Hideaway

seen it, neither of them tried to talk her out of it, or wondered aloud if she were “up” to it, or even blinked. She loved them for that.
    The house was gorgeous—cream walls, white woodwork, modern furniture mixed with antiques, Chinese bowls and vases, everything just so. When they took her on a tour, Regina actually felt as dangerously clumsy as she had claimed to be in the meeting in Mr. Gujilio's office. She moved with exaggerated care, afraid that she would knock over one precious item and kick off a chain reaction that would spread across the entire room, then through a doorway into the next room and from there throughout the house, one beautiful treasure tipping into the next like dominoes in a world-championship toppling contest, two-hundred-year-old porcelains exploding, antique furniture reduced to match sticks, until they were left standing in mounds of worthless rubble, coated with the dust of what had been a fortune in interior design.
    She was so absolutely certain it was going to happen that she wracked her mind urgently, room by room, for something winning to say when catastrophe struck, after the last exquisite crystal candy dish had crashed off the last disintegrating table that had once been the property of the First King of France. “Oops,” did not seem appropriate, and neither did “Jesus Christ!” because they thought they had adopted a good Catholic girl not a foul-mouthed heathen (sorry, God), and neither did “somebody pushed me,” because that was a lie, and lying bought you a ticket to Hell, though she suspected she was going to wind up in Hell anyway, considering how she couldn't stop thinking the Lord's name in vain and using vulgarities. No balloon full of glowing golden gas for her.
    Throughout the house, the walls were adorned with art, and Regina noted that the most wonderful pieces all had the same signature at the bottom right corner: Lindsey Sparling. Even as much of a screwup as she was, she was smart enough to figure that the name Lindsey was no coincidence and that Sparling must be Mrs. Harrison's maiden name. They were the strangest and most beautiful paintings Regina had ever seen, some of them so bright and full of good feeling that you had to smile, some of them dark and brooding. She wanted to spend a long time in front of each of them, sort of soaking them up, but she was afraid Mr. and Mrs. Harrison would think she was a brownnosing phony, pretending interest as a way of apologizing for the wisecracks she had made in Mr. Gujilio's office about paintings on velvet.
    Somehow she got through the entire house without destroying anything, and the last room was hers. It was bigger than any room at the orphanage, and she didn't have to share it with anyone. The windows were covered with white plantation shutters. Furnishings included a corner desk and chair, a bookcase, an armchair with footstool, nightstands with matching lamps—and an amazing bed.
    “It's from about 1850,” Mrs. Harrison said, as Regina let her hand glide slowly over the beautiful bed.
    “English,” Mr. Harrison said. “Mahogany with hand-painted decoration under several coats of lacquer.”
    On the footboard, side rails, and headboard, the dark-red and dark-yellow roses and emerald-green leaves seemed alive, not bright against the deeply colored wood but so lustrous and dewy-looking that she was sure she would be able to smell them if she put her nose to their petals.
    Mrs. Harrison said, “It might seem a little old for a young girl, a little stuffy—”
    “Yes, of course,” Mr. Harrison said, “we can send it over to the store, sell it, let you choose something you'd like, something modern. This was just furnished as a guest room.”
    “No,” Regina said hastily. “I like it, I really do. Could I keep it, I mean even though it's so expensive?”
    “It's not that expensive,” Mr. Harrison said, “and of course you can keep anything you want.”
    “Or get rid of anything you want,” Mrs. Harrison said.
    “Except us, of course,” Mr. Harrison said.
    “That's right,” Mrs. Harrison said, “I'm afraid we come with the house.”
    Regina's heart was pounding so hard she could barely get her breath. Happiness. And fear. Everything was so wonderful—but surely it couldn't last. Nothing so good could last very long.
    Sliding, mirrored doors covered one wall of the bedroom, and Mrs. Harrison showed Regina a closet behind the mirrors. The hugest closet in the world. Maybe you