Hadrian's Wall by Felicia Jensen Read Free Book Online

versus
Baroque. Eagle versus peacock. Congratulations, girl! This time,
you have excelled in metaphors.
    The only thing Adrian and Charity had in
common was their skin, which was the color of ivory, but that
wasn’t enough to establish any kinship. Dr. Talbott and Dr.
Barringer were pale, but of course, there were other visible
differences: Adrian’s hair was black with bluish reflections when
the light shone on him. Charity’s hair was platinum blonde—cut in a
Veronica Lake style. Well, that didn’t mean anything. One of them,
maybe both of them dyed their hair, but Adrian didn’t strike me as
the metro-sexual type—the kind of guy who’s concerned with
aesthetics and everything else. I don’t think he dyed his hair. I
don’t think doctors have much spare time for such things. Moreover,
nobody could be as naturally blonde as Charity. Considering all
that—and that everything seemed to be making my head swim, I
doubted that they were related.
    But if she wasn’t Adrian’s sister, she could
only be...his wife! My heart missed a beat and then accelerated.
Had I missed something? How could I have failed to notice a wedding
ring? I should have paid more attention! Charity was probably here
to let me know that my inappropriate flirtation with her husband
had not gone unnoticed. My God!
    “My friends and my cousin Adrian call me
‘CC.’”
    Cousin. That word had never seemed
so...fascinating. Cousin. So he wasn’t married—or was he? To have a
cousin doesn’t mean there is no Mrs. Cahill, nor does it prevent
the existence of girlfriends.
    “You can call me ‘CC’ too, if you like,” she
said, nonchalantly opening the bags. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll become
good friends.”
    I took a half second to process what she’d
said.
    “I don’t know if I’ll be here long enough to
make friends,” I replied in the same irreverent way.
    The way she was talking about “being
friends” seemed frivolous to me. Even if it was normal and everyone
acted this way, the fact is that I always doubted the emotional
ties between people—friends, husbands and wives, lovers, children
and parents, colleagues...whatever it was. I believed in genuine
and disinterested feelings from people as much as I believed in
Santa Claus and I despised the inconsequential way that most people
dealt with this subject—swearing eternal loyalty one time, but
turning away at the slightest sign of trouble. Besides, her manner
did not convince me, nor was it was obvious to me that Charity was
here out of obligation.
    She dramatically tilted her head to the side
while she reflected on my answer.
    “Where do you intend to go?” she asked in a
jocular manner. “Hadrian’s Wall may be a small town, but it’s a
nice place to live. Appearances can be deceiving, though, so you’ll
just have to decide for yourself.”
    I tried to say, or rather,
Charity says that the town is a nice place to live, but she
specifies the strengths of the town in an ironic way. Because she
thinks that people from out of town will appreciate these things.
Of course, she turns these aspects into trivial things, knowing
that Melissa will take a tremendous shock when she see how majestic
the town is. These reasons make her leave things between the
lines . She paused
for effect, while sitting on the edge of my bed. “People care about
each other here.”
    I suddenly had some idea how wrong I was
about Adrian Cahill. Not only was he well situated with regard to
his life’s work, he was absurdly rich!
    * * *
    There I was, sitting in the dark, musing on
the curious “late afternoon” I’d spent in company of Charity
Cahill, a weird, but fascinating girl. She seemed fragile,
glamorous, but at the same time...something I cannot explain—she
was decidedly casual and spontaneous—a walking contradiction. In
Hadrian’s Wall, nothing and no one was at it seemed.
    I looked at the piles of clothes she’d
brought me, some carefully folded in piles on the coffee table,
while