Jo took another sip of lemonade and narrowed her eyes at Grace, wondering if it was too early to worry about this tendency to go for the bad boys.
Jo slid her cup back on the table. She needed to take it one nightmare at a time. “Well,” Jo said, “my favorite character is that mutt that pulled Madeline from the river. What was that pup’s name, now? Something ridiculously Fifth Avenue—”
“Genevieve.”
“Ah, yes. Genevieve.” In Kentucky, dogs were called Rover or Pooch or Butch. Princesses were called Genevieve.
“Ooh, I love Genevieve, too! And Miss Clavel let Madeline keep her!”
“And all her puppies.”
Yes, all those sloppy puppies in that old house in Paris, covered with vines. How Jo had yearned for such a place, while wearing stranger’s hand-me-downs, and devouring the stories under worn bedcovers. She’d wanted to be transported there, where she could pretend that she wasn’t really an orphan—that her parents were just rich and busy and mysteriously away.
“Do you need some more tea, Aunt Jo?” Grace reached for the perky white teapot. “I’ll pour it for you.”
“Fill her up, kiddo.” Jo slid her delicate china cup within Grace’s reach. “I’ve gone plumb dry.”
Gracie lifted the teapot. Holding the lid with her other hand, she poured the tea—well, lemonade—in the general direction of Jo’s cup. Fortunately, the linen tablecloth was very absorbent.
Jo took a sip of the strongly sweetened brew. The way they both were drinking, they’d have to make another trip to the ladies’ room soon, and not just to peruse the bunny-with-umbrella wallpaper, designed by the same man who’d authored the books. On the table stood a three-tiered platter with a pretty lineup of miniature food. Jo picked up one of the shrimp arrayed in two straight lines. “Hey, this is the smallest.” Jo held up the shrimp. “Do you want to eat Madeline?”
“I like Pepito’s veggies better,” said Gracie, seizing a slim sliced carrot. “Especially the dip.”
Jo popped the shrimp in her mouth. She’d been trying to get Grace to eat sliced carrots and celery with ranch dip at home—to no avail—but serve the same thing up on silver and call it “Pepito’s crudités” and suddenly it was meal-worthy. Kate would appreciate that.
Kate, who was finally home with her kids, neck-deep in domestic suburban life again. Kate and Paul had come a long way, if that heartrending scene on the lawn was any indication, but Jo knew it was just the beginning. Apparently, even the truest of loves needed tending.
“Well, sugar,” she said, finishing a quick prayer, “my favorites were the teeny burgers. Not enough for this Southern girl, though—I could have eaten ten dozen more. But I was saving room for one of those.” Jo nodded discreetly toward the next table, where a redheaded little Madeline and her mother, in vintage Chanel, hunkered over a heaping bowl of ice cream. “What do you think, should we get the Eiffel Tower Hot Fudge Sundae or the Petite Banana Splits Fontainebleau?”
Grace craned her neck in a very unladylike way to get a good look at her neighbor’s Eiffel Tower sundae. Jo spotted a Fontainebleau a few tables over and pointed that out to her, too.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Jo said, as Grace bit her lip in indecision. “I’ll get one, and you get the other. Then we’ll share.”
“That’s what me and Cousin Jessie used to do,” Grace said, making an excited squiggle in her seat, “whenever we went to the Dairy Princess at home.”
Jo paused with the teacup halfway to her lips. “Home” for Gracie still meant back in New Jersey, at her grandmother’s house. Jo felt a twinge in her chest, like the sink of a sharp splinter.
“Well, kiddo,” Jo said, clearing the husk from her voice, “I can eat twice as much as skinny Cousin Jessie, so you’d better be quick with your spoon.”
Waddling out of the hotel six thousand calories later, Jo gamely suggested a few blocks of walking. Motherhood could pack on the pounds more easily than two weeks’ worth of late-night take-out. So they braved the frisky wind and strolled toward Central Park. Gracie buttoned her blue wool Madeline coat right up to her neck, and Jo wrapped herself in her cashmere pashmina. Skipping along in her Mary Janes, Grace followed the skittering of the leaves along the sidewalk. Ablaze with russet and gold, the trees of Central Park rustled in the wind as the feeble November sun warmed their heads. Winter was soon to come, but right now New York City was as lovely as it could get.
