I said, “See you soon,” then remembered something and pulled a letter from my pocket. “Can you mail this for me?” I had finally resealed Olivia’s thank-you note, crossed out my address, written Hannah’s on it, and added a new stamp.
“Sure thing,” said Kendall. “I go right by the post office. I think it will go out today.”
* * *
Piper was sound asleep in her car seat when Kendall returned. “There is nothing like swimming to tire a baby out—oh! ” She had come into the family room to find Arlo, Levi, Mia, and me dressed up in hats, old scarves, and costume jewelry. Levi had a black patch on one eye.
“Ahoy there!” Arlo greeted his mom.
“Ahoy back.” Kendall grinned. “Are we playing pirates?”
“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” Mia had found one of Piper’s bottles and now raised it over her head.
“I figured out Mia was saying pirate,” I explained. “The—you know—nightmares?” I whispered the last word.
Kendall nodded. “Oh, now it makes sense—sort of.”
“She saw a billboard by the ice cream store,” I said.
“Pipah walk da pank!” Levi waved a pool noodle in Piper’s general direction.
“Levi, she can’t walk at all yet,” I said.
“Mommy walk da pank!” Levi waved the pool noodle at Kendall—who held her arms up and acted terrified until Levi started to giggle.
“No pirates in Beverly Hills, Mommy,” Mia said solemnly. “Only us.”
“Is that what Lucy told you?” Kendall said. “She’s absolutely right.”
“No more bad dreams,” said Mia.
“Good!” Kendall said. “What would we do without Lucy?”
I stayed over for lunch and read to the triplets before they went down for naps. On my way to leave, I found Kendall nursing Piper in the living room.
“Thanks a bazillion,” Kendall said. “Oh—and I’ve been meaning to ask what’s up with your father. Have you gotten a chance to see him?”
“We went to the art museum—outside the art museum, anyway. He bought burgers,” I said.
Kendall nodded. “So that’s nice. I mean, was it nice? Are you going to see him again?”
“It was strange,” I said.
Kendall looked down at Piper. “You have to get used to each other,” she said.
“Do we?” I said.
Kendall looked up at me and blinked. “I mean, if you want to. Do you want to?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes I wish someone would tell me what to do. Isn’t that what grown-ups are for? Isn’t that what parents are for?”
Kendall seemed ready to answer, but Piper was fussy. “Ohhh, little baby,” Kendall cooed. “Do you need a change? Do you need a nap? What can I do for you?”
“I gotta go.” I started toward the door. “See you next week, Kendall.”
“Righty-o, Lucy,” Kendall said. “I’m sure things will all work out.”
It was a little after one when I got home. My mom was awake, wearing normal clothes, and standing in the kitchen. “There you are at last, Lucy,” she said. “Let’s make a cheesecake. Want to?”
I was amazed. “Why?”
My mom giggled. “All those bad cookies in the freezer, right? I asked the pastry chef what to do with them, and that was her suggestion. Cookie crust for a cheesecake.”
“You remembered to ask the pastry chef?”
“I did. I also picked up the ingredients on my way home from work last night.” Mom sounded very proud of herself.
“What’s gotten into you?” I said.
Mom ignored this question. “The pastry chef printed the recipe out when I told her we didn’t have a computer. She gave me a pretty funny look, but here it is.” She held up a sheet of paper, and I read it over.
“We can’t make this,” I announced. “We don’t have a food processor.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Mom rolled her eyes. “There weren’t always food processors, you know. We can crush the cookies with a rolling pin between sheets of wax paper. That’s how we did it in home ec. I didn’t grow up in a fancy school district like this one, you know. We had to make do.”
“You took home ec?” I said.
“It was harder than you’d think,” Mom said. “We have a rolling pin, don’t we?”
“When was the last time you followed a recipe?” I asked. “Do you even know what’s in this kitchen?”
“Nope,” Mom said cheerily. “But I am fixin’ to find out.”
