No. Don’t imagine. Oh, hell. A woman like her—
He glanced at Cecelia, and was shocked by the change in her. Her smile was gone, replaced by a look of utter confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“That was good,” she said, plunking stiffly down onto a small bench.
“I know.” He wiped a smudge of white plaster powder off her cheek.
“No. I mean scary good.” She was staring into the distance, an actress reading stiffly off cue cards. “Too good.”
“There’s no such thing as too good.” He sat down next to her. Every cell in his body joyfully ricocheted off every other cell in a riot of electricity. He wanted her all over again just to soothe the panic out of her eyes. A similar panic began forming in his gut. Oh, hell. He could see what was wrong in her eyes—she was terrified that her One True Love was him.
“I think you’re it—my One True Love,” she said. She looked down at the white powder covering her. She rubbed her hands over her sleeves, down her front. The powder wasn’t budging.
He shrugged. “So, what’s wrong with that?”
“We have great sex and then you die.”
He felt endlessly relieved that she wasn’t miserable because he wasn’t an overeducated stiff. He was thinking the worst of her, which wasn’t fair. Especially after what had just happened in that shed.
My God, what had happened in that shed? He felt the sensation of it course through him all over again. “It’s reassuring to know you care. But I’m not gonna die.”
She rubbed furiously at the dust clinging to her. Maybe she was worried because he wasn’t an overeducated stiff.
“You can’t believe that voodoo stuff. Something else is bugging you.”
She considered for a moment. “Okay. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s more like, we have great sex and then you leave.”
“I can’t stay here,” he reminded her. He took a deep breath. Might as well get this out in the open. “And you don’t want me to stay.”
“What?” Her eyes flashed.
“You think you do. Because you’re lonely. Jack left. Amy left. And we just had life-altering sex. But face it, I don’t fit in your world. I’m in construction. I’m working like mad to take care of my wife’s medical bills. I have a kid who is going to end up in juvie lockup at the rate we’re going. Look at you.”
She looked down at her black suit. The white dust hadn’t budged. “Don’t do this, Finn. I’m not that same person you met three weeks ago.”
“I have to do it, Cecelia.” He took a deep breath. “We’re not really meant for each other, no matter what the stars or spirits or whatever say. Even if the sex was—” Worth dying for? Worth living for? Worth risking his kid for? Oh, hell, was it more than sex? Did it matter? Or did getting Maya away from here matter? He was starting to lose his resolve. “Couldn’t we just say what we had is great sex between two lonely people? Isn’t that enough?”
Her voice was small. “We fucked in a shed. No, that’s not quite enough.” She was so white and still, she looked like she was going to turn to plaster herself, never leave the garden.
He looked at the fairies hanging from the trees and shuddered. “C’mon. You know it’s not like that. What just happened was good. But life isn’t about that. Life is the real world.” He put out his arms but all he could encompass in their sweep were the elfland creatures. “Well, you know what I mean. And more importantly, it’s about Maya.”
“Right.” She wrapped her arms around herself. Maya.
“I have to get back to work.”
“Me too.”
“I’m here till Friday. We’ll talk.”
“Right.”
He gave her hand a squeeze, then let it drop. “I’ll walk you back to the site,” he offered.
“No. Thanks. I’m just going to sit here a minute and think. I’ll call a cab.” She didn’t actually know where she was, but she’d deal with that later. Right now, she just wanted him as far away from her as possible so she could think.
He gave her one last long look, then threaded his way carefully between the statues.
He didn’t trust her. Well, why should he? After all, he’d been conned by his kid, by Amy, by Trudy. And, in a way, by life when his wife died. He’d be a fool to trust her. But she had changed. She was sure of it. She remembered his words in her office what seemed ages ago: A woman with your hang-ups would never condescend to be with a guy like me. And I would never condescend to be with a woman who thinks that love—and people—don’t matter.
She was a new person. Now all she had to do was to prove it.
Chapter 26
Cecelia called her office and told them she had a family emergency. She reached Elliot on the golf course, seventh hole, and he reluctantly agreed to cover for her.
