Page 98 of Script Swap
There didn’t seem to be much more to say about that, so after a moment, I said, “I’m sorry about Tinny.”
“At least she’ll be out of our hair—although I can’t imagine they’re going to find her a jumpsuit in a soothing neutral.”
We shared a grin.
“May I show you something?”Fox asked.
I nodded, and Fox led me toward the back of the gallery.They stopped in front of another mixed-media piece I hadn’t seen yet, some sort of textile painted with a design—
“Oh my God,” I said.“That’s the wallpaper from Hemlock House.”
And it was—or a reproduction, anyway, of the patterned damask wallpaper that was the bane of my existence.(You have to besocareful, and if you bump it or smudge it or stumble and your plate of chocolate cake flies out of your hands, Bobby and Indira make you clean it up.)
“This is what you’ve been working on!Oh my God, Fox, this is what you were working on when I moved here—it’s one of the first things Vivienne told me.”
“Yes, well, what is wallpaper but the backdrop against which we live our lives?”
I could tell they’d been saving that one up, so I made an appropriately impressed sound.
“To be perfectly honest,” Fox said, “I didn’t knowwhatI wanted to do with it.But I thought the paper was quite lovely, and I’ve always found Hemlock House…stimulating.For the longest time, I thought it was going to be something historical—the history of the house, or maybe the history of the town.Perhaps something to do with tragedy, because there is so much tragedy in that house.But then I realized I wasn’t interested in the past.I was interested in the present.And the future.”
Something had been traced over the wallpaper.I leaned closer to get a better look.Neat lines in dark graphite ran horizontally across the wallpaper.There were six of them, each at a different height, with letters next to them.DD, BM, F, IS, MN, KC.
Us.
It wasn’t something my family had done, but I’d seen it in movies and TV shows (the source of most of my knowledge).They were lines showing how tall we were.Like we’d all grown up in the house together, and year after year, we’d measured ourselves against this same spot to see how much taller we’d gotten.Only we hadn’t.But we had.If that made any sense at all.Because we were, at the end of the day, a family.
My eyes welled, and I hugged Fox.
They made a startledwumpfsound.
“I love you,” I said.“Thank you.”
Fox patted my back, and they sounded surprisingly choked up when they said, “I love you too.”
“I want to buy it.Which means Bobby’s going to pay for it.So we’re going to have to work out some sort of payment plan because you would notbelievehow detailed his budget is.He has a line item for the Cakery.Oh my God, Fox, I love it so much.”
With a watery laugh, Fox said, “Perhaps you’ll let me give it to you.To thank you.For everything, Dash.”
I hugged them even tighter, and they felt kind of like my pillow when I fluff it a little too hard.
(Side note: I’m not much of a hugger, but in that moment, I got a glimpse of why Millie loves it so much—there’s something weirdly empowering about being the aggressor in a hug.)
“Also,” I said, releasing Fox so I could get another look at the piece.“Do you see how much shorter Keme is than me?”
“Charming.”
I had a response for that, but that was when Keme walked up behind me and gave me a snake bite on the neck.(If you’ve never had a snake bite, it’s when someone takes two fingers—like snake fangs—and drives them into your body as hard as they can.)
It was like electricity.Like my whole body locked up.I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t.
All I could do was stand there, paralyzed with agony, while Keme said behind me, “See?That’s a pressure point.”
“That’s amazing,” Millie said.
By that point, my body had decidednotto die, so I said, “It’s not amazing!It’s incredibly painful!And normal people don’t sneak up behind someone and attack—come back here!”
“Excuse me, Dash,” Fox murmured as they drifted away.“A potential buyer.As always, it’s been a pleasure.”
