Read Cloudland for Free Online Page A

bottoms. You would never guess there might be marital strife lurking behind this happy scene. His domestic ease momentarily put my own slapdash housekeeping into relief. Despite the fact that I wrote a household hints column, my place had always been chaotic: dishes stacked up to a tilting mass; mismatched socks stuffed into drawers, orphan shoes; sludged coffee cups; and too many animals roaming around—and not always in harmony. By comparison, Anthony’s house seemed orderly and clean, and the few times I’d visited them I imagined that he and Emily created a seamless, choreographed domesticity graced by all of Emily’s hothouse plants—orchids and anthurium and Hawaiian lava and plumeria, tendrils of vines strangling banisters and bookcases and support beams.
    While Anthony was changing out of his p.j.’s, I went to say a quick hello to Emily. I found her surrounded by what looked like a stack of term papers, sitting at a long green table in the sunroom, which smelled of humid earth and fertilizer. The room was chilly and she was wearing an ecru-colored angora sweater. She seemed deep into her work; I didn’t want to disturb her and told her so.
    “Don’t worry. I can take a short break,” Emily said, putting down her yellow highlighter pen. She had light tan skin, a curly mass of black hair with a radiant, natural streak of white running along the top. Looking at me over half-moon reading glasses, she said in her slight delicate drawl, “We need to see you more often. Drop in anytime, there doesn’t have to be a reason.”
    “Same goes for you and the girls,” I said. “ Chez moi .”
    Her brow furrowed. “There is one thing I keep meaning to ask: in your column have you ever written about how to get watermarks off of wood furniture?”
    “I covered that about a year ago. It depends on whether they’re light or dark marks.”
    “They’re light.”
    “Okay.” I thought for a moment. “So you take two small dishes, one of table salt and one of mineral oil. You dip your finger in the oil first and then the salt and you rub them into the wood. When the spot is gone then you wipe with a soft, dry cloth and polish it.
    “If that doesn’t work, you can try cigar or cigarette ash and boiled linseed oil. You follow the grain of the wood and wipe the ash lightly into the spot, then wipe with the linseed oil.”
    Emily laughed. “Now I just have to find some ash and linseed.”
    “I’d start with the salt and mineral oil.”
    “I will.” She hesitated. “May I ask: how come you write your column under a pseudonym rather than your real name?”
    I got this question a lot and it made me uncomfortable. “Because I don’t consider it serious journalism. Like the major pieces, exposés, profiles for national newspapers and magazines I used to do. I got offered the household hints gig after my ex-husband died. A paradox, really. My readers should only know what a bad housekeeper I am. But the pay has been steady and handsome. And I’ve managed to stay with it. My readership keeps growing. The column keeps getting picked up by more and more newspapers.”
    “I know lots of people who follow you.”
    “The best part is they basically publish what I write. I don’t have to fight over every line the way I used to do with top editors. And I can’t deny it makes me a good income. Besides, I am known as Marian Mills. Even if I wanted to use my real name now I wouldn’t be able to.”
    “Yeah, but everybody in Vermont and New Hampshire knows your real name.” Emily referred to the considerable amount of local press I’d received.
    Having changed into a pair of corduroys and a blue-jean shirt, Anthony now poked his head into his wife’s study. “I’m ready,” he said to me. I noticed that they hardly exhanged a glance. I told Emily good-bye as he led the way down a hall lined with portraiture of both their families: distinguished, scholarly-looking black men; and his more rough-and-tumble Scottish