Dream House Read Online Free Page B

friends. She’d memorized Annie’s big, arty necklaces and her perfume, Lester’s tweedy sweaters and his penny loafers—exotic, because her father had never owned a pair—and their party drinks: Annie—gin and tonic, Lester—Michelob beer. They’d loved her father’s puns and her mother’s cheese soufflé. Their two sons, now in Alaska and Boston, were quite a bit older than Gina and hadn’t been around much when she was growing up.
    â€œDearies, how’s everything going over there?” Annie asked when she returned with the wine. “You poor things. Is everything set for the funeral? What can we do to help?”
    â€œIt’s an unholy mess!” Cassie said. She described the house cleaning in detail, including the adventures with the dead skunk, but not, Gina noted, the discovery of Martha Washington’s hair or George’s cloak piece. While Cassie chattered, uneasiness rolled through Gina as she imagined memories, nested wasp-like in these walls, ready to swarm.
    â€œGina?”
    Annie stood over her with a wine bottle. Gina looked at her wine goblet and seeing it was empty said, “No, thank you.” Annie refilled Cassie’s glass.
    â€œThere’s something different about this room,” Gina said.
    â€œWow, the architect speaks!” Lester laughed. “You don’t miss a trick. We moved the piano some. In the summer, the sun coming in that window was murder on the instrument.”
    Below the bookshelves, under the piano, were panels that Gina knew were actually secret cabinets where toys had always been kept. She thought about those toys now: wooden animals, small sailboat models, an old doll with one arm missing; her fingers itched to touchthem. She stood, realizing the alcohol had gone to her head. “Would it be okay if I ...” she laughed. “I just can’t resist.” She ducked under the piano and slid on her knees to the wall where the panels were. She knew just how to press them to make them slide open.
    â€œWhat the heck, Gina?” Cassie said. “Oh, are you looking for the toys?”
    Gina opened each of the three doors and peeked inside: empty. “They’re not there,” she said, feeling ridiculous.
    â€œYour ancestor Banton was a secretive guy,” Lester said. “That’s not the only hiding place he had.”
    Cassie gasped and jumped from her chair. “Did you find the Washington letters?” she shouted.
    Mortified, Gina crawled out from under the piano, bumping her head as she tried to stand. Did Annie and Lester know about the Washington letters? she wondered. Their mother had always told them they were a secret. As George Washington’s private secretary, Sidney Banton had supposedly hidden some important letters of the first president’s in Lily House.
    â€œNo, no,” Annie said. “Good heavens! You’ll be the first to know if we find the Washington letters.”
    Cassie’s flushed face sagged with disappointment. As if possessed, she walked the perimeter of the room, pressing on the panels of the wainscoting.
    â€œOver here,” Lester said, squeezing behind the piano bench. “Take a look.” Placing both palms on one of the wall panels, he easily slid it to the side, revealing a cavity about eighteen inches wide.
    Cassie and Gina peered into the compartment. “This must’ve been where Sidney Banton hid all the important stuff he had of George Washington’s,” Cassie said when Lester had closed the panel. “How come Mom never told us about it?”
    â€œShe said she didn’t know it was there,” Lester explained. “I think it must’ve been because the piano was up against it all those years. The Historical Society people knew about it, though.”
    â€œAnd Sid dropped in maybe six months ago, and he knew about it,” Annie added.
    â€œ Sid Banton ?” Cassie said.