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bowl!"
    "So, was she okay?"
    "Hell, no! We had to take her to the hospital and get her stomach pumped! Damn fool thing to do. Over a boy!" He shook his lowered head. That must have happened almost twenty years ago. He doesn't appear to understand it even now.
    We were all quiet.
    "Gotta go," he said. "But, Flo, heed my words." He closed the door quietly behind him.
    "Why does he call you Flo?"
    "It's my real name—sort of. Really, it's Florenz. I was named after my grandfather."
    "Oh, so you changed it, like you changed my name from Gertrude to Truly."
    "If life hands you lemons, make lemon pie, with a fluffy meringue top! Embellish, embellish, embellish!"
    "He seems awfully interested in what you are doing," I said. "I guess he misses Granma Belle. She's been gone a long time. Most men would have remarried, or at least dated."
    "Oh, she was a great lady. We were good friends. In many ways I was closer to her than to my own brother."
    "Do you miss her, too?"
    She smiled at me. "After they were married, I came back to visit every year or so. We had a terrific time together.'"
    "What would you do?" My grandma died when I was very young. I remember oatmeal cookies and fairytales. Somehow I don't remember her being the life of the party.
    "Well, every time I came to visit we worked on a project together. One time , we made some fabulous curtains for her boudoir. They were so over the top—a rich brocade, with fringe a foot deep, and heavy braided silk tie-backs. They could have hung at Versailles."
    "I'll bet Granpa hated them. He doesn't like anything too girly." I couldn't imagine him sleeping in a bedroom that was so feminine.
    "No." She stopped talking. I thought she had something else to say, but then maybe not.
    "What else did you guys do?" I was beginning to forget things about Granma Belle. She is buried in Friendship Cemetery. Once in a while Mom goes there to clean her grave, but she never asks me to go with her. These stories were bringing her back to me.
    "Oh, one year I made her an elegant wool coat. We copied it from a photo in Vogue . It was emerald green, with square gold buttons shaped like the little boxes from a jewelry store." A sort of darkness fell over her face. I knew it was time to change the subject.
    "So, do you want to hear about my date?"
    "Certainly!"
    "It didn't go too great. I don't think he likes me."
    "Give it time. He just needs to learn more about you, about how fabulous you are! And, of course, you need to know a bit more about him. You do realize, Truly, there is the chance that he won't seem quite so marvelous when you meet the real person, the one we all hide."
    "Yeah, I guess so. I did find out why he hates his old track coach. He said he was mean."
    "Ah, 'mean.' The beginning of the mystery..."
    Sometimes Aunt Fleur talks in riddles. I don't always get what she is saying. "The beginning?"
    "Mysteries have layers. That is the first layer."
    It all seemed so straightforward to me. His coach was mean. Isn't that enough?

 
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    C olumbus is a place where nothing ever happens. The big draw here is Spring Pilgrimage, when a handful of tourists come to visit our huge collection of antebellum mansions. Owning one is the status symbol. Historic home owners are treated like the royalty they wish they were.
    Sometimes a house gets kicked off Pilgrimage, and that is news. There are a lot of pointless power-plays, even in the antebellum world of "nobody cares except the homeowners." The Columbus Historical Foundation takes their authority very seriously. You would think they were politicians, or something.
    I have trouble understanding why it is all so very important. It seems like people around here have no idea that the Civil War ended in the 1800s. Since the homes are all from the same period, they have a stuffy similarity that I cannot get excited about. I should ask Eric to explain it to me. He is certainly an expert on the past.
    Columbus is also the