Free The Strangers on Montagu Street by Karen White Page B

each other stuff first.”
    Nola looked up at the sky as if seeking guidance on how to address incredibly stupid adults. “Yeah, but she probably felt bad about telling you that she was going to get married, seeing as how you’re old and not married and don’t even have a boyfriend.”
    It took me a moment to mentally chip the ice from my lips. “Thank you, Nola, for that observation. I’m only thirty-nine, for your information. That’s hardly nursing home material.”
    Nola screeched and threw her hands over her mouth. “OMG! I didn’t know you were that old! You’re practically dead.”
    Unable to find a response that wouldn’t require my getting physical, I abruptly turned around, only to run into my mother. “Mellie, just the person I was looking for. What do you say we do your fortieth birthday party here? Your garden is just perfect for entertaining, and your father said he can start working on plans right away.”
    I felt the embarrassing and completely unexpected prickle of tears behind my eyelids. I wasn’t sure whether it was from what Nola had said—which I somehow thought might have a glimmer of truth—or the fact that my mother seemed to be in collaboration with Sophie, Nola, and apparently the rest of the world on making me feel old and permanently single. I wanted to tell her that it was all her fault, that abandoning me was what had sent me down this path of approaching spinsterhood, but I held back, afraid that if I opened my mouth I’d start crying.
    A commotion at the garden gate made me turn away, and I stared in surprise as two men wearing Trenholm Antiques hats and matching uniform shirts slowly stepped their way down the brick path through the gate, carrying a pallet with something tall and bulky hidden under a quilted tarp.
    Behind them came Amelia and John Trenholm, Jack’s parents, both grinning broadly. I approached and gave them each a kiss on the cheek. “Wow—I can’t imagine what that could be.”
    The words dried in my throat as I smelled singed tar and ashes, the edges of the tarp seeming to melt into rubbery, reaching fingers. I watched the men lower the pallet to the ground, then slowly remove the tarp. Don’t! someone shouted, but the voice came from inside my head and nobody else heard. I opened my mouth to make the men stop, but it was too late. The turret of the dollhouse had already been revealed, the tarp slowly being pulled away inch by inch, like some bizarre burlesque show.
    “It’s exquisite,” Sophie whispered beside me, but I hardly heard her. I was too busy trying not to choke on the stench of burning tar.
    “The house looks so familiar,” she continued. “I wonder whether it was built as a replica of a real house.”
    Amelia shook her head. “I have no idea. It’s had a lot of owners, so chances are it might not even be originally from Charleston. I’m sure we can find out. Jack’s pretty good at that.”
    Everyone who’d gathered around the dollhouse to admire it now stepped back as Jack approached with Nola. I could tell that she was trying very hard to pretend that she didn’t particularly care that at the advanced age of thirteen she’d been given the first dollhouse she’d ever owned, or that it was probably one of the few gifts she’d ever received. Because I could see her eyes, and they were the eyes of a girl who never expected anything good to happen to her and had just realized that it could.
    I felt my mother watching me and I turned my head. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration, and I knew she could smell the acrid scent heavy in the early-summer night. She stepped forward, and before I could stop her she reached out her hand to touch the curling eave of the old dollhouse, and the air screamed.

CHAPTER 5
     
    I stood in the doorway to Nola’s room and watched as she carefully unwrapped each doll figure from old newspaper, standing them on the wraparound porch of the dollhouse one by one. There was a father, a mother, an older