Family For Beginners

by Sarah Morgan

  “Midday. And she has today off, so I’m sure she’ll be here any minute. Smells delicious, Izz. What can I do to help?”

  Break up with her and focus on the family.

  She glanced at her father. “You could call her. Check what time she’ll be here? Maybe she’s one of those people who is relaxed about timing.” And she knew her father liked people to be where they said they were going to be, when they said they’d be there.

  “Call her, Dad.” Make her feel bad.

  “Good idea.” He pulled out his phone and dialed, and Izzy tried not to mind that he didn’t even have to search for the number.

  She turned away and pulled oil and vinegar out of the cupboard to mix a dressing for the salad.

  “Flora? Is everything okay?” Her dad’s voice had an edge of sharpness. “We were expecting you at twelve.”

  And you’re late, Izzy thought happily. You are so, so late and my dad is going to hate that.

  You are probably already in his rearview mirror.

  Goodbye, Flora.

  She wore her best martyred expression as she pulled the soufflé out of the oven. Maybe she’d mention that she would never have chosen to make that if she’d known Flora wouldn’t be on time. Her dad would feel guilty and annoyed. Flora would be flustered and embarrassed, and Izzy would be forgiving and generous.

  Her plan was blown apart by her father’s next words.

  “You’re kidding! When? How?” His tone hardened. “Did you call your landlord?”

  Izzy rarely saw her dad angry. He was always even tempered and calm and he never reacted with emotion. But he was showing emotion now.

  “Dad?”

  His knuckles were white on the phone. “Give me his number—” There was a pause while he listened. “Yes, I know you can handle it yourself, but—” Another pause and Izzy saw her dad pull in a deep breath. “Okay, okay. I won’t interfere, but—” He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose the way he only ever did when he was stressed. “I know I’m being overprotective.”

  Since when had her dad been overprotective? He was a great believer in equality. He claimed to be a feminist, although Izzy wasn’t convinced.

  But something about Flora’s current predicament seemed to have triggered his most basic instincts.

  Izzy wondered what excuse Flora had come up with. Whatever it was, it was a good one, and clearly lunch wasn’t going to be consumed anytime soon.

  Accepting the imminent death of her soufflé, she poured vinegar into the oil. They didn’t mix. It made her think of her family. They were the oil, and Flora was the vinegar. Right now she was sitting in the middle of them, turning everything acid.

  “That’s terrible. You should stay here,” her father was saying. “We have plenty of room.”

  Oil and vinegar forgotten, Izzy felt a lurch of panic. “Dad?”

  He threw her a reassuring smile, but Izzy wasn’t reassured. She didn’t like the tone of her father’s voice. Gentle. Caring. It was a voice you used with someone you loved, not a casual friend in trouble. “What’s happening?”

  Her father lifted his hand to stop her talking, and turned back to his conversation. “Flora, I insist. You need somewhere to live until it’s fixed.”

  Live? Live?

  What the—

  This sounded like so much more than a lunch invitation.

  Inside her head, where she lived most of her life now, Izzy used a word that she knew would get her grounded for weeks if she said it aloud.

  “Grab a cab,” her father was saying, “I’ll pay when you arrive.”

  Why would he pay? Couldn’t Flora afford a cab?

  Flora worked in a flower shop. It wasn’t a job Izzy had ever thought about. What did a florist even do?

  Maybe money was a factor in the relationship.

  Her father ended the call and Izzy held her breath. Please let it be something simple. Please don’t let it be as bad as it sounded.

  “Dad?”

  He turned, distracted. “Sorry. Poor Flora. What a morning.”

  “What happened?”

  “Her home has flooded. A pipe burst in the apartment above her or something. The ceiling came down. There’s plaster all over her bed. Everything is underwater and most of her things are ruined. Such bad luck. Can you believe that?”

  She could believe the bad luck part. Since her mother had died life had poured nothing but crap on her. What she was less inclined to believe was Flora’s sob story.

  Was her apartment really flooded, or was it a ploy?

  Her father was being taken for a ride.

