by Anne Eliot
I take a huge bite of my sandwich, holding up a finger and chewing slowly, finally swallowing, while deciding to tell her the truth. My school choices probably don’t need to be kept secret. “I have a scholarship. A dream scholarship. It’s a full ride to Ridley Art Academy in New York City. But I’ve deferred.”
“Why? Hello. Your future awaits. Why defer?” She gets the Nutella off her chin by dashing over and dipping her napkin into the pool water.
“I’m taking a year off to think…and to do…different stuff. Try things I’ve never tried.” I make my voice extra cheery and wave the baby monitor around. “Like this cool nanny job.”
“Ridley. Why have I heard of that school? Wait. I’ve seen it.” She comes to a dead stop in front of me, twirling her wet napkin. “The complex is right next to Mrs. Felix’s flagship hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Is your school—next to the Orb Hotel?”
Unable to ignore how great the Nutella looks any longer, I grab my own baguette. “That’s the one.”
Vere pauses eating to tighten the rubber band around her bun. “The Orb NYC is Mrs. Felix’s main place of residence, which makes it our main house, too. It’s set up kind of like this place. Commune style with the shared massive living room, kitchen and dining but with hallways still set up in hotel suites. Each suite there, has its own kitchen inside and we all have actual apartments so we can hide out if we’re not feeling social. It’s smack in the best area of Manhattan. I love it there.” She makes her eyes go round. “Gosh. If you go to this Ridley place, then we’ll get to hang out some. A lot! We’re going to be neighbors!”
“Maybe,” I answer noncommittally, because I’m sure after this job is over, and as nice as Vere seems to be, the Guarderobe people are not going to hang around with the hired help they met down in Florida.
Vere’s hand goes lightning fast to her phone, and she opens Google. “Ridley. Ridley. Hmm. Why have I heard of Ridley?”
“A lot of people who are into art know about it.”
“Wow…it’s top five in the world!” She shows me the school’s website on her phone and the sight of it tugs at my longing for how badly I’ve missed staring at that website, and how badly I want to be there at the end of this summer. “So what do you do? Fine Arts or design?”
“Both, I guess. I like to paint and draw. Maybe I’d like to be a sculptor, but it’s expensive and intimidating.”
She’s dragging her finger over her touch screen. “Holy cow, it’s, like, 90k for one year to go there. You must be an artistic prodigy or something to get a full ride scholarship. And you’re lucky, because if you’re going there, you must know what you want to do with your life. I’m always so jealous of people who know that. I’m still deciding. Everything I study seems so great. I find that I want to major in pretty much…everything. Only that’s not allowed. Being an artist would be great.”
Grinning at her, I pour some blueberries out on a side plate and watch them roll until they stop. “You make it sound so romantic, but anyone can create art. Like I mentioned I’m taking a year off to think because I’m actually not so sure if I’m good enough. What if I don’t have what it takes?”
“It says here they accept only one percent of all applicants, so uncertainties aside, let’s not gloss over your awesomeness.” She pauses and blinks up at me, contemplating my face all over again, and I feel my cheeks go hot. All I can do is shake my head and hope she’s going to change the subject. She adds, “You’re really humble, aren’t you? And maybe, shy?”
I look away. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you do ask a lot of questions.”
Unoffended, she cracks up and sets down her phone. “I know. I know. Hunter says I give people headaches, and that I’m like a ping-pong ball. And you’re nice…so nice, like Mrs. Felix and Gregory said you were. I’m pretty sure by your expression you want to tell me to shut up right now, but you haven’t?” Her grin grows wider when I don’t answer. “I think I really, really like you, new bestie. I, do.”
Relieved she’s let the subject of my scholarship and my shyness drop, I grin back at her. “Yeah, okay, thanks, ping-pong girl. I also like you. But just like how you can’t decide on a major, I get the impression you like everyone and everything by default. I only just met you but I suspect it’s got to be part of your personality.”
