The Good House
A Novel
Chapter One
JULY 4, 2001
Seventy-two years later
Angela Toussaint's Fourth of July party began well enough, but no one would
remember that because of the way it would end. That's what everyone would talk
about later. The way it ended.
Angela didn't want to have a party that day. Maybe it was the lawyer in her,
but she was too much of a stickler to enjoy hosting parties, brooding over
details. Is there enough food? What if there's an accident with the
fireworks? Will somebody have too much beer and break his neck on those steep
steps outside? Angela didn't have the hostess gene, and she couldn't
remember why she ever wanted to throw a Fourth of July party at Gramma Marie's
house. Like most of the well-intentioned plans in her life, the party had grown
into something to dread.
"Shit on me."
Angela's digital clock said it was just after six. The first guests would be
here in less than a half hour, and she wasn't fully dressed. Still damp from
the shower, Angela tore through her jumbled pile of shirts in the top drawer of
her grandmothe ... read full excerpt from The Good House: A Novel ebook
