AMBROSIA
The Following Agreement is made this first day of the first month between the members of the Arcadia Gardens Homeowners Association [hereinafter known as “the Association”] and the titleholders of 1 Cedar Drive [hereinafter known as “the Residents” and “the Property,” respectively].
The Association, acting through any and whatever such proxies as may be delegated, pursuant to its previously filed Declaration of Intent to Incorporate, in consideration of, and dependent upon, the mutual promises contained herein, desires to appoint the undersigned Residents exclusively to manage the aforementioned Arcadia Gardens property in perpetuity.
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Welcome to a new world of luxury living in Arcadia Gardens, an exclusive, upscale gated community! Every thought and care has been taken to provide the ultimate in amenities, privacy, serenity, and, most important, safety for you and yours. Enjoy the benefits of round-the-clock security and access to community gardens and pools. Stroll at your leisure through lovingly designed streets, parks, and common areas. Get to know your friendly neighbors. Most of all, rest soundly knowing the outside world cannot trouble you here.
Your new Arcadia Gardens home boasts the absolute latest in worry-free convenience. Anything you desire can be provided with ease; anything you lack is but a call away. It is important to us that you be happy here. Our goal is pure, sustainable, and entirely self-sufficient contentment, so that you can get on with your vital work without the niggling unpleasantries of everyday dissatisfactions gnawing away at your peace of mind.
In order to create this unique environment of domestic bliss and year-round tranquility, the Association has, in concert with its Board of Directors, set a few simple, easy-to-follow rules. Abide by them, and your new life in Arcadia Gardens will be all anyone could dream of.
Should you wish to personalize your dwelling, the following paint colors are acceptable: Virgin White, Eggshell, Purity, First Snow, Antique Porcelain, Morning Star, Fresh Cream, Mother’s Milk, and Innocence.No outdoor cooking, ovens, grills, smoke pits, or other open fires.Lawns must be kept to a grass height of not less than one point five (1.5) inches and not more than two (2) inches at all times.Keep sidewalks free of clutter, including but not limited to: chalk drawings, handprints, memetic representations of any kind, sporting equipment, stray rubbish, unsightly leaves, liquids, or snow piles, toys, and any personal belongings not listed above.No overnight guests.All parks, gardens, pools, and other common areas close at sunset. Guards will be posted.Tranquility hours strictly enforced after 10:00 p.m. and all day Sunday.
WINESAP
I was made for him.
It is morning, which is to say, it is the beginning of all things. It is bright and it is sharp and it is perfect and so is Sophia, who wakes alone to this singular thought, as she does every morning; to this honeyed, liquid thought and sunlight and sparrowsong and the softness of green shadows in a house that is far too big for her. Not that she complains—oh no, never, not Sophia, in whom the organ of dissatisfaction was somehow absent from birth. Her husband spoils her and she is grateful. But she never needed anything so grand! None of the other houses on their street are half as luxurious or imposing. And it is a long street, very long and very fine.
Sophia runs her hand over the place beside her where her husband so rarely sleeps these days and thinks it again, with as much joy:
I was made for him.
She moves in this echoing house like a flicker of a goldfish in the depthless trenches of the sea. Her long hair, bright and fine as cherry bark, snakes through a mountain of pillows. The dawn comes dancing in, as gold as you please, through vast crosshatched windows curtained in tapestries. Her bedside candle has burned down through the small hours to a thick, craggy nub. Her colorful blanket, still smooth and neat, for Sophia never has never had an anxious dream in all the deep violet nights of her life, streams away from her in all directions: a vast, peaceful province peopled by intricate embroidered roses, tatted lace peonies, quilted moonflowers, trailing ribbon-stitched clover, and the little cliffs and hollows of Sophia’s rich body beneath the down.
