The Golden Gate by Amy Chua EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Amy Chua
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Thrillers
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
1930
Inside an alabaster palace one January afternoon in 1930, a six-year-old girl
hiding inside a closed armoire felt truly alone for the first time in her life.
Just seconds earlier, Issy, short for Isabella, had been in that tingly state
of anticipation, half-excited, half-fearful, awaiting the moment when the
door would be thrown open and she would be found by her sister, Iris.
Issy loved these special Sundays, when she and Iris and Mommy would
put on their nicest dresses and go to the White Palace, where Mommy
would change into her all-white skirt and stockings and bandeau and play
tennis with her best friend, Mrs. von Urban. On those days, Mommy was
always beautiful and nervous in a giggly way, and smelled a little different.
She would give the girls the whole afternoon off, and while she and Mrs.
von Urban had their tennis game, Issy and Iris would have the run of the
hotel, which Iris, the older of the two by eighteen months, seemed to know
like the back of her hand, yet there was always more to discover—secret
stairways, the seven-story spiral slide, hidden turrets, ballrooms that
appeared out of nowhere.
Iris with her jet-black curls and Issy with her blond ones did everything
together. Issy couldn’t remember a day of her life when she hadn’t been
with her older sister, which is why until this moment she’d never felt alone.
But now, suddenly, she did. She was curled up in a ball, arms around
her knees, in the bottom quarter of a decorative armoire in a long hallway. It
was a clever hiding place, but not her best. Iris should have found her by
now. Issy should have been able to hear her sister’s light limping steps, one
foot just a little heavier than the other, or her sing-song whisper, “I’m going
to find you! I know where you are!” Instead everything was silent. Issy’s
legs were starting to stiffen. She didn’t know it, but she’d been in the
armoire for almost thirty minutes.
She pushed open one of the doors and, seeing that the hallway was
empty, stepped out. The palace no longer felt right. Even the silence
sounded different from other silences she’d known.
She made her way back to the hotel lobby and went to their palm tree
—the spot they’d designated in case they lost each other. The lobby was
bustling as always with men looking smart in their fedoras, bellboys
overloaded with suitcases, women in pearls and fur collars—but Iris wasn’t
there.
Issy went next to the tennis courts even though she knew her mother
wouldn’t be there either. She checked all the courts, with their soft red clay
and balls flying through the air and grown-ups running back and forth.
There was no Mommy to be found, and Issy felt even more alone.
The little girl returned to the lobby, checked the palm tree again, then
decided to go down to the enormous kitchens in the basement. She knew
Iris loved the kitchen, its chaotic order, the steaming vats of soup on the
stove, the loaves of bread on metal trays sliding in and out of the ovens, and
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