by Mary Campisi
“Why are you doing this, Sydney?”
Her gaze flitted behind Jenny and then back again. “Doing what?”
“Trying to make sure I don’t like you. Trying to make sure I don’t like your father.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are. That’s exactly what you’re doing and I don’t like it.”
“You’re wrong. You don’t know anything about me.” Her brown eyes narrowed. “You’re mean and ugly, like a witch,” she said. “I want you to leave.”
“I don’t want to play this game anymore, Sydney. I thought we were friends.” And then, she dug deeper, to what might be the real problem. “I’m sorry your mother isn’t here for you. Really sorry.” Sydney buried her chin in her neck, refused to meet Jenny’s gaze. “But that doesn’t give you a reason to treat people the way you do. You let me in your garden, but I can’t touch anything unless I ask you. Not even a petal. And you order Mrs. Flatt around like she’s your maid.” She waited a few seconds to see if Sydney would say anything. The child remained very still, a fine pale curtain of hair shielding her face. “I won’t come in your garden anymore. From now on, I’ll just stay with Mrs. Flatt. I think you’re the one who’s mean, Sydney, and that meanness makes you the witch.”
Jenny’s pulse beat hard and strong, pounding out sorrow for the child on the rock, as beautiful as the flowers surrounding her, but so alone, like an island, uncertain and unwilling to reach out for help. No one could help Sydney Drake. Not until she learned that, in life’s most difficult challenges, the first step was always a solo one.
Jenny made her way to the gate, camera slung on her shoulder, eyes straight ahead. Children should be happy. Children should not have worries. They should run in tall fields of grass, chasing each other, laughing, rolling, and howling, with the hard ground under their feet and the blue sky above. They should slurp chocolate ice cream and sip lemonade, bite into cotton candy, and crunch caramel apples.
“Jenny?”
She swung around and waited. A little “I’m sorry” was all Sydney needed to say and they could start over. Jenny would even ask Eleanor if she could take the child for an ice cream cone, a very small one, since it was so close to dinnertime. Vanilla dipped in chocolate sauce.
“Yes?” Natalie would be upset if she found out Jenny had gotten ice cream without her.
“My dad hates long, curly black hair and hazel eyes.”
“Good-bye, Sydney.” Sometimes a person had to walk away, even when it was the very last thing in the world she wanted to do. Jenny wandered around Elliot’s front yard for a while taking in the ferns and begonias and then went inside to find Eleanor.
The older woman smiled when Jenny came to the door. “Hello, dear,” she said. “Would you like a glass of lemonade?”
“Fresh squeezed with extra lemon?”
“Just the way you like it,” she said.
“Sold.” Eleanor Flatt made the best lemonade this side of the Mississippi. Guaranteed. It was one of Jenny’s favorite things about coming here. There were a few others, too…one of them was tall and dark and…
“Here you go, dear,” Eleanor said. She’d disappeared and reappeared while Jenny was still fighting with her thoughts about Elliot Drake, trying to ignore that pesky voice that taunted her, telling her there might be something there after all.
“Thank you.” Jenny accepted the tall glass clinking with half-moon-shaped ice cubes and floating lemon wedges. When she took a sip, lemon attacked her taste buds head on. “Mmmm. This is good.”
“Glad you like it, dear.” Eleanor moved to her desk, pulled out a chair, and plopped down. “I thought you were out back with Sydney.”
Jenny took another healthy swallow. “I was.”
“Is she still out there?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Well, maybe I’ll go see if she’d like some lemonade, too.” She placed both hands on top of the desk and proceeded to hoist herself out of the chair.
“I think maybe she’d like to be alone right now. We had sort of a...” She fished around, hunting for a name to tag onto whatever had happened in the garden. Fallout? Argument? Nothing could quite describe it, so she settled on “Sort of a disagreement.”
“Oh?” Eleanor’s brow arched like a question mark.
Jenny nodded and gulped more lemonade. “Sydney has yet to learn the fine art of diplomacy.”