Even the bed is so much bigger than she could ever need. Especially since she sleeps alone more nights than not. Her husband has important work and it never ends. Even when he is with her, he is always on call. Sophia does not mind. She has never minded. She keeps her own company very snugly and very well. There is something decadent in having this sea of silk and wool and wood all to herself. Sailing it into the unconquered country of her sleep like a pilgrim of the night. It feels like getting away with something, to have so much.
Getting out of bed is something of a mountaineering expedition. Her husband made her a little staircase down from the mattress to the floor so the delicate bones of her ankles never get jangled once. Sophia flexes her flat, golden-brown stomach and swings herself over the side, her smooth feet hitting the top stair with a satisfying sound, like a cup setting into its saucer.
She fetches her robe from a great brass hook in the wall. It is the color of earth before planting. It shines with quality. She knots the sash around her strong waist. It is too big for her. She drowns deliciously inside it. She does not need a robe. It is warm here and she has nothing to hide. But she enjoys the slippery kiss of it against her skin all the same.
Like everything else, it was a gift. From him to her. The world flows in that direction. Him to her. A river of forever.
She sits down at a huge vanity, so big she must pile up throw pillows on the seat just to see herself in the wide mirror, a polished oval glass ringed in carved wooden branches bearing figs and plums. Sophia has never been one for too much makeup. Scrubbed skin and hair is more than enough, her husband always says. But a little color in the cheek never hurt anyone. He never needs to know. If he thinks a woman wakes in the morning with shimmering eyes and a perfect pout, let him.
She ties her hair back with a white ribbon, stark as bare bone against her thick brown hair. Outside the windows, finches and starlings and lorikeets warm up for their daily concert in the park.
Sophia’s long, clever fingers pull at the crystal knob on the vanity’s top right-hand drawer. With a thrill of pleasure in this thing done each day for herself and herself alone, she takes out her little secret luxuries: a bronze compact with the puff tucked neatly inside, three slender brushes tipped with soft tufts of rabbit fur, and three small matching pots: clay for cold cream, silver for rouge, and gold for eyeliner. Kindly Mrs. Orpington tucked them into her grocery basket next to the sweet potatoes and the eggs and the new butter. Her neighbors are always looking out for her that way. Shy little treats, shy little smiles, shy little waves from down the road.
Sophia paints herself slowly, subtly, every sweep of the rabbit bristles against her skin as electric as a summer storm.
Today, as she does every day, Sophia will descend the grand staircase into the house. It takes some time. The teak steps rise so steep and tall she must perch on the lips of them like a child, stretching her legs down to brush the top of the next one, and only then scoot down safely, then repeat and repeat and repeat until her toes finally find the relief of the parquet floor. Her man carved each of the twenty-eight stairs round the edges with a million detailed leaves she must polish (plus the round silver moons that crown the banisters) once a week. But today is not polishing day! She needn’t give one thought to the leaves and the moons.
No, today Sophia will clean the rest of the house. She imagines herself doing it before she begins, each task unfolding in her tidy mind as perfectly as a letter to herself.
She will sweep the floors with the heavy oak broom. Then she will scrub them with lemon water and good lavender soap she makes herself in their second guest bathroom so that the smell of lye will not trouble her mister. Only until the basement is finished! Then she will have room to spread out. Until then, Sophia is not allowed down into the cellar. It’s dangerous, he tells her. So much old equipment lying around. She could get hurt.
Sophia doesn’t ever want to get hurt. Or set one single soft foot where she is not allowed. What a thing to even imagine—just going right into a place he specifically told her wasn’t safe! She excises this paradox from her thoughts and replaces it with a pleasant anticipation of how lovely the cellar will be when he finishes it, how convenient and enjoyable she will soon find it to make all her little treasures in a space built just for her.
