Read Online Mansions Of The Dead by Sarah Stewart Taylor - Free Book Online
Authors: Sarah Stewart Taylor
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is vying to upset DiFloria, who has turned out to be a popular congressman in the Democratic district.
“But now tragedy has struck again. And once again the Putnam family is under the microscope.”
There was a picture of Camille, giving a speech. She looked outdoorsy and kind, with short dark hair and large, intelligent eyes in a plain face. And there was a picture of Brad on the inside page thatmade Sweeney’s chest contract. He was sitting on the edge of a porch or deck railing, and below him was a wide expanse of ocean. He was grinning—she had never seen him grin that way in life—and he looked tanned and happy and brave.
She ran a fingertip across the photo. When she looked more closely she saw that he was gripping the railing so tightly that the small bones in his hands nearly shone white in the bright sun.
Until she walked into the seminar room later that morning, she hadn’t thought about what she would say to her students. Actively in denial, she had gone over her lecture notes and had planned to swallow her own unease and lecture on mourning objects and the Civil War. She had the slide carousel in her bag and photocopies of instruction on making hair-work jewelry from
Godey’s Lady’s Book
. She had even been looking forward to losing herself in her lecture.
But when she got there and saw the three of them—Jaybee and Becca hadn’t come—sitting around the seminar table, their faces horrified, she knew that it would be impossible to teach the class as though nothing had happened.
“Hi, everyone,” she said, taking off her raincoat. “I know how hard this is for me and I know it must be really awful for you too.”
They stared at her, shocked, and she decided, afraid. She sat down and looked around at what was left of her Mourning Objects class.
Rajiv Patel was a tall, good-looking kid who had grown up outside of Detroit and was apparently quite a good fiction writer. He dressed like a literary wunderkind, in tweed jackets and horn-rimmed glasses, and Sweeney had always suspected that his interest in funerary art belied a stronger, more literary interest in death. He had one of the quickest minds she’d ever encountered; it instantly owned new concepts, leaping through contradictions, making connections, resolving outstanding questions. It was a pleasure to watch him think.
The other members of the little group were Ashley Jones and Jennifer Jones.
Ashley was about as improbably an Ashley as Sweeney could imagine. She had a severe bowl cut and dyed her hair a dark, inky black. She liked to wear baggy black trousers and torn black T-shirts with band names scrawled on them in red or pink. She was much pierced, some of the piercings having been abandoned and allowed to scab over, so that her ears and nose seemed gaily chicken-pocked. She was very bright and had an oddly formal writing style that Sweeney enjoyed reading. She also talked openly and loudly about heterosexism—though she was apparently herself heterosexual—and liked to instigate arguments about the morality of marriage.
Jennifer Jones was the daughter of a wealthy international businessman and had grown up all over the world, attending American and British schools in far-flung places that she would bring into their classroom conversation in her careful, slightly accented American English, as in “That’s interesting, because in Indonesia there’s this thing they do where they dig up the bones of the dead and rebury them.” Jennifer had an exotic beauty that belied her English/Welsh roots; it was as though she’d picked up a little something from each country she’d lived in, and she wore expensive, designer clothes that Sweeney coveted. She had a bored, unimpressed way about her that seemed to make people nervous.
Sweeney had assumed that all of the men in the class would be half in love with Jennifer, but she turned out to be wrong. It was Becca who seemed the feminine center of the class, Becca who, with her sunny
“But now tragedy has struck again. And once again the Putnam family is under the microscope.”
There was a picture of Camille, giving a speech. She looked outdoorsy and kind, with short dark hair and large, intelligent eyes in a plain face. And there was a picture of Brad on the inside page thatmade Sweeney’s chest contract. He was sitting on the edge of a porch or deck railing, and below him was a wide expanse of ocean. He was grinning—she had never seen him grin that way in life—and he looked tanned and happy and brave.
She ran a fingertip across the photo. When she looked more closely she saw that he was gripping the railing so tightly that the small bones in his hands nearly shone white in the bright sun.
Until she walked into the seminar room later that morning, she hadn’t thought about what she would say to her students. Actively in denial, she had gone over her lecture notes and had planned to swallow her own unease and lecture on mourning objects and the Civil War. She had the slide carousel in her bag and photocopies of instruction on making hair-work jewelry from
Godey’s Lady’s Book
. She had even been looking forward to losing herself in her lecture.
But when she got there and saw the three of them—Jaybee and Becca hadn’t come—sitting around the seminar table, their faces horrified, she knew that it would be impossible to teach the class as though nothing had happened.
“Hi, everyone,” she said, taking off her raincoat. “I know how hard this is for me and I know it must be really awful for you too.”
They stared at her, shocked, and she decided, afraid. She sat down and looked around at what was left of her Mourning Objects class.
Rajiv Patel was a tall, good-looking kid who had grown up outside of Detroit and was apparently quite a good fiction writer. He dressed like a literary wunderkind, in tweed jackets and horn-rimmed glasses, and Sweeney had always suspected that his interest in funerary art belied a stronger, more literary interest in death. He had one of the quickest minds she’d ever encountered; it instantly owned new concepts, leaping through contradictions, making connections, resolving outstanding questions. It was a pleasure to watch him think.
The other members of the little group were Ashley Jones and Jennifer Jones.
Ashley was about as improbably an Ashley as Sweeney could imagine. She had a severe bowl cut and dyed her hair a dark, inky black. She liked to wear baggy black trousers and torn black T-shirts with band names scrawled on them in red or pink. She was much pierced, some of the piercings having been abandoned and allowed to scab over, so that her ears and nose seemed gaily chicken-pocked. She was very bright and had an oddly formal writing style that Sweeney enjoyed reading. She also talked openly and loudly about heterosexism—though she was apparently herself heterosexual—and liked to instigate arguments about the morality of marriage.
Jennifer Jones was the daughter of a wealthy international businessman and had grown up all over the world, attending American and British schools in far-flung places that she would bring into their classroom conversation in her careful, slightly accented American English, as in “That’s interesting, because in Indonesia there’s this thing they do where they dig up the bones of the dead and rebury them.” Jennifer had an exotic beauty that belied her English/Welsh roots; it was as though she’d picked up a little something from each country she’d lived in, and she wore expensive, designer clothes that Sweeney coveted. She had a bored, unimpressed way about her that seemed to make people nervous.
Sweeney had assumed that all of the men in the class would be half in love with Jennifer, but she turned out to be wrong. It was Becca who seemed the feminine center of the class, Becca who, with her sunny
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