Left to Chance Page 13

  How I wished that bittersweet was still a term best left for chocolate.

  “The collage is due tomorrow but I didn’t want to have to cancel our plans, so Uncle Beck stayed up late with me last night while I finished it.”

  “That was nice of him. So, Uncle Beck went home?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He still lives in Columbus, right?” This was wrong. I should not be asking Shay about Beck. If that had been my MO, I would’ve been asking her about him when we FaceTimed and texted, but I never did. Maybe I should have.

  “Most of the time he’s in Columbus. Sometimes he’s here.”

  “He visits you and your dad and stays with you? That’s nice.”

  Shay tipped her head back and laughed as if I had just told her the funniest joke she’d ever heard. “Why would he live here when he owns Nettie’s on Lark? He lives there.”

  “Sure. Right. Of course. Silly me.”

  My thoughts swirled.

  The basket. The wine. The footsteps. The necklace!

  A thoughtful and thought-provoking gesture, out of character for this Beck. I tried not to think of how he’d been upstairs as I paraded around my room in my underwear, bathed for an hour in the claw-foot tub, and when I’d snuck outside late at night in my robe with just a T-shirt underneath. He’d been there all night, right upstairs. So close but yet so far—and so cliché it backed up into my throat and made me queasy, yet my pulse quickened.

  I’d managed to dodge him once again.

  “No more about Uncle Beck, okay?” I focused my gaze on Shay, searching for her unique features. The ones that made her Shay, separated her from Celia.

  “It’s time for our girls’ day out. You, me, and the mall. Ready? Aren’t you glad I have a car now?”

  “Yep! And oh yeah—Daddy’s meeting us for lunch.”

  * * *

  We tried on feathers in our hair, rings on our toes, and scarves around our necks. I told Shay no, I could not give her permission for a second hole pierced in one of her ears.

  “Do you remember when you had your ears pierced?”

  “No, do you?”

  “Of course I do. You were five, the summer before you started kindergarten. You wanted so badly to wear big-girl earrings and your mom and dad thought, fine, babies get their ears pierced. Shay’s five. It’s fine.”

  “It was fine,” Shay said.

  “You cried for three hours. Nonstop.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes. But you also couldn’t stop staring in the mirror, first at one ear, then the other, shrieking. But every time your mom asked if you wanted to take the earrings out, you screamed louder and said no, you loved your big-girl earrings.”

  Shay laughed and touched her earlobes.

  “C’mon,” I said. “We have time before your dad gets here. Let’s go buy you a new pair of big-girl earrings.”

  I yearned to hug her but figured that was not what she’d want in the middle of the mall.

  We headed toward Claire’s boutique and saw the same group of girls that had walked into the café. Or at least I thought so. I hadn’t realized how all tweens—teens—look the same to me.

  “There are those girls again.”

  “Oh crap,” Shay whispered.

  It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the “oh crap.” She wasn’t happy to see them and that’s all that mattered.

  “You just stand here with me when they walk by.” I pulled Shay to the nearest kiosk and pointed to a pair of faux designer sunglasses. “Just ignore them.”

  “Let’s go home.” I could barely hear her. “I can’t stand them.” That I heard just fine.

  The girls moved toward us in a heap, arms flailing with shopping excitement, voices raised in glee. When they reached the kiosk they went silent for two beats that seemed to last an hour.

  Morgan turned back and looked at us. I flared my nostrils and peered, activating my into-your-soul X-ray vision.

  I didn’t mean to.

  Yes, I did.

  I looked at Shay. “Those are not nice girls. Tell me what’s going on. I knew Morgan’s uncle growing up and he’s a nice man and I’m going to say something to him about that behavior.”

  “No, Aunt Teddi, you can’t.”

  “I saw Uncle Beck with Morgan’s mother, so we’re going to have to talk to him and your parents—to your dad and Violet.”

  “No!”

  I ached to chase after the girls, to yank them by their earlobes, pull them into the corner, and give them a what-for. I didn’t know anything about most of them, but I couldn’t blame Morgan’s behavior on her having a single mom. Miles had raised Shay for the past six years and she was sweet, contemplative, and creative. Maybe that was why Cameron was hanging around this summer. Maybe he and Deanna needed to reel in the mean-girl behavior before middle school turned into high school and all hormone hell broke loose.

  We walked in the opposite direction from the girls, toward the food court, away from our big-girl-earring destination and toward—I had no idea what.

  I thought of book club and the whispering, of how gossip and hearsay runs through a small town like a river runs to a waterfall.

  “Please tell me what’s going on.”

  Shay looked straight ahead and kept walking.

  * * *

  Miles arrived at the food court wearing a suit.

  “Hi, honey.” He kissed the top of Shay’s head. “My meeting was moved up but I have time to treat you to a quick lunch. What do you want today?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few bills.

  “Aunt Teddi too?”

  Miles looked at me. “Aunt Teddi too. The pad Thai isn’t bad if you like that kind of thing.”

  “I’m just going to get a cookie.” I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t have to be hungry to want a chocolate chip cookie.

  Shay plucked a ten from her dad and walked the perimeter of the food court. I hadn’t promised Shay I wouldn’t say anything to Miles. But I could make Miles promise.

