Love-in-Idleness Read Online Free Page B

doors closed. Tonight’s dinner would definitely be interesting.
    Grace tried to avoid being noticed as she closed the front door quietly behind her and walked softly but rapidly to her room to change. Once inside, she turned the knob and closed the door so that it made no sound whatsoever before she slowly released the doorknob. Only when she was securely inside did she breathe.
    Before putting her best face forward with the Oberon family, she needed a moment to unwind. Ryder’s neediness and Cameron’s charm had both made her uneasy. Her bedroom was the one place where she might have a chance of putting her head right.
    Grace kicked off her shoes and climbed into bed. Leaning against the headrest, she looked around. Every piece of furniture, every picture had been relocated from her Brooklyn bedroom into this new room. While the new space was substantially larger, she’d done her best to adapt her spacing, which gave the illusion that her old belongings were somehow smaller. She didn’t care. She loved every single memory that accompanied these things, from her mother’s vanity to the orange stuffed rabbit that shared her crib when she was a baby. The only new addition to the decor was the porcelain vase she had made on the last day she attended her old school. As a way of honoring the lesson she learned through the assignment that led her to create it, she glazed it white, which allowed the tiny imperfections to remain undisguised and empty.
    She was just beginning to feel calm when there was a knock on her door.
    “Grace,” Gianni called. “It’s time for you to come to the table. Don’t be late.” Gianni’s voice was low and harsh, as if she had been gargling whiskey.
               “Start without me,” Grace snapped back as she looked at her watch. Technically, she still had plenty of time. Gianni was just being a pain.
               “Hurry,” Gianni ordered. “Your father wants you at the table on time. Move your prissy butt.”
               Classy, thought Grace. You don’t sound like new money at all.
               Grace was, in reality, not the least bit prissy. As she twisted her curly auburn hair into a ponytail, she checked her simple, but attractive makeup. Unlike her soon-to-be stepmother, she appreciated the clean look of brown eyeliner and clear mascara. In her mind, it was more than enough for a family dinner. Grace tried to predict what monstrous makeup and wardrobe calamity Gianni might have assembled for herself this evening. Since tonight had been presented as a simple home-cooked affair, Gianni would surely have shimmering silver eye shadow and her bleached hair teased into a Q-tip-esque poof that showed her New Jersey roots for all to see. And there would be Gianni’s personal holy trinity; sparkles, heels, and cleavage. Gianni had been flashy and vaguely pathetic before their sudden good fortune. Now she had blossomed into a full-fledged, social-climbing train wreck.
               As Grace buttoned a black silk Diane von Furstenburg blouse, she contemplated what she would have done with the money that was spent on that blouse a year ago. Three hundred dollars was six months’ allowance. She would have never blown that kind of cash on a single item of clothing. Now, she was expected to use her father’s credit card to buy whatever luxury goods were necessary to help them blend into their new environment.  Grace couldn’t imagine ever embracing conspicuous consumption the way people in this neighborhood did, as if their possessions defined them. She would need to see some redeeming qualities in someone from this part of town before she would be convinced that anyone here valued anything but the illusion of beauty, whether it was genuine or purchased.
               Grace was the last to arrive at dinner, a faux pas she would surely hear about later from Gianni, who had appointed herself Queen Manners. The mere concept of Gianni as