“She will in due time,” Eleanor said. “She’s only eight years old.”
Of course, Eleanor was trying to protect her. Everybody probably tried to protect Sydney Drake from everything because her mother left when she was four. Sadly, nobody was trying to protect Sydney from her worst enemy: herself.
“I’m talking about getting along with others,” Jenny pushed on. “Sydney says cruel things that hurt people.”
“She doesn’t really mean them,” the older woman said, placing her hands palm side down on the shiny desk top. She looked at Jenny with kind, brown eyes. “She’s had a tough time. This is very hard on her.”
“Her mother left four years ago. How long is it going to be okay for her to treat people like five-day-old Chinese takeout? Like everyone exists to do her bidding?” Jenny walked over to Eleanor’s desk and lowered her voice. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way she answers you back when her father isn’t around. I’ve seen it and it’s not right.”
“But she—”
“But nothing. She’s a spoiled child who needs to be disciplined.”
Eleanor stared at Jenny, said nothing.
“Maybe if I had kids of my own, I wouldn’t feel this way. Maybe I’d be more forgiving.” She raked a hand through her hair. “Maybe. But I know what it’s like to be different, to do things for no other reason than to get attention. And get caught. And to want to get caught because of the attention you’ll get. Even if it’s bad.” She’d spent the first half of her life doing things, anything, so her mother would notice her.
“You think Sydney wants more attention?”
“I think Sydney wants to be like everybody else. She wants to feel normal. Maybe even get yelled at once in a while. Does her dad ever tell her no?”
“Of course, he does,” Eleanor burst out. “Surely.” She paused. “Surely, he does, I think.”
“Do you?” Jenny asked.
The older woman cleared her throat and puffed out her over-endowed chest. “I discipline her.”
“How?”
She thought a moment and then flashed Jenny a quick smile, obviously quite proud of what she was about to say. “Well, just the other day, she spilled her milk at breakfast.”
“And you made her clean it up?” Jenny asked. Now they were getting somewhere.
Eleanor’s smile slipped. “Why, heaven’s no! I cleaned it up. But I made her apologize, yes, I did.”
No wonder the poor kid was messed up. She could probably spit out watermelon seeds at the kitchen table and as long as there was a garbage can within five feet, Eleanor would label the activity acceptable.
“Eleanor, I think—”
“Jenny! You know what can fix this, don’t you?” There was an almost unnatural light in Eleanor Flatt’s brown eyes.
“No.” Jenny leaned in closer. “What?”
“A woman.” She beamed.
“A woman?”
“Sydney needs a woman in her life.”
“She has you, Eleanor.”
Eleanor waved her hand in the air. “No, no silly. I mean, a woman.”
Jenny stared at her. “And what are you under that dress? A man?”
She threw back her head and laughed. “I mean a woman as in a mother,” she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Ah.”
“And I know just the person.”
“You do?” And did the lucky candidate know? Know also she’d be eligible for sainthood?
Eleanor nodded so hard her gray bun flopped. “Oh yes.” The extra flesh under her chin jiggled around, too. “And she�
��d be perfect for Elliot.”
Elliot. “Who?” Jenny tried to keep her voice even.
Eleanor Flatt smiled, a wide, knowing smile that transported her back thirty-five years to pink chiffon and Saturday evening dances, where girls giggled into white rotary phones and fell in love before the third kiss. Jenny saw that young girl in those twinkling eyes, saw her looking at Jenny with wisdom and hope and recognition.
She lifted a finger and pointed to Jenny.
Jenny opened her mouth to blurt out the obvious, at least it was obvious to her. No!
The door opened one half-second before the sound left her lips.
“Hello, Jenny.”
Elliot.
She opened her mouth and pushed out a half-intelligible response. “Hello.” Jenny shot a sidelong glance at Eleanor, who was sitting there, arms folded over her wide middle, smiling that smug smile that said she’d figured everything out and soon Jenny would, too. Jenny shook her head but Eleanor’s smile only got wider.
