by Kristy Tate
“We’re still short,” Grace said, “but maybe by Christmas we’ll have saved enough.”
“I’ll get a job, too,” Heather said.
“How are you going to do that plus go to school and homeschool Tobs?”
“We’ll make it work,” Heather said.
And Grace believed her. Her belief in fairy tales was new and shaky, but her faith in her sister was grounded in years and years of experience.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Heather and Grace agreed to not mention their plan to Jeanie until they’d earned the money they needed. Heather tacked a calendar on the back of their bedroom door where she crossed off each day with a black marker. Week after week, Grace cashed her paychecks and watched her bank account grow. But their plan fell apart at the end of October when she came home one day to find everyone, even her grandparents, gathered around the kitchen table, crying.
“Dad?” she asked but, of course, she already knew.
“He’s okay,” her mom said, standing to envelop Grace in a warm hug that smelled like Jeanie—a combination of vanilla scented shampoo and the faint, clingy odor of dry-erase markers. “He has to be.”
So her mom didn’t know.
“What happened?” Grace broke away so she could see more than just her mom’s shirt.
“He’s been hurt,” Toby told her.
“It’s pretty bad. They may have to amputate his leg,” Grandpa said.
“Where is he?”
“Germany,” Jeanie said, her voice wobbly.
“Germany? Who gets hurt in Germany? Besides, I thought he was in Korea.”
Heather sent her a look that said she wasn’t helping. So Grace thought of the only way she knew how to help.
“You have to go,” she told her mom.
“What?” Jeanie took a step back and grasped her chair. “As much as I’d like to—”
“You have to go,” Grace interrupted her mom’s protest.
Grandpa began to sputter and Grandma chimed in.
“She can’t afford it,” Grandpa said.
“She can’t leave her job,” Grandma added.
Grace squared her shoulders and sent a silent message to Heather. She seemed to know what Grace was thinking, because she nodded.
“I’ll pay for it,” Grace said.
Jeanie laughed, but it sounded sad. “Honey! How are you going to do that?”
Jeanie stopped laughing when Grace told her how much money she’d managed to save.
#
With her mom gone, living with her grandparents became almost unbearable. Dinners around the kitchen table were torturous, Grandma complained about Heather’s cooking attempts, and Grandpa’s dentures made a slurping sound when he chewed. Grace stayed at The Lilac Shop every night until it closed. As the days grew shorter, it was usually dark by the time she locked up the shop, so Brock started driving her home on a regular basis. Grace didn’t know where Cordelia went most of the time. She seemed to be gone more than she was around.
“Where’s your mom?” Grace asked Brock one day after work.
Brock shrugged. “Is yours still in Germany?”
Grace nodded. “She’ll be back in time for Halloween.” Her throat tightened. “She said she wants to make Toby a Pinocchio costume out of some German lederhosen that she bought. Toby doesn’t know how to tell her he wants to be Spiderman.”
Brock laughed.
“Have you seen any more of your fairy-tale friends?” Brock asked.
She shook her head. “They disappeared.”
“I wonder if Blanche and Charmant were able to work things out.”
“I hope so, they’d been together forever.”
He smiled and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Literally.”
“That was all so weird and now it’s over. It’s like they came and left with the circus.”
“Not completely. Remember, I still have the magic cupboard in my garage.”
“Did you ever ask your mom about that?”
Brock tightened his lips and Grace understood that she’d somehow trespassed.
“It’s over now,” she said, looking out the window and watching the lights along the Santa Magdalena Parkway flash by.
He slid a glance her way. “Sad? Disappointed?”
“No. It’s just…back to real life. Fairy tales, for most of us, just don’t come true.”
“I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Yeah. Me, too. They think they might be able to transfer him to the Veteran’s Hospital in Long Beach as soon as he’s able to travel.”
Silence filled the car, but it was a good silence, the kind that didn’t need music, talk radio, or empty words. It settled between them. For a brief moment, she wanted to reach out and touch him—hold his hand the way he’d held hers that night at the Hollywood party. But like so much that had happened, it didn’t seem real. That small intimacy felt like another piece of a missing fairy tale.
“Hey, have you ever been to the Sherwood Forest Scarefest?” Brock asked.
“No, I—” she thought about telling him she couldn’t afford it, but then he’d wonder what she did with all her paychecks, and she’d have to tell him she spent it all on her mom’s flight to Germany. And then he’d possibly tell Cordelia, who might think she was hitting her up for more money, which she wasn’t. In her opinion, Cordelia was already overpaying her, so she just said again, “No.” And closed her mouth.
“We should go,” Brock said.
Grace’s heart stuttered. What did he mean? Did he mean just the two of them? Would he buy her ticket?
He noticed her hesitation and poked her leg. “Come on, I’ll treat.”
“Oh…okay.”
“But you have to dress like a zombie.”
She could do that. And if Alicia caught her, she really would be dead.
#
“They broke up,” Gabby told her.
Grace had the phone pressed to her ear while she scrubbed the bathtub. “What? Nobody told me that!”
