Read Online Guests on Earth by Lee Smith - Free Book Online Page A

itself, as if there were many little living rooms, each with its own leather sofas and upholstered armchairs and tables and lamps, then a bar area over near the windows that featured tiny round tables, all of them occupied by chatting, gesticulating people. Beautiful people. A man with slicked-back hair, in a tuxedo, played tinkly jazz on a grand piano.
    “I’ll bet you’d like to get your hands on that now, wouldn’t you?” Mrs. Hodges said as we crossed the lobby past the piano.
    “Yes, I would,” I said sincerely, though I felt that I would never be able to play as well, or be so much at ease, as that smiling man.
    We went through the tall, many-paned doors out onto the wide stone terrace that overlooked a pool area and a long golf course sloping down toward the bowl below that was Asheville. “There we are,” Mrs. Hodges announced, pointing over to the right, “that there’s the hospital,” as indeed it was, also overlooking Asheville from its different vantage point, its own mountain. I could see all the familiar buildings as if they were dollhouses, but we were too far away to spot any people. “Fore!” a man’s voice called out.
    “They serve lunch and dinner out here on the terrace in the summertime,” Mrs. Hodges said. “Aah, it’s lovely then, the view. The sunset and the moon and the stars, don’t you know. Why, everybody has been here, everybody, politicians and movie stars . . .” Back inside, we looked at autographed pictures of Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Herbert Hoover, and many others hanging on the corridor walls.
    Our lunch in the grand dining room, with its view out over the mountains, was by far the fanciest meal I had ever had, surpassing even my breakfast in the dining car on the train. An elegant older man—I thought he looked like a count!—handed us the heavy menus as Moira slipped into her chair.
    “Lo, Mum.” She leaned over to kiss Mrs. Hodges on the cheek. “Hi, Evalina, don’t you look pretty!”
    Did I? I was wearing a pink matched sweater set, shell and cardigan, the unexpected gift of Mrs. C. I fingered my pearl-tone buttons.
    “Now, Miss, order anything you’d like,” Mrs. Hodges directed grandly. “It’s on her!” pointing at Moira.
    “Sssh! Hush, Mom,” Moira said. “Or you’ll lose your privileges.” She winked at me.
    I read the menu from start to finish, as if it were a novel. It contained many items that were entirely foreign to me, such as Welsh Rarebit and Tomato Aspic.
    “I’ll take a nip of the sherry,” Mrs. Hodges said when the aristocratic waiter came back. “Against the cold, you know.”
    “I’ll bet you’d like the hot chocolate,” Moira said to me. “It’s quite famous.”
    I nodded, then followed their lead in ordering the club sandwich as well, though I wasn’t sure what it was. I was delighted when it arrived in four triangular pieces with a fancy gold fringed toothpick stuck through each one, spearing all manner of meats and cheese within, curvy chips and tiny pickles to the side. “Oh my,” I said without meaning to. “And this hot chocolate is delicious, thank you so much,” I told Moira.
    “She’s coming along now, isn’t she?” Mrs. Hodges said to her daughter as if I weren’t there. They launched into a long conversation about the financial problems and disastrous “love life” of yet another of Mrs. Hodges’s daughters while my attention wandered to the other tables, well-dressed and prosperous people such as I had never seen, really, except for our long-ago outings with Mr. Graves. But as I could not bear to think of that time, I began to make up scenarios in my mind for these other diners, their histories and personal lives.
    She is an actual princess, that brunette, from Europe, and her husband is so much in love with her, look at him holding her hand across the table. Of course! They are on their honeymoon! While those awful crabby old lady sisters dripping with diamonds have nothing to say