The cheesecake project did not start well. My mom and I had very different ideas on how to proceed. For example, she did not believe in using the microwave to melt butter or soften cream cheese. She believed the microwave gave off dangerous radiation.
“You sound like Nana when she talks about screens,” I said. “They use microwaves at the restaurant, right?”
“Precisely!” she said. “And that’s why I don’t need additional wave thingies”—she raised her fingers and wiggled them ominously—“cavorting among my delicate brain cells.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “We can melt the butter in a saucepan and cut up the cream cheese in cubes. By the time we’re ready, it will be soft enough.”
“Good thinking, Lucy,” my mom said. “Now you deal with the cookies, and I will address myself to these eggs. Hey, Humpty Dumpty?” She held one up. “Fallen from any walls lately?”
“You’re weird, Mom,” I said.
It’s true I could have made a bakery’s worth of cheesecakes in the time it took my mom and me to make one. Still, with her stupid jokes and good mood, it was kind of fun. We don’t do stuff together that much. Our schedules aren’t the same, and anyway, she’s embarrassing. With no one else around, I wasn’t embarrassed.
As the cheesecake baked, the kitchen filled with its aroma, spicy like Vivek’s bad cookies but toasty and cream cheesy, too.
“I’ll get plates,” Mom announced when the timer rang.
“We can’t eat it yet,” I said. “It has to cool. If we cut it now, it’ll be goo.”
“You’re kidding,” said Mom, “and how do you know that anyway?”
“Cooking shows,” I said.
Mom sighed. “So be that way,” she said, as if the cooling time of cheesecakes were my fault. “I guess I’ll just have to get my piece for breakfast. Now, I need to get ready for work. Look, Lucy, there’s one other thing before I take off. That was fun, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, putting the potholders away and turning off the oven. What would I make Nana for dinner? I hoped Mom wouldn’t mind if I gave Nana a piece of cheesecake for dessert. She hadn’t come out of her room to see what was going on, but she had to have smelled it baking.
“So when you come back to visit,” Mom said, “we can do stuff. We can cook together, or I’ll come to your soccer games more. It’ll be good, right? I’ll be fine.”
As is usual with me, the words didn’t make sense right away. When they did, I spun around to look at her. “What? What are you talking about?”
“When you go to live with your father—your dad, I mean,” she said. “It’s a better opportunity for you. You can have a normal life with a phone—more like the way your friends live.”
“You want me to go?” My knees felt wobbly.
“Other kids go on family vacations to Disney and get takeout Chinese whenever they want,” Mom said. “Other kids don’t have to make dinner. You should live like that, too, and this is your chance.”
“What if I don’t want to?” The barstools were behind me, and I sat down. Mom was in the middle of the kitchen, her hands on her hips. She was leaning toward me slightly.
“Of course you want to,” she said. “What kid wouldn’t want to? He’s gonna have a swimming pool.”
Thinking of the pool made me think of my dream. Mom must’ve been thinking, too, because all of a sudden, she giggled.
“What?” I said, annoyed.
“You look so serious, Lucy
. You used to make that face when you were a baby. I remember one time . . .”
“When?” I said.
“It was the day you found your toes,” Mom said. “You know how babies’ eyes aren’t focused at first? And then gradually the world comes into view. Anyway, I guess to you those toes appeared out of nowhere, and your face showed deep, deep concern—like, ‘OMG, what have we here? Are they mine? Are they dangerous?’ ”
I shook my head and couldn’t help but smile. “So back then you could read my mind?”
“Sometimes I could, not always,” she said. “I wish I could do it now.”
“Do you want me to go live with Dad?” I asked. There. The question was out and could not be taken back.
“No,” Mom said. “That is, yes. I don’t know. I want what’s best for you.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay . . . what?”
“Okay, I’m going to think about it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Lucy
I had one more question, the Big One for my father.
I got my chance to ask it the next day, Sunday.
He had phoned after my mom left for work Saturday night—while Nana and I were eating dinner. I picked up because Nana hates to talk on the phone.