She took a cab to her grandmother’s old house. The street was exactly as Cecelia remembered it: dirty, gray, and noisy. Cecelia asked the cabdriver to let her off on the corner. She hurried past the toddlers drawing with chalk on the sidewalk. She smiled at two old ladies who stared back with stony suspicion. She counted down the row houses, just like she used to do when she was a kid, one, two, three, alley, four, five, six, alley.
Then she paused.
There it was. Graffiti-splattered plywood covered every window. The roof sagged. The gutters hung askew.
Her grandmother’s house.
Grandma Molly had been dead for six years, seven in October; no one lived there anymore. Cecelia had closed the house up until Amy showed up again, so they could work out what to do with it. A handyman looked in on it every month, setting traps for rodents and keeping the furnace alive.
Cecelia paid the bills and didn’t go near it.
But now, as she climbed the crumbling, concrete steps, she knew that Amy was inside. With Maya. And she had to talk to them both.
She stared at the old wooden door. Its owl-head knocker was rusty with disuse. She was about to try the bell when the door flung open.
Amy, wearing Cecelia’s jeans, her polo shirt, and green rubber gloves, stood before her. A long, red scarf tied back her black hair. “I thought it was you,” she said. She turned and went back into the dark hallway.
Cecelia followed her. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, throwing a harsh, shadowy light. Cobwebs strung everywhere, so massive they looked as if they were put up by spider carpenters to hold the place together. Spiders. Cecelia shuddered, imagining the eyes of thousands of creatures watching her from their hidden perches. “Please tell me that you didn’t sleep here,” she said.
“Well, all the four-star hotels were booked.”
Cecelia wiped dust off a photograph hanging on the wall. She jumped back, startled to see a younger version of herself staring back at her. She wiped more dust. “Remember this day?”
Amy craned her neck to see the picture. “Oh, sure. I remember. Grans insisted that we see an Orioles game and I caught that foul ball.”
“I caught it. You knocked it out of my hands.”
“Whatever.” Amy walked to the kitchen and Cecelia followed. This was obviously where Amy had decided to start cleaning. Half the floor was dingy gray, the other half was almost black. Amy stuck a mop into a bucket of black water and halfheartedly swished it in circles.
“Ames? What are you doing?”
“Moving in.”
“You can’t live here unless you’re a spider. Or a rat.”
“Why are you here, Cecelia?” Amy asked. She stopped mopping and rested her chin on the handle. Then she let the mop handle fall into Cecelia’s arms. “To help?”
“I’m looking for Maya. I need to talk to her.” Cecelia caught the mop. “This place is haunted.”
“So? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghosts?” She put her hands on her hips. “Maya’s upstairs sleeping. Apparently, she didn’t get much shut-eye last night ’cause she was up till dawn crying.”
Cecelia pushed the mop, painting a streaky, greasy smudge on the floor. She lugged the dirty bucket to the sin
k. She sloshed out the repulsive mess, then filled it again. Well, it wasn’t like she didn’t have to bring her suit to the cleaners already anyway. The water that came out of the tap was brown.
Amy leaned against the counter, watching Cecelia rinse the bucket. “Do you remember when we all lived here?”
“Sure. Do you?”
“I remember little things. The space under the stairs that we used as a clubhouse. The time we crawled out on the roof.”
“You crawled on the roof,” Cecelia corrected.
“Right. And you told on me.”
They listened to the water fill the bucket. “Where’s the soap?” Cecelia asked.
“What soap?”
“No wonder nothing’s getting clean,” Cecelia shut off the water. “Amy, this house is a five-year project.”
“I’ve got time.”
“Yeah, but you need more than time. You need carpentry skills and tools and—”
“Money,” Amy finished.
Cecelia nodded.
“I’m gonna get a job.”
Cecelia shook her head. “Well, that’s a first.”
“No. I really am. I’ve got a lead. I’m going to be a waitress.”
“A waitress? You’ve never—”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s a Mexican place. They think I’ll pass.”
