The Glass Kitchen

by Linda Francis Lee

  Ariel’s throat went tight, the same way it did whenever the Shrink asked her to talk about their mom. Then a memory hit her. “I remember a time, once, when Mom dragged me into the backyard to plant violets and watermelon. She laughed and said it would be fun.” The kitchen grew comfortably quiet. Finally, like giving in or something, Portia asked, “Do you have a photo of your mom?”

  Miranda shrugged, then pushed up. “I do.” She went upstairs, then returned in a flash. “This is her. It’s the only one I have since Dad packed all the others away. But it’s a great one.”

  The photo made Ariel’s throat tighten even more. It showed Miranda, Mom, Dad, and Ariel, all laughing, Mom leaning up against Dad.

  But the photo had been taken when Ariel was little. Other than in this picture, she had never seen her mother laugh or lean against Dad.

  “You should put it out,” Portia said.

  Miranda gave her a look. “Yeah, so Dad can bite my head off? No thanks.”

  Ariel explained. “He doesn’t like being reminded of Mom. Which makes it really hard to do the report I’m working on.”

  “What report?”

  “The one on our family. We have to write a paper on our family tree, without it just being a family tree. I ask, what does that even mean?”

  “I had to do one of those when I was in middle school,” Miranda said. “I just asked Mom a bunch of questions. She told me stories about herself as a kid.”

  “Really? What did she say?” Ariel asked, the words kind of breathy.

  “Not much. I just wrote about her wanting to be a princess when she was young, and how it was special to me since I wanted the same thing when I was her age. I got an A.” Miranda looked at Ariel wryly. “You could hand in the same report, but I don’t think anyone would believe that you ever wanted to be a princess.”

  Ariel’s heart twisted even more. Her mom had wanted to be a princess?

  Miranda’s cell rang. One glance at the screen and she dashed from the kitchen, then out the front door.

  Ariel and Portia watched her go. After a second, Portia poured a glass of coconut water with ice and handed it to Ariel. “I bet you have your own stories to tell about your mom, stories that are completely yours.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a sister, just like you. And I’m a younger sister, just like you. All you have to do is dig around, find the memories. They’ll be there.”

  “Dig around?”

  “You know, ask questions, search out answers?”

  “Like a detective?”

  Portia laughed. “Exactly. Ariel, the Twelve-Year-Old Detective.”

  “I’m nearly thirteen!”

  “All the better.”

  Portia turned back to the pile of food on the counter. Ariel took the glass and then headed out of the room to her dad’s office.

  She felt a little better. She could look for some memories, like Portia said. She could get her own A, and not with some idiotic story about a princess, either. She would do an Internet search.

  In the office, she fired up her dad’s computer, the one that didn’t have any kid blocks. She opened her backpack and rummaged around, looking for a pen and some paper. She really needed to clean out her backpack now. Before she knew it, she’d be thirteen. And, seriously, what self-respecting teenager carried around a calculator covered in stickers; a painted inhaler; or crazy socks with individual toes, like gloves for feet. She had outgrown them all.

  But then there was the whole thing she couldn’t get out of her head. Her mom had given her the stickers. Her mom had whipped out the nail polish and painted Einstein on the inhaler after Ariel had refused to carry it around because it was stupid.

  And the socks? She’d found those after her mom died, like some sort of weird relic from the past. Her mom had been super fancy. How many times had Ariel wondered how a girl who owned those socks could grow up to be a woman who always wore boring clothes and tons of pearls?

  As usual, there were more questions than answers.

  Ariel went to Google and typed in her mom’s name. Photos popped up. Ariel had seen them before. After all, she’d Googled her mom a zillion other times. No new photos. No new news, either. Just the same articles, the ones about all the good works Mom did, and all the variations on “Social Scion Dies in Crash.”

  Pressure built up behind Ariel’s eyes.

