Little Black Dress with Bonus Material Read Online Free Page A

anything grow,” Granddad had said proudly; except perhaps the Morganthaler name, which had been clipped in two upon Herman’s entry into the United States. Purportedly, my great-grandfather had been none too pleased at the immigration officials who’d lopped off half his surname; but like a good German, he’d taken it with a stiff upper lip, something his descendants—particularly Granddad—seemed inordinately proud of. That explained why Joseph Morgan claimed anyone who didn’t exhibit such evenness of keel (like his irascible bride, my grandmother Charlotte) was surely tainted by the blood of the high-strung McGillis clan.
    â€œThat woman’s capable of scaring grown men and small children with a single scowl,” he’d professed to anyone who’d listen. And if there was one thing Granddad knew firsthand, it was how quickly McGillis blood could boil.
    Grandma Charlotte commanded attention like an army general. Even on her deathbed, she could paralyze us with a single look. Despite a bent and frail body and a paper-thin voice, a hoarsely whispered, “Hush!” would invoke immediate silence. I used to stammer in her presence, an affliction that went away entirely once she’d passed.
    Luckily, my mother had inherited the quiet demeanor of her German ancestors: stoic, sensible, and amenable to almost everything. I think I am much like her. What I longed for most was peace, not confrontation.
    Despite sharing my genes, my younger sister, Anna, seemed my opposite in every way. Like Charlotte, she was small in stature with a larger-than-life personality, although Anna wasn’t so much demanding as dramatic. When Anna smiled, it was as though the heavens opened up and the light of God Himself shined down. When she was sad or angry, there was no place so dark in the world. Our grandmother even took to calling her “Sarah Bernhardt” after the actress who’d been a theatrical sensation when Charlotte and Joseph had been courting. My grandmother showed me a photograph of Miss Bernhardt from an old theater bill, and I decided she looked very much like a grown-up version of Anna with her lush dark hair and dark eyebrows.
    â€œWhatever part she played, she could make you believe anything,” Charlotte had assured me, and I couldn’t help but think the same about Anna.
    My sister had a fierce imagination, always spoke before thinking, and had dreams “bigger than her britches,” as Daddy used to say.
    She loved to spin the globe in our father’s study, putting a finger blindly on a spot when it stopped. “Tanzania! Oh, yes, I want to go there, Evie!” she’d squeal and then she’d talk about leaving Blue Hills and traveling the world, never lingering in one spot for more than a few weeks. “I’ll die of boredom if I stay,” she’d confided, but I’d brushed it off, because that was so typically Anna. She had no boundaries and a penchant for exaggerating.
    When Granddad’s heart gave out, I was in the first grade, and my parents moved us from the tiny cottage in the wooded rear of the Morgan property into the stately Victorian to keep the widowed Charlotte company. Whether I liked it or not, our grandmother took a keen interest in Anna and me, Anna especially. She instructed Mother to dress us for afternoon tea on Sundays after church, and we had to wear white gloves and keep our hands neatly folded on the lace-edged napkin in our lap. We couldn’t speak unless spoken to, so we mostly said, “thank you,” and, “please.” To Anna, it was a game, a chance to dress up in one of Mother’s outrageous hats, but I could never wait for the hour to end. The only thing I liked about teatime with Charlotte was the Earl Grey she poured steaming hot from the pot.
    When the weather was nice, my grandmother encouraged my father to bring us with him to the vineyards, which he would do on occasion,