Lizzie Flying Solo

by Nanci Turner Steveson

  “Did they have custody hearings?”

  “I’m not really sure.”

  “If they did, they’re probably divorced.”

  “I don’t think they can get a divorce,” I said. “At least not until—”

  I stopped. Bryce scrunched his forehead and waited. My eyes burned and my face turned hot all the way to the tips of my ears.

  “My dad’s in jail,” I said, unraveling another piece of thread. “I mean, he was in jail. He has to have a trial.”

  Bryce didn’t flinch. “That’s ugly,” he said.

  But that was all. He didn’t ask why Dad was in jail. He didn’t make me say anything else, even though he must have known I had more secrets, the same way I knew he did, too.

  Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

  Seventeen

  A minute later, the door to the trophy room opened and Kennedy stuck her head inside.

  “Hey, guys! Merry Christmas! Can I come in?”

  “Of course!” Bryce perked up. “Look at you, all fancy with earrings and everything.”

  She flipped her fingertips across the top of his head and sat down so the three of us made a triangle. “Oh, shut up, it’s once a year. Lizzie, you look nice. Not every day one gets invited to a palace, huh? Have you ever been here before?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, it’s always an interesting experience, right, Bryce?”

  He snorted. Kennedy held up two packages wrapped in brown paper cut from a horse-feed bag, each one tied with a piece of hay string.

  “So, guess who gets which one?”

  Bryce put his hand out. “Give it over.”

  Kennedy tossed one to him, then held out the other to me. “And this is for you.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know you were coming. I didn’t even know we were coming until last night or I would have brought something—”

  “Lizzie, stop!” Kennedy tapped the package. “Don’t take the pleasure of giving a gift away from me.”

  Bryce rolled his eyes and grinned. “Yeah, Lizzie. Don’t be so mean.”

  “Open!”

  Kennedy had taken “before” and “after” photos of both of us and put them in double frames. On the left side of my frame was a picture taken last summer, long before I knew Kennedy. Long before I knew that she knew me. I was lying on my belly at the edge of the pastures, the rich, green grass all around me. My dark hair fell in an unruly mess at my shoulders, like maybe I hadn’t even taken the time to brush it before running off through the woods to the horse farm that day. A pencil in my hand hovered over the pages of a notebook, but my eyes were trained on something far away on the hill.

  On the right side of the frame was a more recent picture of me walking away from the camera. I was wearing the paddock boots Joe had given me, and I was hauling a full bale of hay down the aisle, my back strained under the weight. My hair was pulled into a ponytail with a few pieces of straggly hay tagging along, and the seat of my jeans had dust from where I’d been sitting on the floor outside Fire’s stall.

  I pointed to the first one. “How’d you get this?”

  “I’m a photography major,” she said. “I have to know when and where to get the best pictures. These are two of my favorites I’ve ever taken. The evolution of Lizzie St. Clair.”

  I touched the image of the girl I’d been this summer and instantly felt the loneliness I’d walked around with for so many months. In the second picture, the loneliness was all but gone. Kennedy had watched me change, and she wanted me to know. She wanted me to step into the new pair of shoes and breathe.

  The three of us were called down for dinner a few minutes later. There was a new person sitting in the living room next to Mom: a tall, handsome black man in a cream wing chair, his chin on his fist, his eyes pinned on Mom’s face. He was listening to her talk like no one else existed in the entire universe.

  “Hey, Dad,” Kennedy said.

  He startled and stood up. “Oh, hi, honey!”

  “Dad, this is Lizzie.” Kennedy pushed me toward him. “Lizzie, my dad, Jamie O’Toole.”

  Jamie was wearing a crisp white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Over the left pocket, the signature O’Toole’s Pub rose was embroidered in peach and gold. He stood up and reached a hand out to shake mine.

  “So nice to meet you, Lizzie. I have to say, I didn’t make the connection that the Lizzie Kennedy always talked about was the same Lizzie as Isabel’s daughter.”