  Quickly, she moved on. This time, she typed in the name her uncle had used, Victoria Polanski. The computer spun for a second, and up popped a whole new batch of images. Mom way younger than Ariel had ever seen her. Mom with a group of girls glammed up like that old group the Spice Girls, arms linked, drinks in hand. The caption read: Beauty Times Four.

  The article went on about Mom and a whole bunch of other people attending a big bash at a bar opening in Union Square.

  Ariel couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d read that her mother was a vampire. This image, and the one that was lodged in her head, didn’t match. At all.

  She kept scrolling down until she came to a photo of her dad. Actually it was of her dad and uncle, standing on either side of her mom. This time, the caption read: Two Beauties and a Beast. It said that her mom was a beauty, sure, but it was mainly about how her uncle was the beauty to his older brother’s beast. The thought made her hurt a little bit more.

  Quickly, she clicked on another link, anything to distract herself. But what popped up made her flinch. An obituary. She hated obituaries. Avoided them like the plague.

  On second glance, she breathed a little easier when she realized it wasn’t for her mother. Instead, it was for a man named Bohater Polanski. Bohater Polanski?

  Ariel scanned the notice. The man was born in Poland; immigrated to the United States when he was a teenager; married, then lost his young wife; was a longtime maintenance engineer at the Amsterdam Houses, the same complex where he raised his only daughter, Wisia “Victoria” Polanski.

  Her pulse slowed.

  The photo included with the notice showed an old man with no smile but clearly proud of the teenage girl standing next to him, as if it were the only photo of the man to be found. Even Ariel couldn’t deny that the girl was her mother.

  With her heart in her throat, she Googled “Amsterdam Houses.”

  Ariel stared at the screen. Her la-di-da mother, who refused to socialize with anyone who wasn’t from the “right” family, was raised by a man she had never bothered to mention, in a housing project in an iffy section of the Upper West Side.

  That was the woman who could paint Einstein in lime green nail polish and who owned crazy gloves made for feet.

  Sixteen

  A CRASH STARTLED PORTIA and she dashed out of the Kanes’ kitchen.

  “Ariel?”

  “Everything’s fine! No need—”

  Portia came to a stop in the doorway to what looked like Gabriel’s office. The room had heavier furniture than the study one floor up. Ariel stood at a mahogany desk with a drinking glass at her feet, a spray of coconut water and ice cubes splashed across the floor.

  “Ah, clumsy me.” Ariel closed the computer window, then turned off the machine. “I guess I made a mess.”

  Portia eyed the computer. “What are you doing?”

  “Homework.”

  “That didn’t look like homework.”

  “Portia, seriously, you’re showing your age. This is how we do homework now. On computers. We do research on the Internet, then write intelligent reports suffused with impressive detail.” Ariel stepped high over the water and drinking glass. “I’ll get some towels.” She walked across the hall and retrieved two hand towels from the half bath. “But don’t worry, I don’t think less of you for not knowing that.” Her smile widened, and she dropped down and mopped up the mess. Portia dropped down next to her, and they had it all cleaned up in seconds.

  “Ariel, seriously,” Portia said in a perfect version of a teenage accent, if she said so herself. “Do I look like I just fell off the turnip
truck?”

  Ariel eyed her. “You probably don’t want me to answer that.”

  Then she surprised Portia when she leaped up, tossed the towels back in the bath, and grabbed her hand. “I’m starved.”

  Portia was still worried about Cordelia. After her announcement about the possible indictment, she had later explained that the authorities had started probing not just the bank, but James as well. James had not left the apartment in days.

  Portia’s unease grew when she and Ariel returned to the Kanes’ kitchen and found that Miranda was back, this time with a boy.

  Ariel stopped so fast that Portia bumped into her.

  “Ariel,” Miranda snapped. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs or something, doing homework?” She eyed Portia. “And aren’t you, like, finished playing maid for the day?”