“Hey, Lu, I got the keys to the house!” he said. “I’ll come and get you tomorrow—what do you say?”
“Do you own it now?” I asked him.
“Still some paperwork to do,” he said. “But nobody’s in it, so we can stop by. Ten a.m.? Or do you prefer to sleep in like your mom?”
“Ten is fine,” I said.
Dad pulled into the driveway and honked at 10:05 the next morning. I was waiting by the front door, holding a tin of Olivia’s cookies. “Bye, Nana!” I called. My hand was on the doorknob when she spoke up behind me.
“I should come out and say hello to your father.”
“What?” I turned and saw her standing in the doorway between the hall and the kitchen. She wore jeans and a Bob Marley T-shirt. Her gray hair was pulled back in a tight bun. She was barefoot. “No, no—you don’t have to do that,” I said.
“It’s the courteous thing to do,” she said. Then she walked right past me and opened the door.
Oh no.
My father must’ve jumped out of the car the second he saw her. By the time I got outside, he was walking briskly up the driveway. His smile was so big that his cheeks must have hurt. “Mrs. Jessup,” he said. “Very nice to see you, an unexpected pleasure.”
“I’ll bet,” said Nana, backing away from a hug. “You’ve gone gray, I see. And the car must’ve set you back some pennies.”
“It’s a rental,” I said.
Nana looked at me, then at my father. “Who is it you’re trying to impress?” she asked.
“Straight-shooting as ever, Mrs. Jessup. I guess I got used to a certain style of living once upon a time, and I hope to get used to it again,” he said.
“And just how do you plan to pull that off?” Nana said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“The details would take a while to explain,” my father said.
“Go ahead,” said Nana. “I have no pressing business just at the moment.”
“Well, the thing is, you see, that I do,” my father said. “After Lucy and I take a look at the house, I’ve got some meetings set up. My time’s not my own. You know how it is.”
“I don’t, actually,” Nana said. “But I’ll take your word for it. Lucy, dear, are you okay? I’ll see you back here soon it sounds like.”
“I’m fine, Nana,” I said.
“All right, then, my dear.” Nana put her hand on my shoulder. “You and your father carry on.”
“Whoa,” my father said as soon as we had pulled out of the driveway. “She hasn’t changed a bit.”
When I didn’t answer, he asked what kind of music I wanted. I said I didn’t care, and he put on classical.
“What’s in the tin?” he asked.
I told him a friend had sent me cookies. I didn’t mention flour power. “They’re shortbread. They’re good. Do you want one?”
“Let’s wait till we get to the house,” he said.
We took Santa Monica to Sunset to Hollywood Boulevard, where the Walk of Fame and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre are. Then we wound around a little and hung a left and wound around a lot up into the hills.
Soon my father turned sharply into the driveway of the house I’d seen in the photos, which clung for dear life to the downhill slope. “What if there’s an earthquake?” I asked.
“Nothing to worry about.” He laughed. “It’s come through three big ones with flying colors.” My father unlocked the front door, which was orange, and we went inside. There was no furniture, and it was very light, especially compared to Nana’s. The walls were pastel colors. There were sliding glass doors out to the pool.
“Can we sit on the edge?” I said. “Can we put our feet in the water?”
My father shrugged. “How ’bout if I come out with you, and you go ahead. I don’t want to get my feet wet, though. I don’t have a towel to dry them.”
It was a warm day, a little smoggy; the water felt good. Beyond the pool, the hills fell away and the flat, hazy city spread out to the coast.
My dad sat down at an angle to me, his legs outstretched. “How about that cookie?” he said.
I opened the tin, and we each took a couple. “Really excellent,” he said after a bite. “You’re lucky to have a friend who can bake.”
“I can bake too,” I said.
He nodded, but I could see his thoughts were somewhere else. “So what do you think?” he said finally. “Have I sold you on the deal? You really can’t beat this house, can you?”
