Skylark and Wallcreeper

by Anne O'Brien Carelli

  I text my mom: Pizza tonight! Showing a movie!

  It’s tempting to call and say, “Guess what!” But I know the story of Granny’s missing pen and finding Marguerite would not be nearly as shocking as Lilybelle alone on a train heading out of the city, up the coast.

  I can feel the train pick up speed and sit up to see what we’ll pass next. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on a bicycle is nothing compared to a train zooming along to another part of the world. I rest my head on the back of the seat, pull Henry’s coat tight, and let the tears trickle down.

  I must have dozed a little, until I feel someone poking my arm and a soft voice in my ear. I slowly wake up and realize it’s a girl, about eight years old, sitting next to me. “Excuse me? Your backpack fell and spilled. Sorry to wake you.”

  I pull myself up and gradually comprehend where I am. I’d fallen asleep on a train that’s barreling out of New York City and up the coast. I’m on my way to Marguerite’s home, a place that Henry said is called Cliff House.

  I slide off Henry’s coat that I’d been using as a blanket and reach down to the floor to gather the items that had fallen out of my backpack. I scoop up Johnny’s bag of doughnuts, the envelope of petty cash from Nicole, and my passport. I check my pocket for my phone and decide to wait before looking to see how many text messages my mom has sent.

  “Where are we?” I ask the girl.

  “We’ve left the city and stopped a couple of times. I hope you didn’t miss your stop.” She tucks her wavy brown hair behind her ears and adjusts her glasses. Her mother, across the aisle reading the New York Times, doesn’t look up.

  “Have we been to Stratford yet?” I frantically scan the scenery whizzing by for any sign of where we are. I expect to see ocean along the route, but there’s nothing but houses and the occasional office building or string of stores. Piles of debris line the tracks, the stores are boarded up, and some of the roofs we pass have peeled away. Windows are smashed in some of the taller buildings, and soaked curtains hang limply in the rain outside the frames. Hurricane Sandy had roared in from the ocean and battered the coast.

  “It’s just a little bit farther.” The girl plays with the strings of her hoodie. “We’re going back home to Stratford. My dad says the storm washed mud over our front porch and some trees blew over, but we can move back in now.”

  It’s good to hear that someone can move back home. “Where’d you stay?”

  “My grandmother’s apartment. It was crowded, but the food was good.”

  Another wave of worry hits. My granny doesn’t even have a home and is eating peanut butter and jelly and cheese crackers, with bottles of water. Maybe I should have stayed in Brooklyn and tried to get more restaurants to donate food. Maybe soon Granny will be able to get her lemon meringue pie at Rockaway Manor, her favorite dessert.

  “So Stratford was hit by the storm?” It hadn’t occurred to me that I might be traveling to the same flooding that I’d left behind at the nursing home.

  “It was pretty bad. My dad says the wind broke up some of the houses on the ocean, and the high waves took away a lot of the beach.” She reaches into the pocket of her hoodie and hands me Granny’s letters. “You also dropped these,” she adds sheepishly. “Sorry I kept them. I was going to read the letters because I was so bored, but they’re all in a foreign language.”

  I snatch the letters from her and clutch them to my chest. I can’t be so careless. The letters remind me of why I’m on the train. Even though I can’t read the French, I feel as if I know the contents by heart already. Rosie had read all of them for us. She had folded the fragile letters and slipped them back into their envelopes.

  In 1950, the letters stopped. Maybe without the war, Collette and Marguerite no longer had a friendship.

  I carefully place the letters in my backpack and lean back against the seat, as the girl and I watch the destruction of Hurricane Sandy go by.

  Chapter 24

  A Shiny Bird

  Cliff House

  November 2012—Day 8

  The train station at Stratford is empty when we arrive. There’s a long, open platform with a few benches, and I find one where I think I can be easily seen. The sun has come out in full force, and even though I need Henry’s coat and André’s scarf, there’s heat as I turn my face to the sunshine. A few cars pull out of the parking lot. The girl waves good-bye as she climbs into her father’s car. I hope their house is all cleaned up and they can really move back in.

