“Do you think she’d even want to tell me?” I pushed off from the table where I was leaning. “I know—you go and ask her these things. Text me what she says, who it is, and I’ll give you the lowdown.”
“I’d feel better if you just came over and talked with her. You know she’ll need things.”
“Things?”
“A dress, those tights, maybe some shoes. A stun gun, some mace. I don’t know! And that’s if I let her go. If I don’t, she’ll need someone to stop her from killing me.” He began flailing his arms again.
I could see he was in no shape to handle this, so I agreed to go over with him and approach the subject very gingerly with June. I really had no place in talking to her about these sorts of things. If she gave me one hint of a stinkeye, he was on his own. However, if she wanted my help or advice, I’d give it to her. I knew all too well what it was like to have a clueless dad and a dance to go to.
Rose and I went over to his house. Alex took Rose to the kitchen for some cookies and milk. She was all too happy to be entertained by something more than a plastic Barbie doll for a change.
I warily approached the shut door of June’s room and knocked. Alex said it was the first door on the right. She had a sign outside of it that said trespassers would be shot.
“June, it’s Sarah…Ms. Keller from next door. Can I come in?”
“Huh? Okay, sure. I guess.”
I eased open the door. She sat on the floor, ear buds stuffed in each ear, and drawing in her sketchpad.
I edged my way inside, feeling like I’d stepped onto another planet. Like in Star Trek, when the crew visited other planets. Her room was dark blue, almost making me feel as if I stood in the middle of an aquarium. Posters of rock bands covered her walls—long-haired, stiff-jawed guys wielding guitars or open-mouthed in front of microphones. A dim lamp sat on her side table next to her bed. I was amazed she could see anything on her paper. Bookshelves between the windows were crammed with all sorts of spines—soft and hard backed. I crooked my head to try to read a few titles. A simple white cotton curtain hung on each of the windows. The shade was still open despite the late hour.
I crouched down, a healthy five steps away. That’s the protocol for entering a lion’s den, right? I didn’t want to scare the poor girl. I caught myself fidgeting with my collar. Yes, I was savvy to teenagers, but typically I was seeing them in my office, not their bedrooms. “What are you drawing?”
Without moving the position of her head, her eyes moved to transfix on mine. “Um, a guy.”
“Oh, anyone I know?”
“I doubt it.”
“Okay.”
This time she raised her head. “Is everything okay? Did you want something?”
My knees were giving out, so I dropped to the ground. “Well, it seems your dad is under the assumption you’ve got a date for homecoming.”
“Well, he’s wrong.”
“Wrong?” I felt my head fall to the right.
“Yeah. After he went psycho, did a Spanish freak-out or whatever he calls it, I said I wasn’t going. He would’ve known that if he stuck around long enough to hear me yell it.” She looked down and pushed her pencil to the paper. “Anyways, I don’t know why I said I would. He cornered me at my locker. I could barely breathe. I didn’t know what I was saying. It was a blur.”
Yep, that’s how it usually is. “Who cornered you at your locker?”
“Dean Honeycutt. Some jock—I don’t know.” She had the perfect air of whatever down pat—the eye roll and the bobble head. “It’s not like I’d ever like a jock anyway. They don’t usually talk to me, you know? I think he was doing it on a bet. When I tell him I changed my mind, I guess someone will be the loser.”
“Dean Honeycutt?” I tried not to look so surprised. He was the quarterback of the football team. Ten out of ten, even on my charts. Nice sandy-blond hair, buff physique, blue eyes, and a square jawline. He would have no problems in life with that package. Especially with his personality. He was going to go into the family business after high school. His dad couldn’t be more proud. It sort of took me off guard he’d ask June. Not that she wasn’t beautiful…under all that black eye makeup, wristbands that stretched almost to her elbow, and those skater jackets she alternated every other day. I knew for a fact Allison Carmichael had her eye on Dean. They’d dated almost their whole junior year last year, and teachers thought they’d eventually marry. I guess Dean had something else in mind. Or someone else. June was only a junior.