As they crossed Fifth Avenue, Gracie slipped her hand in Jo’s. Grace’s hand was weightless—so small, so warm, and slightly damp.
And though she strolled on a busy street in a busy city, with yellow cabs rushing by, and trucks rumbling over the pitted streets, and double-long buses squealing to a stop, Jo experienced a sudden, muffled silence, like a cocoon—like the drift of a soft, familiar blanket around them.
No reason to rush home.
Jo leaned down to catch the little girl’s eye. “Hey, Gracie, what do you say we work off some of that ice cream in that park over there? I hear it’s got a kickin’ twisty slide.”
Grace burst into a smile, and then darted toward the opening in the stone wall. Jo followed her through the gap, watching the ribbon on the little girl’s hat flying in her wake. Gracie raced for the park bridge, only to squeal in delight as she spotted the granite spiral slide.
With a twinge of guilt, Jo flicked her wrist to glance at her watch. Grace’s cousin and grandmother—Jessie and Mrs. Braun—were due to visit today, within the hour. Sarah was crashing at Jo’s apartment so she could let the Brauns in should Jo and Grace be late, but Jo’s concern extended beyond the threat of tardiness. Jo was looking forward to the visit with about the same enthusiasm as she was looking forward to her “performance review” at work on Monday, and for much the same reason. She’d spent the last weeks trying to do two very important things: land a new client, and try to make a home for an orphaned little girl. She’d bobbled the first, and the jury was still out on the second, though her spare room was starting to look as if it had been conquered by a tribe of fluffy bunnies.
As she hauled her Kentucky butt around the park, chasing Gracie from slide to stone bridge, Jo pushed the guilt from her mind. She and Gracie were having a wonderful day so far… and a pretty darn good week. Gracie had only walked in her sleep twice; she’d started to expand her food choices beyond sliced apples and macaroni and cheese; and there’d only been one tantrum, over the wrong brand of toothpaste. But Jo had a terrible dark Southern sense of foreboding about the upcoming visit with Nana Leah and Cousin Jessie. It would be the first time Gracie had seen them since Jo had swept her away from her home in Teaneck.
Jo remembered her own “family visits.” She closed her eyes and saw her twelve-year-old self on the third Sunday of every month. She’d made a point of getting filthy by the creek, and wearing her most tattered clothes. She’d listen for the crunch of wheels on the graveled drive, the signal that Aunt Lauralee had arrived in her blue pickup truck. Then Jo would slouch into the parlor late, glare at her aunt from under overgrown bangs, and secretly hope Aunt Lauralee would stop looking at her watch long enough to notice Jo’s Dickensian appearance. What she really longed for was a sudden change of heart—that Aunt Lauralee would take Jo back to the neat little ranch house and her four rambunctious cousins, the only family Jo had left.
No—there was no use rushing home today.
Gracie paused at the edge of a skateboard park, where she watched what appeared to be a gang of young Goth pincushions risk total paralysis on skateboards. (“Look, Aunt Jo, psychopaths!”) Despite the Mary Janes and plaid jumper, the little girl had more than a bit of her mother in her, and Jo suspected that after today a skateboard would be on her Hanukkah wish list. Veering away from the show, Grace managed to be in just the right place when a kid abandoned a swing, and, seizing it, she called for Jo to push her—which she did, until Grace was flying back over Jo’s head.
By the time they tumbled out of the taxi much later and headed into Jo�
�s apartment building, the yellow bow at Grace’s throat had come undone and she’d scraped the knee of her tights, but she was pink-cheeked and chattering all the way up the elevator to their floor. Jo’s stomach clenched more tightly each time the bell rang, marking the passing of another floor.
The minute Jo swung the door open to her apartment, Grace tore away from Jo’s side.
“Nana!”
Mrs. Braun was a hefty woman, incapable of sudden moves. As Gracie hurled toward her, the elderly woman shuffled forward on the couch in an effort to brace her legs to stand. Grace threw herself at her before she managed. Laughing, Mrs. Braun wrapped her plump arm around Gracie’s back and pulled her onto her lap.
Jo felt that sliver of a splinter slide a little deeper into her heart.
“Mrs. Braun, Jessie,” Jo said, as she tossed her keys in the bowl by the door. “Are we late? How long have y’all been here?”
