Bright haze confused the sky. The town steeped in humidity. The winds shut down. Hiatus afternoons were oppressively bright and viscous. At the Merwin Building, we came to work in T-shirts and shorts, then changed in the bathrooms into fresh dress shirts and blouses, trousers and skirts. In the evenings we found the stillness and the lonesome silence of late July unbearable. Cases of insomnia continued to climb and midnight pacing became more prevalent. Half-awake on our sofas we watched late night television till three or four in the morning, either unwilling or unable to go to bed. During those embarrassing weeks of the Hiatus, we sat up waiting for that unforeseen event, something perhaps on television, perhaps out in the street. No matter how intently we waited, it never came. Every night we were let down and went to bed ashamed for having waited up. It was a matter of desiring, at the end of busy workdays, something we could not yet lay a finger on. ‘Til this day, it's deeply embarrassing for many of us. Lately it has become popular amongst Archie Idlewilde's ilk to say that we knew all along just what we were up to. The shame, they say, was like a brilliant light shining through the frame of a closed door.
    The salons took our longing out of the closet and off the hanger. They began in mid-July in the affluent new neighborhoods to the south of Etna, most notably in the home of Miles and Vera Rosentraum. To understand the salons, you must forget the substance of Artemisiana—the toilet paper, the chalk, the paint, all that rubbish that fueled our shame—and give into the heady air of her messages. In those development neighborhoods of kidney-shaped pools and plane trees, Artemisia Guile became an enthralling game. On June 30 the Rosentraums had hosted a “Furs & Masks” party. The invitations informed us that Artemsia Guile would be the guest of honor. To no one's surprise, she did not arrive. Instead, at midnight through the front door strode the audacious Nina Rosentraum, home after her first year of college, wearing only Celtic-blue body paint and a white Brazilian bikini.
    These parties were not yet salons in the strictest sense, if we adhere to Bill Bliss’ definition. Only once Vera and Miles and friends concluded that their orgiastic method was the best way of relating to Artemisia Guile, did they become Etna's first Artemisiac salon. Encouraging lust, prostration, gluttony, and licentious obsession, the Rosentraum's and similar adoration salons came first. But the Hiatus triggered a boom. Soon every street had a salon of its own sort. There were contemplative salons on Lake Street, Pelican Street, and Adelphia Road, where yoga and meditation protracted and extenuated our longing. At a small house on