Amy stared out the window at the endless sky. “Remember the year that we didn’t get any gifts?” she asked, her voice so low, Cecelia could barely hear her.
Cecelia surprised herself by matching Amy’s tone. “No. We always got gifts.”
“No we didn’t. Remember, right after Mom left and we were on the road with Dad, in that moldy hotel outside of Tampa?”
“He had found Jane Smith the meter maid. The wrong Jane Smith, thank God. She was awful. Why wouldn’t Dad ever see how awful these Janes were? She would give tickets twenty minutes before the meter ran out and then argue with people like she enjoyed it. But Dad was convinced she was his One True Love! How can you remember that? You were too little.”
“I believed in Santa, Cel. Dad told us that Santa had brought us the right Jane Smith and that was the only present a person needed—”
“Daddy would never say that.” Cecelia felt a strange tugging in the bottom of her gut.
“Of course he would. All he cared about was True Love. He didn’t just say that little girls didn’t need presents, he believed it. He was such a damn romantic, he thought that that fat, farty old meter maid was the world’s best gift to his daughters.”
Cecelia tried not to remember. She was done with all that. Her father’s obsession with True Love had ruined more than that one Christmas.
“I tried so hard to be good,” Amy went on. “I tried extra hard to use the Voice to get Daddy the money he needed to make Jane see that we were her perfect little family.”
“I remember you being an extra suck-up kiss-ass,” Cecelia said. “You were all, ‘Yes, Daddy, no, Daddy.’ I wanted to kill you.”
“That’s what you remember? Wanting to kill me? You know, Cel, I think that you need to open your eyes a little and look at the bigger picture. It wasn’t my fault.” Her voice ratcheted louder.
They sat in the silence. Cecelia closed her eyes. Suddenly the bigger picture appeared in her mind fully formed like a scene in a movie—the nubby, brown overwashed bedspread, the spicy vapor of industrial cleaning fluid, the moon-shaped water rings that stained the hotel tub. She had sat on the edge of the tub and traced them with her finger, thinking of her mother and wondering where she was. “I was sure that Mom sent us presents that year, but that they were lost because we traveled so much. I imagined all sorts of dolls and games waiting for me—for us—back in Baltimore. Just as soon as Dad found his True Love, we’d go home and get them.”
Amy sat down. Cecelia sat beside her.
“We always had each other,” Amy said.
Cecelia swallowed hard. “Yeah, who needs Santa when you’ve got an annoying little sister?”
“An annoying little sister who’s trying to save you.”
Cecelia closed her eyes. “I don’t want to be saved. Lie for me. It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”
Amy sighed. “Does this have anything to do with Finn?”
“Finn?” Cecelia’s eyes popped open.
“Did something happen last night that you’re not telling me?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you. Did he go off with another woman?”
“How did you know that?” Cecelia cried. “No. Wait. He didn’t exactly go off with her. I mean, I don’t know if he did. Jack showed up—”
“—and Finn took off with another woman.”
“I don’t know. And you know what? I don’t care. I’m marrying Jack—”
“I wish you would stop being so rigid about that.”
Cecelia’s blood rose, heating her face. Amy was impossible. She’d just have to lay down the law. “I have to go. Tonight, I’m coming back with Jack and we’re having a séance at which you will break sulfur capsules and howl at the moon and tell him that he’s my One True Love. And if you don’t, then you’re leaving. I’m kicking you out. For good. Are we clear?”
“Finn got laid by another woman and you’re angry.”
Images of Finn and Camille, framed in the doorway of the hotel bar, flooded her. “I don’t know if he—”
Suddenly the closet door flew open and Maya exploded out.
“Well I know! He did get laid! Twice! And I’m glad. Because I don’t want you to be my mommy anyway! You’re a great big liar and you don’t even believe in Santa!”
Maya’s face was red and wet with streaming tears. She flung herself past Amy and Cecelia and ran for the door while they sat, openmouthed, the reverberation of the slammed door echoing around them.