“No, no, you’re not late.” Jessie jolted off the chair and then shoved her fingers into her jean pockets. She looked bony, and her hair was in desperate need of an appointment at Bangz. “We’re early. My aunt couldn’t wait. She was nervous about the traffic. She said in this part of town it would take an hour to find a parking spot. Your houseguest—Sarah—was kind enough to let us in.”
Jo met Sarah’s eye. Sarah shrugged where she sat curled in the corner of the couch, looking fragile but serene after the disastrous visit with Colin in L.A. “I offered tea,” Sarah said, “but for ten minutes I stood in front of your stovetop, and I still couldn’t figure out how to turn the thing on.”
“The dang thing’s computerized,” Jo said, sweeping up Grace’s discarded hat. “I’ll get it started in a minute.”
Mrs. Braun had managed to pull Gracie away from herself long enough to get a good look. Gracie unbuttoned her blue wool coat, smoothed her hand over her red plaid jumper, and wiggled her Mary Jane–clad toes. She sat inches from Mrs. Braun’s face, grinning, her body pliable and molded to her grandmother’s form.
“So you went to Central Park, did you?” Mrs. Braun asked. “And you went to a playground with a twisty slide? And before that, you were eating with Madeline?” Mrs. Braun’s grip on Gracie tightened. “You’ve been having quite a time for yourself here, haven’t you, Gracie?”
“Hey, do I get a hug?” Jessie dipped to her knees and opened her arms. Gracie slid off her grandmother’s lap and flung herself at Jessie. Jessie squeezed her tight, then launched into one of those kiddie monologues that Jo knew she would never, in all her life, master.
“So how’s my kitten-girl, huh? You’ve been causing problems for Aunt Jo, I bet. Sure, you’ve been nothing but trouble, putting tacks on her chair and glue in the locks and playing tricks with the toothpaste, haven’t you? What? You haven’t? Well, then, who are you? You can’t be my Gracie-girl, then. Did the gnomes come and take my good girl away and leave you instead…?”
All the while, Gracie smiled and shook her head and laughed and lost her little fists in Jessie’s hair. Jo unwound her pashmina and reached for Gracie’s discarded coat and the jackets Sarah had left on the back of the couch, all the while struggling with a strange feeling just by her heart, an aching, lonely little twist.
When Jo hung the last hanger onto the pole, she made a beeline into the kitchen, as far away as she could get from the Norman Rockwell scene. “Anyone have a tea preference?”
“You got Lipton?” Mrs. Braun asked. “Tell me you got Lipton. I can’t stand that fruity stuff.”
“Lipton it is.”
Sarah piped up. “Got any coffee?”
“You, Sarah? Coffee?” Jessie sank back into the couch. “I had you pegged as a green-tea type.”
“I hate the herbal stuff.” Sarah pulled the mass of her hair off her neck and braced it atop her head, with her elbow resting on the back of the couch. “Give me coffee, straight up. The stronger the better. At the camp we’re spoiled—we get Burundi beans from the hill plantations—costs a few francs for a kilo.”
As Jessie and Sarah chatted about free-trade coffees, Jo pulled down the decidedly non-free-market coffee beans she had and poured some in the stainless-steel grinder, an act that couldn’t drown out the sound of Mrs. Braun chattering.
“Let me look at you now, Gracie. Go ahead, stand in front of me. Look. Look! You’re up to here now. That’s a lot bigger than you were last time I saw you. Jo, what are you feeding this kid? She’s shot up like a rocket. Are you eating steak every night and finishing your vegetables, or are you sneaking sandwiches when Aunt Jo isn’t looking?”
“I ate Pepito’s crudités today.”
“Did you, now? Well, that must have helped. Or does Aunt Jo have you on a bed where she ties up your arms and legs every night and stretches you a bit? Is that what she’s doing?”
“No, you’re being silly, Nana!”
“I think that’s why you’ve grown three inches since I last saw you! I just can’t get over you. And look at your dress. Jo, how’d you get this kid in tights? Remember Passover, Jess? We tried to get her in tights, and, oh, there was no putting those on your legs—no, sir.”
“Nana, I was just a baby then!”