“He is just asking me as a joke, isn’t he?” She hung her head as her hand dropped to the ground beside her.
“No, no. I didn’t mean to say it like that. It’s just Dean was going with someone else to the dance, I thought.”
“That snarky little Allison? I hate that girl. She’s in my Algebra class. She’s so dumb.”
“Hey, hey. Now no one’s dumb. She might learn slower at math. I hate the subject, myself.”
“Whatever. I hate school, I hate dances, and I hate this town.” She rolled her eyes.
“I know it’s difficult when you move somewhere new, you don’t know anyone, then a boy asks you out and you don’t have a mother to talk to about things.”
“I have a mother,” she snapped.
I pulled back. “I know you do. I didn’t mean…I just meant, I didn’t. My mother died shortly after I was born. My dad wasn’t the easiest one to talk to about guys.”
She wouldn’t look up at me. Finally she took a deep breath. “I know what you mean, I guess. Anytime I mention anything dealing with the opposite sex, he either looks like he’d rather be shooting nails into his eye sockets, or he changes the subject completely.”
“So would you want to go to the dance with Dean if you knew your dad was cool with it?”
She shrugged. “Do you think Dean really wants to go with me? Or is this a joke between him and his buddies? I didn’t really get asked out in New York. I don’t consider myself all that pretty, you know.”
I smiled. “Oh, you’re pretty. And I think Dean’s noticed. I know his parents and I know him well enough to know he wouldn’t tease a girl like that. If he asked you, he meant it.”
She bit her lip. A small smile began to grow.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to do it scared. Have fun, make memories. And I’ll try to keep your dad busy until you make it home safely.”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“We can fix that with a trip to the city tomorrow, if you want.”
She tried not to look interested, drawing a few lines on her paper.
Poor thing. She’d been uprooted, left behind by her mother, and just got cussed at in Spanish by her fearful father. I felt her pain.
“Okay,” she said cautiously. “And you’ll tell Dad?” Her big eyes looked into mine.
“Better than that. He’ll come along and give his blessing on the dress and shoes.”
“You do want a miracle, don’t you?”
“Yep.” I smiled defiantly. This was doable. And if Alex felt involved, he wouldn’t feel so opposed to it.
I went downstairs feeling pretty proud of myself. Alex was talking to Rose in the kitchen, explaining about all the different bones in her body. She seemed semi-amused.
“Hey.”
He turned around. “Hey. Is everything okay?”
I took a deep breath. “Nightmare averted. She’s going, if you’re okay with it. And you promise not to shout things in another language to her date.”
He stammered. As if I were offering a choice. Silly man. “Okay, I guess. I just want June happy, and this to be over.” He cupped his hands and whispered, “Without me turning into a granddad.”
“Seriously? It’s all good, Alex. We’re going dress shopping, and you’re invited.”
Rose clapped her hands. She loved to shop.
“Okay.”
I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s all going to be fine. I promise.”
I left thei
r house feeling as though I’d accomplished something. Bridged a gap for a timid girl, calmed a harried monster, and did something more productive than binge watch The Johnsons. Tomorrow was going to be fun. I needed distractions like this. To feel needed. I had a strange connection with June.
There were no casualties, only ten outfit changes, and Alex maintained to hold it together while June picked out a beautiful royal-blue dress—a bit higher than her knee and no cleavage to be seen. I was getting a taste of what it might look like when Rose was facing this moment of fashion crisis. Maybe by that time dances would be virtual and outfits wouldn’t matter. Just a click of a mouse and she could be wearing anything. Yeah, I doubt it, too. But she was completely mesmerized with the dressing room ritual, bebopping around, dancing in front of the three-way mirror. I think she distracted Alex quite a bit. I caught them a few times making silly faces and he stood her on her head to see herself upside down. It was nice having another set of hands while I ran for dress size changes.