  Izzy’s brain switched into journalist mode. The first step was to verify the story. She wasn’t going to be one of those journalists who were casual with the truth. Her readers were going to be able to trust every word she wrote and spoke. And she was starting right now. She was going to take a look at the “flood.”

  “Poor Flora. How could you even think of asking her to grab a cab? She must be in such a state. We should go get her, Dad.”

  “Get her?”

  “If her stuff is underwater, how is she going to rescue it all by herself? We can all help.” And they could all witness the fact that the “flood” was nothing more than a figment of Flora’s imagination.

  Izzy had a brief daydream where she became an undercover reporter, rooting out lies and dishonesty. Corrupt CEOs would hear her name and tremble. They’d be afraid to take her calls or give an interview because they’d know she was coming for them.

  “What about your soufflé?”

  Did a journalist following the scent of a story pause to worry about food? They did not.

  She shrugged. “What does food matter when a person is in trouble?”

  Her father reached out and hugged her. “You’re a thoughtful girl, Izzy.”

  She wasn’t thoughtful. She was fighting for her place in this family, although he didn’t know that of course. “Let’s go. I’ll rescue the soufflé and you call a cab and get Molly ready.”

  “I should probably tell Flora we’re coming”

  “Let’s surprise her.” She didn’t put it past Flora to throw a bucket of water over the floor of her apartment if she needed to. “It will be spontaneous and supportive if we just show up.”

  “Great idea. How did I end up with someone as special as you?”

  “You got lucky, I guess.” Izzy made the joke and pushed aside the guilt. It was all in a good cause. He’d thank her later. Maybe he’d even admit it had been a massive mistake.

  From now on it’s just the three of us. I don’t need anyone but you and Molly.

  They wrangled Molly into the cab and headed into Manhattan. As usual the traffic was grim, which meant plenty of thinking time. As views of the skyline flashed past the windows, Izzy pondered the likely scenario awaiting them and Flora’s speechless embarrassment at being caught out.

  In the end, she was the one who was speechless.

  As they stood in the doorway of Flora’s apartment, Molly stared in wonder from the safety of her father’s arms. “Why is your home underwater?”

  “A pipe burst in the apartment upstairs and it brought my ceiling down and flooded everywhere. I’ve had an exciting morning.” Flora was bright and cheerful, but Izzy could tell she was close to tears. Her voice was high-pitched and her smile was a little too wide.

  Brave, Izzy thought grudgingly. If it had been her apartment—and please God don’t ever let her live anywhere this bad—she would have fallen face-first into the flood and tried to drown herself.

  Now Izzy was wishing they hadn’t come and seen it in person. It was truly awful. She was pretty sure the apartment Flora lived in didn’t look that great when it was dry, but with water sloshing around the ankles it was dank and depressing. Izzy couldn’t believe anyone lived here.

  The uncomfortable images she’d had of her father and Flora using her apartment for secret sex vanished. There was nothing romantic about this place. She’d seen her father’s bank ac
count online and there had been no hotel bills, so unless Flora was paying, which seemed unlikely given the fact that she couldn’t afford a cab over to Brooklyn, they still hadn’t had sex.

  That gave Izzy hope. Sex wasn’t always serious, she knew that. Half her friends had done it just because they felt it was time, not because they were “in love.” But she had a feeling that for her father sex would make a relationship serious. Her mother had always said that she’d married Jack because he was a forever type of guy.

  Izzy wished she hadn’t had that thought because now she was thinking of her mother and with the thoughts came utter misery followed by anger. Why? Why?

  Her parents should have been together forever. They should have lived side by side until they were both old and boring and had no teeth, and instead—

  Izzy gulped.

  Right now she badly needed her dad not to be a forever type. She needed him to be a one-night-stand type. The type who moved on.

  She tensed as he shifted Molly onto his hip and reached out his free arm to Flora.

  “Come here.”

  The fact that he was willing to comfort her in front of Molly alarmed Izzy more than the water sloshing round her ankles.

