Grave Apparel (75 page)

“Jeffrey!
You
don’t
have
to do that.
You
have
people to see
here.”

“Are
you kidding? Miss a chance to meet your
famous
little shepherdess?”

“Well,
I’ll
try to call you
later,
after I meet the
girls.”

She collected her bag of
puffy
coats and caught a cab to the meeting place Jasmine had
picked
out, a
McDonald’s
just
off
U Street Northwest on
Fourteenth,
not
far
from
Jasmine’s
neigh borhood. The
fast
food joint with its harsh lighting and sullen air
was
a jarring change from the glorious and
festive
Willard
Hotel.
Lacey
wondered
if she
would
recognize Jasmine and her sister unless the girl
was
still wearing the blueandwhite robe. As people
kept
pointing out to
her,
she’d
thought Jasmine
was
a little shepherd
boy.
But when the cab pulled
over
she spotted them
instantly.
Two
little girls were
waiting
impatiently outside
the
McDonald’s,
stamping
their
feet
and
skipping,
trying
to
keep
warm.
She paid the
driver
and the girls ran up to
her,
Jas mine in the lead.

“Lacey! Lacey!
It’s
me! Did you bring our coats?”

Lacey
would
have known Jasmine’s
wise
and
wary
eyes
anywhere.
And her
shepherd’s
robe, which
looked
a little the
worse
for
wear.
Jasmine held her little
sister’s
hand
tightly.
Lily

Rose
wore
a thin
nylon
windbreaker
that
was
much too small for
her.
It
was
snug across her shoulders and the seams were splitting open. Neither one had
gloves.
They
looked
up at her eagerly and
Lacey
saw
they
both had the same almondshaped dark
eyes.
Both girls had unruly masses of curly black hair that fell to the middle of their backs and
kept
flopping in their
faces.
No one had been
overseeing
their grooming
lately.
They
looked
like
two
little girls
very
much in need of their missing
mother.
“We’re
cold!” Lily Rose
was
jumping up and
down,
trying to peek into the bag.

“I
have
coats for both of
you,”
Lacey
said.
“Have
you eaten today?”

“I’m starving!” The little one pulled on
Lacey’s
coat
toward
the
door.

“Hi, I’m
Lacey.”
She put out her hand and the girl grabbed hold of it and shook it
vigorously.
“Who are you?”

“That’s
Lily
Rose.”
Jasmine
opened
the
door.
“She’s
my
baby
sister.
Can we get
anything
we
want?”

Lacey
thought she must be doing this all wrong. She should
probably
insist
on
feeding
them
something
healthy
instead
of
fast
food, she needed to turn them
over
to Mac, and she needed to call Broadway Lamont, as soon as Mac
gave
her the
go
ahead. But she
couldn’t
bear to see them so hungry and
neg
lected.
They
skipped in ahead of
her.
Lacey
herded them to one of the back tables, all too
aware
they
were still visible from the street. She
kept
her
eye
on the doors.

Lily
Rose
bounced
while
Jasmine
waited,
holding
her
breath, her hands
waving
up and
down
as if she
would
burst.
Lacey opened the bag and pulled out the coats, hoping they
would
like
them.

“Mine is pink! Oh
wow!
It’s
pink!” Lily Rose grabbed her
coat,
rubbing
her
face
against
the
soft
microfiber.
She
plunged
her
little
hands
into
the
faux
fur
trim
around
the
hood.
She
looked
up at
Lacey
to
make
sure it
was
okay,
it
was
really hers.
“Yes,
it’s
all
yours.”
Lacey
turned to Jasmine and pulled out the
larger
baby blue parka.
For
the
first
time,
Jasmine’s
face
opened in a wide beautiful grin as she held the coat, stroking the
fabric.

“Oh
Lacey.
It looks really
warm.
Thank
you.”
She nudged her little
sister.
“What do you say to Miss
Lacey,
Lily Rose?”

“Thank you, Miss
Lacey.”
Lily Rose had already
taken
off

her toosmall
jacket
and
was
unzipping her gift. Jasmine helped her sister put on the pink coat, then she handed her
shepherd’s
robe to
Lacey
and snatched up the blue coat.
Lacey
folded up the tattered robe and
tucked
it into the bag with a sigh of relief. The girls were jumping up and
down
and hugging each
other,
twirling in circles.