  “Something happened, but don’t tell Shay I told you.”

  “Now you’re telling me how to parent?”

  “Really, Miles. She doesn’t want you to know. Promise.”

  “Fine, I promise. What happened?”

  “Those girls were here. The ones I mentioned.”

  “What happened?” He looked around the food court and over the hedge of fake boxwoods.

  “Nothing happened, that’s the point.”

  “I don’t understand the problem, Ted.”

  “Neither do I. Maybe I can help if you tell me.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Doesn’t the middle school have a no-tolerance policy for this kind of thing?”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Bullying.”

  “Those girls are not bullying Shay.”

  “It’s emotional bullying if they’re making fun of her work and intimidating her into clamming up whenever they’re around.”

  “No offense, but you need to mind your own business.”

  “Shay is my business.”

  “Since when? Since two days ago?” Miles looked at the table and back at me. “Look, I know you love her, but you’re here at a really busy and stressful time.”

  Miles didn’t say busy and joyful. Miles didn’t say busy and exciting.

  “Just enjoy her, and then go back to your life, okay? Next summer I’ll bring her to Chicago. And things can go back to normal.”

  “What if I don’t want things to go back to normal? What if I want to change what’s normal?” I heard my voice outside myself—it was strained, almost begging.

  Shay arrived at the table with a loaded baked potato, thereby negating any health benefits of baked potatoes—just like a twelve-year-old should.

  “Did you ask her, Daddy?” Shay sat on a molded plastic chair.

  “Ask me what?” I glared at Miles. We’re not finished yet. He glanced away.

  “Ask her, Da
ddy. Go ahead.”

  “Shay thought it would be a good idea to take some headshots I can use for the campaign.”

  I’d read the Gazette. There were two spots on the council and two people were running.

  “I need new headshots anyway so I can update my Web site and my business cards. Can’t keep looking like it’s 2012.” Miles looked up toward his receding hairline and smiled. How did he go from possessive to pleasant? Maybe that was the mark of a true politician. Or of someone skilled at avoidance.

  “C’mon, Aunt Teddi, this is easy for you, right? It’s part of your regular job. You take pictures of businessmen in suits, right? Dad looks good in a suit.”

  “He does indeed.”

  Celia and I had dubbed it the Suit Factor. Most men looked good in suits. The structure of the garment lent even a coward some credibility and charm, at least at first.

  Simon killed suits. Suits fit Simon’s tall and slim physique without bulging or creasing. A suited exterior matched his inner strength of character. He was always meticulously groomed, with weekly haircuts and straight-edge-razor shaves. My favorite suit was his navy double-breasted, but he looked at ease in all his custom-tailored garments, as if he’d dressed without a thought. I knew that each night he chose the next day’s clothing with precision and a hand-held steamer. I grew wistful for his certainty and meticulousness. I would call Simon later.

  “I’ll take headshots for you before I leave, sure.”

  “Tonight?” Shay asked.

  “I don’t know, sweetie…”

  “Vi’s visiting her sister for the matron of honor dress fitting. I was just going to order a pizza for us,” Miles said. “I’m not much of a cook.”

  “I remember.”

  * * *

  “Okay, your dad’s gone. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “You were always around when Mom was … weren’t you?”

  “You promised you would tell me what is going on with those girls.”

  “I will, I swear. But you were, weren’t you? Always around?”

  “I was.”

  “Don’t you miss us? Me and Dad, I mean.”

  “We’re here together. Your dad just left.”

  “I mean the rest of the time.”

  I knew what Shay meant. “I think about you and your mom every day. And I love our texts and when we FaceTime and the times we’ve spent in Chicago. I know it hasn’t been enough and I’m sorry. I’m going to be around a lot more from now on, okay?”

  “I wish you lived here.”

  “I will come back to visit, I promise, but my job—”

  “You can take pictures anywhere. I know you used to do it when you lived here. Daddy told me. He said you were away sometimes but you lived here and spent lots of time with Mommy and him and me. So you can do that again.”

  “I can’t. I have a job—”

  “Jobs can be anywhere.”

  Simon was not anywhere. This was so cliché it was a song. I’d left my heart in San Francisco. At least a part of it. “It’s more complicated than that,” I said.

  “Grown-ups always make things complicated,” Shay said.

  We really did.

  Chapter 13

  SHAY HELD EARRINGS TO her ears and looked into a three-way mirror for the next twenty minutes. She pivoted and turned, pursed her lips, and flipped her long ponytail. Exactly like a teenager trying to make a buy-one-get-one-free decision and avoid my question about what was really going on in her life. Finally, she dropped earrings into her basket.

  “Let’s go find a new dress,” Shay said. “That’s not complicated, right?”

  “Right.” I slid the basket off her arm and headed to the register. We’d go to one of those trendy teen stores and I’d cross my fingers we’d find something age appropriate and agreeable. “A new dress after we find flip-flops, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “What kind of dress do you want?”

  “Not for me, Aunt Tee. For you.”

  Complicated.

