Along the Indigo by Elsie Chapman

Author:Elsie Chapman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2018-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

twenty-five.

She said Peaches and Lucy can show me how to do my hair and makeup. So I can look as nice as I want.

Lucy came to the door. The scent she brought with her was not her own, but the heavy musk Peaches liked to wear. “Marsden?”

“I was just looking for Wynn.”

Lucy opened the door wider and motioned her inside. “Oh, she’s with us, in here. She was wandering around the house bored.”

Marsden had seen Peaches’s room before, but only in flashes, and only when she was helping Dany the times she was running behind—to drop off laundry or ask about bedding, to double-check about a spot on a dress. Sometimes, though, when it was just Peaches, Marsden was tempted to linger, to study the older girl and see past what she worked as. To pretend her room was that of a typical twenty-somethings, that she and Peaches were typical, too, and something close to friends.

Pale pastel floral prints and framed mirrors covered nearly every inch of the gray-papered walls. The bed was a king-size patch of yellow, topped with blue throw pillows, its headboard a panel of cream corduroy. A crystal chandelier sprawled from the ceiling like an oversized flower. Instead of a vanity, Peaches used a long wooden table that spanned the entire length of the back wall, a long mirror propped up on it so that it reminded Marsden of a ballet studio. Shoes and perfume bottles and sparkling coils of jewelry were scattered on nearly every flat surface in the room.

Everything was cluttered, overwhelming; she couldn’t help but contrast it with her half of the bedroom she shared with Wynn, where her most important things were tucked into places no one could even see. As one of Nina’s girls, Peaches’s strengths were her exaggerated good looks, the way she swaggered in her femininity, her desires never a secret. Once, Nina had called her a barracuda, and Peaches had taken it as a compliment. But here in her room, her being a woman felt soft, not like a skill set. It left Marsden confused.

Who was the real Peaches? Where did the lines blur between person and performance? How far did she have to go before pulling back?

“Hi, Mars!” Wynn was sitting in a chair in front of the long table that doubled as a vanity. Her reflection waved madly. “Caitlyn’s mom had an appointment this morning, so she had to bring me back early. But look—I’m getting my hair done!”

Standing behind her sister, winding a black lock around the curling iron in her hand, Peaches met Marsden’s eyes in the long mirror. The cool smile on her face said she knew Marsden’s wariness and was amused. “A royal coming to visit the commoners?”

“If you say so.”

Peaches snorted. “It’s going to be a bit before I finish, so you might as well sit. Your sister’s hair is even thicker than mine.”

Marsden sat tentatively on the edge of the yellow bed. She tried not to think about how Dany had yet to change the bedding for any of the rooms.

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