by Laura Dower
Fiona shook her head and stifled a laugh. “It was…um…just a joke,” she mumbled. But the conductor didn’t think much of Fiona’s joke. She took their real tickets and moved along to the next car.
Madison, Aimee, Lindsay, and Fiona burst into laughter as soon as she was out of earshot.
Thweeeeeeeeeeeeek!
The train’s brakes made a loud, squeaking noise as the train slid past the Harlem-125th Street station and headed underground toward the heart of New York City. The interior was thrust into darkness as the train chugged into Grand Central.
“Party pass?” Lindsay asked aloud in the dark. The girls tried their hardest to keep themselves from cracking up again, but by now it was useless. One laugh led to another, and soon it was an avalanche of giggles. People were actually staring. Madison was cracking up so hard she needed to pee.
When the train finally pulled into Grand Central for the last stop—their stop—the girls slowly retrieved their duffel bags and backpacks. A nice gentleman helped the girls lift the bags back onto the floor so they didn’t lose their balance and drop everything. By the time they had all of their stuff in order, they were the last four people to exit the train.
They walked up a long ramp and then up a flight of stairs toward the interior of the station. Lindsay directed everyone through two passageways, past a coffee bar and a newsstand, and the girls entered the main part of Grand Central. The foursome narrowly missed bumping into a cluster of kids who weren’t paying attention. Fiona nearly collided with a kiosk. A businessman wearing a bluetooth sideswiped Madison with his briefcase and didn’t even look back.
But none of that mattered. They were there—at last.
Madison threw her head back and gasped. Although she had, in fact, seen the Grand Central Station ceiling a dozen times—or more—it never failed to awe her. As they walked toward the center of the main room of the station, Madison and the others huddled together and stared up at the blue-green ceiling decorated with gold stars. Dusky light streamed in through windows around the top of the room, through wide panes of glass that had been there for more than a century.
The buzz of people racing across the vast room invigorated all four girls. They couldn’t stop oohing and aahing as they spun around, eyes darting from the posh restaurant up on the second level to the armed security guards standing at attention by the exit doors. Aimee spotted someone famous, or at least she thought she did, but after a few expectant moments Lindsay (who was always seriously in the know) burst her bubble. Aimee literally had stars in her eyes—or at least she wished she did.
Madison’s head hummed with all the noise. Her bags felt heavy but she didn’t mind. Glancing around, she caught the eye of a young boy who seemed to be checking her out. She did a double take. Hart!
Of course it wasn’t the real Hart, but someone who looked exactly like him.
“Aunt Mimi!” Lindsay cried suddenly. She raced toward the large information booth at the center of the room. Atop the booth was a four-sided clock. Madison could see from the ornate brass hands of the clock that it was nearly four-thirty.
“Lindsay!” Aunt Mimi screeched at the top of her lungs. “Girls!” she added, arms flailing under a patchwork cape.
Lindsay ran over for a hug. Madison, Aimee, and Fiona straggled behind with their bags.
“Good ride?” Aunt Mimi asked, her voice lilting.
Up close, Madison saw Mimi’s charcoal eyeliner and scarlet lipstick. Her makeup accentuated her perfect cheekbones and eyelashes—like those of a magazine cover model, Madison thought. For some reason she had imagined Lindsay’s wacky aunt Mimi as someone older, with silver hair and lots of wrinkles. But this Mimi teetered on a pair of three-inch-high black heels and wore a brown fur cap with little fur pom-poms like the kind Madison saw in fashion magazines. Everything about Lindsay’s aunt was unexpected.
“Are you four tired? Hungry? Bored? All of the above?” Aunt Mimi asked.
Aimee, Fiona, and Madison laughed out loud at Aunt Mimi’s stand-up-comedy delivery. Lindsay was amused, too, although she was clearly used to the act.
“Aunt Mimi, I told everyone that we’d go to your place first. That way we can dump our stuff,” Lindsay said.
“Abso-tootly!” Mimi cried as she readjusted her pom-poms. “Do you have your passes?” she asked with a wink.
Lindsay groaned. “Aunt Mimi…”
“I have mine!” Fiona said as she pulled it out of her pocket.