  “You should see the closet in my room at the inn. And my closets in San Francisco. If there’s one thing I have enough of, it’s dresses. And I have them stashed all over the country. All I wear are dresses, if you haven’t noticed. I am not a pants girl. Except to work, and in the winter. Although I try to stay away from winter.”

  “I thought maybe we could pick out something for you to wear to the wedding. Your dresses are kind of casual.”

  “Is that so?” How was it that Shay thought she wasn’t like her mother? That was such a Celia thing to say.

  “The wedding is fancy.”

  “Yes, Miss Flip-Flops, the wedding is fancy.” I playfully poked Shay in the side and she giggled, the sound cradling my heart. I’d been there the first time Celia heard Shay laugh out loud. She was about four months old and Celia had just nuzzled her belly. Then she looked at me.

  “Did you hear that?”

  I nodded. “Do it again.”

  She did and Shay had laughed. And then we laughed. So it went for the next half hour. It all happened in the days before moments like those were saved in perpetuity on smartphones, before the world could share your private joy with a viral video.

  “I wear the same thing to every wedding.” I swung my arm over Shay’s shoulder and steered her toward the discount shoe warehouse that anchored the mall.

  “Wearing the same thing is boring.”

  “It’s work, so I wear sort of a uniform. I wear black pants and a white shirt.”

  “Like a waiter?”

  “No, I have cameras hanging around my neck so I look like the photographer.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Aunt Teddi, let’s get you something new.”

  “We can shop more if you want, sweetie, but your dad and Violet’s wedding is a work day for me. I will be your friendly photographer who looks like a waiter. But I’m happy to buy you something new. Besides earrings and flip-flops, that is.”

  I heard yammering and laughter. Shay’s eyes widened. She’d heard it too. The group of girls was heading our way again.

  “Let’s just get out of here,” Shay said.

  I took Shay’s hand and led her back to a table at the food court, away from the oncoming foot traffic.

  We sat and I reached into my bag and pulled out the necklaces. We’d appear engrossed and engaged. I didn’t want Shay to talk. There was time for the truth, for her truth. Now I just wanted to share more of mine.

  The necklaces had managed to stay untangled in the tissue. I laid them out side by side.

  “These belonged to your mom and me. You wouldn’t remember, we were a little bit younger than you when we bought them.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “My dad gave me that one when he and Vi got engaged.” Shay pointed to the T necklace. “I kept it in my jewelry box and figured I’d give it to you in Chicago. But then I realized you should be here for the wedding and asked Dad if it would be okay. And then I asked Uncle Beck to leave it in your room. And Vi gave him a basket of snacks for you too.”

  My pulse simmered with disappointment. Beck had been just the deliveryman. I looked back at the necklaces. “Why haven’t you worn it? It’s yours now.”

  “Because you gave it to my mom, not to me. You could give the other one to another friend. Your new best friend.”

  “I don’t really have one.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Not really.” I shook my head. “Not a best best friend.”

  “Me either.”

  I lifted the T heart from the table and walked behind Shay. I reached around and clasped it behind her neck. Back in my seat, I held out the C necklace. Shay walked around me and clasped it behind my neck.

  “There. The tradition continues.” I looked up at Shay, connected to me in this one small way just as Celia had been. “Friends forever?”

  Shay smiled. “Better than friends.”

  My heart tightened, even more than it had the whole day, but
as I looked at her, my heart didn’t break. It filled.

  No one told me a child could do that. That a child could burrow into a space inside me I didn’t even know had the possibility of existing, take up permanent residence, and then split me open.

  Someone should have told me.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Shay sat in the chair next to mine. “Do you mind not having a best friend?”

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  * * *

  Shay and I proclaimed we’d had enough of the mall—so we headed to the car with earrings, flip-flops, and a bag of by-the-pound gummy bears, just as Cousin Maggie and Lorraine were walking into the mall. This time, Cousin Maggie used a walker. I hugged her and then Lorraine.

  “Shay, this is my cousin, Maggie. Maggie, this is my best friend’s daughter, Shayna Cooper.”

  “Shay and I know each other,” Lorraine said.

  “Oh, you do?”

  “Uh-huh,” Shay said. “From—”

  “From being around town,” Lorraine said.

  “Doing a little shopping today, Cousin Maggie?”

  “No, I’m at the mall because I want to play hockey. Of course I’m doing a little shopping.”

  Shay chuckled and then clamped her hand over her mouth.

  Good luck, I mouthed to Lorraine.

  “No luck needed. The sun is shining and we’ve got pockets with a little spending money. Don’t we, Maggie?”

  “Quarters,” she said. “I like the slots.”

  Shay and I stayed silent.

  “Maggie…” Lorraine said.

  “Lighten up. I know there’s no gambling at the mall. I like to be prepared. Just in case.”

  That was our cue to go.

  I drove without talking. Shay stared out the window and fingered the necklace every minute or so, then sank against the window. “If you don’t want a new best friend and I don’t want a new mom, why does my dad want a new wife?”

  Damn. Grown-up things were complicated. But why was she asking me? I was less like a grown-up than any other grown-up I knew.

  “What did your dad say when you asked him?” They had surely talked about this before Miles and Violet got engaged.

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “Why not?”