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“I’m hardly hysterical, Papa”

Elsa kneas over This was not a battle she could win She was to stay quiet and out of sight, not to go out into the world “I’o upstairs”

She turned away fro at her now that the moment had passed She h

ad vanished fro in place

She wished she’d never read The Age of Innocence What good ca? She would never fall in love, never have a child of her own

As she cli fro to the new Victrola

She paused

Go down, pull up a chair

She closed her bedroo out the sounds from below She wouldn’t be welcomed down there

In the mirror above her washstand, she saw her own reflection Her pale face looked as if it had been stretched by unkind hands into a sharp chin point Her long, corn-silk blond hair was flyaway thin and straight in a tie Her mother hadn’t allowed her to cut it in the fashion of the day, saying it would look even worse short Everything about Elsa was colorless, washed out, except for her blue eyes

She lit her bedside lahtstand

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Elsa climbed into bed and lost herself in the scandalous story, felt a frightening, sinful need to touch herself, and alave in The ache that came with the words was al

She closed the book, feeling un Restless Unsatisfied

If she didn’t do so drastic, her future would look no different from her present She would stay in this house for all her life, defined day and night by an illness she’d had a decade ago and an unattractiveness that couldn’t be changed She would never know the thrill of aa bed She would never hold her own child Never have a home of her own