“Pass as a waitress or as a Mexican?”
Amy frowned. “You know, this is where I found my power.”
Cecelia remembered the day as if it were yesterday. Was that why she never came back here?
“C’mon. I want to show you something.” Amy took off up the back stairs that led out of the kitchen.
Cecelia stood, rooted to the spot. She didn’t want to go up there.
“C’mon,” Amy called from somewhere above. “Just don’t wake up Maya.”
Cecelia swallowed her fear. What was she afraid of, anyway? She climbed the narrow, twisting stairs. Cobwebs hung everywhere, reached down, and brushed against her skin. She shuddered.
When she got to the top of the stairs, Amy was gone. Cecelia walked cautiously down the creaky hallway. “Ames?”
“In here,” she called quietly from their childhood bedroom. They had shared it for almost six years. Cecelia stood in the hall, frozen. What was wrong with her? She didn’t believe in ghosts. It was the middle of the day. There was nothing to fear.
“Cel?” Amy poked her head out. “Look at this.” Then she pulled her head back and another head poked out.
Lucy the talking bear. When Amy was little, she used to pretend that the voices in her head came from the bear. A five-year-old’s brilliant rationality. “Hello, Cecelia,” Amy said in a high, squeaky voice, pretending to be the bear. “You look so well after all these years.”
Cecelia groaned.
Amy made the bear wave.
Cecelia threw her purse at its head.
“Ouch!” Amy pulled the bear back. “Watch it. Maya’s sleeping in the next room.”
Cecelia retrieved her purse, then slowly moved into the bedroom. “I always wondered what happened to that thing. Let’s burn it.”
“No!” Amy hugged it to her chest. “Never!”
Cecelia flopped down on the dusty mattress. “This is creepy.”
“Nah. Your place with all that green fuzzy furniture is creepy. This place is nice.”
Cecelia looked at the wall behind the bed. The wall between their room and their parents’. “Remember how thin that wall was?”
“We could hear everything!” Amy flopped down next to her.
Cecelia tried to remember what she had heard. All she could remember was tiny Amy, sharing a bed with her, sweaty and crabby, singing herself to sleep with the names that flew through her head. “Did you hear them have sex?” Cecelia asked.
“EWWWW!” Amy threw Lucy at Cecelia. “Yuck! No! Don’t you remember? The fighting?”
“No.”
“No? They were like cats and dogs. It never stopped.”
“You mean after you told them their Names? Right before Mom left to find her One True Love?”
Amy sat up and looked down at Cecelia. “No, dummy, I mean always. They always fought.”
“You just don’t remember when they were happy. You were too young.”
Amy raised her eyebrows. “Cel, we lived with Grandma because Dad couldn’t get a job. He was such a dreamer, he never fit in with the real world.”
“Not always. That was after Mom left. After the Names.”
“We ALWAYS lived with Grams,” Amy said, “even before Mom left. He never had a job. He was an unemployed tinkerer who slept in his childhood bedroom between his mother and his kids. Cel, he was a mess. That was why Mom left. He couldn’t deal with the real world.”
Cecelia closed her eyes. She tried to remember it that way. But it didn’t fit. Amy had it wrong.
“Don’t you remember the sound of Mom crying? She would cry and we could hear her. Don’t tell me you don’t remember that?”
“I remember,” Cecelia said softly. “But it was after.”
“I’m sorry, hon. It was always.”
Chapter 27
When she heard footsteps enter the room, Cecelia jolted awake. She looked at her watch. Four in the afternoon—she must have fallen asleep.
Amy was gone and in her place Maya stood at the foot of the bed.
“Don’t do that! You gave me a heart attack,” Cecelia complained.
“So. You’re a doctor. You could fix a heart attack.” Maya sat down heavily on the bed and pulled Lucy the stuffed bear into her lap.
Surely, I don’t have to tell you that doctors can’t fix everything. Cecelia tried to decide where to start. The girl looked so young with that bear in her arms. “You were sleeping too, weren’t you? You have bed head.”
“So do you.”