Chapter 19
It started as a tiny light that Cecelia swatted away like a firefly. But the light returned, brighter. She closed her eyes against it. But it was no use. It lit the outside of her eyelids, demanding to get in. The whispering. The radio. There was only one way that little girl could have gotten in her closet. “I’m an idiot.”
Amy shrugged.
“A moron.” Cecelia opened her eyes and she let the light blind her. She hoped she’d never see again. She fell back onto the couch. “Trudy’s Bar. Trudy Dubois. She used to run that pawnshop in Fell’s Point where Dad would go when we were kids and things really got bad. He pawned all of Grandma Molly’s silver there.”
Amy shrugged again. “I like to keep in touch with old friends.”
Cecelia was going to throw up. “Trudy isn’t Maya’s granny. How did you—?”
“Rent-a-granny. The kid made it up.” Amy twirled her hair around her finger. She was licking her lips furiously. She didn’t meet Cecelia’s eye.
Maya is in on the con. “Tell me everything. Straight. Now.” Cecelia was falling off a cliff, the world whizzing by her.
Amy sighed. “I wanted to bring you your One True Love. I searched everywhere for Finn Franklin Concord. It took five damn years.” She paused, apparently for Cecelia to commend her hard work.
Cecelia urged her on with cold, hard eyes.
“Right. So, I found Maya’s dad. Who, by the way, is one good-looking man. You should be glad—”
Cecelia held up a warning hand.
“Right.” Amy shrugged. “So I met Maya. We got to talking every Tuesday when she’d get herself a milk shake at this diner, and she let me in on her mommy fantasy.” She paused again.
Cecelia shook her head. Fantasy. It was all a fantasy. A con. A lie. A story. “You used a little kid.”
“It was for everyone’s benefit! I saw that if I could figure out a way to convince the kid to get her dad to come to Baltimore, you guys could meet. So I tell the kid that I know who her daddy’s One True Love is. I tell her all about my powers. I tell her that I can make her daddy the happiest man alive. And, Cecelia—I tell her all this because it’s true. It is! I wasn’t conning her! You know that!”
Cecelia scowled. “Go on.”
“So one Tuesday, the kid’s slurping away on her milk shake, and she says, ‘If I had a granny in Baltimore, we could visit her.’ Which was when I thought of Trudy. So I told her that I knew a lady who could be like her granny for a while. And Maya says, ‘Hey, you mean, like, I could rent her?’ Bam! It was like a lightning bolt had struck us both! It was brilliant. Free chocolate milk shakes for a month for that kid! So we worked out the whole rent-a-granny plan. Trudy was delighted about the whole thing. Trudy believes in True Love and doing good deeds, you know.”
Cecelia felt every drop of her blood drain out of her body. “The baseball. That was it, wasn’t it? Trudy was always a baseball nut? You didn’t have the money to pay her for her part in the con so you told her Finn could play for the bar’s team.” Cecelia felt dizzy. Why hadn’t she seen it before?
“Well, okay. Whatever. But don’t you see? It was all meant to be! The rest, as they say, is history.”
“The rest is repulsive!” The cells of Cecelia’s body were floating away one by one. She could barely speak. “You and that little girl are conning Finn. Conning me. My God. You’re corrupting a minor. That’s—that’s just so wrong on so many levels.”
“Oh. That’s rich. You can lie to your f
iancé but I can’t put together a tiny con to unite two lovers who are meant to be. And find a child a mommy.” She paused, then raised her chin proudly. “And help a ball team—”
Cecelia covered her ears with her hands like a child. She had trusted Amy. But Amy had brought Finn to Baltimore; she had brainwashed the child; and Cecelia had strolled right into Amy’s trap. “Get out. Go. I can’t stand that I didn’t see it sooner. You’re making that child into a tiny con artist—”
“People are what they are, Cel. Destiny.”
Cecelia froze, her skin ice. Her voice came out strained and high. “Is Finn in on this?”