  The boy actually laughed, though he also gave Portia a once-over like a bad imitation of a lech in a seedy bar. He looked older than Miranda, though he wore the same school uniform. His blond hair was shaggy, but somehow seemed professionally cut that way, as if he—or his mom—had paid two hundred dollars for the trim.

  “This is your maid?” he asked. “My mom needs to fire whoever finds our housekeepers. Ours are always old and major ugly.”

  Portia wrinkled her nose. “Do kids in New York really talk like that?”

  “Huh?” the boy said.

  “Ignore her,” Miranda said. “Come on, Dustin, let’s go upstairs to my room.”

  Ariel’s eyes went wide. “You can’t take a boy to your bedroom! Dad will kill you!”

  “Well, he won’t be home for hours, so he won’t ever know. Right?”

  “I guess,” Ariel muttered.

  “Right, Portia?”

  “Don’t get me involved in this. I’m just the maid, remember?”

  “Whatever. Come on, Dustin.”

  Portia cursed under her breath. “Miranda, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to go upstairs. Stay down here, in the garden room.”

  Miranda jerked around and gave her a look. “Dad hired you as a cook, I get it. But guess what? That doesn’t make you my babysitter!”

  The boy laughed. “Dude,” he said with a nod.

  “Your dad won’t be happy if he finds out you took a guy to your room. He might well decide that you need a babysitter.”

  Portia didn’t register the sound of the front door opening until Miranda’s eyes went wide.

  “What’s up?” Dustin asked.

  “It’s Dad,” Ariel said. “He’s going to kill you. Dude.”

  “You have to go,” Miranda added. “Shit, how do we get you out of here? What is Dad doing home so early?”

  Before Portia could intervene, Miranda pushed the boy out the window and shooed him down the fire escape.

  “Portia’s door is always open. I’ll take him out through there once Dad’s inside,” Ariel said as if Portia weren’t standing there.

  Miranda nodded. “Great.”

  “Hello, Dad!” Ariel sang frantically, blowing by him as he walked into the kitchen. “Back in a flash.”

  Gabriel stood, taking in the retreating form of Ariel, and then turned to take in Miranda and Portia. “Did I miss something?”

  “No,” Miranda blurted. “Not a thing. Right, Portia?”

  Gabriel glanced between Miranda and her. What would she do if he asked her what was going on?

  Just a few minutes later, Ariel burst back in.

  Finally, he asked, “What’s for dinner?”

  “It’s only five o’clock,” Portia said.

  “I thought I’d come home early. See how my girls were doing.”

  “Ah, yeah. Great,” Miranda stated. She tucked her hair behind her ear and strode past him.

  “I’m glad you’re home, Dad,” Ariel said, as if trying to reassure him that he was loved.

  Gabriel smiled. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  Then his cell phone rang, and he disappeared into his study. Portia was left alone again to finish dinner and was on the verge of leaving when Gabriel, Miranda, and Ariel reappeared.

  “Dinner’s ready,” Portia said.

  “Why don’t you stay?” Gabriel said.

  Portia glanced around to see whom he was talking to. “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “Thanks, but I can’t.”

  “Come on,” Ariel chimed in. “Stay.”

  Miranda glared.

  Portia shook her head. “Nope. But thanks.” No way was she getting roped into another dinner with this crew, despite the fact that she was starving.

  At six, she found a can of tuna in her cabinet downstairs. At seven, she had eaten and cleaned, then started to pace. At eight, she called Olivia to get away from her thoughts. At nine, she called to check in on Cordelia, though her call went to voice mail. At ten, she went out, hoping to stop her circling thoughts. She was worried and irritable over one unavoidable fact. She was running out of money.

  She walked for nearly an hour, but didn’t feel one bit better. When she returned to the apartment, Gabriel was sitting on the front steps, his forearms on his knees.

  He didn’t say a word as she approached.

  He always took her breath away, the mix of power and brutality, stirred together with an ache that was only visible if you looked closely.