  I quickly scan a series of chatty texts from my mom and apologize for being too busy helping out at the Armory to be able to answer her right away. I tell her I’m looking forward to pizza later, even though it won’t be Lombardi’s, our favorite. I guess she’s not mad because she sends back emojis of a pizza slice and chocolate cake, followed by a row of hearts.

  Then I send a text to Johnny, Made it to Stratford, and look around.

  There’s a stack of large tree branches piled along the side of the parking lot, but the thick trees are still standing tall, with a few remaining rust-colored leaves. The bushes are bare, and the ground is littered with orange and yellow leaves, mostly dried out by now. A man reads a newspaper as he walks his tiny dog, but other than that there isn’t much activity. I just want to sit and soak in the quiet for a little while. I’m not used to it, but it’s a pleasant change. Granny would like the peacefulness, I think as I stretch out my legs.

  There’s no response from Johnny, but he’s probably helping his family prep for the dinner rush at the restaurant. Maybe he’s creating one of his new crazy recipes. I’ll be able to taste test it when I get back. I smile to myself, picturing the weird concoctions he’s come up with that have been delicious.

  I begin to notice there are many different birdsongs coming from the trees and bushes, when the quiet is broken by the hum of an engine. The low drone turns into a louder rumble, and a sleek maroon convertible swerves into the parking lot and comes to an abrupt halt. I’ve never seen a car like it before—it’s a small convertible, low to the ground, with a shiny grill that’s splashed with mud, and silver trim around the edges of the doors. I can see where spots have been touched up with paint that doesn’t quite match the maroon, between swaths of streaked dirt along the side of the car.

  A woman with a long green scarf wrapped around her head and shoulders swings her legs around from the driver’s seat and attempts to hoist herself out of the car. It takes a few tries before she manages to stand. She seems pretty wide, and I wonder how she was able to stuff herself in the car in the first place.

  She tosses the scarf into the car, rearranges her matching green dress, fluffs her shortly cropped gray hair, and reaches in the car for a pair of clogs. As she slips them on her feet she looks around the station and her eyes land on me.

  “You must be Lily!”

  This was not the car I expected to come to pick me up. I thought Simone the driver might even be wearing a chauffeur’s cap, or at least have a normal car. But instead of looking for the nearest train back to Manhattan, I think about how I will tell Granny about this part of my adventure. I spot the word PEUGEOT in a silver scroll on the side of the car and think that it’s probably French, so the car must be Marguerite’s. I give a small wave and make my way down the platform stairs.

  Simone grabs my arms and kisses both of my cheeks with dry lips. “Can I hug you?” she asks as she squishes me. I’m a little surprised that a woman who works for Marguerite could be so affectionate, but I like the feel of the hug. It makes me relax a little.

  “I’m Simone—Marguerite’s daughter.” She grabs my shoulders and abruptly turns me and marches me away from the car. “Look up there!” She points to a patch of sky between the station and the trees. “See that house on the top of the hill?”

  I can barely see a large brick house off in the distance, at the top of a winding, unpaved road. “Is that Marguerite’s house?” It looks like a castle in the clouds, sitting on the edge of a cliff.

  “Maiso
n de Falaise. Cliff House!” Simone waves for me to climb into the car. “I grew up there. Solid brick and marble, untouched by Sandy. We watched the storm blow in.” She swings open the driver’s door, and as I toss my pack onto the narrow back seat and jump in the front, she collapses into her seat and lifts one leg at a time under the steering wheel. She reaches down, pulls off her shoes, and hands them to me. I have to suppress a giggle when she realizes that she’s sat on her scarf and has to wiggle and bend until she can pull it out and wrap it around her head. “It’s still pretty windy and chilly when I get going. Better put up your hood.” She turns the key, and the car lurches forward. Soon we’re speeding around curves, and she’s shifting gears and yelling in the wind at the same time. “My mother is beside herself with excitement. She’s been trying to find your grandmother for a very long time.”

