Miracle on 49th Street (9 page)

M
olly confirmed one of her theories in the first five minutes Barbara was in Josh Cameron's living room.

Barbara hadn't been kidding.

She
really
didn't like him.

She smiled at him the whole time they were talking about the old days, not just talking about Molly's mom but a lot of other people they went to UConn with, some of whose names even Molly recognized. Whatever happened to him? I actually saw her at our tenth year reunion. “No, they got divorced,” Barbara said at one point, and Josh said, “Man, I thought he'd gotten life with her without parole.” Then they'd laugh.

Except Molly knew Barbara was laughing with every part of her but the place where people meant it when they really laughed: her eyes.

Okay, Molly thought, this isn't what we're looking for.

When they finally ran out of small talk, Mattie appeared with coffee for the grown-ups, a glass of iced tea for Molly. Josh introduced her to Barbara.

After he did, Mattie said, “Was he as big a pain in the butt when he was a college boy as he is now, a sports legend loved by millions?”

It didn't come out as sarcasm with Mattie, just pure fun.

“Worse,” Barbara said, not quite so playfully.

“Figured,” Mattie said. To Josh she said, “If they ask you any real hard questions, I'll just be in the kitchen.”

When she was gone it was as if somebody had suddenly shut off the volume in the room.

“So,” Josh said to Barbara.

“So,” Barbara said.

Over her shoulder, Molly could see the kitchen door push open a crack.

“Listen, Barb,” Josh said, “I always thought I could trust you.”

“Always,” she said.

Now
that
was sarcasm, Molly thought.

If Josh noticed, he just ignored it. “So,” he said again, “I'm going to trust you now.”

“Molly was very mysterious about why you needed to see me,” she said.

Josh said, “I asked her. And I'm going to ask you to keep what I'm about to tell you between the three of us. And your husband, of course. It's important.”

“I'm sure Molly's told you I have a daughter. Kimmy. The same age as Molly.”

“Probably like sisters,” Josh said, with a quick glance toward Molly.

“You bet!” Molly said.

Another gag job, but it got a real smile out of Barbara, the first one since she'd walked through the front door.

“I can't imagine you could tell me anything that I couldn't tell my daughter,” she said.

“You might not want to make a decision on that until you hear what I need to tell you,” he said.

Molly was expecting a scene, but Barbara shocked her. Mostly by not being shocked.

“I never believed the story about that guy loving her and leaving her over there,” she said, almost to herself, like she was alone in the room. “That wasn't her style, for one thing.”

To Josh she said, “I should have guessed that you were always going to be the only one for her, no matter how much she tried to deny it.” She nodded. “Even if she was the one who broke it off.”

She looked at Molly, then at Josh, then back at Molly.

“If you really think about it, it all makes perfect sense, Molly being yours,” she said.

“If
she is mine,” Josh said, a little too quickly. “I'm not saying it's for sure yet.”

Molly let that go for now.

Barbara said, “I'm not sure I understand you.”

“All I'm saying,” Josh said, “is that my first reaction was that it was just a made-up story from a kid…from Molly, because she wanted it to be true. Or maybe it was some kind of shakedown.”

That got Molly's attention. “Shakedown?”

“For money,” he said. “It's never happened to me. But it's happened to other guys in sports I know or I've heard about. A woman they used to know shows up with a kid they say is his.

Sometimes the guy pays off without even having one of those tests, just to make the whole thing go away. They'll cut a deal.”

“Even if it really is the guy's own child?” Molly said.

“Let me explain something to you about athletes, especially ones making a ton of money when they never thought they'd have any money in their lives,” he said. “They'll do anything to keep somebody else from getting their hands on it. And sometimes,” he said, “they just don't want to know what they don't want to know.”

Molly was almost positive she could hear Mattie make some kind of snorting noise from the other side of the kitchen door.

“Mom would have never done that,” Molly said.

“For one thing,” Barbara said, “she was physically incapable of telling a lie.” Barbara sighed one of her big Barb sighs, a sound that always made Molly think it had come out of a musical instrument. “Even though I would tell her one wouldn't hurt occasionally, after she had delivered another one of her famous honest opinions about me.”

