Read Online Romancing the Dark in the City of Light by Ann Jacobus - Free Book Online Page B

combust.”
    “Well then. More for me.” She downs the rest. He’s staring at her. “What?” she asks. “Everybody likes champagne.” Her friend Grace drank it for breakfast. “Some university found links between champagne and cognitive health benefits.”
    “Keep it in your flask?” He raises one scarred eyebrow.
    She looks at him a beat before answering. “No. I keep chicken bouillon in there.” She pulls back the blackout curtains so they have enough light to see.
    “Can you conjugate?”
    “Of course. Don’t look at me like that.”
    “Wonder how you can function well, is all.”
    “Lots of practice. I study better when I’ve had a drink.” He does disapprove. He’s wondering how much it all runs in the family. She sucks in her cheeks. If Moony really knew her, he’d probably march out of here. But she’ll show him. She knows how to be a good student. She places his rejected full glass and her empty glass at the far edge of her bedside table and then plops down on the king-sized bed.
    “Now can I ask you something?” she says, kicking her shoes off and sitting cross-legged.
    He answers warily. “Okay.”
    “Why do you care?”
    “Didn’t say I did.”
    “Oh, fine. Feel free to pry into my personal life whenever you want, then.”
    Moony sets his jaw. “Need the tutoring income.”
    She chuckles. “Whatever you’re charging, it’s not enough.”

SIXTEEN
    Later the next evening, after a long day at school and a deep, fortifying shot of vodka, Summer marches into her mother’s room. She has some questions.
    Mom’s seated in her gray marble bathroom, wrapped in an oversized terry-cloth bathrobe. She’s stroking moisturizer upward on her thin chicken neck. Not someone Summer should be intimidated by.
    “Oh, there you are,” says Mom, as if she had called Summer in. “You know I’m leaving tomorrow, don’t you?” Camus lies at her feet. He shows Summer his teeth. With his underbite, he’s ridiculous, not menacing.
    “Yep. You mentioned it.”
    “Winston’s going, too. And I have two invitations to hear the poet laureate speak at the US ambassador’s residence tomorrow evening. Since we won’t be here, I thought you might like to use them.”
    “Okay.” It’s not exactly a big windfall, but she’s surprised Mom thought of her. “Thanks.” Mom’s sure spending a lot of time with Winston lately. “Um, thanks for the shirts and jeans, too.” Yesterday, Mom set her up her with a personal shopper at one of the old grands magasins department stores. It was an exercise in frustration on so many levels, but she did find stuff afterwards at the Gap across the street.
    “Did you and Winston have a chance to chat?” Mom talks to Summer’s reflection in the giant mirror as she smooths on liquid foundation.
    “You could call it that. Why is he here again?” she says to the back of Mom’s head.
    “Trust business. He wants to know about your progress toward your diploma.”
    “I know. We discussed it. I keep telling you guys, every day, that I’m working and that things are fine.” Despite everything, she doesn’t really want to disappoint Mom again. But if things aren’t fine, then it may not matter anyway.
    “Darling,” Mom says to the mirror, “he and I both are worried that if you forfeit the terms of your grandpa’s will, these vultures will fight us even harder than they already are.”
    Vultures. “What happens if I … forfeit?”
    “I believe the money’s meant to go to an ‘eliminate the whales’ charity.”
    “No! Really?”
    Mom chuckles without wrinkling her face. “No, not really. But some right-wing foundation.”
    Mom’s trying to head her off. Summer demands, “And what about you?”
    “What about me?”
    “If I get the money, do you get any?” She puts her hands on her hips. That would sure explain why Mom gets so worked up about all this.
    “No,” Mom says with a prim expression. “My grandmama and your father left me very comfortable