VenCo(28)

“Oh, you saw her?” How the hell had she seen Stella? Maybe she’d heard her? “I had care issues.”

Meena smiled. “Elders are invaluable, and she is most welcome.”

Lucky didn’t know what to say next. As the silence stretched, she felt more and more awkward. Here she was, at what was beginning to feel like Hogwarts, Massachusetts, standing in front of a beautiful woman who was paying eerily close attention to her, and wilting under the scrutiny. Fuck it, she decided, just ask.

“So how does this work exactly? Is the publisher in town here or . . . ?”

Meena came around to sit on the edge of her desk but didn’t offer Lucky a chair. “We can worry about all that later. Why don’t you get settled? I’ll tell you more about the position after you’ve both rested and we’ve had dinner.”

“Right, I should have checked in to the motel and changed.” She was suddenly self-conscious. “We ran out of time.”

“Motel? No, you misunderstood. We’re putting you up here. We have a suite all ready for you and your grandmother.” Meena smiled.

“Here?” Lucky looked around, her eyes caught by a mounted deer head draped in a cascading crystal necklace, dangly earrings looped through what appeared to be pierced ears. Underneath it was a glass curio cabinet laden with old manuscripts. “In this house?”

“This is my office, but it’s also our home, my wife, Wendy, and me. Often others stay. Right now, there are five of us here—seven with you and Stella.”

How did she know her grandmother’s name? Had she mentioned it? God, this could be a nightmare. She imagined Stella wandering around in her pajamas looking for where they kept the cereal. “Are you sure? I don’t want to put you out.”

“Freya’s gone to retrieve your grandmother from the car and will get her settled. Why don’t you go relax for a bit? We’ll all meet for dinner at, let’s say, seven o’clock?” Meena stood, and Lucky understood the meeting had concluded.

“Okay, then. Thank you. Um, is she . . . ? Are you . . . ? I’m not sure where our room is.”

“Go down the hall, turn right, up the stairs, and you’ll find it.” Meena was already back in her chair, head down, opening a heavy book.

“Okay, then, thank you.”

Outside once more on the snake carpet, Lucky was quite sure she would not find her room. She wasn’t even sure she could find her way back to the front door. There was something arterial about the hallways; they felt shifting and alive. She turned at the only right she saw, which opened into another hallway. There were no windows here. Instead, the light came from sconces shaped like ship figureheads, each holding a tapered bulb of yellow light, set at equal distance above dark wainscoting. This wasn’t Wayfair shit. They felt bespoke and very old.

All the doors along the corridor were closed, except for one that opened onto a solarium, draped green with hanging plants and climbing vines and striped with late-afternoon sun. At last she heard birds singing and stepped into front foyer. It wasn’t until she took a deep breath that Lucky realized she’d been holding it.

“Well,” she said to the birds, quiet now and watching her, their bright heads tilted. “Nowhere to go but up, I suppose.”

The steps were wide and plush. As she climbed, she had the feeling she was under surveillance, and sure enough, a canary had fluttered over to follow her up the stairs, peeping at her disturbance. “Judgy asshole,” she whispered. “At least I’m not shitting on the hardwood.”

With a series of small hops, the bird turned its back to her and twitched its hind feathers, dropping a white turd.

Startled, she laughed. “Well played!”

The top of the stairs opened onto a mezzanine that wrapped all the way around the second floor, overlooking the foyer. A dozen doors led to a dozen rooms. Stairs led up from opposite corners. Was there a third floor? She hadn’t noticed from the outside. The interior was like origami—neat folds and creases hiding the actual size.

How was she supposed to figure out which room was hers? She pictured accidently walking in on Freya, who would likely hiss at her like an angry blond cat. She eyed each door, looking for a hint. And then she got it.

“Ooooooh, baaa-by, you—you got what I neee-eeed.” Stella Luna, singing at the top of her lungs, the sound pouring from under the door right in front of her.

She found her grandmother, using a hairbrush as a microphone, sliding across the floor in her white socks, barely missing the twin bed and the turquoise bachelor’s chest topped with a frameless etched mirror.

“Grandma.” No response. “Grandma!”

Stella spun around, took a deep breath, and wailed: “But you say he’s just a friend. Ooooh, baaaa-by . . .”

Lucky snatched the brush as if it were an actual mike. “Listen, can you be normal for a minute? Jesus. I’m trying to get a job here.”

She tossed the brush onto the bed beside Stella’s suitcase, open and spilling out pantyhose and colourful sweaters.

The window was open, too, and the breeze, carrying the smell of green, billowed the gauzy white drapes. The walls were painted a light sand, and the bedspread was a quilt made of muted multicoloured patches.

“Hey, Ma used to have one of these.” Lucky ran a hand over the bed’s bumpy surface. “She got it from her mom. God, I can’t remember. Did we bring it with me after . . . ?”