  I looked at Kennedy with her pale skin, long blond hair, and clear blue eyes, then to Jamie with his dark skin, black hair cropped close to his head, and dark eyes. He had to be her stepfather.

  Mom leaned forward in her chair. “O’Toole’s Pub is next door to my office. We have our lunch meetings there every week. Jamie and I met this fall.”

  “This fall?”

  Kennedy nudged me with her elbow. “Cool.”

  Jamie smiled at Mom in a way that made me feel like a hummingbird was whizzing around inside my stomach.

  “Yes, I know your mom from the pub. But I didn’t imagine she’d be here today. What a surprise. A lovely surprise.”

  “Yeaaaah, how ’bout that?” Kennedy nudged me again. “Who knew?”

  I didn’t know what to do with my hands, or my feet, or my eyes. I couldn’t look at Mom—but I had to look at Mom. She was smiling at me, and she was blushing.

  “Jamie’s the one who taught me how to crochet,” she said.

  Jamie rocked back on his heels and smiled. “I did, indeed.”

  That’s when I noticed the gray-and-navy scarf lying over the arm of the chair he’d been sitting in. The same gray-and-navy yarn Mom had in her basket at home. She knew him well enough to make him a scarf and hadn’t even told me.

  Joe burst through a swinging door from the kitchen wearing a shiny red crown that said Merry Christmas on it and carrying a tray of round things wrapped in foil.

  “Hot baked potatoes,” he said cheerfully, crossing the room. “This way to dinner, folks!”

  I was still stunned when we all moved together into the dining room. Kennedy pulled out a chair across from where Mom and Jamie went to sit.

  “Stay here with me and Bryce,” she said firmly, pushing my shoulder and guiding me into the seat.

  Mr. McDaid came in, balancing a platter on one hand and hoisting a giant grilling fork in the air with the other. “Oh, you are going to love this.”

  He made his way around the table and slapped pieces of meat onto everyone’s plates. When he was done, he dropped the tray onto a sideboard, yanked out his chair, and sat down to eat Christmas dinner with a bloodied apron still tied around his body. He pointed his knife at each of us.

  “Go ahead, go ahead, dig in, folks. Get a potato. Bryce, be polite. Pass those green beans around. No meat sauce needed for this meal. Elk is the finest red meat there is,” he said. “Shot this bull myself in the fall when I went back to Wyoming to hunt with my buddies. Got him right between the eyes.”

  He pushed his index finger into the dip above the bridge of his nose to make sure we had a visual of exactly where that elk had been shot. I shuddered and looked at the barely dead thing on my plate.

  “Should we say grace first?” Jamie asked.

  Mr. McDaid stopped with his fork poised to sink into the meat. “Grace? Oh, yes, of course, please say grace.”

  He set his silverware down and propped his elbows on the table, his hands clasped together. The rest of us bowed our heads while Jamie recited a short, polite prayer. I didn’t even hear what he said, really, because all I could think of was Kennedy saying, It’s always an interesting experience.

  “Amen,” Jamie said.

  “Amen,” we echoed.

  Mom’s forehead gathered into little wrinkles above her eyes when she sliced into her meat. I watched her eat it. She even smiled as if she liked it, but I couldn’t touch mine. Blood seeped into a puddle on my plate. Every time I started toward it with my fork, I thought of the buc
k I’d seen in the woods that morning. I was grateful to be invited for Christmas dinner, but I wasn’t going to touch that poor dead elk.

  Mr. McDaid pointed his fork at Bryce. “You eat that, son. None of this vegetarian stuff on Christmas. Not when I shot that thing just for you.” He looked around at each of us with a grin that made me shiver. “My boy thinks he wants to be a vegetarian, like some kind of tree hugger. Can’t grow up strong without protein, right, Joe?”

