those hills (working title)

Anna's cotton dress bunched around her ankles and Edwin's rolled-up sleeves exposed him to the itchy grass as they sat on the lawn together. Their card game lay abandoned. The greenness beneath them was too rich to look at for long, the sky too sharp. The sun warmed them both through their thin cotton clothes and Anna felt her skin stretch in the heat. She welcomed it. This was bliss.

"I might have to go back to M---," Edwin said, "Mother wants me back."

"Your mother?" Anna asked. She pulled back the dark stringiness of her hair and tying it up loosely with the palm of her hand. When she turned around to look at Edwin he looked upward, his light eyes bleeding the rich blue. Anna wondered why he was determined not to look at her.

"You're eating with us tonight," he said. His face showed off very minor stubble, a slight shadow on his tanned skin.

Anna snorted. "I don't have a choice," she said. "Mother wouldn't like it if I refused. The honor of eating at N--!"

Edwin smiled but did not laugh. His trousers were muddy at the ankle. "If I go," he began, but Anna never found out what would happen if he went because the retrievers came in from the yard followed by the Forster children in their khakis and dungarees. Anna had to ensure that they did not trip themselves with the leashes. She felt Edwin looking at her, and he himself was too good in that sunlight. Anna felt her gut sink as she tumbled onto the ground with the two blond boys and the slobbering dogs.

When she went inside she felt heavy. She felt Edwin's immobility. Yes. She had to get ready for a very important dinner.



The Knowltons lived at N--, a very large house on a hectare of soft country. It was made of severe stone and straight lines, a bizarre house, but inside it was as delicate as Anna imagined the very wealthy to live. She'd seen plain rocks carry precious gems within them, their ordinary exteriors very quiet about the treasure they concealed. The paths ran for dozens of miles within the grounds, and the house itself was less a house than a massive compound with trees and sweet pink and purple and orange-flowered bushes that played host to a thousand birds a day. In the sunset these plants came alive for one last riotous exclamation before the night quieted them. Mother and the Doctor were already there with the Knowltons, no doubt sitting, starched, on ripely polished chairs while discussing the latest Rawlings play.

Anna thought she might see Edwin waiting outside, riding, but she was mistaken. The park -- the grounds -- were deserted. For a moment she wondered whether Edwin was there at all. She shivered. A party without Edwin would be no party. Edwin's two older brothers were into speculation and reaped vast sums of money without working. They lived in the ancestral house because they did not want to leave -- not because they could not. Neither of them had attachments, though one was almost twenty-eight and the other, twenty-seven. Mother was keenly aware of this, but Anna could not stand the sight of either. They weren't ill-looking but they talked too much and about nothing; she spent one hour talking to Chase, the eldest, just one month ago. The whole conversation revolved around dead birds. Martin, the younger, surrounded himself with so many scores of fine ladies Anna never found the opportunity to speak with him. But she heard enough about him from Edwin, enough to want to avoid him totally.

There was one brother younger than Edwin, but he was an invalid of nineteen just finished school, choosing to stay in his room and away from company, his head stuck into the folds of newspapers. "I think I like him the best," Edwin had told her, "though he doesn't like me much."

Samuel, their man, showed her inside. The gas lamps caused her to cough, but even she admitted they had a summery effect, making the hallway mahogany look dessert-rich. She heard the voices of Mother, the Doctor and the Knowltons in the living room, talking. Mrs. Knowlton never said anything except to disparage and Mr. Knowlton, though always civil, had his mind on his work and on his properties elsewhere. But Mother always tried so hard to please. And even Anna had to admit that Mother was a gifted conversationalist.

Their sitting room was very sparse for a family so wealthy. To silken couches, a fireplace, a couple of chairs, and a very red woven rug from the Near East. The rug was a peculiar conquest, a gift from a prolific Oriental business man. An Oriental rug, Mr. Knowlton said, to temper the Occidental furniture. Mrs and Mr Knowlton sat on one large sofa, and facing them, sat the Doctor and Mother.

When Anna came into the room Mother stood up and took her by the gloved hand, directing her to Mrs. Knowlton. The matriarch was handsome, with very little gray strands and an unconscionably slim figure. Her husband sat with his shoulder over the back of the sofa, his jacket strained at the belly and his hair mere wisps against his scalp.

"You've grown," Mrs. Knowlton said, "even in the last two weeks."

Anna nodded.

Mrs. Knowlton let go of her arm and gave her a critical look.

"My sons," she said, "are over there." And she continued whatever it was she'd been telling the Doctor, and Anna felt banished even in the room with them.



Over there -- the next room was the antechamber to the study, where the rows of bookshelves began and went, almost interminably, into the rooms beyond. It was all in this same dark paneling, and Anna observed that the two eldest, standing against the heirloom piano and holding their liquor in very fragile glasses.