Kissed by an angel (camren)

Chapter 4

Song suggestion:
The drums-what you were
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Camila felt as if she floated through most of the week that followed the wedding, with one day slipping into the next, marked only by frustrating discussions with Sofi. Dinah and Ally teased her about her absent-mindedness, but more gently than usual. Gregory passed her in the hall once or twice and made little jokes about straightening up his room before Friday. Lauren didn't cross her path that week, at least she didn't see her.

Everyone in school knew by then about her mother and Andrew's marriage. The wedding had made all the local papers as well as the New York Times. Camila shouldn't have been surprised, for Andrew was often in the paper, but it was odd to see photos of her mother as well.

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Friday morning finally arrived, and Camila nosed her rusty little Dodge out of the apartment driveway, feeling suddenly homesick for every crowded, noisy, dilapidated rental place her family had ever lived in. When she returned from school that afternoon, she'd enter a different driveway, one that climbed a ridge high above the train station and river. The road to the house hugged a low stone wall and ran between patches of woods, daffodils, and laurel.
Andrew's woods, daffodils, and laurel.

That afternoon Camila picked up Sofi from school. She had given up the fight and rode next to her in silence. Halfway up the ridge, Camila heard a motorcycle on the bend above them, roaring downhill. Suddenly the cyclist and she were face to face. She was already as far to the right as she could get. Still he came head on. Camila slammed on her brakes. The cycle swerved dangerously close to them, then sped past.

Sofi's head spun around, but she didn't say anything. Camila glanced in the rear view mirror. It was probably Eric Ghent. She hoped Gregory was with him.

But Gregory was waiting for them at the house, along with Andrew and her mother, who were just back from their honeymoon. Her mother greeted them with big hugs and lipstick kisses and a cloud of some new kind of perfume. Andrew took both Camila's hands in his. He was wise enough to smile at but not touch Sofi. Then Camila and Sofi were turned over to Gregory.

"I'm the tour guide," he said. Leaning toward Sofi, he warned, "stay close. Some of these rooms are haunted."
Sofi looked around quickly, then glanced up at Camila.
"He's just kidding."
"I'm not," said Gregory. "Some very unhappy people have lived here."
Sofi glanced up at Camila again. She shook her head.

On the outside the house was a stately white clapboard home with heavy black shutters. Wings had been added to each side of the main structure. Camila would have liked to live in one of the smaller wings with their deep sloping roofs and dormer windows.

In the main part of the house, some of the high ceilinged rooms seemed as large as apartments that they had once lived in. The house's wide center hall and sweeping stair separated the living room, library, and solarium from the dining room, kitchen, and family room. Beyond the family room was a gallery leading to the west wing with Andrew's office.

Since her mother and Andrew were talking in the office, the downstairs tour stopped at the gallery, in front of three portraits: Adam Baines, the one who had invested in all the mines, looking stern in his World War I uniform; Judge Andy Baines, in his judicial robes; and Andrew, dressed in his colorful academic gown. Next to Andrew there was a blank spot on the wall.