  “Probably best not to give me sympathy. I don’t want to raise the water level farther by crying.” Flora stepped away from him and squelched her way across what had presumably once been a carpet, toward a bed. “I managed to rescue some of my books, and my laptop is fine. My clothes are mostly ruined but it’s all replaceable. It’s people that matter, not things.”

  Did she seriously mean that?

  Molly pointed. “You saved my picture!”

  Izzy followed the direction of her sister’s finger and there, sure enough, was the fox Flora had drawn. Seriously? All your worldly goods were under threat and you saved a stupid piece of coloring?

  Flora was smiling. “Of course I saved your picture. It’s my favorite thing. I didn’t want it to be damaged.”

  Molly preened and Izzy gnashed her teeth.

  It was just a fox, not a van Gogh. “Were you in the bed when the ceiling came down?”

  “No. Fortunately I felt water dripping on me and got out of bed to investigate about two minutes before it collapsed.” Flora rubbed her hands over her arms and stared at the mess. “It’s my fault.”

  “What?” Even Izzy, who was desperately looking to blame Flora for everything and anything, couldn’t see how one person could have caused this. “How?”

  “There was a weird stain on the ceiling. I’ve watched it slowly growing. I mentioned it to the landlord, but he didn’t bother investigating. Now it seems it was probably a slow leak from the pipe in the upstairs bathroom. I should have been a little more forceful.”

  Izzy stared at the mess. “You should.”

  Flora straightened her back. “The landlord has called a plumber. And the insurance people are coming to take a look. He’ll fix it, I’m sure.”

  She didn’t look sure and Izzy, who knew nothing about home maintenance, was even less sure. Could this place be fixed? It seemed to her that it should be knocked down.

  She felt a sinking feeling in her gut as her father reached out and pulled Flora against him in a protective gesture that Izzy wished she hadn’t witnessed. He cared.

  And this time Flora didn’t resist. She clung to him as if he was a lifeboat. There was so much water in the place that had there been an actual real lifeboat Izzy might have jumped in, too.

  The tightening of her father’s mouth was a blow to the gut. When her father wore that look he always won whatever fight he and her mother were having. Her mother would shriek hysterically and wave her arms like the original drama queen and her father would stand strong and steady and wait until she’d finished to make his point.

  “You’re staying with us. No arguments.”

  I have arguments, Izzy thought. I have a ton of arguments.

  Flora shook her head. “That would be too much of an imposition.”

  Yes. It would.

  A few hours ago she’d been alarmed at the thought of Flora coming over for lunch, and now she was moving in. And Izzy couldn’t even accuse her of engineering it. Even she didn’t believe Flora had somehow sneaked into the apartment upstairs and flooded it.

  “But where will you go? You can’t stay with your family,” Molly said, round-eyed, “because you don’t have family.”

  Izzy made a mental note to talk to her sister about tact and diplomacy at some point, but right now she had other priorities.

  “Don’t you have friends?” The words burst from her mouth before she could stop them. “Can’t they help you?” Her friends had been pretty crap, but it didn’t stop her from hoping that there were better versions out there somewhere.

  Flora gave another one of her brave smiles. “My closest friend is Julia.”

  Izzy breathed a sigh of relief. Flora had a friend called Julia. She was going to stay with Julia. She didn’t have to live with them. “You should call her right away. We can help you move there.”

  “I can’t stay with her, even for a few nights.” Flora extracted herself from the circle of Jack’s arm and seemed to pull herself together. “She has three kids and their apartment is tiny.”

  Izzy was about to say that if they were used to feeling cramped then one more wouldn’t make a difference, but her dad was shaking his head.

  “And we’re not talking about a couple of nights, honey. This is going to take a while to fix.”

  Honey? Honey? He called her honey.

  “I know. And I’ve already decided to find a new apartment. I should have done it a while ago.” Flora looked a little stunned as she looked around her. “The place was supposed to be my dream, but—” She broke off and Izzy waited for the end of the sentence.

  But what?

  She opened her mouth to say If this was your dream, what do your nightmares look like, and then realized that would simply emphasize the fact that Flora needed alternate accommodation.