“Brutally honest,” Josh said. “Oh, that was Jen, all right.”

“The only person she ever lied to was herself,” Barbara said.

“About what?”

“About you.”

“I don't understand.”

“No surprise there,” Barbara said.

This wasn't good.

“Where we goin' with this?” Josh said. “What do you mean she lied to herself about me?”

“About how much you hurt her,” Barbara said.

Molly felt as uncomfortable as on her first day at the Prescott School, when she didn't know anybody and didn't want to, wanted to be anywhere except in what was called a home room and felt like anything but.

She finally said, “Does anybody mind if I change the subject for a second?”

“Be my guest,” Josh said.

Molly said, “I thought you believed us now. Mom and me.”

“I believe
she
believed you're…ours,” he said. “And I know you believe it.”

“But you don't?”

Josh said, “The simplest way would be for us to take one of those tests, that way—”

“No!” Molly couldn't help it, it came out of her as a shout.

They both looked at her. Molly could see Mattie's face in the door.

Molly shook her head. “No, no, no,” she said. “You have to believe me because you believe me.”

“I'm just saying—”

“I know what you're just saying,” Molly said. “My mom didn't lie, and I don't lie. And if you still think I'm lying, then I guess we're all wasting our time here.”

“It's not what I meant,” Josh said.

“I don't want your stupid money,” she said, “if that's all you're worried about.”

Now nobody said anything, until Mattie suddenly burst through the doors, saying, “What he's trying to say is that he wants to get to know you.” She gave Josh Cameron a good whack on the shoulder. “Isn't that right, Mr. Words?”

“I was getting to that.”

“He wants a different kind of test, he just doesn't know how to ask for it,” Mattie said. “A test where you get to know him and he gets to know you. Then we can cross all those other bridges and so forth when we come to them.”

Molly imagined that it was like some cartoon comet had crashed into the room. Mattie, as little as she was, had done everything but trail a flame behind her.

“But we can't get there,” Mattie said, “without Mrs. Evans's permission.” One more whack on the shoulder for Josh. “Isn't that right?”

“That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you,” Josh said. “It's not like she can just start spending time with Mattie and me without your say-so, Barb. She is in your custody, after all.”

“Yes, she is,” Barbara said pointedly.

“You've got to let me,” Molly said.

“No, actually, I don't.”

“But it's what Mom wanted,” Molly said.

Another whopper of a lie, one Barbara saw right through. “Somehow I doubt that,” she said. “Now who's not being honest here?”

“She wanted me to get to know my father.”

“Well, she sure took her time getting
there.
”

“Please,” Molly said. She knew it sounded like begging, didn't care.

“Say I do go along,” Barbara said. “What are we supposed to tell people? What am I supposed to tell Kimmy?”

She was talking to Josh, but Mattie answered.

“How about the truth?” Mattie said. “I've been over there on the other side of the door, listening to you all talk about the truth.”

“Eavesdropping, it's called,” Josh said.

She made a motion like she was swatting away a fly.

“Just tell people the truth,” Mattie said. “That this little angel here is the daughter of a college friend who died. Who doesn't have any parents now and just came back to America. And how you didn't know the mom had died, but now you do, and how you met the angel and took a shine to her.”

Barbara said, “My daughter's not stupid. Neither is my husband.”

“So they must have a pretty good sense of what this little girl is all about by now,” Mattie said. “Just tell them that Josh Cameron is a sucker for a story like this.” She gave him a look. “The way most normal people would be.”

Josh looked at Barbara. “This hasn't been an easy thing for me to find out,” Josh said. “Now I need to figure out the best way for me to handle it.”

Barbara Evans stood up.

“Well, it's nice to see one thing hasn't changed,” she said. “It's still all about you.”

Y
ou knew all along,” Molly said when they were outside. “Didn't you?”

“I knew the minute I set eyes on you at the airport,” Barbara said. “It was like looking at Josh. The young Josh, anyway.”

“Did you ever say anything to Mom?”

“Your mom and I always had the same arrangement, from when we ended up roommates freshman year,” Barbara said. “If she wanted me to know something, she told me. I have a feeling it worked that way with him, too. If she'd wanted him to know about you, she would have told him.”

