“I’m going to miss you so much.”
“Not as much as I’m going to miss you.” He held her tight until Rusty tapped Miri’s shoulder, as if they were at a dance and Rusty was cutting in.
“My turn,” Rusty said quietly, and Miri had to let go of Henry.
“Be happy,” Henry told Rusty.
“I’ll do my best,” Rusty said. “You be happy, too.”
When it was time to say goodbye to Irene, Henry hugged her tight. “I love you, Mama.”
“Not as much as I love you,” Irene told him, touching his face. By then all of them were holding back tears.
“Enough with the emotional goodbyes,” Ben said. “We’re going to Las Vegas, not the moon.”
The plane, a silver Constellation looking to Miri like a huge, featherless bird with fancy wings, was ready for boarding. Irene carried her white leather train case with her pills, her makeup and her good jewelry neatly packed inside. She and Miri walked across the tarmac together.
“Aren’t you afraid?” Miri asked her.
“What’s to be afraid of, darling?”
“You know.”
“It’s going to be fine. I promise.” Irene gave Miri her most reassuring smile.
“But you’ve never flown,” Miri said. “How can you promise when anything could happen, anything could go wrong.”
“Anything could go wrong any day of the week. What’s the point of worrying in advance?”
“How do you stop yourself from worrying?”
“I think of all the good things in my life.”
“What about the bad things?”
“There’s no room for them inside my head. Not anymore. Now I say live and let live, and I kick those other thoughts away. You can do that, too.”
“I’m trying, Nana. I swear, I’m trying.”
Irene squeezed her hand. “That’s my girl.”
—
SHE DID NOT want to flash back to six months ago, to that frigid December day when the ball of fire fell from the sky, exploding not once, but twice. She had pains in her stomach now, maybe from not eating anything since yesterday afternoon, when Suzanne had hosted a going-away lunch for her. Tuna salad and deviled eggs, all arranged on a pretty platter with pale blue ribbons tying up the napkins. The girls were careful not to mention Mason’s name. Robo, who had come from Millburn, brought up the subject once. “Good riddance to him.” Without saying a word Suzanne and Eleanor let her know she was out of bounds.
Miri handed the panda bear from its shelf in her now-empty closet to Suzanne, asking her to give it to Betsy in person as soon as Mrs. Foster said it was okay to visit. Suzanne promised she would.
They’d chipped in to give Miri a going-away present from Oakley’s, a double box of stationery with a western motif—cowboys, cacti, broncos—decorating the lower-right-hand corner of each sheet, plus an Esterbrook pen in pastel green, with a bottle of green ink, exactly what she’d been hoping someone would give her for Hanukkah. “Something to remember us by,” Suzanne said.
“As if I could forget any of you,” Miri told them, choking up. She promised to write. They promised they’d write, too.
For a while she thought Mason might come by the house, but he didn’t. Once she understood he was avoiding her the way she was avoiding him, she wanted to leave, the sooner the better. And now she was going. She was going to walk up the steps leading to the silver bird that would gobble her up, holding her in its belly until it reached its faraway destination, where it would spit her out. In one piece, she hoped.
The stewardess, in her famous uniform with the red cut-out TWA logo on her right shoulder, welcomed them onto the plane. Miri was reassured to see that the seating looked so much like a train. She was never afraid on a train. They were seated two by two—Irene with Ben, Rusty with Dr. O and Miri with Fern. The stewardess handed the two girls silver wings to pin to their jackets. Fern’s jacket was turquoise felt with appliquéd animals. She asked for a second pin for Roy Rabbit. Miri offered hers, then pinned one to Fern’s jacket, and the other to Roy Rabbit’s well-worn vest.
“Have you been to Lost Vegas?” Fern asked her.
“No.” Miri resisted a laugh. It made sense to call it lost since it was in the middle of nowhere.
“Will you be my sister now?” Fern asked.
“Stepsister.”
“Like in Cinderella?”
“No. My mother is very nice so you don’t have to worry about having a wicked stepmother. And my grandmother is the best grandmother ever—except when she talks about boys, but you don’t have to worry about that yet.”
“I’m only coming for the summer,” Fern said. “Mommy wanted me to go to camp but I wanted to go with Daddy.”