Read Online The Bubble Reputation by Cathie Pelletier - Free Book Online Page A

William had picked the summer before and bottled for winter. Foolish work, she realized now. You can never prepare for a winter. “They’ll cry to get out,” William had teased her, the day they set about canning up the berries. “They’ll burst the jars, these poor things. Don’t you see them as little wild creatures?” And then Lizzie was shaking her, cradling her and saying, “There, there, sweetie, it’s all right.” Rosemary had come wide-awake in the handcrafted cherry bed. Dear Lizzie. How many times had she done this for her children? The dream, as they all seemed to be since the suicide, was pure color, all deep, billowing, cranberry red. Blood red and basement gray. Colors William would love.
    â€œIt’s all canned nowadays, Lizzie,” Rosemary had whispered in the darkness. “The memories. Even the laughter. All bottled up.”
    Lizzie had held her closer. “I know, sweetie,” she had whispered, when she really hadn’t the slightest idea what Rosemary meant, hadn’t journeyed into the horrible dream that had been swirling around in Rosemary’s head while she slept.
    â€œYes, I remember it,” said Rosemary. It seemed silly to her now, as nightmares can the day following their terror.
    â€œYou were crying,” Lizzie said.
    â€œWas I?” Rosemary asked.
    The evening grew darker around them, but Rosemary made no move to get up and flick the porch light on. That would be an extended invitation to every early summer bug within a mile. More cars passed on the road, but no one waved or tooted their horn because they couldn’t see the two women sitting on the steps with silence between them. Finally, Lizzie spoke. She was emptying the last of the champagne into their glasses, dividing it up between them.
    â€œI was thinking earlier, you know,” Lizzie said, “when we were talking about my marriage, and a little about William, how funny it is.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œWell, it’s just that after years of not seeing each other, here we are still talking about boys like the old days. I’ll grant you the talk has become much more serious, but nonetheless we’re talking about boy troubles.”
    â€œLet’s go in,” said Rosemary. “I’m tired of talking about boys.”
    In the den, they sprawled on each end of the sofa, as though it were the flowered eyesore in the University of Maine lounge. Lizzie hadn’t mentioned a day she’d be leaving, and Rosemary didn’t ask for one. It was such a pleasure to have company again in the big house, to have a spare room cluttered with suitcases, tennis shoes, and paperback novels, just as Lizzie’s room had looked back in college.
    At ten thirty the phone rang and a man asked to speak, please, to Elizabeth Vanier.
    â€œIt isn’t Charles,” Rosemary told her.
    â€œIn that case,” Lizzie said, and winked, “I’ll take it upstairs.”
    While Lizzie was on the phone, Rosemary refilled her champagne glass and flopped down on the sofa. She opened Harrowsmith magazine to an article she’d begun earlier, advice on how to turn a small acreage into a habitat for wildlife. She liked the idea of animals roaming freely about the fields and woods behind her house. But after reading the same paragraph over and over again, she closed the magazine. The dream was still haunting her with its muted noises and fuzzy images. William, it seemed, had become even more elusive in death than he had been while he lived and loved and painted in the house, a house with an abundance of light beating in through all the windows.
    â€œCan you still be trusted with secrets?” Lizzie asked, peeking around the den’s door. Rosemary tossed the magazine aside and sat up.
    â€œTry me,” she said, as Lizzie danced into the den and executed a shaky pirouette.
    â€œPhilip is coming to Bixley!” she shouted, and then did a