Aimee produced her pass, too, with a wide smile. “We decided these were the coolest things on the planet,” she said to Aunt Mimi. “So…where are you taking us?”
“Hmmm,” Aunt Mimi said thoughtfully. “Everywhere I can possibly take you in two short days. Sound good?”
Aimee nodded.
Aunt Mimi craned her neck and glanced at the information-booth clock. “Well then, if we’re going everywhere, we’ve got no time to lose!” she declared, throwing her shoulders back.
“No time!” Fiona and Aimee said simultaneously.
“I told you that Aunt Mimi is crazy, but she’s fun,” Lindsay whispered. “I promise.”
Madison lifted her two bags and steadied herself. It felt as if the floor were moving. Even though they had only been standing there a few minutes, the crowd of people rushing to their trains seemed to have grown twofold around them. Rush-hour traffic on a Friday in Grand Central Station made this one of the busiest places on earth.
Cell phones beeped with annoying ring tones. The loudspeaker blared. But for some strange reason Madison didn’t feel swallowed up by the people elbowing their way around her and her friends where they stood, or by the very loud shuffling and pounding as people made their way from one side of the room to the other. Madison felt bigger than all of it, bigger than the information-booth clock, bigger than the starry sky that was painted on the ceiling.
“To the subway!” Aunt Mimi announced with a loud flourish, as if she were waving a magic wand.
Bags in hand and on backs, Madison and the others followed their leader to the Number Six subway train, gliding across the station’s marble floor together toward the great unknown.
Or at least toward the upper east side of Manhattan.
Chapter 7
“I HAVEN’T BEEN ON the subway in so long,” Madison announced. Her friends didn’t hear her. They were busy pushing their way through the turnstiles.
Down a tiled corridor, the train was just pulling in with a whoosh of cold underground air.
“Let’s dash!” Aunt Mimi called out as she ran for the train.
The girls scrambled into the subway car. Fiona almost lost her purse, but Aimee grabbed it in the nick of time. Getting used to the pace of the city was tricky. People crowded in around them.
Madison and Lindsay sat down in two free seats near one of the doors. Aimee, Fiona, and Aunt Mimi checked out the illuminated subway map overhead.
“What do you think so far?” Lindsay asked.
“Your aunt is amazing,” Madison said.
Lindsay nodded. “I know. But I don’t know how she and my mom could possibly be sisters.”
“Your mom is nice, too,” Madison said.
“Yeah, but she isn’t cool. Not like Aunt Mimi.”
“Are any moms truly cool?” Madison asked with a laugh.
“Your mom is,” Lindsay answered. “She makes movies. She travels all over the world.”
“But she doesn’t wear fur hats or capes,” Madison said.
From across the subway car, Aunt Mimi shot the girls a look. “Are you two conspiring?”
Lindsay laughed. “Of course.”
The subway doors finally closed, and the train headed uptown. At one stop, some people speaking Spanish got off, and Aimee and Fiona slid into their seats, across from Madison and Lindsay. Aunt Mimi stood between the girls, hanging onto the silver bars as the train chugged along, as if she were balancing on an exercise machine. With her high heels, Aunt Mimi towered over them all.
They a
rrived at their station and scooted up the escalator to the street level. Aunt Mimi wanted to walk the rest of the way to her apartment. It was only a few more blocks uptown.
When the girls exited the subway station, traffic was at a standstill. Yellow cabs honked loudly. A bus exhaled gritty exhaust in front of them. Aunt Mimi coughed.
“How lovely,” Aunt Mimi sputtered. “Welcome to New York.”
They crossed the street and strolled past a clothing store with a flashy CHRISTMAS AND HANUKKAH ARE COMING! sign; a restaurant advertising special prix fixe menus and little tables set with candles; and several shops selling T-shirts and newspapers out in front. It was a metropolitan obstacle course, with Aunt Mimi leading the way. Madison, Aimee, Fiona, and Lindsay clung to their bags and moved in a pack so they would not get separated.
“I love the city,” Aimee declared as they passed one store. “Look at this!”
The store window displayed a ballerina dressed in tulle. Of all the stores in New York, Aimee had found the one with ballet clothes. Aunt Mimi suggested that they go inside the store for a look.