  Joe cut into his meat and nodded, but when Mr. McDaid wasn’t watching, he winked at Bryce. Mr. McDaid guzzled three glasses of champagne, one right after the other, and talked nonstop. He was kind of like Jenna in my English class: he talked all about himself. When the champagne bottle was empty, he went off to the kitchen for another one. Joe quickly switched out the bare bone from the chop he’d already eaten with the one Bryce wasn’t going to touch. In the same breath, Kennedy grabbed mine and dropped her bone onto my plate.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “Teamwork,” she said under her breath.

  By the time Mr. McDaid came back, we were all happily enjoying our meal.

  It was nearing dark when Mom and I piled into Joe’s car to go home. I leaned my head against the window in the back seat, holding the framed photos in one hand. With the other, I caressed the arm of the brand-new pink Birchwood jacket Mr. McDaid had given me. Something about getting such an extravagant gift from someone I barely knew felt wrong, like maybe Mr. McDaid was trying to make me ignore the fact that he was mean to Bryce.

  Mom loosened the new cashmere scarf he’d given her and waved out the window at Jamie, who was standing next to baby Jesus and waving back. Just before we turned the corner, Jamie stepped on the lit frame of Mary and Joseph, and the entire front of the house went dark. Joe, Mom, and I all three giggled.

  “Kennedy’s dad is nice,” I said when we pulled onto the parkway.

  “Yes, very,” Mom said.

  “So are you dating him?”

  Joe chuckled and tapped the rearview mirror. “Hey, not to change the subject, but awesome gift from Mr. McDaid, huh?”

  I ran my fingers across the bumpy threads where my name was embroidered in script on the front of my jacket. “Yeah. But do you think I should keep it?”

  “Why would you not keep it?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t know. It just feels like a bribe or something.”

  “My, my, so judge-y,” Mom said over her shoulder.

  “Mr. McDaid is complicated. He’s really loud, and he shoots elk between the eyes and serves it up for Christmas dinner, and tries to make Bryce feel ashamed for being a vegetarian, but then he does something like giving me the jacket.”

  “Well, it was very sweet to invite us and give such thoughtful gifts.”

  Joe nodded. “But you’re right, Lizzie. He is a complex man, to be sure.”

  I drifted in and out of sleep until we pulled up in front of Good Hope and the car door light came on.

  “I didn’t get to see Fire today, Mom. It’s Christmas. I should have gone to see him.”

  “All is quiet at the barn now,” Joe said. “You’ll see him tomorrow.”

  “Yes, tomorrow,” Mom said. “It’s soon enough.”

  It was never soon enough. But I went inside without arguing, my fingers wrapped around the one-hundred-dollar bill that Mr. McDaid had tucked inside the pocket of my new jacket with a note that said, To my new friend, Little Lizzie. The note and the money made me feel even more uneasy. I wasn’t sure what to do about it, but I put that bill into its own envelope, apart from the money I’d earned. I had plenty of time to decide.

  “Mom?”

  No answer. I’d fallen asleep on top of Mom’s covers when we got home, still fully clothed. She had gone to crochet in the common room with Mrs. Ivanov, but now her jeans and sweater were draped over the chair and the curtain was closed.

  “Mom?”

  I tapped the underside of the mattress above me.

  “Mom! Are you up there?”

  “What is it? What time is it?”

  “I don’t know. Your phone’s on the windowsill.”

  “It’s late. Or early. Go back to sleep.”

  I could hear her turning over and wrestling with the covers.

  “Mom?”

  “What?”

  “Can we talk?”

  Silence.

  More silence.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m tired, but I’m here.”

  “Does that mean we can talk?”

  “Sure, go for it.”

  “Are you and Dad divorced?”

  “Why would you ask me that?”

  “Because Bryce’s parents are divorced, and he asked me if you and Dad were and I didn’t know. He said there’d have been a custody hearing if you were getting divorced.”

  Pause.

  “Well, there’s been no custody hearing. You’re stuck with me.”

  “I mean, you have reason to be divorced, right? After what Dad did?”

  “I suppose so, sweetie, but why are you even thinking about that?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  Silence.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you like-like Jamie?”

  I heard her push back her covers and sigh. “Since we’re awake, let’s switch to our normal places. I’m getting vertigo up here.”

