Beach Girls by Luanne Rice

Author:Luanne Rice
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780553900514
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

NELL HELD her father's and Stevie's hands, thrilled by the castle. She noticed all sorts of magical things. The walls were made of dark oak, carved with heads and faces. The floor was made of slate squares, and shields and words were etched in them. Aunt Aida pointed them out, saying they were the names of theaters where her husband had acted in plays.

“He made his name at the Royal Shakespeare Company,” she said. “Very early on, he was mentioned alongside Gielgud. He played at Covent Garden, and his notices as Iago were brilliant. I'm talking rare air, Olivier territory. He played Prince Hal, and same thing. Then . . . well, life took hold and interested him more than theater. He was a bon vivant of the highest order, my Van. As he aged, he settled into Falstaff. It suited him, the darling.”

Nell didn't understand all the words, or what they meant, but she could tell from Aunt Aida's voice that she had loved Van a lot. And she could tell from the way Stevie leaned over to hug her that she knew that something about this visit was hard for her aunt.

They walked through the downstairs, their footsteps echoing. There was a great hall, with cobwebs hanging from a huge black chandelier and scary mildew on a big wooden table. Nell held tight to her father and Stevie. Her father was talking, in his steady business voice.

It was the one she heard him use on the phone, and when she visited him at the office. One of the ways she knew he didn't really like Francesca was the fact that he used it with her. He never really dropped it when she was around.

Her father never used that voice with Nell. He had used it with her mother only once, just before she'd gone away. And he didn't use it with Stevie. Even when he was mad that day Nell had gotten so upset about Aunt Maddie at Stevie's house, her father hadn't used his business voice. He had used his upset Daddy voice, which he usually only used with family—Aunt Maddie, for example.

He was saying something about donating the land and castle, a directed gift, a tax shelter . . . whole bunches of stuff Nell didn't get. But she could tell from looking at Stevie and Aunt Aida that they were interested, even happy. Her father took out a notepad and measuring tape, began making notations. He measured the thickness of walls, the height of ceilings.

Aunt Aida began pointing out things like dry rot and termite holes, and her father took out his penknife and dug into the wood along the floor a little. He said something about having an inspection to make sure, but not seeing any insects or eggs. Aunt Aida seemed relieved.

They entered a small door in the wall and found themselves in a darkened circular stairway. It reminded Nell of a prison. The only light came from small stained-glass windows, so Aunt Aida pulled a flashlight from her smock pocket to illuminate their way.

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