Aunt Mimi and Aimee headed for a sale rack. Fiona followed them, leaving Madison and Lindsay to guard the luggage at the front of the store.
“So, when’s your mom coming?” Madison asked Lindsay.
Lindsay shrugged. “Later, I guess. She said she would call. I don’t know about my dad, though. He hasn’t called me back yet today.”
“But he’s coming, right?” Madison asked.
“I don’t know,” Lindsay said. “I hope.”
Madison knew how hard things had been for Lindsay lately. Everyone knew the basics: Lindsay’s parents were in the process of splitting up. But that was all anyone knew. Lindsay hardly ever mentioned her family problems, not even when she was confiding in Madison via e-mail or near the lockers at school.
Aimee decided to buy a pink leotard with flowers around the neck, because it was on sale.
“You girls have been here for five minutes, and you’re already shopping!” Aunt Mimi laughed. “What do you say we head for home now?”
Four blocks later, they arrived at Aunt Mimi’s apartment building. It had metal, mirrored windows and a gigantic lobby filled with abstract art and a fountain made of colored glass.
“ ’Evening, Miss Frost,” the doorman said, tipping his hat. He stood behind an enormous marble desk surrounded by video monitors and buttons. “How are you tonight?”
“I’m fabulous, George. I’ve got my niece and her friends for the weekend.”
George grinned. “Can I take your bags up?”
Aunt Mimi waved him off. “We’ve lugged them for blocks,” she said. “We can make the elevator. Thank you.”
George tipped his hat again. “Ladies…” he said as Lindsay and her friends passed by. Aunt Mimi led everyone to the bank of elevators. Once inside the wood-paneled elevator car, she pulled out a small key and pushed it into the control panel.
“What was that?” Aimee asked aloud.
“She has a special key for her floor,” Lindsay explained.
“She has a whole floor?” Madison asked.
“Indeed I do,” Aunt Mimi said.
“Wow,” Fiona said. “That’s a lot of rooms.”
“She has one room just for clothes,” Lindsay whispered. “And it’s bigger than my bedroom at home.”
“It is not!” Aunt Mimi let out a laugh. “Lindsay, it’s just a closet. And you kids are welcome to try on anything and borrow anything this weekend, by the way. My home is your home.”
Madison, Aimee, and Fiona giggled as the elevator climbed all the way up, to the penthouse level, finally opening onto a wide hallway with mosaic tiles on the floor. They saw a giant wooden door with a knocker carved like a lion’s head.
Aunt Mimi punched a few keys on the automatic-alarm keypad and turned the front doorknob.
The girls gasped. It was like a movie set inside.
Everyone froze in their steps, but Lindsay ran inside without making a big fuss. “Don’t just stand there. Come on, everyone,” she said.
The ceilings were at least twenty feet high, Madison thought as they wandered inside and placed their stuff along one wall.
Aunt Mimi flung her cape onto one of the four sofas in the living room. Or was it the living room? Madison could see out of the corner of her eye that there were at least four or five other rooms connected to this one—and they all looked like living rooms.
“Make yourselves comfy,” Aunt Mimi said.
Just outside the apartment, the sun was setting, and the room was filled with a golden-orange light. Madison, Aimee, Fiona, and Lindsay each collapsed onto her own sofa. Aunt Mimi handed Aimee a cell phone so that she—and the other girls—could call home to let their mothers know they had arrived safely.
Lindsay had to call her mom, too. She paced around the room as they talked for about five minutes. She seemed fine when she was talking, but as soon as she got off the phone her face turned blank.
“What’s the matter?” Fiona asked.
“Lindsay, are you okay?” Aimee asked.
“Everything is fine, which means everything is not fine,” Lindsay remarked. “It’s the same as usual.”
Her eyes filled up. A tear trickled down one cheek.
“Lindsay, don’t cry,” Madison said.
Aunt Mimi put an arm around Lindsay’s shoulder. “My darling Lindsay, things always have a way of working out.”
“That’s what everyone says,” Lindsay cried. “Um…”
She ran into the other room.
For a moment, no one said a word. Then Aunt Mimi excused herself and followed Lindsay into one of the rooms in the back. As soon as the two had disappeared, Madison, Aimee, and Fiona began to whisper.
