Read Online You Are Not A Stranger Here by Adam Haslett - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Adam Haslett
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Reading Group Guide, Fiction - General, Juvenile Fiction, Short Stories, Short Stories (Single Author)
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my mother's garden, bent low by the earlier downpour, swayed now in the breeze. On the branches of the dogwood, crows shook their black feathers.
As I watched the storm passing, a pickup slowed across the street in front of Mrs. Polk's house and pulled into her drive. Mr. Raffello stepped around the bed of the truck, and lifting the plastic sheeting, raised my dark amber chest in his arms.
For the first time in a long while, I began to cry. 64
D E V O T I O N
2
T H R O U G H T H E O P E N French doors, Owen surveyed the garden. The day was hot for June, a pale sun burning in a cloudless sky, wilting the last of the irises, the rhododendron blossoms drooping. A breeze moved through the laburnum trees, carrying a sheet of the Sunday paper into the rose border. Mrs. Giles's collie yapped on the other side of the hedge. 65
With his handkerchief, Owen wiped sweat from the back of his neck.
His sister, Hillary, stood at the counter sorting strawberries. She'd nearly finished the dinner preparations, though Ben wouldn't arrive for hours yet. She wore a beige linen dress he'd never seen on her before. Her black-and-gray hair, usually kept up in a bun, hung down to her shoulders. For a woman in her mid-fifties, she had a slender, graceful figure.
"You're awfully dressed up," he said.
"The wine," she said. "Why don't you open a bottle of the red? And we'll need the tray from the dining room."
"We're using the silver, are we?"
"Yes, I thought we would."
"We didn't use the silver at Christmas."
He watched Hillary dig for something in the fridge.
"It should be on the right under the carving dish," she said. Raising himself from his chair, Owen walked through into the dining room. From the sideboard he removed the familiar gravy boats and serving dishes until he found the tarnished platter. The china and silver had come from their parents'
when their father died, along with the side tables and sitting chairs and the pictures on the walls.
"It'd take an hour to clean this," he called into the kitchen.
"There's polish in the cabinet."
"We've five perfectly good trays in the cupboard."
"It's behind the drink, on the left."
He gritted his teeth. She could be so bloody imperious.
"This is some production," he muttered, seated again at 66
the kitchen table. He daubed a cloth in polish and drew it over the smooth metal. They weren't in the habit of having people in to dinner. Aunt Philippa from Shropshire, their mother's sister, usually came at Christmas and stayed three or four nights. Now and again, Hillary had Miriam Franks, one of her fellow teachers from the comprehensive, in on a Sunday. They'd have coffee in the living room afterward and talk about the students. Occasionally they'd go out if a new restaurant opened on the High Street, but they'd never been gourmets. Most of Owen's partners at the firm had professed to discover wine at a certain age and now took their holidays in Italy. He and Hillary rented a cottage in the Lake District the last two weeks of August. They had been going for years and were perfectly happy with it. A nice little stone house that caught all the afternoon light and had a view of Lake Windermere.
He pressed the cloth harder onto the tray, rubbing at the tarnished corners. Years ago he'd gone to dinners, up in Knightsbridge and Mayfair. Richard Stallybrass, an art dealer, gave private gentlemen's parties, as he called them, at his flat on Belgrave Place. All very civilized. Solicitors, journalists, the odd duke or MP, there with the implicit and, in the 1970s, safe assumption that nothing would be said. Half of them had wives and children. Saul Thompson, an old friend from school, had introduced Owen to this little world and for several years Owen had been quite taken with it. He'd looked at flats in central London, encouraged by Saul to leave the suburbs and enjoy the pleasures of the city. 67
But there had always been Hillary and this house. She and Owen had lost their mother when they
As I watched the storm passing, a pickup slowed across the street in front of Mrs. Polk's house and pulled into her drive. Mr. Raffello stepped around the bed of the truck, and lifting the plastic sheeting, raised my dark amber chest in his arms.
For the first time in a long while, I began to cry. 64
D E V O T I O N
2
T H R O U G H T H E O P E N French doors, Owen surveyed the garden. The day was hot for June, a pale sun burning in a cloudless sky, wilting the last of the irises, the rhododendron blossoms drooping. A breeze moved through the laburnum trees, carrying a sheet of the Sunday paper into the rose border. Mrs. Giles's collie yapped on the other side of the hedge. 65
With his handkerchief, Owen wiped sweat from the back of his neck.
His sister, Hillary, stood at the counter sorting strawberries. She'd nearly finished the dinner preparations, though Ben wouldn't arrive for hours yet. She wore a beige linen dress he'd never seen on her before. Her black-and-gray hair, usually kept up in a bun, hung down to her shoulders. For a woman in her mid-fifties, she had a slender, graceful figure.
"You're awfully dressed up," he said.
"The wine," she said. "Why don't you open a bottle of the red? And we'll need the tray from the dining room."
"We're using the silver, are we?"
"Yes, I thought we would."
"We didn't use the silver at Christmas."
He watched Hillary dig for something in the fridge.
"It should be on the right under the carving dish," she said. Raising himself from his chair, Owen walked through into the dining room. From the sideboard he removed the familiar gravy boats and serving dishes until he found the tarnished platter. The china and silver had come from their parents'
when their father died, along with the side tables and sitting chairs and the pictures on the walls.
"It'd take an hour to clean this," he called into the kitchen.
"There's polish in the cabinet."
"We've five perfectly good trays in the cupboard."
"It's behind the drink, on the left."
He gritted his teeth. She could be so bloody imperious.
"This is some production," he muttered, seated again at 66
the kitchen table. He daubed a cloth in polish and drew it over the smooth metal. They weren't in the habit of having people in to dinner. Aunt Philippa from Shropshire, their mother's sister, usually came at Christmas and stayed three or four nights. Now and again, Hillary had Miriam Franks, one of her fellow teachers from the comprehensive, in on a Sunday. They'd have coffee in the living room afterward and talk about the students. Occasionally they'd go out if a new restaurant opened on the High Street, but they'd never been gourmets. Most of Owen's partners at the firm had professed to discover wine at a certain age and now took their holidays in Italy. He and Hillary rented a cottage in the Lake District the last two weeks of August. They had been going for years and were perfectly happy with it. A nice little stone house that caught all the afternoon light and had a view of Lake Windermere.
He pressed the cloth harder onto the tray, rubbing at the tarnished corners. Years ago he'd gone to dinners, up in Knightsbridge and Mayfair. Richard Stallybrass, an art dealer, gave private gentlemen's parties, as he called them, at his flat on Belgrave Place. All very civilized. Solicitors, journalists, the odd duke or MP, there with the implicit and, in the 1970s, safe assumption that nothing would be said. Half of them had wives and children. Saul Thompson, an old friend from school, had introduced Owen to this little world and for several years Owen had been quite taken with it. He'd looked at flats in central London, encouraged by Saul to leave the suburbs and enjoy the pleasures of the city. 67
But there had always been Hillary and this house. She and Owen had lost their mother when they
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