“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?”