“Oh, you’re not a baby anymore, sure, not anymore. Now here you are all prettied up and going to teas like Eloise. Madeline? Well, then, like Madeline…”
Jo shoved the stainless-steel teapot under the Kohler faucet and pushed the knob so the water would come out fast and loud. That aching little twist by her heart was coiling into something slit-eyed and shameful. This was Gracie’s family. Of course Gracie would be thrilled to see them again. Of course Gracie would liven up and laugh and loosen up into her own little-girl self, and wasn’t that a hundred times better than what Jo had dreaded from this visit—a full screaming red-faced throw-the-macaroni-across-the-room tantrum?
She clattered the teapot on the stove to boil just as the coffee began to percolate, and then she forced herself to look into the living room. She watched Mrs. Braun pull a tattered, stuffed empire penguin from a bag. Gracie’s eyes widened; then she pressed the stuffed animal hard against her face.
Jo watched, with a shiver of worry.
“It’s one of Grace’s favorite stuffed animals,” Jessie explained as she sidled up by the kitchen island. “Rachel bought it for her years ago, after her first trip to Patagonia. My aunt has spent the past weeks in knots of worry, sure that Gracie was crying herself to sleep every night, missing it.”
“Grace never mentioned it, not once.”
“That’s funny.” Jessie shoved thin fingers into the hip pockets of her skinny jeans. “She couldn’t sleep without it at home. Screamed for it every night, even if it fell off the bed.”
Jo turned her back to pull open a cabinet. “You hankering for Lipton, too?”
“Whatever you got.” Jessie planted a booted heel on the lower rung of the chair, her face turned away to the scene in the living room. “Jo, she sure looks happy.”
“Yeah, well, I cut her a Prozac before you came.”
Jessie started.
“I’m kidding.” Jo pulled down four oversized mugs. “Though I might not have been if I’d listened to that therapist.”
“Therapist?”
Sliding the cups on the counter, Jo tugged open the silverware drawer, debating how much of the truth she should burden Jessie with. Oh, hell. “After Gracie’s first serious meltdown,” Jo said, “I had enough sense to seek professional help.”
“Meltdown?!”
“What, she didn’t melt down with you at all? She never threw her macaroni and cheese across the table? She never ate cardboard? Never got caught wandering around like a blind pig in the middle of the night?”
Jessie found sudden interest in the pattern on the polished granite countertop.
“The shrink said it probably had been going on for weeks.” Jo placed a spoon in each cup and darted a glance toward the living room, as Gracie burst into high, tense laughter. “Don’t worry—I said no to the drugs. For Gracie
’s sake. I’ve yet to decide whether I need them myself.”
“Raising a child is a full-time job,” Jessie murmured, her gaze scanning the room with its Glasswrap and covered outlets. “I can’t imagine how you’re doing it and working, too. You’ve gone to a terrible amount of trouble.”
“She’s my best friend’s daughter.” Jo pulled out a few tea bags. “And, for whatever reasons, this is what Rachel wanted.”
Jessie tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, then ran her fingers over the counter’s ogee edge. Back and forth. Back and forth. “It is really strange. Rachel always talked about you as this go-go material girl. No time for commitments.”
Jo had opened her mouth to retort when Gracie’s sudden, sharp laugh stopped the words in her throat. This time, Grace’s laugh was higher and tenser than before. Sarah caught Jo’s eye. Sarah had heard that quavering pitch in Grace’s voice, too—the day before yesterday, right before the toothpaste incident.
Jo took three steps into the living area and made a quick assessment. That penguin—full of memories—was probably the source of the distress. Gracie needed a quick change of focus.
“Hey, kiddo,” Jo said, “why don’t you bring your grandmother up to see your bedroom? You can introduce your penguin to all those rabbits. Then you can change into your Eloise outfit. Or show her your Tinker Bell costume from Halloween.”
Gracie slipped off her grandmother’s lap with a bounce and seized the older woman’s hand. “C’mon, Nana, come see my room. I’ve got a ’puter of my own. Just a baby one, not like Aunt Jo’s, but it plays Ping-A-Pig and Typing Torpedoes.”
“Goodness, Jo,” Mrs. Braun said, as she pushed herself off the couch. “What a place you’ve made for this girl! Call me down when the tea’s ready.”
Sarah watched the interaction with a steady gaze, then exchanged a glance full of meaning with Jo. Sarah had proved to be a great help during the toothpaste incident. Her aura of calm helped coax Grace out of her tantrum and revealed to Jo the oasis of serenity Sarah must be in the refugee camp.
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