Burning Down the House Read Online Free Page B

was bleaching a little bit away from darkness and the objects in the kitchen became slightly more visible, dirtier. It was a fancy house with a filthy kitchen. He handed her the plate and she washed it and the pan and dried everything and put it all away.
    You don’t have any family, do you?
    No, I don’t, said Neva.
    Didn’t think so.
    He finished the champagne and left the empty bottle on the counter.
    I hope you enjoy your time with us, he said.
    I’m sure I will. Thank you for the opportunity.
    He watched her for a moment and nodded some more. Go back to bed, he told her.
    —
    She did. Crawling back under the heavy covers she squeezed her eyes shut and searched longingly for sleep. When it came she dreamed of a dog, its eyes closed, floating on the water. Not dead but dreaming.
    —
    She awoke not long after with the dawn not yet breaking and the thick drapes blocking out any early light. Felix was standing next to the bed, looking down at her.
    What is it? she asked him. Are you okay? But he said nothing and slunk off and went back to his own bed and when it was time to get up he didn’t seem to remember the incident.

5
    A LL THAT NEXT MORNING she watched Patrizia conferring with Miranda and delivering womanly advice. By lunchtime Miranda had been convinced to get over Jonathan’s involvement with the former nanny and to go through with the wedding. Neva pieced this together from snatches of conversation and gestures and looks, the two women ranging over the subject as if they were surveying and studying the floors of a luxury store. At lunchtime they were talking about rehearsal dinner details, and Neva was giving the boys their lunch. The food had arrived, along with a chef and kitchen staff. Neva served the boys from large platters arranged on a console near an outdoor table. Roman was trying to eat while playing a game. His device fell into his lunch several times and Neva helped him clean off the herbs and oil.
    —
    During the meal Neva tried to get acquainted with Felix, who was not easy to unearth. An inward boy with a delicate, occasionally quizzical expression. They ate side by side in silence, the barely audible clicks of Roman’s thumbs on his machine blending in with clinking silverware, spilling food, the twittering country sounds.
    Felix was usually found reading a book but at the moment he was concentrating entirely on the present, eating with deliberate poise, chewing his fried fish thoughtfully, dipping pieces into the red swirl of ketchup on the white china with a light, graceful movement. He ate his salad using the fork with his left hand.
    He had asked Neva no questions since she’d started working for the family a few days earlier. He seemed to have absorbed everything he needed to know about her from watching her, observing both the way others treated her and the subtleties of mood on her generally inexpressive face. He was like a highly intelligent animal, a dolphin mixed with an exquisite monkey.
    —
    I’ve never had fish-and-chips before, Neva said.
    Felix nodded underneath a filigree of shadows from a large tree.
    I thought it would be greasier, she continued.
    They were both quiet for a while.
    This is fancy fish-and-chips, Felix said. It’s not the real thing. It’s usually pretty disgusting and more delicious.
    I thought so.
    I have a question.
    Go ahead, said Neva.
    Why is it harder not to imagine something if someone says to you, Don’t think of a black dog, than if someone says: Don’t think about the sentence “Are you hungry”?
    Because the mind works in images. So if you hear the phrase “a black dog,” you cannot not picture it. If someone says a string of words, that’s easier to forget.
    Okay. Thanks.
    You’re welcome.
    How do they study memory? Do they go into people’s brains? I guess they can. I guess they’ll figure it all out. It’s like the way there used to be diseases that people don’t get sick from anymore. We can cure them now. That will probably