“What do you think is wrong?” Fiona asked.
“You know,” Aimee said.
“I’m worried,” Madison said.
“Can you believe this apartment?” Aimee said suddenly. “It’s more like a castle.”
“You could fit our whole house inside here,” Fiona said.
“I hope she’s okay,” Madison said with concern.
“I think Lindsay is just worked up because this is a big weekend,” Aimee said matter-of-factly. “And she misses her mom and dad, but they’ll be here. No worries.”
Madison gave Aimee a funny look.
“Plus, it’s a really big deal to turn thirteen,” Fiona said.
Madison shook her head. What were they talking about? Didn’t they understand anything?
Madison understood. She knew exactly why Lindsay was upset, or at least she thought she did.
Just then, Aunt Mimi reappeared at a side door, with Lindsay in tow.
“Sorry, guys,” Lindsay said. “I just lost it for a minute. My mom said she would be late tomorrow, and I really wanted her to come shopping with us. That’s all. I didn’t mean to get so freaked.”
“I’m glad you feel better,” Fiona said.
Aunt Mimi threw her arms into the air. “Why don’t you four come into the kitchen? I’ve prepared a sleepover feast—and you are invited.”
Lindsay laughed with relief. “Aunt Mimi is an awesome cook,” she said. “She made four-cheese macaroni and grilled chicken kebabs and salad and all my favorites.”
“Yum,” Fiona said, rubbing her belly for effect. Of course Fiona would find those foods appealing. She would eat anything, except bananas and most fruit.
The girls entered the kitchen and immediately began to pick at the assortment of food on the countertop.
“Thanks for making a vegetarian-friendly dinner,” Aimee said.
“Sometimes I feel like a rabbit, I love salad so much,” Lindsay said. “And Aunt Mimi makes the best rice-vinegar dressing.” She reached into the salad bowl, then popped a carrot stick into her mouth.
“Aunt Mimi, is there anything you can’t do?” Madison asked.
“Well, I can’t be thirteen again,” Aunt Mimi said sweetly. “You four have everyt
hing ahead of you…everything to look forward to.”
“I guess,” Aimee said, grabbing a tortilla chip from a large ceramic bowl.
“This is the best birthday ever,” Fiona said. “And it hasn’t even really started yet.”
Lindsay perched on a kitchen stool and spun around. “Thanks for being here,” she said to everyone in the room. “I promise I won’t freak again.”
“Tut-tut!” Aunt Mimi said with a few claps of her hands. “We have a feast to consume. Let’s eat.”
Aunt Mimi brought all of the dishes over to a large, wooden table that was set with giant plates, cups, and a tall vase filled with orange lilies. Madison smiled because, of course, the flowers were her favorite color.
Through one of the windows facing south, the lights of New York City’s skyline twinkled under a now-black sky. Clouds crowded in around the tops of buildings. Madison paused briefly to take it all in. Then she scooped a bit of warm macaroni and cheese into her mouth.
After dinner, Aunt Mimi showed everyone in to the back bedrooms. She’d set up two guest rooms with a pair of twin beds in each. The rooms shared a bathroom in the middle, so no one would be very far. Aimee and Fiona decided to bunk together in one room, and Madison and Lindsay took the other room. Aunt Mimi’s taste was evident everywhere, from the textured wallpaper to the quilts on the beds to the painted furniture. The girls loved it.
“I wish I had a room like this,” Fiona said.
Lindsay threw herself on top of one of the beds. “Aunt Mimi redecorates every three months or so. If you came back in the summer, this whole room would be different.”
“Really?” Madison asked.
Lindsay nodded.
“Do you think Aunt Mimi is as rich as Drew’s family?” Aimee asked.
“Aim, how can you ask something like that?” Madison cried.
“I don’t know,” Aimee cracked. “Because I was wondering.”
“I think Drew’s family is probably a lot richer,” Lindsay said. “They have three houses, don’t they? Aunt Mimi just has this one apartment. She stays in hotels whenever she goes other places.”
Madison’s head whirled with all the talk. She wasn’t sure if that was from being overwhelmed—or from being overtired.