“Yeah, they had a big fight in the middle of the cafeteria weeks ago. How did you not hear about it?”
“Who broke up with who?” she asked, as she sprinkled more cleanser on the white tile.
“Does it matter?” Gabby asked.
“It does to me,” she answered. “Just a sec.” Grace ran the shower and watched the green cleanser swirl around the tub before gushing down the drain.
Gabby filled her in on Alicia’s bad behavior and ended with, “He said he was too tired to go on.”
She thought of all their nights in the car after work. He hadn’t seemed tired then. Grace’s heart lifted as she stood to spritz the mirror with window cleaner.
“Hey, babe.” Heather came in, purse in hand. “I’m taking the grandunit to the doctors. Don’t forget to change the sheets.”
“Okay, tell me everything!” Grace said into the phone as soon as Heather disappeared.
Gabby’s laughter floated over the line. “I don’t know much more than that.”
Grace padded into her grandparents’ room and pulled the linens off the bed. “I want to know what they were wearing, what they’d had to eat, how did they smell?”
“It was a breakup, not an autopsy.” Gabby paused. “So do you think he likes you?”
“No…” But she wasn’t so sure. Gathering up the sheets, Grace headed for the laundry room.
“Why not? Why else would he ask you to the Scarefest? What are you going to wear?”
“Zombie duds,” Grace said, considering the sheets in her arms and wondering if she could use them to make a costume. No, ghosts wore sheets. Zombies wore rags. Maybe Grandpa Hank had something in his closet he wouldn’t notice missing. “Hold up, I’m going to check the grandunit’s closet. I think they still own every stitch of clothing they’ve ever bought.”
Their closet smelled too much like old people, so Grace quickly closed it, and started to remake the bed while Gabby went on to tell her about Chase’s last attempt to win her bac
k.
“He’s like that windup bunny that won’t die. He just keeps on going.”
“I think it’s sweet.”
“It’s annoying,” Gabby said, but her tone suggested she agreed.
When Grace tucked in the sheet, her fingers connected with something between the mattress and the box spring. She pulled out an over-stuffed white legal-size envelope. Curious, she opened it and gasped at what she found.
Twenty dollars bills. Lots of them.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Grace ended the call to Gabby. Rage zipped through her as she counted the bills with shaking fingers.
Six thousand dollars under the mattress.
Was there more?
The doors to the walk-in closet tempted her. Taking a ragged breath, she stepped inside and riffled around. She found another fat envelope tucked inside a pair of boots. A chocolate box held another. Several more were hidden in an old handbag. Some had been stashed inside shoe boxes. Between folded sweaters. Under a magazine collection. On the top shelf, stuffed into a hat. She pulled out all the envelopes and gathered the bills on the floor.
It was too much to count. And if it was too much for Grace, then it was probably too much for her grandparents, too. The boots, the handbag, the hat, the candy box —these were all Grandma Dorothy’s things. Did Grandpa Hank even know all this existed? How about her mom? Which led to a bigger question.
What if she took some? Not all of it, of course, but just enough so that they could return to Salmon Dale—all of them, including her mom and Toby. There was a good chance that Grandma Dorothy wouldn’t even miss it, and Grandpa Hank probably didn’t even know about it. Grace battled tears and indecision as she slowly began to count the money, making stacks of one thousand dollars.
Thirty thousand, nine hundred and forty dollars. Not a fortune, but enough to live on until Dad could come home. Assuming Dad even came home. Her grandparents didn’t need this money. They lived in a mansion worth millions of dollars. They could hire someone to come in and cook and clean for them. They could afford to go and live in Leisure World, the mammoth retirement community in the desert. Was it right that her family had to work so hard while her grandparents were so awful?
Tears spilled down Grace’s cheeks and landed on the bills.
She could stuff a few into her pockets. She could carry all of it away and hide it in her room, or at The Lilac Shop, or at school.
No one would know.
But her.
“Grace?” Toby called from the next room.
Her heart beat faster. What to do? What to do?
“Grace, where are you?”
She cleared her throat. “Up here, Tobs.”
He pounded up the stairs, letting her know she had about two seconds to decide…
The bedroom door creaked as he pushed it open. His feet padded across the carpet and into the closet.
“What are you doing with all that money?” he asked, his eyes reminding her of the dog with teacup eyes.
“I found it.”
“Huh.”
Grace watched him try to process what all this money meant to him.
“Can we get something from the ice cream man?”
“No, Tobs. Sorry. This isn’t ours.” Grace climbed to her feet and brushed her hands on her jeans. She felt dirty.
Toby followed her into the master bathroom where she washed her hands with Grandma Dorothy’s lavender-scented soap. Even that made her feel like she was stealing.
Below, she felt the rumble of the garage door rolling open.
“They’re home,” Toby said. “Are you going to hide it?”
“No.”
“Then they’ll know that you found it.”
“Yeah.”
Toby bent to pick up a bill, but she stopped him. “Don’t, Toby. You don’t want to be that person.” Putting her hand on his shoulder, she guided him out of the room and down the stairs.