The purchase was made, the credit slip was signed, and I was tired. It had been another long day at work. Alex clapped his hands, rubbing them as if to make an announcement. We all turned to look at him. June was finishing up a text on her phone. “Ladies, would you like me to treat you to a nice dinner?”
As tired as I was, I was perhaps more hungry. And it was late. We had to wait for June’s tutoring session to be over before we made it to the city. Rose started out grumpy due to lack of SpongeBob, granola, and couch time at Aunt Heidi’s. She was hanging on with the help of Alex’s tomfoolery, but she needed food STAT or it might get ugly.
“How about some manicotti?” Alex looked to me for a response.
Personally, I could eat the side of a horse, but I knew Rose would flip if it wasn’t chicken tenders. As foodie as she was becoming, in a hunger pinch, she looked for quick, easy, and child-related.
“Sure, that sounds good.”
“Mommy!” Rose stood with her hands on her hips. “I hate mangitotti.”
I couldn’t help myself and giggled. Which infuriated Rose, especially when she could consume the other side of that horse. But only if it looked like a chicken tender and was dipped in honey mustard.
“Mommy!” She cried out again, upset I giggled.
Before I could apologize, she took off, red-faced from my giggle and Alex’s small laugh.
She didn’t get far and ran in a clothes rack and knocked three dresses from their hangers and kept going.
“Rose Marie Keller!”
She peeked out. Floral-colored dresses lay limp on the ground beside the display. I began picking them up, grumbling underneath my breath. That’s when someone approached. She was impeccably dressed, auburn hair in a neat, blunt bob. She smelled expensively exquisite, and I noticed her sensibly polished nails clutching her Prada bag. A real Prada bag, not the knock-offs I can’t even afford. I could tell because the name was etched in gold and the stitching was the appropriate color, not taupe like the guy who sells the lookalikes on Constitution Avenue.
“I’m sorry, did you just say Rose Marie Keller?” Her lips were a little pinched when she asked the question.
I stood erect and hung up the dresses that had fallen. “Um, yes.” I looked at Rose—she was biting on her thumb.
The well-dressed woman looked at Rose. “Is that your name?”
Rose warily nodded her head.
I didn’t know what she wanted in making this point. Was she lonely and wanting to make conversation? Clearly she could see this was not a good time; we were in the beginnings of a hunger meltdown. Clothes had been flung, and a child had been traumatized by her mother’s insensitive, albeit innocent, laughter.
She turned to me. Her demure blue eyes had turned glassy. “Are you her mother?”
I turned to Alex. His face was blank. June was plucking with rapid strokes on her phone, head buried and unaware we were still standing on the planet Earth.
“Yes, yes I am.”
She placed her hand over her mouth and for a second I thought she was going to cry. That was until she cleared her throat, erected her posture, and blinked a couple extra times to remove the excess water that had welled up in them. After composing herself enough, she took a deep breath and began. “My daughter was Rose Marie Keller.”
She stopped, perhaps waiting for a reaction from me. My throat caught. My body grew warm. It felt like a browning-out moment was taking place on my insides, like right before you lose electricity in your home. Rose pulled on the arm of the dress I’d just hung, completely unaware of the meaning of what the stranger just said. It was slow to seep into my consciousness, but I was connecting the dots. Rose Marie Keller wasn’t just another Jane Doe…Jane Brown…She was Rose. Marie. Keller. I’m pretty sure there was only one other, but I could be naïve.
She pulled on the strap of her bag, as if holding on to it for support. “I don’t suppose you’re…you’re Sarah?”
Okay, this was crazy. Completely crazy. If her daughter was Rose Marie Keller, and she knew I was Sarah, that would make her…that would make her…who? Obviously my grandmother. My very estranged grandmother. I did the quick mental diagram of the family tree in my head. But that grandmother moved out of the country, according to my dad. And what was her name? Dad never felt that was a detail I would ever need to know in life. My grandparents’ very existence mattered little to us. The only fact I knew was after he and my mom married, they pulled up stakes and moved, disowning her and, I supposed by lineage, disowning me.
