The first thing she noticed when the light popped on was that the wallpaper had rows and rows of tiny lilacs on it, like scratch-and-sniff paper, and the room actually smelled a little like lilacs. There was a four-poster bed against the wall, the torn, gauzy remnants of what had once been a canopy now hanging off the posts like maypoles.

What is this?" Emily asked, looking in the largest Styrofoam container. There was a bunch of dry-looking chopped meat inside.
"Barbecue."
"This isn't barbecue," Emily said. "Barbecue is hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill."
Vance laughed, which automatically made Emily smile. "Ha! Blasphemy! In North Carolina, barbecue means pork, child. Hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill- that's called, 'cooking out' around here," he explained with sudden enthusiasm. "And there are two types of North Carolina barbecue sauce-Lexington and Eastern North Carolina. Here, look." He excitedly found a container of sauce and showed her, accidentally spilling some on the table. "Lexington-style is the sweet sugar-and-tomato-based sauce, some people call it the red sauce, that you put on chopped or pulled pork shoulder. Julia's restaurant is Lexington-style. But there are plenty of Eastern North Carolina-style restaurants here. They use a thin, tart, vinegar-and-pepper based sauce. And, generally, they use the whole hog. But no matter the style, there's always hush puppies and coleslaw. And, if I'm not mistaken, those are slices of Milky Way cake. Julia makes the best Milky Way cakes."
"Like the candy bar?"
"Yep. The candy bars are melted and poured into the batter. It means 'Welcome.'"
Emily looked over to the cake Julia had brought yesterday morning, still on the counter. "I thought an apple stack cake meant 'Welcome.'"
"Any kind of cake means 'Welcome,'" he said. "Well, except for coconut cake and fried chicken when there's a death."
Emily looked at him strangely.
"And occasionally a broccoli casserole," he added.

Bay's room was the first one at the top of the staircase. It was painted a dove gray that turned peacock blue after dark, as if the room absorbed the warmth of daylight and radiated with it at night.

My childhood bedroom had wallpaper that was printed with clouds and rainbows.

The air around her was cool lately, as if she were creating a vacuum with her unhappiness.

Back then she used to hide from her mother in the secret space just to worry her, but now she stocked it with magazines, paperback romances and sweets. Lots and lots of sweets. Moonpies and pecan rolls, Chick-O-Sticks and Cow Tales, Caramel Creams and Squirrel Nut Zippers, Red Hots and Bit-O-Honey, boxes upon boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes. The space had a comforting smell to it, like Halloween, like sugar and chocolate and crisp plastic wrappers.