  Her dad was clearly thinking the way she was. “If you’re looking for a new apartment, all the more reason to have somewhere else to stay for a while. You don’t want to rush a big decision like that. What do you think, girls?” He shifted Molly onto his other hip. “We have plenty of room for Flora, don’t we?”

  Molly nodded. “You can live with us. You won’t fit into my clothes, but I can lend you toys.”

  Flora’s eyes misted. “You’re far too kind.”

  She wasn’t wrong about that.

  Izzy wanted to put her hand over her sister’s mouth. Molly had been virtually mute when Flora had come over to dinner. Izzy wished the trend had continued. “Flora isn’t going to live with us, Molly. She’s going to stay with us.”

  Molly twisted her hair round her finger. “I said that.”

  “When you live with someone it’s forever, and this won’t be forever. It’s temporary.”

  Both her father and Flora turned to look at her.

  Flora spoke first. “This is an imposition. Are you all sure about this?”

  Izzy tensed.

  Her father and Molly were both nodding. They looked at her, waiting for her to join in welcoming Flora to their home.

  The horror of it choked her. Flora was moving in. She’d be there for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She’d be part of the family. She’d probably try to help out as much as possible around the house, and that was Izzy’s job. Her father said she was his superstar, but how could she carry on being his superstar if Flora took over? What would her role be? She wouldn’t be needed, and if she wasn’t needed—

  “Izzy?”

  Her dad was looking at her. She licked her lips. “Yeah, I’m sure.” Sure it was going to be a disaster for her. She wanted to run to her dad and hug him. She wanted to tell him everything, all the awful stuff she was hiding, but she knew she couldn’t. She’d never felt so alone in her life.

  All she could do was hope Flora didn’t get too comfortable. And she could probabl
y help with that part.

  “The guest room is already made up,” she said politely, “because I changed the sheets after we last had guests.”

  Maybe, while Flora was eating lunch, she’d put a few additional touches to the room to remind her this wasn’t home. More photos of her mother wouldn’t hurt, just so that no one forgot what was really going on here.

  Flora’s eyes turned shiny. “You’re all so generous.”

  “You’re welcome,” Molly said kindly. “And now can we have lunch? I’m very hungry.”

  Izzy thought about the soufflé, collapsed and sad on the kitchen table. She felt exactly like that soufflé. To think she’d been worried about today. This was so much worse.

  Flora wasn’t just joining them for lunch. She was moving in.

  7

  Flora

  “This is where you’ll be staying.” Izzy flung open a door and Flora hovered on the threshold of the room, feeling a little sick and shaky. In the time it had taken to load Flora’s things into bags and battle the traffic back to Brooklyn, the afternoon had slowly drained away. On the drive Izzy had assured her that a ruined lunch didn’t matter one bit, in a tone so cheerful that it was clear it mattered a great deal. Judging from the glint in Izzy’s eye, she didn’t just think Flora had ruined her lunch—she thought she’d ruined her life.

  If Jack hadn’t been so caring and Molly completely adorable, she would have decided right away that this was a bad idea. Molly’s offer to lend her toys had almost made her bawl.

  Aware that Izzy was watching her, she stepped into the room.

  Light flooded through the windows. After a stressful and emotional day, a feeling of calm swept over her. The kaleidoscope of anxiety stopped turning in her head. The room was decorated in neutral shades of gray and cream. Flora had an urge to add a few touches of color; cushions in vibrant jewel colors to the bed, wild meadow flowers in a vase. But she wasn’t complaining.

  She was used to dark and damp, and this was sunny and spacious with glorious views over the pretty garden. Cherry trees clustered together with bridal beauty, and the explosion of creamy pink blossom brought back such vivid memories of her mother that she almost doubled over. Most of her memories had faded, blurred by the passage of time, but one remained in her head with startling clarity. They’d visited the Botanic Garden in Brooklyn, near Prospect Park. Her mother had made a picnic and they’d sat on the grass in the sunshine, admiring the pastel perfection of the blossom. Later, her mother had painted the scene and Flora had hung it on her wall. It was the first thing she’d rescued when the water had started pouring into her apartment.