  The wind is bitter, and I keep my head down and clutch the handle on the door. I thought convertibles were summer cars, but apparently Simone either can’t get the roof up or loves the outdoors. She’s not even wearing a coat. I start to respond but give up as she keeps shouting, “What?”

  In a few minutes, we’re bucking up the road to the top of the hill. Up close it’s clear that the road is mostly mud. This doesn’t seem to bother Simone. She presses the accelerator down hard, and as the wind swirls around us, we slosh through puddles that splash the side of the car, and swerve in the mud as she avoids deep ruts. By the time we get to the front door, I’ve ducked down so far I can barely see over the dashboard.

  I hand her the shoes and step out onto a piece of slate that’s part of a path to a massive front porch. As I reach in to get my backpack, Simone makes several attempts to exit the car, muttering to herself until she’s finally standing. We make our way up wide stairs to a massive front door.

  A fluffy gray cat races by Simone and rubs against me, purring. I stroke her and scratch behind her ears. “Do you want the cat inside?”

  “Oh, no, she’s an outdoor cat. Couldn’t keep her inside if I tried. That’s why we call her Collette.”

  I stop short. “Collette? That’s my granny’s name.”

  The woman smiles and gently pulls me inside to a cramped entranceway. “I know, sweetie. Every cat we’ve had my mama has insisted on calling Collette. We’ve had five Collettes so far. Take your coat?”

  She hangs my coat and scarf on a skinny coat tree in the corner. There’s a tall, cracked mirror on the wall, reflecting the black-and-white tile floor. I take a quick glance, and all I see is a girl with tired-looking clothes and shadows under her eyes. I slept on the train, but sleeping in the Armory is clearly wearing me out.

  If I’m this tired, I can’t imagine how Granny must feel. I flash an image of her trying to get some rest on her thin cot, surrounded by constant noise and activity. I need to meet Marguerite, get to the bottom of this mystery, and get back home.

  I follow the woman up a steep flight of stairs. Her black clogs have solid rubber soles that squeak at every step. She’s almost as wide as the staircase, and her dress looks like a wall of green in front of me. I expect her to rest halfway up the stairs, but she manages to talk and climb at the same time.

  “The tea we made is probably cold by now, but I hope you’re hungry because we went to the local bakery and stocked up.” She stops abruptly and turns back to talk to me, causing me to grab the wooden railing. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to her in years. And, trust me, that woman has lived a pretty exciting life.”

  I’m not sure why Marguerite is so excited to see me. She urged me to come when we talked on the phone, but it seems like she’d be a lot more interested in seeing my granny instead of me.

  We get to the top of the staircase and enter a huge room with a wall of windows overlooking the cliffs and an expansive view of the ocean. My first impression is that the room is crowded—stuffed with chairs and dressers and a great big cushy-looking red couch on a giant Oriental rug, plus several tables covered with lamps, china figurines, clocks, and what looks like inkwells. There’s a ceiling-high statue of a giraffe in one corner, and a large wicker birdcage hanging in another. The back wall is covered floor to ceiling with books that are crammed every which way on rows and rows of bookshelves. The room is so cluttered it’s hard to focus on any one thing.

  But it feels nice. I want to grab a book and settle in. My mom is always redecorating our apartment with things that she buys after looking through those home design magazines. Everything is new and changing all the time. The only thing that stays steady is one wall of pictures of the two of us—and my granny.

  Marguerite’s house feels as if nothing has changed in years and everything in the room was chosen for a reason. Even the framed posters are a bit crooked and not exactly lined up properly, but they look as if they mean something.

  I don’t realize that Marguerite is sitting right in front of me until she jumps out of a wingback chair and flings her arms around me. She’s about my height, like Granny.

  Her hug is tight. She seems so much stronger than my granny.

  She speaks rapidly in French and I can pick up “chérie” and “belle,” which I know are dear and pretty. Then she points at my eyes and switches to English. “Your grandmother’s eyes were as blue as cornflowers. And yours are like the fields of Provence.”

