The Body in the Ivy Read Online Free Page B

the house, dazed. Her suitcases were by the door and the light raincoat she thought she’d better bring was draped across them. She’d been ready for days. Ready as soon as she got the phone call in February from a man named Owen who worked for Barbara Bailey Bishop. Phoebe was being invited to some kind of reader’s focus group on the author’s private island for a whole week. She didn’t take in all the details, but assumed it must be because she’d graduated from Pelham. Although he hadn’t mentioned Pelham. But how else would BeBe have gotten her name? Ms. Bishop was analum, although Phoebe didn’t know which class. In the last reunion class record book—she’d never attended a reunion, but conscientiously wrote for the book every five years—Phoebe had listed the author as her favorite. Someone must have seen it and told Bishop about it. So what if it would have been more in keeping with Pelham English Department standards to list Joyce Carol Oates? Bishop might never win a National Book Award, but her words completely transported this reader from her own existence to another world, a much more interesting and ultimately satisfying one, with a frisson of danger along the way.
    Phoebe picked up her bags, punched in the alarm code, and strode down the front steps. The driver immediately got out of the car and came to help her. Was this the mysterious Owen? Phoebe felt as if she were stepping into the pages of a Barbara Bailey Bishop novel, and as she leaned into the soft leather of the back seat of the car, a thought crossed her mind: how had Owen, BeBe, or whoever else was involved known Phoebe was going to miss her plane? As quickly as it came, she chased it away. Of course they would know. She was going to be taken care of this week, her needs anticipated and met. She sighed happily. She wouldn’t need her yoga breathing—or her Zoloft—at all.
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    Christine Barker pressed the icy glass of ginger ale against her forehead. She thought these bouts were over. The first time she was sure it was some kind of food poisoning and let it go, happy to have survived. Then came the next—and the next. Then the doctors. No signof an ulcer, no allergies, nothing. Perhaps Ms. Barker might want to consult a different kind of doctor? Ms. Barker did not. If it were all in her head, she’d deal with it. Then the nausea, the relentless vomiting—never at the same time of day or night—stopped. Sometimes for years. Now it was back after one of those long hiatuses. Today was the third day. The day she was supposed to leave. She’d kept a few dry saltines down and this was her second glass of ginger ale. Oddly enough, she wasn’t tired, although she’d slept little these last days. She felt light, cleansed—no, wrong word. Just light. “Cleansed” suggested what the doctors had intimated.
    She really didn’t see how she could go and was glad now she hadn’t accepted all the arrangements the man Owen had proposed. She’d make her own way; she’d told him and let him know which flight she’d be on. So far she hadn’t made the call. Not one way or the other.
    The air inside her house was humid, heavy with the threat of summer. Although she was on the water here in the Chesapeake, it could still be brutally hot.
    She stepped out onto the back porch. There was a slight breeze. She sat down in a wicker chair she’d rescued from the town dump, repaired, and painted bright blue. A soft cushion covered with a remnant of William Morris chintz from one of the fancy Georgetown decorating stores protected the backs of her legs from the uncomfortable and unattractive fretwork these chairs invariably produced.
    Everything was packed. Her tools, slides, books, note cards—and a few clothes and toiletries. She could go if she decided to. She sipped her drink slowly, carefully. She closed her eyes and played her favorite game,