She crosses her arms. “Yes, I like everyone and everything, but like Mrs. Felix said, you’re the real deal, and I really do like you. A lot. Which is why I’m keeping you as a friend forever.”
“Thanks.” I shake my head again, and leave off the argument that she doesn’t even know me. I pick up the baby monitor, answering only, “Do you want to go with me to check the baby?”
She leaps away from the tray and is already heading back into the suite. “Yes! Race you.” We come to a skidding halt just outside of the pool cabana and I slam into her back just as she says, “Royce Devlin! What are you doing outside this tent? Eavesdropping again? Have you just been standing here, listening? You’re so chronic. It’s rude, you know?”
“I…didn’t want to interrupt.”
“So busted. How long have you been out here?”
His voice rumbles down my spine when he answers, “Long enough to Google that Ridley school for myself.”
Embarrassed and also wondering what he’s overheard I stay directly behind Vere and don’t move so I don’t have to look at him. No need to get all flustered and awkward.
“Come check the baby with us, stalker,” Vere says, unaware of my discomfort or my determination to not look at anyone above the kneecaps. She pulls at Royce’s arm.
“No thanks. My baby shift starts after the nanny’s gone. I was honestly just coming to see if you had leftovers on the food cart. Do you?”
“Sure you were,” Vere laughs in a teasing tone. “Sorry, though. We’ve demolished everything. Come with us to see your little girl, and I’ll order you more food?”
“Again, no thanks,” he says, and then in one whoosh, executed so quickly I can feel the air moving like a windstorm around us, he’s disengaged himself from Vere’s grip.
The guy’s done the world’s fastest 180 and he’s speed walking away!
“Royce. Come on,” Vere’s shouting as we follow him off the pool deck.
As he gains distance and we enter the living room area again, I step out from behind Vere. The guy is halfway down the marble hallway that leads to some of the rooms. I note how he hasn’t even glanced toward where his baby is housed as he passes by the nursery room.
Vere turns to smile at me, shaking her head and cracking up. “See? It’s like I said. He’s totally afraid of you and that baby. So funny. Wait. Again, why are you not smiling? If you knew him you’d laugh so hard right now.”
I shake my head, just as the baby starts squeaking through the monitor speaker. “Maybe to you he’s funny, but to me there’s nothing funny about a father who won’t take every chance he can get to check on his own daughter. I’m sorry, but if he keeps doing this I don’t think I can ever like him. And I’m pretty sure I will never find him funny.”
Chapter 20
That night, and even though I’m exhausted from being a stressed-out-nanny all day, I sneak back into the kitchen while Mrs. Perino is giving the girls a bath. I want to try and repay her how I can for her kindness. First, I do the dishes and clean the countertops until everything is sparkling. While Sage skips out to meet up with Angel so they can check on the rabbits ‘one last time’ I mop the floor, then head to a little back porch to tie the trash bag that needs to be taken out and set it by the door. Then, I quickly move the laundry from washer to dryer, before folding anything and everything I’ve pulled out of the dryer, stacking it in neat, sorted piles on top of the machine.
When I’m finished with the laundry, I turn and I look, really look, at the backyard through the glass on the back door for the first time.
I take in the picnic tables in the open piazza type area we skirted last night while taking out the trash. It’s
near the largest barbecue grill I’ve ever seen, and in the fading light, the three little cottages seem cuter than I’d imagined them. Yes, they’re rundown with their weathered plywood boards and tilting foundations, but the tiny windows have been washed clean, and they gleam in the light like they’re twinkling eyes, beckoning me to peek in, to paint them. Each has its own porch and well-tended garden out front, full of flowers rioting in every direction.
There’s a little barn shaped building past the vegetable garden Angel had pointed out that’s set to the right and behind the cottages. I figure it has to be where the chickens live, because it’s yard is all fenced and there’s funny little ramps running up and down into chicken-sized holes that have been cut into the sides. I’m assuming the other low, shed-like buildings are where the rabbits are kept.