They found the grandunit sitting at the kitchen table and Heather in front of the refrigerator, clearly trying to decide what to make for lunch.
“I found some money,” Grace said.
Her grandparents stared at her.
Heather noticed Grace’s tear-stained face, and a concerned wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows.
“A lot of money!” Toby announced.
“Thirty-seven thousand, nine hundred and forty dollars,” Grace said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
Grandpa Hank snorted. “We don’t have that kind of money lying around.”
Grace shot Grandma Dorothy a look. “Yes you do.”
Grandma wore the same baffled look she wore every day. “I don’t know anything about that much money.”
“Obviously you do!” Grace’s voice sounded shrill. “And you make us your slaves! We cook, we clean, we run your errands, and you give us zilch!”
“We don’t give you zilch,” Grandma Dorothy said. “I don’t even know what that means. We don’t give you anything.”
“Exactly!” How could she live with these people? How had they ever managed to raise her mother?
“Are you sure, Gracie?” Heather asked. She looked like the Statue of Liberty, except she had a jar of mayonnaise poised in the air instead of a lantern.
Grace nodded, feeling like a bobble-head doll. “I counted it. Thirty thousand, nine hundred and forty dollars.”
Heather slowly set down the mayonnaise jar and rounded on their grandparents. “And when our mom needed money to go and visit our dad—you let Grace buy her ticket? Grace—who goes to work every day and pays for our food and clothes?”
“You make us work here for free when you clearly can afford to hire someone!” Grace added. A fire of self-righteousness burned so brightly inside her, she thought she might burst with the heat of it.
Grandpa Hank slapped his hand down on the table. “Stop this caterwauling right this dad-burned minute! We don’t got that kind of money lying around.”
Grace braced her hands on the table, leaned forward, and got right in their faces. “Yes. You. Do.”
“Come on, Grandpa,” Toby said. “I’ll show you.”
They all trooped upstairs, Grandma Dorothy coming up last. Grace pushed open the closet doors so they could see the mountain of money.
Grandpa stared, open-mouthed, a dribble of drool forming on his open lips. “What the dad-gum…”
Grandma folded her arms and raised her chin. “What were you doing snooping through my things?”
“I was changing your sheets!” Grace stepped up so that she could look her grandmother in the eye. “Something that from here on out I’m going to start charging you for!”
“Now see here,” Grandpa blustered. “You got no call talking to your grandmother like that!”
“And neither of you has any right to make us all your personal slaves!”
Grandpa huffed. “So you just think that you should get this house for free when we die?”
Grace glared at him. “I don’t care what you do with your house when you die. You can leave it to someone else if you want. But I do know one thing. You can’t take it with you! And there’s no promise that any of us will outlive you. You’re so mean, probably too mean for heaven or even hell. If no one wants you now, they won’t want you when you’re dead either!”
Shaking, Grace stormed out of the room. She slammed through the door, stomped down the stairs, and crashed out the back door. She went to the orange tree in the side yard and sobbed.
#
Brock wandered into his mom’s room, wishing it could tell him where she was or when she would return. He loved his mom with a tender ache, but the older he got the more he realized that his mom wasn’t like other moms, and his family wasn’t like other families.
And that was okay.
Mostly.
He returned to the dining room where he had his books spread out over the table and tried to focus on World History. During the Black Plague in the mid-fourteenth century, an estimated 75 to 200
million people had died. So in a family of four—as he thought most families were—one would die.
He was in a family of two, although he often felt as if he was really in a family of one. Not that he had known any other family situation. He knew the sitcoms on TV were lies. He knew he wasn’t the only child on the planet living with a single mom.
But sometimes when night fell and the big house rang with silence, he felt like the only person on his own planet. Sure, he could call a friend, organize a study group, go to something or other at the school, join a club, take up a sport. He didn’t have to stay at the house alone, waiting for his mom to come back from wherever she was.
He concentrated on the textbook in front of him. In men and women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg... From the two said parts of the body this deadly gavocciolo soon began to propagate and spread itself in all directions indifferently.
Yuck.
Brock pushed away from the table. He considered grabbing something to eat, but he’d lost his appetite about the time the plague hit the European shores. He opened the French doors. A soft breeze blew in, carrying the unmistakable sound of someone crying.
He went to the wall that separated his property from Grace’s grandparents and spotted Grace curled into a ball at the base of the orange tree. Her face was hidden beneath the cloud of her dark hair. Her shoulders shook with sobs.
“Huh, Grace?” He braced his elbows on the wall. “You okay?”
She mutely shook her head. “I hate them,” she said. “I hate them so hard!”
“Who?”
Grace wiped her tears with the back of her hand and jerked her head toward the house.
“Your grandparents?”
She just looked at him. He’d never seen her before with red puffy eyes, blotchy skin, bleach-splattered clothes. He knew his mom would think she looked awful, but something about her sadness tugged at him. He found himself even more drawn to her.
“You want some ice cream?”
“Ice cream isn’t going to help!” She rubbed her nose.
“It can’t hurt. Ice cream never hurts.”