“Mine’s
prettier!”

“No,
mine’s
prettier!
It’s
pink!”

“They’re
both
equally
pretty,”
Lacey
broke
in.
“But
they really look a little too big.
We
could
take
them back and get smaller
sizes.”

The girls cried “No!” in shocked unison. Jasmine
zipped
hers up.
“We’ll
grow
into
them,”
she said
decisively.
And a coat in hand
was
worth
two
in the store.

“If you say so. But I think you need something else
too.”
From
the
bottom
of
the
bag
Lacey
pulled
out
two
pairs
of
gloves
to match the coats.

“No
way!”
Jasmine took the blue pair from
Lacey’s
hand. “Cool!”

“Mine are pink too! And
they’re
only a little big. See?” Lily
Rose
already
had
the
pink
pair
on
her
little
hands.
“I
love
them.”

“Thank
you,
Lacey.”
Jasmine
prompted
her
sister
again
and
Lily Rose said a
fervent
thankyou.
Lacey
thought
they
must
have
had a
very
good
mother.
Once.

The restaurant was nearly
empty.
Two
women chatted
in
Spanish behind the
counter.
A
few
people nursed their
coffee
at tables, trying to
shake
the cold.
Lacey
knew
she needed to tell the girls their mother
wasn’t
coming back for them, she needed
to
convince
them
to
trust
her
about
a
foster
home.
And
she
needed to talk to Jasmine again about what happened in the
alley.
She had no idea where to
begin,
the
words
were not com ing to
her.
Maybe feeding the girls
would
be a good place to
start.

“I’m glad you
like
your coats.
Now
let’s
eat! Order
anything
you
want.”

The girls raced to the counter to order
burgers,
fries, and sodas.
Lacey
ordered a
coffee
and paid the bill. Jasmine and Lily Rose
wanted
to
keep
their
new
coats on,
but
she persuaded them to
take
them
off,
just while
they
ate.

“How
long has it been since you
two
have
eaten?”

“We
had lunch at
school,”
Lily Rose said.

“So
you’ve
been going to school?”
Lacey
said.

“We
have
to be really good until our mom comes
home,”
Jasmine said.
“And
they
feed us
lunch.”

Just
follow
the rules and life is supposed to
work
out,
Lacey
thought. Why
didn’t
life
always
work
out that
way?
Jasmine pushed her hair out of her
face
and Lily Rose
mimicked
her big
sister.
Just as Thelma DelRio had said, Jasmine
was
quite the little
grownup,
making sure
they
went to school to get their
lunches.
They
must
have
had
some
help
from
a
few
adults,
adults
who
wouldn’t
turn
them
in
to
the
authorities,
hoping
their mom
would
come home and
everything
would
be all right
again. Mac
knew
what
he
was talking
about.

“I
have
some
things
I
want
to
ask
you
about,
Jasmine.”
Lacey’s
throat constricted.
Two
sets of dark
eyes
looked
up at
Lacey.
“You
remember the
woman
in the
alley?”

“Cassandra,”
Jasmine said. “Oh no! Did she die?”

“No,
she’s
going to be
okay,
thanks to you,
but
she
doesn’t
remember
what
happened.
You
finish
eating
and
I’ll
talk,
okay?”
They
nodded.

“She
can’t
remember a thing?” Jasmine
swallowed.
“Nothing from the
alley.
But she remembered
something
else. The crazy sweater that you
saw
in the
alley,
the one the Santa Dude put on her? The sweater that played ‘Jingle Bells’?”
Jasmine
stared
at
Lacey
and
kept
eating.
“Cassandra
had
it
along with
her,
she took it from someone, as sort of a prank.
For
a long time, I thought the Santa Dude
was
after Cassandra, for a lot of reasons. But you
know,
the more I
talked
to people, the
more
I
began
to
think
that
maybe
Cassandra
wasn’t
the
one
he
was looking
for.
Somehow she got in the way and so he
at
tacked
her instead. Maybe he
was
after someone else, and Cas sandra just tried to stop
him.”