Read The Brontë Plot for Free Online

the door and laid her keys on the American chest Sid had given her as a Christmas bonus the year before. She ran her fingers over its parched rough top as she watched James take a slow survey of her one-bedroom apartment. She followed the trail, trying to discern the thoughts chasing each other round and round in his mind. His expression revealed nothing.
    He turned his head from her living room, past her single armchair and solitary table, to the naked front bay window. He continued to the left and took in the small kitchen with its single stool at the counter. He then gazed across to her bedroom door. From this vantage point, she knew he could see her queen-size bed resting on its metal frame, and one corner of a mid-nineteenth-century French dresser. What had once felt like an evolving creation was, in its bald reality, an empty apartment.
    â€œNot what you expected?”
    He stepped into the living room, loafers tapping on the bare wood floor. Something caught his eye and his hand darted to the mantel. “You framed it?” He picked up the lone picture frame featuring an index card written in a precise hand.
    Roses are Red.
    Violets are Blue.
    You’ve stolen my heart.
    I’m in love with you.
    â€œI liked it.” Lucy lifted a shoulder.
    â€œI’m pleased my little note warrants such a place of honor.”
    She waited and he said nothing more, so she repeated her question in the form of a statement. “It’s not what you expected.”
    James didn’t answer. Instead he asked a question of his own. “Where are the curtains you always talk about?”
    â€œI don’t always . . . Here.” Lucy crossed to the bay window. Her high heels clicked like bullet fire echoing off the empty surfaces. She tiptoed to stop the sound and picked up one of the two panels lying on the floor. She whipped it out like a blanket, spreading it broad and smooth across the floor. “This one’s finished. It’s amazingly heavy.” She grabbed the other one and spread it out next to its twin and knelt down to flatten its edges. “This is the second one, and I need only a few more remnant squares to complete it.”
    She studied the intricate pattern created by hundreds of five-inch squares of fabric—deep, bold colors moving across the panel to soft pastels with threads of gold and silver squares stitched in the center as if pouring down like a waterfall. “When pulled, they’ll be large enough to cover the entire window.”
    â€œThey’re beautiful, Lucy.” James squatted beside her and ran his hand over a square of royal velvet, basted between a silk brocade and heavy jade linen. “There’s a design in here.”
    Lucy ran her hand across the first. “It starts here with the dark tones of winter then travels through spring to the high summer and closes in the bottom corner in fall. It’s not linear. I tried to capture the movement of the seasons and where they cross through texture more than through color.” She pulled the second panel toward her. “This one is a life. You start innocent and young and fresh and then the colors change—”
    â€œThey get pretty dark here. What’s this?”
    â€œI’m not sure. I made that section last year, but I think I was envisioning that questioning time, kinda like Jane Eyre’s time on the moors or Helen Graham’s months back with her abusive husband or Molly’s time when Roger is engaged to Cynthia. All the books have it . . . That time when you don’t know where you’ll be, but you can’t stay as you are. In life or in literature, that time rarely feels good.” She peeked at James, thinking perhaps sharing her panels was not her best idea. “It gets lighter here with more texture as one comes to truly understand oneself and can answer those big questions with some certainty. I have this vision of completeness and that’s this gold through