They were cutting across the Public Garden, past the big statue of George Washington that just said “Washington” on it, as if asking everybody, Is there another Washington worth talking about?

“This is a bad idea, Molly,” Barbara said. “A monumentally bad idea.”

“How come you didn't say that back there?”

“I told him I'd think about it,” Barbara said. “Now I have.”

“For ten minutes?” Molly said.

“I could have given him an answer in ten seconds,” Barbara said. “Your mother was the smart one to the end, obviously. He wasn't good enough for her, and he isn't good enough for you.”

“I'm afraid that's not your decision to make.”

“I'm afraid it is.”

Molly stopped near Washington.

“No,” she said.

She'd been saying that a lot today.

“Molly—”

“You're not
not
letting me do this.”

Barbara motioned for them to sit down at the long bench with the tiny statues of ducklings marching along the path in front of them. Molly liked the ducklings as much as she liked old Washington.

And she loved this park. Though not so much right now, with Barbara.

“Hear me out,” Barbara said. “There's more to this than you know.”

“No,” Molly said, “you hear me out.”

“This doesn't even sound like you.”

Molly said, “Why? Because I don't sound like the good orphan girl everybody wants me to be?”

“He won't be the father you want him to be. He can't.”

“But he
is
my father,” Molly said. “He's the only real family I have in the whole world.”

“He's Josh Cameron,” Barbara said. “Who frankly hasn't changed much since college, except that he's a lot richer now.” She reached over and took Molly's hands before Molly had a chance to stick them somewhere. “Do you really and truly believe he's going to make room for a child in his life? You think he won't hurt you? Nobody ever hurt your mom the way he did.”

“I'm not a child,” Molly said.

“Really.”

“Next year I'm a teenager,” she said. She took her hands away so she could brush imaginary hair off her forehead. “And I already feel older than everybody in my class except Sam.”

“You know what I'm saying.”

“No, I really don't,” Molly said.

A Frisbee landed at their feet. Molly looked up to see that a girl about her age was coming for it. In the distance, she could see the man who was probably the girl's father, yelling, “Sorry.”

Molly stood up, made a perfect throw back to him, and sat down.

“You're going to get your heart broken,” Barbara said.

Molly shook her head, hard. “If my heart hasn't been broken already, it's not going to get broken.”

“I meant more broken,” Barbara said. She stopped now and made a sound that was about halfway to a scream, causing a couple who'd just walked past them turn to see what the problem was. “God, there is just too much going on right now.”

Molly said, “You okay?”

Barbara smiled. “Not exactly.”

“You said before there were things I didn't know,” Molly said. “You didn't mean just me and Josh, did you?”

“Something's come up in the last week with Bill's job.”

Molly waited.

“I was going to tell you last night, you and Kimmy at the same time. But then you told me we had to go see Josh today, it was important…” She clapped her hands together. “Out with it, Barbara.”

“Out with what?”

“We're moving,” Barbara said.

“Moving,” Molly said.

“At the end of the year.”

“Where?” Molly asked.

“Los Angeles.”

She might as well have said the moon.

Bill's bank had originally wanted someone from Tokyo to open the office in Los Angeles, but that man had left the company suddenly. It was a big promotion for Bill, but the timetable had stayed the same.

“That's what all the phone calls late at night have been about,” Molly said.

“It's a huge moment in his career,” Barbara said, “and they promise it will only be a few years, tops. But he has to be there by the first of the year, and we've made the decision that we don't want to be separated.”

“So you're going.”

“Right after Christmas,” Barbara said. “We're all going.”

“No!” Molly said. “Not now. You can't.
I
can't.”

“It's another reason why the whole you-and-Josh thing is a bad idea,” Barbara said. “I can't let you start something neither one of you can finish.”

“But he's my father,” Molly said, knowing she was repeating herself, not caring.

“Molly,” Barbara said, trying to make her voice as gentle as possible. “You can't possibly think that you are going to live happily ever after as daddy's little girl.”

“But…if I leave now, I'll never even find out what could have happened.”

“Which might be a good thing.”