“Jenny?” It was Elliot. “Is something wrong?”
Her gaze flew to his. “No,” she said a little too quickly. “No.” Inhale, hold. Exhale, whoosh. “I’m fine.”
He looked at her once more and then turned to Eleanor. “I’d like to see Grace next Tuesday afternoon.”
“Yes, sir.” Eleanor flipped through the appointment book on her desk, but Jenny didn’t miss the smile hovering on her lips.
Grace came out of Elliot’s office then, eyes red, nose puffy. Jenny walked over to her and squeezed her hand.
“Jenny,” Elliot said, “can I see you in my office for a minute?”
“Sure.” What had Sydney done, crawled through the window and ratted on her already? “I’ll be right back,” she said to Grace.
“I’ll wait outside,” Grace said. “I feel like I need some fresh air.”
“Okay.” Poor Grace.
Poor me. Now I have to face Elliot and tell him about Sydney and the incident in the garden. She cleared her throat, straightened her shoulders, and followed him into his office. Elliot closed the door and turned to her. He didn’t look angry. Maybe he wanted to talk about Grace. She blew out a breath, rubbed the back of her neck.
“Do you like linguine with calamari?” he asked.
Huh? What did that have to do with Grace? Or Sydney? Or anything?
“Yes.”
He smiled. “What about lasagna?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Aglio olio?”
She nodded.
“Ravioli?”
What on earth was he doing? “Yes.”
“Bruschetta?”
“Hmhmmm.”
“Manicotti?”
Enough. “Yes, yes, and yes!” she said, shaking her head. “What are you doing?”
Ignoring her question, he asked one more. “Veal piccata?”
“No!”
He snapped his fingers. “I knew it. Why?”
So, the man was not only a shrink, he was a food lover, too. An Italian-food lover, from the sounds of things. “I refuse to be involved with anything that’s been locked away, hidden from the light, and killed before it can stretch and grow.”
“I agree. That’s why I went into this profession.”
“So you could refuse to eat veal?” she asked, unable to keep a few specks of sarcasm from dusting her words.
He laughed. “No. So I can keep people from being locked up, usually in their own minds. Keep them from burying themselves in old habits and self-recrimination. Help them to stretch and grow in ways they never thought possible, physically, mentally, maybe even spiritually.”
He had a way with words and a passion in his voice that made her want to curl up on his couch, lay her head on one of those beige, nubby pillows, and hear more. He had a cause and a reason for being. She wondered what it was like to have such confidence, such purpose, such direction. She’d bet he didn’t flounder when he talked to his mother on the phone. And she’d bet he didn’t need an extra dose of strawberry juice to face a very attractive, if not somewhat intimidating member of the opposite sex.
“Jenny?”
“Huh?” He probably didn’t sweat either. Or leave that little bit of drool on his pillow like most normal people did every now and then, even though they’d never admit it.
“I know a great Italian restaurant around here.”
And he’d be one of those who rolled the toothpaste tube nice and neat from the bottom...What did he say? “Excuse me?”
“I said I know a great Italian restaurant around here.” He paused and his lips turned up. “And I’d like to take you there.”
A date? Was this a date? She wanted to ask him if it was, but that would be so totally unchic of her. She’d look like a fool and then she’d be the one hiding from the light for the next century when he answered a surprised, No, of course not. I just wanted someone to share a dish of pasta fagioli.
“And I will swear off all veal dishes for the night if they offend you,” he added.
Jenny let out a sick sound that was meant to be a laugh but sounded more like a snort. Very ladylike. He must be quite impressed. “Sure,” she said. “Food is one of my great passions.”
“Angelino’s is one of mine,” he said. “I always tell my mother I’ve got to have some Italian blood running through me somewhere. Maybe some Italian girl and one of my ancestors had a tryst a few hundred years ago.” He smiled. “She gets furious when I say that. Her face turns red and she shakes her head and tells me I’m English. One hundred percent.”