“No. Of course not. He’s for real. He just wants to make his kid happy. He’ll do anything for that brat! What an easy—”
“No.” Cecelia held up her hand like a traffic cop. “Not another word. Go. Don’t be here tonight. Don’t be here for another ten years! Twenty this time! I’m telling Jack that you’re gone. When I come home tonight, I want you and everyone who is in my closet and under my bed and lurking in a stinking bar gone.” Cecelia fought desperately to stay in control. She carefully gathered her purse, took one last long look at Amy, who was wearing Cecelia’s jeans, her bracelet, even her lipstick—well, it was a small price to pay—and then raced out of the apartment to catch a tiny, weeping con girl.
A semicircle of concrete steps led from the shopping mall to the promenade along the waterfront. Cecelia spotted Maya sitting on the top step on the far side of the curve. All around her, campers in matching yellow T-shirts darted and romped. They were Maya’s size, but they looked like creatures from a colorful, happier world. The Planet of Happy Childhood.
A blond boy chased a brown-haired girl around Maya. He caught his prey by the shoulder, then yanked her pigtail. The girl shrieked in pain and delight.
Cecelia had never had a pigtail pulled.
Actually. She never had a pigtail. It was ballerina buns even back then.
Maya never looked away from the horizon.
Cecelia started toward her, then stopped. She sank on to the steps across the arc from Maya. What could she say? Sorry the glass slipper didn’t fit? Sorry the clock struck twelve and you saw my rags? Sorry, so, so terribly sorry about Amy. She doesn’t look like a wicked witch, but then they never do in the real world.
Oh, hell. Tears rose in Cecelia’s eyes and she forced them back. Maybe she could explain to Maya that at least she had a cool dad. All the family Cecelia had was Amy, and she stank.
Maya still stared, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. She had stopped crying, but her face was puffy and red.
Cecelia stared at the spot on the horizon that fascinated Maya. There was nothing there. Not a fishing boat or pleasure yacht, just the hazy line where the distant dips and curves of Federal Hill across the harbor met the sky. The heat of the concrete soothed Cecelia, and she leaned back on the steps. She closed her eyes, allowing the summer sun to massage her face. She stayed like that for—how long? A minute? An hour? A lifetime? When she opened her eyes, she saw that Maya had assumed the exact same position across the arc of the stairs, her head resting on the step, the sun healing her swollen face.
If only Cecelia could send thought rays zinging around the curved steps, like at one of those magical childhood places where you could whisper into one side of an arc and your voice would travel, ghostlike, to the other end. What would she say?
She studied the curve. Maya’s ear was against it. Who knows? She put her lips close to the step and whispered, “It’ll be okay.”
Maya didn’t budge.
Good thing that she didn’t hear. After all, wasn’t that just another lie?
Life certainly hadn’t been okay for Cecelia. How many weeks, months, years, had Cecelia spent, scheming, praying for a perfect mother after her mother left? The Jane Smith her father ended up marrying was awful—lazy and stupid. And her dad was thrilled. It was a hard lesson that the happiness of someone you love didn’t necessarily correspond with your own happiness. All those years she was buoyed by the hope her dad’s Jane Smith would be a saint, able to fix their broken family, be a mother to her. Her hope had carried her through.
Maya still hadn’t moved. She looked as if she might never move. Live there. Become a statue. A perch for the overeager pigeons. She was a real girl once, people might say. But they’d be wrong. Maya had been robbed of her childhood the moment her mother was taken from her. Then fleeced again by Amy’s manipulations. Then rung dry by overhearing the adult world’s take on the okay-ness of living a life of lies.
Or was that Cecelia’s life she had just described?
Cecelia whispered into the step, “It’ll suck, but it’ll be okay.”
Suddenly Maya turned and looked right at Cecelia across the fifty yards of concrete and crowds. She narrowed her eyes. Then Cecelia heard her voice, clear as day, “No, you suck. But I’ll be okay.”
Cecelia’s eyes widened. Had Maya really said that? Or had Cecelia imagined it?
The girl stood, smoothed her shorts and T-shirt, and walked away.
Wherever those words had come from, they were true. Maya would be fine. Cecelia watched her weave through the scampering children, her head high, more than a child.
Well, that was best, really. Maya and Finn could leave Baltimore, go back to sunny Florida where boys could pull Maya’s pigtails and Finn could get on with his life.
