When Venus Fell by Deborah Smith

Author:Deborah Smith [Smith, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-79656-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

I wondered where they put the historical marker for that.

Nineteen

I stayed busy composing new duets on my keyboard and plotting career strategies for the future, when Ella and I would undoubtedly need them.

It made no difference to me that each night, when Ella called me to chat, she sounded blissful. Not only was she having a wonderful time on her extended honeymoon, she was being treated like a queen. Carter had given her a diamond ring so extravagant that she couldn’t mention it without crying. Hoover Bird had presented her with an heirloom handwoven Macintosh family blanket, and he had also bestowed on her a Cherokee name that meant dove. She and Carter were heading to Chicago. He’d already lined up a buyer for our RV. They would be home soon.

Home, she said easily. It rang in my ears.

When I got off the phone one night I sat on the cottage porch in the dark and realized Ella Arinelli was now officially Ella Dove Macintosh. I was the only one left who bore the Arinelli name that Grandpop had brought to America so proudly.

“I’m the last of the Mohicans,” I said out loud.

My words echoed back at me.

• • •

One morning I sat in the cottage’s sunny kitchen nook, drinking breakfast tea and eating toast covered in apple butter. Giant acorns popped the roof like gunshots, and I looked out once to see deer in the yard and a fat woodchuck sniffing among wild muscadine vines. I rinsed my teacup three times out of sheer boredom and feared I might start talking to squirrels unless I found a routine to cling to, soon.

Olivia and Bea arrived in a golf cart. They drove around the valley at odd times of the day and night in their cart, though I’d glimpsed them only a few times before. I went outside gratefully. A large tabby cat stood between them on a purple shag-rug bath mat on the dash of the golf cart. The cat leaped down and sniffed the hatchback’s left rear wheel, then turned and peed on the tire.

“Good morning to you, child,” Bea shouted. She was dressed in pristine white overalls, a flowered shirt, and a large straw hat. “Have the wild beasties and the ghosties not scared you back to the bosom of the family, yet?”

“No, but that cat’s insulting me, and the huge kamikaze acorns around here are making me nervous.” An acorn pounded the cottage roof, bounced, hit the roof of the golf cart, bounced again, and nearly beaned the cat as it finished spritzing my car. Olivia smiled. I walked over to the cart and she laid one of her hands, like bones covered in thin yellowed paper, on my wrist. She handed me a note.

Emory is coming today. He plans to make his final presentation about the Hall’s future. We vote today. You must come and help me.

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