After the floors, Sophia will beat the curtains and the rugs until the dust motes twinkle like stars in the thick warm air. She will collect all her husband’s things from the sofas and the armchairs and the floor. It is laundry day, so she will wash all the linens and the bath towels and pin them up in the sun to dry from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. exactly. Then, she will rinse the breakfast dishes, arrange flowers from the garden on the table where her husband will see them as soon as he comes home. Orange roses for tonight, she thinks. Thorns carefully clipped off, of course. Plus white chrysanthemums and three bright fuchsia hibiscus branches. Yesterday was all lilies. Her sweetheart enjoys variety.
All this under her morning belt, she will eat a little spot of lunch, though a very little spot. He’s warned her that heavy lunches make heavy hips, and Sophia wishes always to be his light. Afterward, she will clean her plate and cup until they shine, make herself presentable, and go about her errands on this very special day.
For today, Sophia has been invited next door to 3 Cedar Drive to see Mrs. Lyon, Mrs. Fische, and Mrs. Minke for tea. She’s already wrapped up a little hostess gift for each of them. Sophia is the consummate guest, never a foot put wrong. Her husband laughs at the care she takes with such things. Such a silly little head my Sophie has on her shoulders. Stop worrying so. They all love us. We’re the life of the party. You don’t have to bring presents every time to everybody. You don’t have to bring any presents at all.
But Sophia understands in the palest cells of marrow of her bones that everything she does, from the speed of her gait to the gifts she chooses to the sway of her hair as she walks down Cedar Drive, reflects upon him. And they do love him. It’s so easy for him! The way Mrs. Crabbe tries to look busy to hide her blushing whenever he passes her in the garden on his way home from the office. The way Mr. Stagg fixes his hair and stands a little straighter when he ducks into their local for something cold and quiet. Sophia knows these are treasures that must be protected. She would never do the smallest thing that might risk how Mrs. Moray’s dark eyes widen and her breath quickens when she glimpses the two of them strolling through the market of a Saturday. Heaven forbid. She would rather die.
He will never know how the gentle determination of her carefulness stokes and keeps the love of their neighbors. He does not need to. Sophia doesn’t ask for praise or credit. Is he the life of the party? Or is she? Such questions! The party is alive, that’s what matters. And whichever way one slices such a rich cake, her company is much in demand. Her social calendar overflows like a cup of wine. Everyone in Arcadia Gardens clamors to have her round. The honor of her presence at their home. The pleasure of her business at their establishment. The profound distress the absence of her witness would cause at this or that small ceremony of life.
Sophia strives to make certain they never have cause to regret her.
She pauses in her thoughts. She reaches out her long fingers to touch her image in the grand mirror. The glass is so cool beneath her skin.
After tea, she plans a stroll round the park, then to Mrs. Lam’s to pick up a bolt or two of the new turquoise wool in stock, a quick pop round the shops for supper supplies, then home to prepare it all before sunset, when it is not permitted to be roaming the streets.
It will be a lovely day. They are all lovely days. That’s how lucky she is. That’s how beautiful Sophia’s life has always been and always will be. Not a minute unaccounted for. Not a season unsavored to the last dregs.
She is happy. Her husband is happy. The world is theirs.
I was made for him.
And then, for no reason whatsoever, no reason at all that she can think of later when she looks back and tries to explain everything that happened afterward and wishes so desperately that she’d never done it, so desperately that she almost faints away with the passion of longing to undo time and causality and uninvent the entire concept of furniture, Sophia looks down at the pull-knob on the top left-hand drawer of her vanity.
It isn’t crystal, like the right-hand drawer. All the knobs on all the drawers are different. Copper, amber, white Bakelite, pewter. It makes a very pretty effect, like everything else her husband builds. The towering bed, the dizzying staircase, the splendid mirror, the high hook for her long robe, the heavy walnut table downstairs—as tall as a plowhorse at the shoulder, where she will later perch briefly, swinging her legs in the air, and eat honey and butter on toast points before heading out into the buttery, honeyed light of the afternoon.
