Gail reached in and pulled out the smallest of the three bags while Mary picked up the remaining two. With Hannah at her heels, Mary followed Gail’s padding steps as she pulled open the door that led to the kitchen.
“So here we are,” she said, unable to resist the rush of pleasure she felt when displaying her home. Like a docent revealing the prize work in a museum’s collection, Gail Dackard extended her hand toward her kitchen and the mauve and gray living room beyond. “Chez Dackard.”
“Wow,” said Mary, as she took in the room, with its arches and columns and gaudy abstract art. “This is beautiful.”
“Well,” Gail demurred, as she set her purse on the countertop next to a vase containing spiky sprays of birds-of-paradise. “It’s home.”
After a quick tour of the house, Gail showed the girls to their room. Leading them up a wide staircase to the second floor, she glanced behind them to ensure no footprints had been left on her cream carpet. Hannah stuck tightly to Mary’s side and averted her eyes each time the path of Gail’s gaze neared her. The room in which they would be staying was large and comfortable, and had its own private bath; and Gail felt the need to walk them through the suite, pointing out the bed and the sink and the closet.
Finally, Gail said, “Alright, I’ll let you girls get settled. Ron will be home soon with Tim, so feel free to wash up or have a rest.” She forced another smile. “Make yourselves at home.” And then she ducked out of the room.
The moment the door clicked shut, Mary and Hannah fell into each other, giddy and grateful to be alone again. “Oomph,” joked Mary, as Hannah’s head hit her hip with a thump. “Take it easy, Bunny.”
Mary sat down on the bed and pulled Hannah onto her lap. Hannah looked at Mary with wide, earnest eyes. “This is a really pretty house,” she said, as if the fact were somewhat worrisome.
Mary rested her hand on Hannah’s head, pushing her hair away from her face. “It’s pretty enough.”
“They have a light made out of diamonds,” said Hannah, referring, Mary assumed, to the baguette-prism chandelier that hung over the dining-room table.
“The light was nice.”
“And everything is pink.”
“Well . . . if Princess Hannah and Princess Mary lived here, they’d make it even prettier. There would be a big golden bed and a ballroom with velvet curtains and windows that went from the floor all the way up to the sky.”
“Yeah,” said Hannah, her eyes full of worlds Mary created. Mary smiled as she watched Hannah’s gaze lifting up through the ceiling into the heavens.
For the next hour, Mary opened bags, put a few things in drawers, and lounged with Hannah. Hannah lay on the bed and asked questions about the plane they had flown on and about when they were going to go back home.
“Well, we can go back in about a week if we want to,” replied Mary, as she pulled out her enormous cosmetic case and set it on the dresser. The green floral bag was dingy with makeup and carried with it Mary’s exotic powdery scent. She pulled out a tube of lip gloss and leaned into the mirror. “But we’re going to see how it goes,” she said, as she slicked it on.
Mary had used the insurance payout for Diane’s car to purchase their tickets to Miami. The Pools had arranged for Diane’s funeral, and Mary gave them most of the money that she had gathered and saved to help with the costs. But she now had only a few hundred dollars left. Diane hadn’t purchased life insurance, perhaps because she was so young. Or perhaps because she was already financially burdened without the additional monthly payment. It was a gamble coming to Florida; Mary knew that. She took a small aerosol can of fragrance from her bag, leaned her head back, and sprayed a cloud of the scent onto her neck, her hand circling as she did so like a bird in dizzy flight. Then she took an appraising look at herself. She really was beautiful. She thought this without joy or emotion. She thought this with the focus of someone who had just put down her last dollar on what had always been her lucky number.
MARY AND HANNAH SAT BESIDE EACH OTHER at the dinner table. Gail passed around a bowl of pasta salad; she had made chicken nuggets for Hannah. “So, Tim,” said Gail, in a hostess voice. “Mary and Hannah are your second cousins.” Gail smiled at her shy, sullen son. “And Mary’s only a couple of years older than you.”
“Second cousins,” mused Ron, who sat at the head of the table, occupying it fully with both his ego and physical presence. “That means you two could get married.”
Tim blushed and scowled and mumbled something toward his plate, but Mary let out a gracious and appreciative laugh, leaning forward and smiling back at Tim’s father. “Well, maybe we’ll start with being friends,” she said.
Though his father watched him, waiting for him to engage in repartee with the lovely young woman seated across the table, Tim—seemingly so ill-suited to being Ron Dackard’s son—continued to stare at his plate. Diane had nurtured a deep jealousy of her cousin and had spoken enough about Gail’s husband for Mary to know that Ron hadn’t come from an illustrious background. He was the son of a postal worker. But having made a series of very shrewd business moves early in his career, he now owned a large chain of automobile-maintenance shops called LubeTime, which specialized in the thirty-minute oil change, and he had leveraged his success into a budding political career. Mary sensed that Ron could be merciless and single-minded when it came to getting what he wanted. She could tell because she was, too.
“So, Tim,” said Ron, stabbing a bite of his pasta salad. “Are you going to show the girls around the neighborhood after dinner? Take them down to the marina?”
Tim’s head jerked up, his expression half-terrified, half-furious.
“That would be fun,” Mary offered, smiling at Tim and then his father.
“Ron,” whined Gail, with a soft, annoyed chuckle. “It’s a school night. And I’m sure the girls are tired.”
There was a collective glance toward Hannah, who had just surreptitiously put a whole chicken nugget in her mouth. Hannah’s eyes widened at the attention. She had been quietly consuming her dinner hoping that no one would notice her. Mary gently took her chin.
“Are you tired, Bunny?”
Mary nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and so Hannah did, too.
“Well, maybe once Hannah goes to bed, Tim can take Mary down there,” decreed Ron Dackard.
Mary and Ron and Gail spent the rest of the dinner mentioning the goings-on of family members that none of them knew very well at all and agreeing that Florida was pleasant in the winter but that the North, with its change of seasons, had its own charms. Hannah and Tim sat silently eating. Ron asked Mary how she was managing without Diane. And Mary sighed, looked at Hannah, then stroked her sister’s head. “We’re hanging in there,” she replied, in a voice that wasn’t quite her own.
Mary helped Gail clear the table and load the plates into the dishwasher while Tim escaped to his room and Ron pretended to enjoy playing hide-and-seek with Hannah.