Free Beautiful Days by Anna Godbersen Page B

yet,” Virgina replied, rather too quickly.
    â€œMother—” Astrid’s eyes flashed. “I might almost think you’re not excited for me.”
    â€œOf course I am, dear.” Now Virginia began to regain herself. Her voice became smooth, and she even managed to seem disinterested. “Charlie is very exciting and he always gives you the nicest things. But you can’t blame me for being a touch concerned. It’s simply not how things are done.”
    â€œMoving in before the wedding, you mean? Well, of course not. But—” She paused and shifted her gaze toward Billie with a conspiratorial twist at the corner of her mouth. Billie only raised her skinny, penciled-on eyebrows and switched the cross of her legs. “But,” Astrid continued, undeterred, “you must know how old-fashioned you sound. Of course I’m not going to sleep in the same room as Charlie, and everybody will know that. We young people do not share in your foolish prohibitions—we do not go around calling a girl ruined just because she lives under the same roof as her fiancé.”
    The emphasis she had put on the word young was a cruel stroke, she knew, and she felt almost sorry when she saw how stiffly her mother rose to her feet.
    â€œI thought I knew everything when I was your age, too,” Virginia said bitterly. If there had been pity in Astrid’s heart a moment before, it disappeared when she heard her mother’s tone. “And contrary to what you may believe, I am always happy when my daughter receives a new piece of jewelry.”
    Jewelry , she pronounced as though she were speaking of the kind of toys children play with once and then discard. She tightened her robe and gave a slight bob of her head before turning and leaving her daughter’s bedroom. Astrid sighed and ran her fingers over her hair. The brilliant mood she’d woken up in was somewhat dampened, but in the next moment Billie let out a loud, blasphemous laugh, which cut away the tension in the room.
    â€œOh, poor, damned Virginia, who is fated to be always exactly twenty-two years older than her daughter!”
    Astrid began to giggle, too, and to realize, somewhat late in the game, how much more tolerable Marsh Hall had always been when her stepsister was there. Billie was in the habit of being right about everything, and yet she never forced her wisdom down anyone’s throat. “Oh, please, promise me you’ll come visit me often. And when you do you must bring me little shards of gossip so that I don’t grow imbecilic and think I miss this place!”
    â€œCordelia?”
    â€œYes?” she answered, reluctantly lowering the newspaper so that she could glance over its pages at her brother. Charlie strode out onto the south-facing verandah and pulled up a chair at the large iron table where they had been eating most of their meals lately. He was wearing a white tennis shirt that he seemed on the verge of busting out of, and his hair was pomaded into place.
    Cordelia knew from Letty—who had returned to the Calla Lily Suite with a giant smile on her face the night before, bubbling over with new stories—that Charlie had proposed to Astrid after the Beaumonts’ party, this time with a ring, and that that somehow made their engagement more official and thrilling. And she could tell from his face that he was feeling boisterous and happy in the aftermath of his big gesture. This was all very nice, but Cordelia was still reeling from her various run-ins of the afternoon before, and wasn’t quite ready to share in anyone else’s joy.
    â€œYou feeling sore about that pilot?” Charlie asked, his eyebrows drawing together. The concern he wore on his face was kind, but Cordelia didn’t want to be pitied. She quickly folded up the paper and put it to the side. “Astrid told me Max Darby slighted you. What scum, acting like that after what you did for