  I guess she means my eyes look like dirt and grass, not flowers. I’m not sure if it’s a compliment, but then she grabs my hands. “So beautiful you are! And you look so much like my Collette,” she says with a heavy French accent.

  I don’t think I look like Granny, other than we both have very short haircuts and are not very tall. But I remember the photograph in the letter, with Granny holding her stick crutch, and I can see how we might look alike. I never really noticed it before.

  It’s exciting to hear from someone who knew my granny before she got old. My mom hardly ever talks about Granny’s childhood. I guess it’s because she could never get Granny to tell her anything. I want to hear the whole story, beyond the hints in the letters.

  Marguerite continues to talk while she serves tea and makes sure that Simone has explained that the house is safe and survived Sandy. “Simone wanted me to evacuate, but I wasn’t going anywhere.” I remember how Marguerite had said in her letter that she was hoping to give birth to a boy, and I wonder if Simone knows that.

  A large china plate is set out on a marble-topped coffee table. The plate is loaded with bite-sized pastries. I pick up a miniature croissant. When I bite down, chocolate oozes out, and I immediately add another one to a small plate that Marguerite hands me. I’m kind of sorry I had that slice of pizza at Grand Central station, but somehow my stomach seems to have settled down.

  I’m glad Marguerite’s doing all the talking because I don’t know where to begin. Besides, I like watching her. She’s ancient like my granny and has pulled her gray hair into a tight bun at the top of her head and wrapped it in a bejeweled ribbon. She’s small and wiry, and can’t seem to hold still. She’s wearing pink ballet slippers and a collection of scarves and necklaces over a white tunic and black tights. She looks like a shiny bird.

  “So tell me about your grand-mère.” Marguerite sits on the edge of the wingback chair and leans toward me. I’ve slumped into the couch—it’s amazingly comfortable—and struggle to sit up. “No, no, sit back.” She flips her hand at me. “It’s been a busy day for you, and we have much to talk about.” I place my empty plate on the coffee table and happily obey her. I just want to fold into the couch and study everything in the room.

  “I looked for Collette, you know.” I still haven’t said a word, but she apparently has a lot to say. “My family left France in such a hurry in 1944, and we were able to find each other for a while. But then I married and changed my name and moved to the U.S.” She pops up and retrieves a photo from a table covered with at least a hundred framed pictures. “My Andy. My sweet Andy.” She pauses and strokes the picture without showing it to me.

  Simone had b
een hovering in the background, fiddling with a camera, folding a quilt on the back of her mother’s chair. “My father was an officer in the United States Army, stationed in London,” Simone says. “They moved around a lot. Mama finally agreed to move to this house with him, but only if she could return to France often and keep her French roots.”

  Marguerite makes a pfft! sound and interrupts her daughter. “This is not the same as France! But I took my husband’s name and off we went to stay in his family’s home on the cliff. I replaced the CLIFF HOUSE sign with MAISON DE FALAISE and made this my new home. But with so many changes, Collette and I lost touch.” She pauses and props up the photo on the table. “Collette said in a letter that she was marrying, too, but I never found out her new last name. Simone tried to find her on the internet, but we didn’t even know where to begin. We didn’t even know that Collette had moved to New York.”

  I know about this and can explain. “My grandpa was from New York. He died when my mom was three years old.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. My poor Collette. So young to lose a husband.” She presses her fingers to her lips, pauses for a moment, then picks up another picture. “I can hardly believe that we ended up so near to each other.” She hands me the same black-and-white photo that was in the letter—the two girls dressed as boys, grinning at the photographer. “Here’s the two of us.”

  “I’ve seen this!” I tell about the evacuation and how a woman named Rosie translated the letters. I leave out how I know Rosie and don’t mention that my mom has no idea where I am. “Granny’s still at the Armory.”

  “Oh mon Dieu!” Marguerite slaps her hands on her face.

  Simone stops taking pictures. “Is Collette okay?”

  “Oh—she’s fine!” I don’t want them to get upset. “She’s actually enjoying it, I think.”