Free Aurora 04 - The Julius House by Charlaine Harris Page B

delight.
    “Or we can go to England.”
    I was stunned. “Oh, Martin. But is there really something—I mean, both of those are things you would enjoy too?”
    “Sure. I’ve been to the Washington area many times, but I’ve never had time to see the Smithsonian. And if you pick England, we can go on a walking tour of famous murder sites in London, if you’ll come with me to get some suits made on Savile Row, or as close to Savile Row as I can man-age.”
    “How can I pick?” I chewed on my bottom lip in happy agony. “Oh . . . England! I just can’t wait! Martin, what a great idea!”
    He was smiling one of his rare broad smiles. “I picked the right things, then.”
    “Yes! I thought for sure we’d be going to some island to lie on gritty sand and get all salty!”
    He laughed out loud. “Maybe we can do that sometime, too. But I wanted you to have a really good time, and a beach honeymoon just didn’t sound like you.”
    Once again, Martin had surprised me with his perception. If we’d sat down and consulted on it, I would never have thought of suggesting England (going farther than the Caribbean had never crossed my mind), and if I had, I would have dismissed the idea as something that wouldn’t have appealed to Martin.
    We had an absolutely wonderful time after we got to the townhouse.

    Another moment I remembered afterward was Amina’s introduction to Martin. I was very excited about her meeting him and attributed her unusual silence thereafter to the bouts of nausea she was still experiencing. Amina, who had always been happily unconscious of her good health, was having a hard time adjusting to the new limits and discomforts her pregnancy was imposing on her. Her hair was hanging limply instead of bouncing and glowing, her skin was spotty, her ankles were swelling if she sat still for more than a short time, and she seemed to alternate nausea with heartburn. But every time she thought about the baby actually arriving, she was happy as a clam at high tide.
    So at first I thought it was just feeling demoralized about her appearance that made Amina uncharacteristically silent. Finally, unwisely, I asked her directly what she thought about Martin.
    “I know I’m not my normal self right now, but I’m not crazy, either,” Amina began. I got that ominous feeling, the one you get when you know you’re about to get very angry and it’s your own fault. We were standing out in the front yard of the Julius house, which was beginning to look as my imagination had pictured it when I had first seen it. John Henry’s legs, in their plumbers’ overalls, were protruding from the crawl space under the house, a young black man was trimming the foundation bushes, and the Youngbloods were doing a strange Asian thing on the broad driveway in front of the garage. It was some kind of martial ballet alternating sudden kicks and screams with hissing breathing and slow graceful movements. Amina watched them for a moment and shook her head in disbelief. “Honey,” she said, looking directly into my eyes, “who are those people?”
    “I told you, Amina,” I said, “Shelby is an old army buddy of Martin’s, and he lost his job in Florida—”
    “Cut the crap.”
    I gaped at my best friend.
    “What job? Where, exactly? Doing what? And what does she do? Does she look like Hannah Housewife to you?”
    “Well, maybe they’re not exactly like the people we know...”
    “Damn straight! Hugh said they looked more like people the criminal-law side of his firm would defend!”
    Bringing in Hugh, her husband, was a mistake, Amina realized instantly. “Okay, okay,” she said, holding up her hands, “truce. But listen, honey, those people seem very strange to me.
    Martin wanting them to live out here with you all—I don’t know, it just looks . .. funny.”
    “Be a little more specific, Amina,” I said very stiffly. “Funny? How?”
    Amina shifted from foot to uncomfortable foot. “Could we sit down?” she asked