Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons

Author:Anne Rivers Siddons [Anne Rivers Siddons]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Contemporary, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780060837013
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2005-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Emily stood at the top of the staircase the next night, afraid to go down. At the bottom, Lulu and Walter and Jenny and the twins were ranged, waiting to see Cinderella off to the ball. Lulu had spent hours with her earlier, fussing with the dress and piling her hair this way and that, and brushing something rosy out of a little pot onto her cheeks with a soft, fat brush. Now there was nothing left but to take her quailing alien self downstairs for the first of the scrutinies she would face this night. The unaccustomed flush of makeup on her face, the strange weight of her piled-up curls felt as though they would both slide off if she moved her head suddenly. The tiny kitten heels on the new sandals threatened to topple her. If she could have turned and run, she would have done so. Elvis, for once, had pattered on down the stairs ahead of her, and she could not feel Buddy anywhere.

But in the ranks of upturned faces Lulu’s shone with pleasure and approval. Emily knew that if she kept her eyes focused on Lulu’s luminous face and Elvis’s happy grin, she just might make it to the bottom without disgracing herself. She could worry about the actual party later. She could even, if she absolutely had to, simply refuse to go. In a state of white pique and terror, Emily started down.

There was a series of drawn breaths as she reached the landing, but no other sounds. Intent as she was on not stumbling in the new heels, she did not look up, but the silence smote her. She had expected at least some comment from someone, a few compliments even if they were forced. But not this breath-held silence. Never this. On the last step she froze and raised her head.

Lulu was smiling radiantly and nodding. The twins, Aunt Jenny, and her father were staring as if they had been turned to stone. Emily felt her hastily gulped dinner come up into her throat, and tears sting in her nose. What was the matter? Was Emily Parmenter dressed up for a party simply grotesque after all?

Walter wheeled and walked out of the foyer. After he left there was a small, ringing silence, and then Aunt Jenny breathed, “My God,” and the twins chimed in with “Goddamn!” and “Holy shit!” Lulu looked at them all perplexedly, and then back at Emily, whose eyes were shimmering with tears.

“You look absolutely beautiful,” she said to Emily. “Just gorgeous.” And to the others, “What is the matter with you all?”

“You look so much like your mother it’s uncanny,” Jenny Raiford said, smiling at last. “And you do look beautiful. Just…beautiful.”

The twins smiled, too, tentatively.

“Shit, you might have been Mama coming down those stairs,” Walt said. “I’ve seen her do it a thousand times. I never thought you looked like her, Emily, but you just…could be her.”

“Yeah,” Carter said. “She used to look like that on her way to parties and stuff.

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