Free Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant

town."
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Reality Goes On Here More or Less
    Kat Meads
    The realtor stank of cigarettes, as did the realtor's car, a rough and ready Jeep Wagoneer packed floor to seat with listing printouts and half-eaten snacks.
    Roger rode shotgun; Carla wedged in the back. At her feet, a homeseller's prep sheet in a font large enough to read without bending:
    Three's company— Don't tail the realtor and
    prospective buyer.
    Never apologize for the state of your house.
    Always let the realtor do the talking, he/she is the professional— you aren't.
    She and Roger weren't selling a house. They weren't truly in the market to buy. But even browsing seemed to require a professional chaperone. Susie Johnson, realtor, Roger had selected at random from a multiple-listings website.
    "So how long have you called Tidewater home?"
    Carla let Roger explain.
    They weren't really Virginians, neither of them. They were Navy brats who just happened to turn eighteen while their fathers were stationed in Norfolk and stayed put when their families moved yet again.
    "So you grew up together?"
    No. But one military brat can usually ID another in a bar, in a supermarket, standing in the lottery ticket line. They'd each purchased scratch cards, five apiece. With their combined $10 winnings, they'd lunched on hot dogs in a trashy park, compared histories and awarded the following career distinctions: Carla's Dad, Five-Star Ambitious; Roger's, Blindest Patriot. Then they'd compared hair color: his slightly redder, hers significantly thicker.
    "How many states before age ten?” Roger had tested on that park bench.
    "Seven,” she'd answered without pause.
    "Bingo. Which probably means we should bow to karma and apply for a marriage license today."
    Instead, they'd waited an entire week. Grown-up military brats are either commitment phobes or fast attachers. As it happened, she and Roger shared a sub-classification too.
    "Does the smoke bother you?” Susie Johnson asked, an hour into their smoky ride-around. “As Virginians, you might not be aware: North Carolina's the tobacco capital of the world."
    "Hmm,” Roger said. The noise he made to pacify, not necessarily agree.
    Chesapeake Bay was an impact crater. Everything was something, Carla thought, while comparing the something they whizzed by (tasseled corn and green-stuffed ditches) to the view from their apartment (chain-length fences, a mini-mart's ice machine).
    When the Wagoneer swerved onto the rutted shoulder, Carla bounced; Roger yipped (his startled response). With burning ash, Susie Johnson pointed out a derelict house, also green-gobbled.
    "A little pruning and those grapevines would thrive."
    Dead sycamore branches hung in pairs and threesomes. Leggy camellia bushes fanned across the windows. The driveway was impassable. Susie Johnson seemed perfectly content to discuss the property's merits and demerits from the Wagoneer's driver's seat, so who had suggested they take a closer look? Afterwards neither Carla nor Roger could remember.
    The all-purpose realtor key didn't trip the lockbox dangling from the front doorknob but while nosing around Roger discovered the back door ajar. Dead leaves spiraled inward from that opening crack, forming one question mark after another.
    "Push came to shove, we'd have climbed in through a window,” Susie Johnson declared after the fact, so why give the brag credence?
    Inside smelled decrepit: old boards, old wallpaper, old people disinclined to ventilate. Vast colonies of spiders. Expired flies suspended from cobwebs, dangling upside down like trapeze artists whose daredevilry had gone awry.
    "Floorboards,” Roger radared, eyebrows lifted for emphasis.
    She'd already noticed: wide and minimally stained.
    "Dining room,” she alerted. A single room with more windows than their entire apartment.
    "Trim those camellia bushes,” Susie Johnson directed, “and you'll never have to turn on a light."
    An exaggeration. But just.
    Back on the