“You have to let me at least try,” Molly said. All-in now, she thought, like one of Sam's poker shows. “I'm not saying I'm going to live happily ever after, or whatever,” she said. “But you've got to at least give me the chance to get to know him before we go.
Please
, Barbara.”

“I don't want him to hurt you the way he hurt your mother.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Only because I mean it.”

So Molly hit her with the line from her mom.

“My mom always said that if you were afraid to get hurt, you were afraid to be really alive,” Molly said.

Barbara stared at her a long time and then said, in an even quieter voice than before, “Still the smart one.”

They had the family meeting about Los Angeles at dinner. Kimmy didn't even act surprised. Then when her dad pressed her a little, she admitted she might have been listening outside his study door one night when she came to say good night to him, so she'd had a couple of days to think about it.

Even more surprising was Kimmy's excitement about going.

“Boston's all you've ever known, honey,” Barb said.

“Knowing and loving are two different things,” Kimmy said.

Tell me about it, Molly thought.

“First of all, I hate the Prescott School for Snobs,” Kimmy said. “And, like, are you kidding? Who wouldn't want to go to Hollywood? I am going to be soooooo
OC.
”

“You watch that show?” Bill Evans said. “You're twelve.”

“Dad, get real,” Kimmy said.

“Yeah, Dad,” Barb said, putting her hand on his. “Get real.”

Molly sat there and watched them building excitement about the move, talking about where they might live. Barb told Kimmy and Molly about two schools she'd checked out for them, both willing to accept them at midyear. Molly remembered how different it was when her mom told her they were going to Boston, trying to make it sound this exciting for Molly, even though both of them knew they were going because this was her mom's last chance.

“You're sure you're okay with this, Molly?” Bill Evans said. “You were just getting used to Boston.”

Molly decided the best thing to do was fake it.

“If Kimmy's ready to go Hollywood,” she said, “so am I.”

“Wow,” Bill said, “I thought this would be harder. We really are good to go then.”

She wasn't going, of course. She wasn't leaving Boston, and she wasn't leaving Josh, and she wasn't moving to the other side of the country.

But there was no reason why they had to know that.

“You're
moving
?” Sam said, the words coming out more like a groan.

“
They're
moving,” Molly said. “Not me.”

“Do they know that?”

“Right.”

“Don't worry, you can live with us,” Sam said. “I'll fix it with my mom.”

“I'm not going to have to,” Molly said, then she told him about going to Josh's apartment and how Barbara had finally agreed afterward to let Molly and Josh take things in baby steps in the little time they had left in Boston. Sam asked what baby steps meant, exactly, and Molly told him.

She could go to home games as long as they weren't on school nights. She could go to Saturday afternoon games; Barbara had checked the schedule and noticed that the Celtics had a handful of them early in the season. If there was a late practice and Josh said it was all right for Molly to attend, Mattie could pick her up after school and drive her up to Waltham, on the condition that she finish her homework first, during study hall.

And if anybody asked about this sudden friendship between Josh Cameron and young Molly Parker, they were to all stick to the script that Mattie had pretty much laid out for them in Josh's apartment: Josh Cameron had developed a soft spot for the daughter of an old school friend, one who'd come up with all these colorful ways to finally meet him.

“It's like
Annie,
” Sam said. “Except that Daddy Warbucks plays point guard for the Celtics.”

“And he isn't bald,” Molly said. “And I don't have the cute dog.”

“Would it kill you to work with me once in a while?”

“And I don't have curly hair,” Molly said. “And I can't carry a tune to save my life—”

“You know what's sad?” Sam said. “People think you're the quiet one.” There was a pause, and Sam said, “Are you going to tell Josh?”

“Tell him what?”

“That you're moving.”

“I'm not moving.”

“You know what I'm saying.”

“No,” Molly said. “I told Barbara not to say anything. I'm not even telling Mattie.”

“The thinking on this being?”

“I know Josh Cameron is famous for playing under pressure,” Molly said. “But he's already under enough pressure from me.”

There was another pause, and then Sam said, “You think you can do this?”

“What?”

“Win him over in six weeks.”

“Let me ask you something,” Molly said. “Do I have a choice?”