Something Shady by Sarah Dreher

Author:Sarah Dreher [Dreher, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lesbian Mystery
ISBN: 9780934678070
Publisher: New Victoria Publishers
Published: 2015-07-24T22:00:00+00:00

***

By the time she had finished with Social Service - or Social Service had finished with her - she was working on a headache. Maybe it was the hour-and-a- half of endless questions (mainly relating to her financial situation, ability or lack thereof to pay for her “treatment,” and job prospects once she was let loose on an unsuspecting world). Maybe it was the fact that the social worker, who had never mentioned his name, wore a sky-blue tie with pink dots against a red-and-brown striped shirt. Or maybe it was because, for all her asking, the only information she had received was the fact that dinner was at five-thirty. The Shady Acres “orientation booklet,” it seemed, was currently undergoing revision - being assembled, no doubt, by non-English-speaking illegal aliens in a remote barracks in North Dakota.

She stretched out on her bed and tried to think. She had been here three hours. She had seen neither hide nor hair of Claire Rasmussen. She had met a boy, compulsive, who had access to a good bit of freedom of movement about the place, and who was about as comfortable to be with as a rabid porcupine.

And there was Lily Winthrop, acting as crazy as a loon but painting like Andrew Wyeth. Lily had managed to pass along some information. Well, not really information, but look at the topics she had chosen - if “chosen” was the right word - to bring up. Tides. New Moon. Someone or something going in the night. Psychotic ramblings? Or a deliberate attempt to communicate? And that final, whispered warning: “Get out.”

Lily, old gal, getting out is the best idea I’ve heard all day.

Restless, she got up and paced the floor.

Have to do something about this room. Early Ingmar Bergman. White, white, white. White walls. White Bureau. White bedside table. White cotton bedspread. Are we supposed to hallucinate our own colors?

Desperate, she dug her comb from a drawer and placed it on top of the bureau at a rakish angle, obsessed for ten minutes over whether or not to set out her deodorant and decided against it (too personal), tossed her pajamas over the white iron foot rail of the white iron bed.

It looked pathetic.

She felt pathetic.

I should have brought a picture of Gwen.

But I don’t have a picture of Gwen.

How long before I forget what she looks like? The feel of her? The sound of her velvet voice?

I hate this place. It smells of disinfectant and mildew. It’s ugly. It’s going to eat my soul. I can’t have visitors for two weeks. And I don’t even have a picture of my lover.

Tears burned her eyes.

I want a picture of my lover.

Don’t think about that. Think about what you’ve learned so far. The location of a few rooms. The view from O.T. - ocean. The view from the conservatory - dead lawn, forest, and a crumbling stone wall.

The stone wall. The one she’d crouched behind while Gwen created a diversion with the aides.

Which, she had to admit in retrospect, was pretty clever.

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