The delivery boy watched me. “SHE’S NODDING. SHE REMEMBERS.”
“All right,” I said, finding my voice underneath a healthy layer of indecision and worry. “I’m coming.” I eased the moving boxes through the door. “Give me two weeks to wrap things up around here.”
Avery whooped. “I’ll give you one,” he said, and I could imagine the victory in his grin. “One week, Charlie. We need our pastries out here, and you are the girl to do it.”
“SHE IS SMILING,” the boy shouted into the speaker. “MISSION TOTALLY ACCOMPLISHED. BUT SHE DIDN’T TIP ME,” he called, seeing me turn away from the door.
I held a twenty through the door and saw his face light up.
“Thanks, miss. And bon voyage, or whatever.”
Exactly, I thought as I let the door shut behind me. It was the whatever that might prove to be interesting.
5
AS I descended the escalator into baggage claim at Seattle-Tacoma International, I saw Manda’s orb of auburn curls before I could see her face. Her wild hair, her nemesis and the subject of many a late-night cry-it-out in junior high, had developed into a stunning and bountiful crop of shine and body in adulthood. The curls bounced and quivered along with baby Polly on her hip, and then she caught my eye.
“Woo hoo!” she squealed, much too loudly for my taste, as everyone within the vicinity began to seek out the woman at the end of Zara’s pointing finger. When I reached the bottom step, Manda pulled me to her, both of us tripping over each other and the stroller lodged between us.
“You look fantastic!” Manda said, checking me out from north to south. Typically this kind of behavior would have made me painfully self-conscious, but Manda had been the person who stuck her nose into my armpit in seventh grade to verify that, yes, there was finally a hair growing in there. She was also the one to reassure me that I was absolutely, positively going to get my period before I graduated high school. She was correct on both counts, so the appraisal felt completely natural and safe.
“Thanks. You, too,” I said, noting that underneath the graphic tee and jeans, Manda had reclaimed the pretty curves three pregnancies had distorted. I leaned over to kiss a babbling Polly and was struck by two things: how soft her little cheek felt on my skin and how big she’d grown since the last time I’d visited. I stepped back quickly and ducked my head under the stroller umbrella to deposit a kiss on a sleeping Dane’s forehead. His mouth was agape and long eyelashes feathered out above his smooth toddler cheeks, but he still gripped what was left of a slobbered-up granola bar in his pudgy hand.
“You’re here, Auntie Charlie!” Five-year-old Zara buried her face into my hip until I crouched down and hugged her full on. Her hair smelled like lavender and vanilla, and I inhaled deeply.
“I’m here. Is that okay?” I pulled away to look into her face. “Can you share Seattle with me?”
“Certainly,” she answered in a voice that reminded me of her attorney dad, Jack. “And you can sleep in my bed. It has Barbie sheets.”
I raised an eyebrow at Manda, the former president of Edenton High School’s Feminists for Change. “I love Barbie,” I said to Zara and meant it.
Manda frowned as she herded our little group toward the baggage carrousel. “Jack’s mother,” she said in a low voice as we walked. “She sent not one but three Barbies for Christmas, and the pink house, and the damn convertible. I was completely ambushed.” She looked around as though making sure no one was eavesdropping. “And then Zara started begging for the matching bedsheets for her birthday. I had to order them online. No self-respecting store in Seattle sells Barbie sheets, for the love of Pete. And I surely didn’t want to have to go to Walmart. Might as well join the NRA.”
I decided there was no emergent need to mention I’d looked into classes at the Westside Rifle and Pistol Range after the night Danny got slashed by Felix’s favorite knife. Or that all the kids’ presents I’d tucked into my luggage had come with free shipping from the thrifty folks at walmart.com. Instead, I hugged her around her waist as I walked, leaning down a bit in my heels. “I’m so happy to see you, and I won’t judge you just because your daughter loves Barbie.”
“I’m happy to see you, too.” She grinned at me. “And before you know it,” she pointed to my feet, “you’ll forget all about crazy ideas like heels and black tailored jackets, and you’ll feel comfortable in your own skin again.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m totally comfortable. These shoes have been begging to be worn since the day I purchased them four years ago.” I reached down to smooth away a streak of dust that I’d missed and, in the process, nearly fell to my death.
Manda steadied me with one hand while maintaining a secure grip on Polly and stopping Dane’s stroller with one foot. “You seem very controlled. And chic. And like you might break your ankle at any second.”