Sophia stares at the top left-hand drawer as though she’s never seen it before. It feels as though she hasn’t. She never uses it, after all. Three pots and a compact hardly require all six drawers to fill. But this is her room. Her place at the mirror, boosted by all those pretty pillows. Every day of her married life, she’s sat in this same place, tied her hair back with the same ribbon, and made herself into the same Sophia while the starlings sang. Every molecule of every object in this house is familiar to her.
So why does that drawer look so much like a filthy, ragged stranger standing suddenly in the corner of a brightly lit hall?
The pull-knob is stone. A rough, dull chunk of grey rock. She brushes it lightly with her fingertips. It is dusty. But Sophia allows nothing to gather dust. Not in this house. Not on her watch. Yet untold layers of dust particles float away into the shafts of sun like ash. Underneath, tiny ammonites press up out of the shale rock.
Sophia tells herself not to open it.
There is nothing inside, after all. She knows that! She knows the contents of every nook and cranny in this vast house. It’s just an empty drawer. No reason whatsoever to waste her time on such a lump of nothing! Not when there is so much to do today! Such a silly little head she has on her shoulders. Doesn’t he always say so?
And then Sophia pulls the stony knob anyway, because it is her house and her time to waste and she has every right to both.
The drawer is locked.
But nothing is locked in Arcadia Gardens. It’s not that kind of neighborhood. They don’t lock their front door at night. No one does. It’s so unnecessary. They don’t even have a key to this place—the real estate agent didn’t mention one and after a while they just never bothered to have any made. They are safe here. That’s the whole point. Nothing can touch them here.
Sophia picks up her silver brush and jimmies the thin handle into the crack between the countertop and the drawer.
It doesn’t take much. Token resistance. The sound of the lock popping free is as satisfying as her shimmying, stretching foot finding purchase on the first step of the staircase.
Sophia blinks slowly and stares into the drawer.
It is not empty.
There’s a hairbrush in there. A hairbrush she has never seen before. And beside it, a lock of hair.
The brush is enormous. The back is made of antler or bone, the bristles no soft spring rabbit, but hard, sharp, wild boar. She picks it up and turns it over and over in her hands. The size of the thing makes her feel like a child juggling some forbidden adult prize she can barely hold on to. Someone has burned runes and designs and symbols Sophia cannot understand, except to think they are beautiful in a brutal sort of way, all over the handle and body of the thing: dark, angular, slashing. Maybe they’re letters. Maybe they’re stallions’ heads. Maybe they’re something very, very else.
But it is the lock of hair that troubles her more.
It is not her hair.
Sophia’s hair is soft and fine and curly and the color of good, sweet roasting pecans. The hair in the drawer is straight, coarse, and black as a secret. Each strand is so thick you could almost write with it. No one they know has hair like that. Not Mrs. Crabbe or Mrs. Lam or Mrs. Lyon or even beautiful Mrs. Palfrey two blocks over on Olive Street.
Like a horse’s mane.
Perhaps it is a horse’s mane.
But why would anyone tie the hair of a horse so lovingly, with a white ribbon just the same as the one Sophia uses to pull her hair away from her graceful collarbones every morning?
She puts it to her nose and smells the hair. The stench of it floods her brain and makes her gag: spices and rotting flesh and sour, private sweat and hot sands stretching away into a burning, lonely nothingness.
Slowly, as if underwater, as if someone else has been given run of her limbs, Sophia unties her own hair and begins to comb it with the great bone brush.
Tears float into the crescents of her eyes, and she does not know why.
IDARED
8. The front and back yards are to be used for leisure and ornamentation only. Flowers and hedges are acceptable if well-maintained and not allowed to obstruct sight lines into the interior of the property in order to ensure that all activity remains clearly visible from outside the home. No vegetable plantings or other agricultural activity is permitted.
9. It is forbidden to construct outbuildings for the purposes of industry such as beekeeping, the milling of grain or the tanning of hides, beermaking, soapmaking, cheesemaking, pottery, weaving, small vehicle repair, dancing, or other.
Copyright © 2021 by Catherynne M. Valente