Curious now, I step out and head to the largest one, the one Angel had called Cara’s cottage. What draws me to it aside from sheer curiosity about Cara is this old, gnarled orange tree growing behind the house. Its height is not much higher than the cottage’s low roof, but it has these remarkable long branches that reach wide instead of up to the sky. They go over the rooftop in this way that’s almost hugging the whole thing. I can’t stop my eyes from soaking it in, nor can I stop my fingers from craving to sketch this tree. Like Angel had hoped, some remaining small, fragrant flowers are still blooming here and there.
The ground under the tree is all grass, but it’s over-layered with the dropped flower petals that have fallen from the fruit blossoms. There are so many that it looks like snow. Flower snow.
I walk around the back and peek into the window that makes up the top half of the back door. It has its own little charming kitchen, and back hall. Both decorated almost exactly how Mrs. Perino’s place is decorated in the big house, with the same old flooring plus the red and white checked curtains. The open shelves are stacked with Mason jars for drinking glasses and antique milk-white plates. Only, instead of an old wooden farm table there’s this gorgeous 1950’s era, chrome trimmed, green and white kitchen table that has matching chairs with vinyl-green seats. I catch a glimpse of the two bedrooms in the back, and from the kitchen I can see an open living room and some sort of a sunroom combined.
Enchanted, I walk to the side window, trying to get a better look at the space.
From this angle, I note the room has an old stone fireplace on the far end that matches, again, a mini-version of the layout inside the Perino’s’ main house. But that’s where the similarities stop. The wide-planked farmhouse boards that make up the floor have been painted white, but with wear and foot traffic, the wood shows through just enough so that it doesn’t look too stark. There’s also no clutter because no one lives there. For furniture, the room boasts this awesome, squishy-looking chaise longue with thick, turned wooden legs. It’s facing the windows of the sunroom.
“Of course… it’s perfect. So perfect,” I say under my breath, eyeing a second piece of furniture in the room. A huge, red velvet couch, also antique, that is placed facing the chaise. I can picture people in there, laughing, sitting with the fire crackling between them on a rainy day. As the light starts to fade some, my eyes go past the living room and into the attached and open, still bright sunroom located behind the seating area.
My heart drops all the way to my feet when I realize what I’m seeing. I clutch the window sill and hold my breath, because this room, it’s filled with things that I recognize.
Crave. Long for. Dream about.
“It’s an art studio,” I whisper, scooting one window over. Shivers spike down my spine and suddenly I can’t swallow. There’s a long white table covered in paint spatter, as well as two gorgeous antique wood easels set up next to a spot where the windows curve around and face the vegetable garden. There’s also built in white painted shelves, beside more shelves, floor to ceiling, all spilling over with art supplies.
My heart slams against my chest as I take it all in. Even if someone asked me to make a list, or do a sketch of what I’d picture a perfect home and a perfect art studio to be, I couldn’t come up with anything more perfect than this quiet, tree-hugged cottage.
Inside, on the walls of the living room, even leading into the kitchen, someone--Cara it has to have been Cara--has painted a tree that matches the tree outside. She’s done the branches so well that you can’t tell when the ones inside begin and where the ones outside stop. Even cooler, she’s embedded the words ‘I am’ into the mural in this way that the words look twined into the branches.
Looking around, I realize she’s done branches on each wall inside, not just one. But because it’s getting dark, I tilt my head to an awkward angle and squint-read what I think is written there: “I am Cara. I am me.”
Realizing I’ve been holding my breath, I breathe out, then in while my admiration for how she’s done this work of art grows. It makes the inside of the room seem alive. “So cool,” I mutter, as I walk back around the little house, scoot up on the porch and peer through the screen door, then the larger front window.
Now that I know what to look for, I’m hoping I’ll be able to read more of her painted words before it goes completely dark. I’m all but pressing my nose onto the glass and about to give up when the other words come into focus: I am here.
I am Cara.
I am me.
I am love.