  She climbed down, but I didn’t get out. I moved over against the wall and patted the empty side.

  “Take your shoes off and I’ll get in,” Mom said.

  I lifted my feet and giggled. “That’s funny. I fell asleep with my shoes on.”

  Once I’d pushed them to the floor, we both crawled underneath the covers.

  “This feels like my slumber party on my tenth birthday,” I said, “when MaryBeth and Amy and Sloan and I slept in your bed.”

  Mom pulled the covers up to her chin. “Neither your dad nor I slept that night. Between the two of us scrunched together in your single bed, and all the giggling coming from the four of you in our room, it was a long night.”

  “It was fun, though. They all said it was the best birthday party they’d ever been to.”

  “I’m glad, Lizzie,” she said. “Do you miss them? Your friends from back home?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I mean, I don’t really think about them anymore. Besides, they weren’t very nice to me after Dad left. They didn’t act like real friends.”

  Mom reached over and squeezed my hand. “You’ve got Kennedy and Bryce now, and they both seem genuine and deserving of you.”

  “Mr. McDaid thinks Bryce is gay because he wants to learn dressage. That’s a type of riding.”

  “I know what dressage is. Why would that make him gay?”

  “I don’t know. Mr. McDaid is prejudiced, I guess.”

  “People who don’t understand something that is different can be afraid of it. Sometimes it’s their fear that turns into their prejudice.”

  “Do you think riding dressage could make someone just a little gay?”

  “I don’t think a person can be a little gay or a lot gay. I think they are, or they aren’t. But then again, what do I know?”

  I wondered about that for a second, about how Mom thought a person had to be either gay or not gay. Or a person had to be guilty or innocent. To her, it was black and white. No gray areas. But then why did it still feel like we were a little bit guilty for what Dad had done?

  “Is he gay?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Would it bother you if he was?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Just checking to be sure I’m raising you right.”

  I nestled in closer to her. “Yeah, you are. Good night.”

  “Good night, my sweet Lizzie. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry New Christmas, Mom. I love you.”

  Eighteen

 
; I laid Ben Franklin faceup on top of my covers. “One hundred five, one hundred ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, thirty-five, fifty-five, sixty-five, eighty-five, ninety, two hundred, two hundred ten.”

  I stacked each of the bills I’d earned from babysitting on top of the hundred from Mr. McDaid, and wrote the new total in my notebook. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about accepting the money from him, but every time I thought of Fire, I pushed that uneasy feeling to the back of my mind. Even with Mr. McDaid’s gift, I needed another seven hundred and ninety dollars to reach my goal. Sometimes that number felt impossible, then other times I knew I could do it. In exactly one week, Bryce and I would go to hot-walk the horses at the indoor polo matches, and I’d have another way to earn money.

  The shower water stopped in the bathroom. I shoved the notebook and money all together into the extra pillowcase I’d nabbed and pushed it between the wall and my mattress just before Mom came back in.

  “Well, well,” she said. She had a towel wrapped around her hair, which was all piled on top of her head. “The birthday girl is awake! Happy Birthday!”

  “Thanks.”

  “How does it feel to be a teenager?”

  “I dunno, same as it felt yesterday, I guess, and the day before and the day before that.”

  “Same as it did when you were six?”

  I lay back and stared at a stain on the ceiling. “Probably different than when I was six. Remember that gigantic dollhouse you gave me for that birthday?”

  “The one you promptly turned into a stable for your plastic horses?”

  “Yeah.” I grinned. “That one. But I never did get real hay to put in it like Dad promised.”

  “Well, people and promises, you know what they say about those, right?”

  “No, what do they say?”

  She rubbed her hair dry, then ran a comb through it and smiled at me in the mirror. “I don’t really know what they say. I made that up.”

  “And here I thought you were going to say something meaningful.”

  “Spoken like a true teen,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t be there for your canter lesson today, but we’ll have a nice celebration tonight, okay?”

  “No biggie. I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday anyway.”