  She didn’t need to be with any man right then; she had enough complications as it was. Not to mention the fact that this man had his own set of problems, the biggest of which being that he had lost his wife—the mother of his daughters—the one who didn’t cook but was fun, at least according to Miranda. More than that—if she needed more than that—was the fact that she worked for him. To top things off, if … no, when things fell apart, they would be stuck in the same building, coming and going through the same cramped vestibule.

  She hated that he made her want to forget everything and dive into him.

  “I want a raise.”

  He cocked a brow, leaning back, planting his elbows on the step behind him, a grin sliding across his face. “Last I heard, Hello was the accepted form of greeting in the U.S.”

  She slapped her thigh. “God, you with the jokes. But I’m serious. And as you just pointed out, this is the U.S. Haven’t you heard of redistribution of wealth? You appear to have lots. I need some. Hence the raise.”

  His grin hitched into a smile. “You’ve barely made half a dozen meals.”

  “A half dozen of the best meals you’ve had in a long time.”

  “It’s pretty hard to get breakfast wrong.”

  “You’d think. But I have a nose, Mr. Kane, and the smell of burned oatmeal wafted from your kitchen the other morning.”

  “Wafted?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  His dark hair looked black as night in the sun, the waves reflecting the light, his matching eyes so dark that she couldn’t tell where the pupils ended and the irises began.

  “You’re a good cook. I’ll give you that.”

  “And then there were the cupcakes.”

  “True.”

  “Then you’ll give me the raise?”

  “No.”

  She heaved a melodramatic sigh, somehow feeling better already. “This really isn’t funny,” she said.

  “Actually, it sort of is. You look like you’re sucking on a lemon.”

  She shook her head with a jerk. “Untrue!”

  “Nope, true.”

  “Do men your age say words like ‘nope’?”

  “This from the woman who just used the word ‘wafting.’”

  For a second, she thought he was going to laugh outright. Again. This man who people said was ruthless. But then the lightness dissolved, his face shifting back into hard, unyielding edges, and he stood. “Haven’t you heard how intimidating I am?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Who could have missed Big Bad You on the front of The New York Times?” She patted his shirt. “Go scare those poor guys at Global Guppy, or whatever company you’re trouncing. I’m not
afraid of you.”

  He actually looked a little insulted.

  “One article does not a ruthless magnate make, Gabriel. What’re you doing? Warming up to doing a Donald Trump ‘You’re Fired’?”

  “Me channeling Donald Trump is about as likely as me giving you a raise.”

  “Well, you do have better hair.”

  His head fell back, and he looked up to the sky. “Three females in one suddenly small town house, not a one of them who listens to a word I say.”

  “Ariel listens.”

  He glanced back at her. “When she wants to.”

  They walked up the stairs and into the vestibule, but when she reached the entry to her apartment, she turned back. He was watching her, hands jammed into his pockets.

  “For the record, I don’t believe a word of that article,” she told him.

  He studied her. “You should. Every word of it’s true. I get what I want, Portia. And I crush anyone who gets in my way.”

  She blinked, then broke into laughter. “If you’re not careful, someone’s going to ask you to star in your own reality-TV show.”

  His eyes narrowed in a way that gave her a flutter of alarm.

  “Were you sitting out there for a reason?” she hurried on.

  He appeared to debate letting her change the subject. “I rang your bell and you weren’t home.”

  “I was out.”

  “What, no business plans to refine?”

  “Ha-ha. You with the joking.”

  He stood there for a second. “I’m guessing Miranda had a boy here this afternoon.”

  Portia stiffened.

  “I’m not an idiot, Portia. I assume he went out the kitchen window after I came in the door.”

  She debated. “Yeah, he did.”

  They stood in silence for a moment or two longer.

  “I didn’t know much about the girls before my wife died,” he said, surprising her. “Now it’s just me taking care of them. And I know what those boys are thinking. That’s one thing I know about, being a kid lusting after a girl. You don’t think about the fact that one day you’ll probably have your own daughter.”

  “You know what they say about karma,” she said delicately.