At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen Page B

yet?”
    â€œHe’s been downstairs this half hour.”
    â€œWill you please let him know I’ll be down in a few minutes? I need a moment to pull myself together.”
    She glanced at my luggage. “Well, with this lot that shouldn’t be hard. I should think you could start your own shop, if you wanted to. If you change your mind about having your tea upstairs, just give me a shout.”
    â€œI’m sorry, what’s your name again?” I asked, knowing perfectly well she hadn’t yet told me.
    â€œAnna. Anna McKenzie.”
    â€”
    After Anna left, I remained on the bed, looking into the mirror from a distance of five or six feet. The face that stared back at me was haggard, almost unrecognizable. It was also jerking back and forth. I looked at the doorknob, a seam in the wallpaper, a shoe on the floor. Everything I tried to focus on did the same.
    I was well aware of my tendency to become consumed by thoughts and knew I had to put what she’d said out of my mind. I’d been back on solid ground less than a day, which was nowhere near long enough to begin to panic. The seas had been so rough, and I’d been so ill, it made perfect sense that my vertigo would take time to resolve. At home, though, I’d probably have slipped off to see a specialist just to put my mind at ease.
    If I told Ellis what was going on, he would have suggested I take a pill, and while they were probably designed for moments exactly like this, I had staunchly refused to let a single one cross my lips from the moment they’d been prescribed.
    Because of my mother, people were always looking for cracks in my façade, waiting—even hoping—for me to return to type. My mother-in-law’s shocking proclamation on New Year’s Day was the first time anyone had been quite so explicit, at least to my face, but I knew what everyone thought of me, and I refused to prove them right. The ridiculous thing was that only I knew I didn’t take the pills, so I wasn’t really proving anything to anyone except myself. Ellis found them calming, so my prescription was filled often enough to satisfy Edith Stone Hyde, who rifled shamelessly through my things when I wasn’t there.
    â€”
    The clock was ticking and Hank and Ellis were waiting downstairs, so I concentrated on the job at hand.
    Ellis put great stock in my looks, teasing me that my only job in life was to be the prettiest girl in the room. I had always thought I was perfectly adept at doing my own hair and makeup, but apparently Ellis thought otherwise, and immediately after our marriage placed me in the hands of professionals.
    I dug through my suitcases and trunks, collecting my “lotions and potions,” as Ellis called them, and lined them up on the dresser. At home, he liked to open the jars and sniff the contents, asking the price and purpose of each (the more expensive, the better).
    One time, I’d come into my room and found him at my dressing table with his face half made up. He let me finish the job, and then, for a lark, he donned my Oriental robe, wrapped his head in a peacock blue scarf, and tossed a feather boa around his shoulders.
    Emily was entirely nonplussed when she brought up the petit fours and I introduced her to Aunt Esmée. She gawped as I explained that Esmée was a long-lost relation and a
teensy
bit eccentric. After she left, we howled, wishing there was a way we could get Hank involved. We drank whiskey from teacups, and Aunt Esmée read my fortune, which involved a long journey and great wealth. I asked if there was anyone tall, dark, and handsome in my future, and she informed me that my destiny involved a man who was tall,
blond
, and handsome—as well as already beneath my nose.
    I leaned toward the mirror to have a closer look, tilting my face back and forth. The trip had taken a toll on my complexion, and my left cheek had thin red lines running across it from when I’d