“I love Italian food, too. I also love Chinese, but I’ve never thought I might be Chinese.”
“I like your sense of humor.”
“I was being serious.”
“How about if I pick you up tomorrow night, say seven?”
Now was the time to tell him what happened in his backyard. I had an argument with your daughter. I told her I didn’t like the way she treated people. And she told me you hated black hair and hazel eyes. Why, Elliot? What’s she so afraid of to say something like that?
“If tomorrow doesn’t work, we can make it another time,” he said.
“No.” Tell him. “Tomorrow’s fine.” Tell him what happened in the garden…how she told you to get out…how you told her you didn’t like the way she treated people... “Seven.”
“I’ll see you then.”
It wasn’t until she was outside, heading down the steps and toward the minivan, that she realized she hadn’t even asked about Grace.
She’d wanted to hint around the idea of Heather Eastman, in a very casual way, see if she could get a feel for what Grace did or didn’t know, not that Elliot would tell her, but if she asked the right questions, she might be able to read between the lines. Hopefully, Grace was blissfully ignorant of her husband’s infidelity, and the dream of a happy family, a circle of four, committed and faithful to one another, could live on. Grace would grieve her husband in the way only someone who’s suffered a great loss can, grieving not only the person but other, more intangible associated losses as well. There would be no father to bring in the Christmas tree this year or sing “Deck the Halls” in an off-key way that always sent his daughters into giggles. Spring would arrive and Easter Sunday, but the man of the house wouldn’t be escorting his “favorite girls” to Easter Mass. His wife would learn to sleep alone in the big four-poster bed, night after night, with nothing to warm her but a dual-control electric blanket, adjusted for one.
And as time passed, there would be bigger, more obvious holes in the family portrait. There would be no father to quiz the young men his daughters brought home, or load the car for college, or walk them down the aisle. His children’s children would never call him Grandpa or Granddaddy or Poppy. They’d call him nothing at all, except when pointing at pictures of him in old photo albums.
But his wife and children and even his children’s children would think of him always and wish he could be there to share the joy of family. They’d gather him in thei
r hearts and set up a memorial shrine with a candle burning. And they would never let the flame of his memory burn out.
God knew what he was doing when he flat-lined Grant in the ICU. In His infinite wisdom, He was preserving memories, and saving lives. Amen.
14
“Try this one,” Natalie said, holding up a red-and-black tiger-striped knit top. “Elliot will think you’re beautiful.”
Jenny threw her a quick look and said, “Hardly.” Personally, she thought the shirt had a certain coolness about it, kind of hip and funk all in one. But she doubted Elliot would think there was anything cool about it.
“What about this then?” Natalie pointed to a red jersey dress.
Red? No. She was searching for something more…more demure. Maybe sophisticated.
“If you wear this,” Natalie said,” and get ’sghetti sauce on it, you won’t be able to tell.”
Jenny ruffled the pile of curls on top of her niece’s head. “Thank you for such good advice, but I’m looking for something…different.” Except different was not in her closet, at least not the kind she was searching for, and no matter how many times she rifled through the choices, it still wasn’t there. She scanned the pieces in the closet. Leather skirt, leather vest, leather pants. No. No. And no. Hot pink knit top, black silk pantsuit. No, and no. Low-cut, lime-green halter dress. Big no. Second-skin red jersey dress. Absolutely, no. Three long, flowing skirts with jangle belts and matching tanks; purples and golds and midnight blacks; rusts and fuchsias and lemon-yellows. She flicked through the other choices and the most sedate outfit she could find was a tangerine and white sundress. From the front, it was presentable. Maybe it would do. As long as she stayed behind Elliot the whole night and didn’t let him see the giant scoop of fabric missing out of the back.
Well, that was it, there was no choice left.
She couldn’t go.
“Having a problem?”
Jenny swung around to find Grace standing in the doorway, blue-and-white bandanna wrapped around her head, a smile on her face.
“I can’t go,” Jenny said, shaking her head. “I have absolutely nothing to wear.”
