Hall yanks me into the hallway, then with a flash and a bang teleports us to a small round room in the turret at the top of the house. He conjures a boulder to block the door, breathing heavily. “What iswrongwith your brother?”
“We’re not very good at sharing,” I reply primly.
“No kidding.” His gaze catches on a framed rectangle of gray-blue construction paper resting on a shelf. I recognize the handwriting, two lines in scented brown marker.
He reaches. “What’s—?”
“Oh, don’t—” I move for it, but he senses my embarrassment and strikes too quick.
“If I’m lucky, I’ll get to be as old as you someday,” he reads.“I’ll really miss you then. Happy birthday, Grandpa! Love, Bettie.”He grins at me, the smile lines bracketing his mouth deep and devilish. “So, which Bettie made this?”
“I used to make cards for my family when I was a kid.” I flip it over and show him my logo—Hughes & Co., as if I had assistants, with a shapeless miniature leaf for pizzazz.
“That’s so cute. I love cards. Handmade is always the best way to go, you know.”
“I wish I could still get away with handmade presents as an adult.”
There are a ton of boxes up here. I spy some of Mom’s oldyearbooks, a wad of receipts from the nineties, and contracts. Stacks upon stacks of contracts and screenplays. I pick up one with a coffee ring on the top page, right over the title:leon of naples,written by Felix Hughes.
“Oh my lord, Felix’s first screenplay.” I eagerly flip the pages. “Nowadays he goes for serious, gritty stuff, but he used to love farce. He tried to get Grandma to help him bring this one in front of producers, and she told him the only way she’d attach her name to this project was if the real Napoleon Bonaparte came back to life and starred in it.”
Hall appears over my shoulder. “Napoleon? What’s it about?”
SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, IN THE NAPOLEON TIMES:A storm whips. Rain and darkness are all over the place. A ship tosses in the ocean. Napoleon Bon Appetit is up in the crow’s nest. Twenty-something, with hollow eyes that have seen hardship. His mother died six years before he was born, taken by the whales while leaning against a railing. She was feeding breadcrumbs to the seagulls; now he’s traumatized and can’t go near whales. Or railings.
He docks his ship and heads to the nearest shelter. We see Lisabella McGovern, a beautiful ingénue standing in a ballroom. People tend to do as she tells them, and she has honorary degreesfrom a lot of colleges she’s never visited. Queen Victoria is there. Lisabella’s sister Sabrina is sewing her twenty-eighth pillowcase whilst dancing with the handsomest Sterlinghoover son (there are a lot of them and most are named Roger), laughing merrily and popularly. There’s a crack of thunder as she sees Napoleon is there.
NAPOLEON
[is strapping, brawny]
LISABELLA
Neapolitan! You came back for me!
NAPOLEON
All this time that I have been away conquering all of the wars, so many of them in fact, thoughts of you have fed and watered me. So many nights have I recollected the scent of your perfume and felt the blood pool to my nethers, like a snake swallowing a large egg.
LISABELLA
[is powerless in the face of such potent virility, such compelling seduction]
BILL O’REILLY
[is a lizard]
NAPOLEON
I shall rip your gown off and impale myself in you like a stiff cracker into soft cheese. You are brie, and I, your lover, am a pretzel stick. And together we shall make beautiful hors d’oeuvres to each other.
LISABELLA
[their connection is so powerful that memories flash behind her eyes that aren’t even hers. She sees him as a child, catching frogs in a stream. She sees him disappointing his father as a teenager, unable to secure that letter of recommendation. As an adult man, rubbing one out to a painting ofAmerican Gothic,which led to a long period of disconcerted self-reflection.]
[sighing lustfully]“Take me, Neo!”
“Out of all of Felix’s passion projects,” I say, laughing so hard that I snort, “this is truly the one that got away. I remember he refused to talk to Grandma for months after she insulted this screenplay. He wouldn’t let me look at it.” I flip through more pages. It appears Lisabella endures two pregnancies that each reach fullgestation, both occurring within a span of twelve months. She discovers that she isn’t the mother of the second child she gives birth to, which prompts an investigation into who Napoleon might have been fooling around with. He also has an evil twin brother who steals his identity.