“The house is nice,” I said. “But can I tell you something? I don’t know you that well. I don’t even know what to call you. I never had a dad till now.”
My father’s face clouded. “What do you mean? I’ve stayed in touch.”
“You sent birthday cards,” I said.
My father breathed in and out. “Fair enough. But Freda vouches for me, doesn’t she? I have your best interests at heart.”
Freda is my aunt—my dad’s stepsister, the one who pays for camp. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “But how much do you care about me?”
That was it. The Big Question. Maybe it was flour power that gave me the courage to ask.
“A lot,” my father said.
His eyes were very sincere, but I wasn’t done with my questions. “So then where have you been? You got out of prison years ago. You could have seen me anytime. I was right here.”
My dad set his mouth in a line, then breathed. “You don’t have to bring up prison. A grown-up’s life is complicated, Lucy. You’ll understand that someday.”
“I feel pretty grown-up now,” I said.
“I see that,” my father said, “and I’m not sure it’s right. You should get to be a kid and have fun.”
I had thought those things myself, not to mention how I wanted to live in a house that wasn’t as dark as a tomb, a house where we didn’t always worry about money. And here was my father saying it out loud. Was he the prince in a fairy tale come to my rescue? But if he was, wouldn’t I know it for sure?
My father started to laugh. “You are making one heck of a frowny face, Lu,” he said. “Watch out or it’ll freeze that way. The fact is, I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Sunday, July 2, Moonlight Ranch
After the mix-up with the letters, Hannah had thought hard about whether she wanted to return to her four campers in Flowerpot Cabin. Once finals were over, she phoned her friend Jane, the counselor in Purple Sage, to ask if she’d be willing to switch.
“I don’t get you at all,” Jane said. “I thought you loved those girls—even if Purple Sage did crush you in the Top Cabin competition last year.”
When Hannah explained, Jane laughed and couldn’t stop.
&nbs
p; “Hey, cut it out. They’re a bunch of little sneaks!” Hannah said.
Jane inhaled and controlled herself. “Look at it this way,” she said. “Those girls went to a lot of trouble to make you happy. And besides, didn’t Olivia call you the undisputed best counselor? So how do I compete with that?”
“Oh, that doesn’t mean anything,” Hannah said. “It’s just how Olivia talks.”
“I doubt that,” said Jane. “And anyway, it worked out pretty much the way they planned it, right? Last I heard, you didn’t like Travis any more than they do.”
Privately, Hannah thought this was the most annoying part. The girls had been right about Travis and right about Jack, too. On that day in May, the day before her Renaissance art final, when she got the wrong letter from Olivia, she had phoned Jack in a snit to tell him how her campers had invaded her privacy and plotted to fix her up with another counselor, Lance.
She had expected him to be mad at them too.
But he wasn’t. He thought the whole thing was hilarious and that the girls should be commended for recognizing his vast superiority to Travis. The two of them were on the phone a long time.
And so it was Hannah who greeted Grace, Emma, Olivia, and their families on Camper Arrival Day in the parking lot outside the Moonlight Ranch main gate, the same as she had done each of the two summers before.
Lucy was late, as usual.
“Is her mom bringing her again?” Emma asked. It was after lunch. The families had left. The girls were unpacking in Flowerpot Cabin. Buck, the camp director, had imposed the no-electronics rule again, and Olivia swore she was going through phone withdrawal.
“I thought Lucy was moving in with her dad,” Olivia said.
Emma shook her head. “I saw Vivek at lunch. Lucy phoned him a couple of weeks ago. She’s still with her mom.”
“Wait—you saw Vivek at lunch?” Grace said.
“Uh-oh. Here we go,” said Olivia.
Grace had been folding her underwear. Now she turned to look at Oliva. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hello-o-o?” said Emma. “This is not about Vivek, right? Lucy is living with her mom and her nana, same as before. Her dad wanted her to move in with him, but she decided she didn’t want to. He moved to a house near theirs, though, so she sees him more than before.”
P.S. Send More Cookies Page 14