Cecelia felt her hair. “Yeah. You want me to do yours?”
The girl considered. “I like your house. It’s creepy like you.” She moved toward Cecelia and turned her back.
Cecelia rummaged in her purse for a comb. She pulled it through Maya’s hair as gently as possible. Her hair, which only seemed mussed on the surface, was actually a rat’s nest of tangles. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Yeah?” She let her head tense and relax into the rhythm of Cecelia’s strokes.
Her hair was so thin and delicate. And so perfectly blonde. “Grown women would kill for this hair.” She moved to Maya’s side. “I’m going shopping this afternoon. If you want to come and help me buy some better clothes—”
Maya turned to her. “If you’re my dad’s True Love then that means my mom wasn’t.”
Cecelia turned the girl back and continued to comb. “Well—” When one True Love dies, another is formed . . . a person can have two True Loves . . . No. The truth, she was working on the truth. “That’s true.”
“I don’t mind. Because Mom and Dad had to get together to have me. If a person can have One True Love then why can’t they have one true kid? Right? So they had to get together to have me and then Mom went to heaven and can be reborn and this time she’ll find her One True Love and be happy.” She paused. “And healthy.”
Cecelia considered this. “Sounds logical.”
“So it’s okay if you’re my dad’s One True Love. I mean, if you get new clothes and promise to stop butting into my business.”
“You want a bun?”
“I want a ponytail.”
“Right.” Cecelia shuffled through her purse for a band. “I had to tell your dad about Granny Trudy. He had to know. See, I’m trying a new thing that is working really well. You should try it. It’s called telling the truth. That’s what I do now. Always. Tell the truth. It’s because of you, you know.” She found a much too big plastic clip. It would have to do.
“So now I don’t have a mom and I don’t have a granny. And I have to go back and have a boring summer at stupid camp while Dad works. So thanks a lot. Great time to get honest.” Maya struggled
with her pocket and produced a worn, yellow elastic band.
Cecelia considered Maya’s interpretation of her future as she captured Maya’s hair and expertly trapped it in the hair band. She pulled it tight and Maya flinched slightly. “Perfect.” She admired her work. “I think your dad wants to stay in Baltimore.”
“Oh, yuck! You kissed him, didn’t you? He promised—” Maya jumped up and went to the mirror over the dresser. She wiped it clean of dust and nodded her head approvingly at her hair. “He promised he wouldn’t do that.”
Guess I shouldn’t go into what else he did. Cecelia felt strangely thrilled at Maya’s perfect ponytail. “I really want you to try this truth thing with me. Especially with your dad.”
“Okay. I don’t like you.”
“Oh. Well. That’s truthful. Good.”
“But you make a good ponytail.”
“Well, there’s that.”
Just then, the doorbell rang. They heard Amy’s footsteps in the hall below. Amy’s voice floated up the stairs.
Cecelia could make out a man’s voice, low and urgent. She strained to hear better. It was probably Mario, the man who took care of the place. He must think that Amy was a squatter.
“C’mon.” She made her way down the stairs, Maya following. The kitchen was almost as dirty as it had been a few hours earlier, except now, the whole floor was dingy and streaked. Cecelia hurried through the kitchen and down the hall.
Then she froze.
Finn saw Cecelia and froze too. “Oh. Hi.”
Amy looked from Cecelia to Finn to Maya and then back to Cecelia. “Well. Looks like we’ve got a party.”
Amy held the door open and he came in. “Nice place. Refinish these floors and fix that plaster, and it’ll be almost inhabitable.” He got down on one knee to inspect the floors. “Hey bugger,” he said to Maya when she squatted down next to him. “Mouse hole. See it?”
“We put steel wool in it,” she said.
“And then you patch it up. That’s my girl.”
“Yeah, well, easier said than done,” Amy said.
“Nah. It’s easy. I could do it for you.”
Cecelia blanched. “No.” Yes!
Finn tapped his fingertips over the plaster on the wall. He paused at a spot and pushed. His fingers sank into the rotted wall. “I’d have to replace most of this framing.”
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