As I read the words on each wall over and over, I’m unable to look away. I feel like I understand Angel and his mom more than I possibly could in such a short time, and I also get why they helped us. Angel’s compulsion, as he called it is more than that. These people lost the girl who created this overwhelming beauty. She was a daughter, a big sister, and a person even I long to know now.
How alive she must have been to paint something like this. How horrible it must feel to Angel and his mom to miss her and to know she’s never coming back. At least with our father’s situation, nothing’s final. We have hope that he’s coming home. That’s the one thing that keeps us going. Our possibilities, and scenarios--our dreams about our father could still come true. Our worries are simply worries, but their situation is so final. Permanent. Horrible. Forever painful.
Feeling guilty that I might have caused people back home, Joanie in particular, unnecessary worry and possible pain, I walk back to the main house, determined to call the one person I swore I wouldn’t call until after my birthday.
Chapter 21
After the third ring, she answers: “Hello?”
“J--j-joanie?” I choke some on her name.
“Robin.” I hear her breathe out loud and long, like she’s been holding her breath just like I was. This woman’s not home, she’s not my dad, but she’s at least one of the few people who really knows where I came from, and she might have that news that could change everything for us.
Please, after all this time, let her have news.
“Are you two okay? Where are you? I’ve been losing my mind.”
“I know. And I’m sorry about that. It’s why I called. I wanted you to know we are truly okay.” My eyes water up because despite the part where I feel like I’ve changed so much these past days, I’ve noted the ever-cold, biting tone in her voice. A tone that says she’s still exactly the same as she was when we left, and that she’s pissed off at me. Despite my urge to hang up fast, I manage to keep my voice steady and go on, “I told you in the letter I left behind, that I’d call you on my birthday, or that I’d call you if we had any troubles.”
“Yeah, but I hoped you weren’t serious. I thought you’d be back by the end of day one. It’s been over a week, Robin!” She now sounds panicky. “It’s not your birthday, so you’re in trouble? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Honest. I didn’t want to risk anyone knowing where we went so I waited.”
“And where did you go? I’ve got caller ID, you know? I can Google this number and area code.”
“It’s not a secret. We’re in Orlando and I’ve got a job. A solid, well-paying, responsi
ble-adult type of job. I also have a good, responsible babysitter for Sage.”
I can hear Joanie’s three boys in the background. Joanie pauses to shout, “Mason, take a shower like you said you would. Jason, do the dishes, and Bryson, don’t you make that face at me, because you know it’s your night to feed the dog, so get to it! Now. Go!” Then back to me: “You’re so lucky you called tonight, because I was determined to call the police tomorrow. It’s been too long. I was freaking out.”
“Oh, Joanie. I didn’t mean to scare you. I swear. We’re fine, and as I explained in the letter I didn’t want social services involved. Are they? Have they come to check on us?”
“I evaded them for this week, but look. I’m not going to lie about it anymore. I’ve got my own kids to worry about. If you aren’t planning on coming back, damn you—young lady, if you’re in Orlando,” her voice gets all shrill, “then I’m going to report you as missing!”
“Please. No. If you could wait until my birthday. I’m sure that would help the case. Tell them why we left. Tell them that I plan to seek custody of Sage. Use the letter I left for you.”
“Oh, I’ll tell them everything. The letter will explain why you aren’t here now, but if they found out you’ve already been gone for quite some time? If something happens to you, despite the bullshit?” She changes her voice to a bad rendition of my voice, “I hate you, Joanie, you will never understand me which is why I’m running away,” crap you typed in that letter, and the additional, “we’re so depressed and confused about our father we need to run away and think paragraphs?” Paragraphs that I think you wrote because you wanted to protect me as well as yourself, and I do thank you for that Robin, I will still get in trouble for not reporting that you’ve run away.” Pulling in a deep breath like she knows she’s just lost it, she tries to calm her voice and adds, “Honey, even with that job, and you turning eighteen, they aren’t going to let you keep Sage.”