Or, he could marry Camille and Maya could join the kids romping around the waterfront in a bright yellow T-shirt.
Camille would make Maya a fine mother.
Cecelia shuddered at the thought.
She had to forget about them. Forget about everything and get back to the way her life was before Amy.
How hard, after all, could that be?
Chapter 20
Amy made herself a cheese sandwich, then sat down at the kitchen table. She stared out over the water. She’d go to their grandmother’s house in North Baltimore. Start fixing it up. No big deal. Cecelia would come around, eventually.
But she might as well have some lunch first. After all, maybe Cecelia would relent and let her stay. Cecelia would realize that Amy was bringing her True Love. Then Amy would explain the whole truth—how her powers were fading more and more every day, and she needed Cecelia’s help, although she didn’t know why. They would laugh about that awhile. Crazy mixed-up spirit world. Then Cecelia would agree to help Amy get her powers back because Amy had brought her the most beautiful thing in the world—True Love.
She heard a key in the door. She looked around her guiltily, then rationalized that she was only sitting at the table eating a sandwich. That was okay. Cecelia had said to go, now. But “now” could mean right after a sandwich; even Cecelia wouldn’t deny her lunch.
But it was a man’s footsteps that neared the kitchen.
“Amy?” Jack called, his voice oddly rough. “Are you here?”
What is this, Take the Day Off from Work to Torture Amy Day?
Jack appeared in the doorway in full lawyer regalia. His tie was metallic gold. “Thought I’d come home for lunch for a change,” he said. He was in a dark gray suit with a dark blue shirt. He carefully placed his briefcase on the floor and came into the kitchen. “I see I’m just in time. How are the cheese sandwiches in this joint?”
“Oh, especially tasty today. Although, I understand this place does a pretty mean canned soup.”
“Can’t beat chicken noodle,” he said. He sat down across from Amy and made no effort to get any food. He wrung his hands, and Amy thought of Cecelia. Did he always have the same tell as Cecelia, or had Jack unconsciously adopted Cecelia’s?
“I have questions,” he said.
She looked toward the door. How long would Cecelia be gone? She’d flip out if she saw them together. No, she’d be at work till dinner for sure. “Shoot.”
“If you know the name of people’s True Loves, why are you alone?”
“You must be a lawyer,” she said, taking a particularly challengi
ng bite of her sandwich and answering through the mouthful. “Okay, here’s the deal. I can hear everybody’s Name but mine.” She swallowed. “Believe me, I’ve spent hours, days even, staring at myself in the mirror, trying to call a name up. I used to leave pictures of myself around, hoping that one day I’d glance at one and the Name would come to me.”
“You’d trick your spirit guide or whatever it is that talks to you?”
Amy hadn’t thought of it exactly that way. Con the ghosts. Well, why not? “I guess.”
Jack shook his head. “Okay. Question Number Two: Why won’t Cecelia let you tell her the Name of her True Love?”
“I shouldn’t get involved.” Amy pushed her sandwich away. She wasn’t hungry anymore. Then she pulled it back. This conversation sucked, but really, it was a good sandwich. And Cecelia might throw Amy out the second she stormed back, so she should eat.
“I’m losing her,” Jack said. “I don’t know what to do. I’m looking for advice, Amy. I need your help.”
He did need her help. Poor guy was about to marry the wrong woman—ruin both his and Cecelia’s lives in one fell swoop.
No, she couldn’t. She thought back to Cecelia’s raw fury at their harmless little granny scam. Cecelia would never forgive her if she helped Jack too. And she needed Cecelia. (Why? Why? Why?) “Cel always hated the Names. She blamed them for everything rotten in our childhood. It’s not about you, if that makes you feel any better. It’s about me.”
“Amy, tell me Cecelia’s Name.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t.”
“Then you’ve told me. By not telling me, you’ve told me.” His jaw twitched.
Amy felt his trap close around her. She licked her lips. “It’s not that simple.”
“I think it is.” He got up from the table and started to pace. “Not that I believe in your magic—but Cecelia does.”
“It’s not magic.”
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