“I am,” I said in a low tone. I wasn’t sure how to feel about her…about this. My mind was jumping hurdles, running laps, doing belly crawls on everything this symbolized. How did I feel? How was I supposed to feel in relation to how this woman hurt my parents? Her own daughter?
She held out her hand. As if she were a woman at the bank who would be helping me to apply for a loan. “I’m Pricilla Morgan. I’m your grandmother.” She turned to Rose. “And I suppose that makes me your great-grandmother.” She grabbed her pink wool coat, adjusting the front to lay right. “Lord, now that’s something I never thought would escape my lips!”
Rose, after catching on, beamed with a Christmas morning light. Finally she had a branch on a family tree. She’d always come home and tell me when all her friends would have grandparents visit for Christmas and plays. I knew she always felt left out. So did I when I was small.
“You’re my grandmother?” She tilted her head to the side and clasped her little hands so tight I could see the colors change from red to white.
“I guess so, my dear.”
My insides were lead. My lungs had barely enough room inside to contract for air. What do you do with a grandmother who has been MIA for all your life? Of her own accord? Am I happy? Sad? Angry?
Alex cleared his throat. The noise startled me back into reality. Back into Nordstrom’s department store, the dress shopping, the life before I stumbled onto this grandmother. My tunnel vision began to widen.
“Hi, I’m Alex.” He extended his hand. “And this is June.”
Pricilla’s smile radiated from her face as she gave Alex her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
June looked up long enough to flash a smile. What did she care? She had her dress, her plans for homecoming. Don’t worry about me, June. My life just got shook to the core, but please go on and continue your fashion text and finding out where you’re eating dinner for your big night.
I mustered up enough saliva to swallow. My insides trembled a little. “I didn’t know you lived in Denver. Do you live in Denver?” Not that I ever ran into her, but it’s a big place. And she didn’t look like a tourist. Oh my gosh, has she been here all along? “Dad said—”
“Oh no, we don’t live here. We used to. Long ago. Before…”
“So you’re visiting?”
“More like getting our home ready for sale. You see, when we moved away years ago, Stephen’s sister stayed and saw to it that the house was kept up. It was advantageous for
her really, as she loved the city and her husband had passed so she had nowhere really to go. He didn’t leave her with much.” She nodded in a disapproving fashion, flipped her hand and took a breath to continue. “Anyway, she recently passed away, so we’re back to get the affairs of the estate settled and to sell the house.”
“Where did you go? When you moved away?” I wanted to add, why would you leave my mother and me, but thought I would save it for a better venue, like maybe the food court if she hadn’t eaten. I was growing tired of seeing the tiger-printed sweater with the red tag she was standing close to.
“We traveled a bit. Went to Paris, London, Switzerland.” She smiled, thinking about her trips. “Then we settled in California. Stephen dabbled with a few investment companies and I amused myself with Rodeo Drive.” She smirked after saying it.
Who were these so-called grandparents? I’m not even sure Dad knew what Rodeo Drive was. Did Mom? Was that the lifestyle she was used to? That she gave up to marry him? I admired her more and more as my grandmother spoke.
“I see.” Contempt simmered inside me.
“Well, look at you.” She pointed. “You seem to have turned out okay.”
I felt my brow raise. Okay? “Yeah.”
“And Alex, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a surgeon. I work at Liberty Hospital here in Denver.”
“So you live here in the city now, Sarah?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m glad to hear you made it out of the trappings of Calvert”
“Actually, I do still live there. I’m a guidance counselor at the high school. The same high school I attended.” That you have no clue about because you were busy eating French cuisine while Dad and I heated up beans and ate fried burgers. Three nights a week.
“Oh. Well, that’s quaint.” A tiny sigh hiccupped from her mouth. “At least you don’t have to work if you don’t want. It’s probably a hobby of sorts.”
Falling For Sarah (Sarah Series Book 3) Page 8