Prince of Air (4 page)

Maisie sat in the corner of the Billiard Room, mentally sending bad vibrations to Jim Duncan as he set up his pool shot.

Jim practically laid across the pool table, stretching the stick and gently making his shot.

The five other kids gathered around the table all let out a big whoop. Stupid Jim Duncan had made the shot.
So much for mental telepathy,
Maisie thought.

Aiofe appeared, wheeling a cart with a pitcher of lemonade and a tray of assorted cookies for everyone.

“Whoa,” Jim said when he saw Aiofe. “You've got a maid?”

“Actually,” Maisie said from her perch on the window seat, “we have, like, six maids.”
Take that, Jim Duncan
, she thought.

But Jim didn't hear her. No one did. They were too busy already on to their next topic of conversation, the upcoming Talent Show at school. Jim was going to play his guitar and sing “Hotel California.” Avery Mason, she of the prettiest hair in the entire sixth grade, maybe even the entire school, and Bitsy Beal, whose family was so rich she arrived at school every day in a chauffeured limousine, had choreographed an interpretive dance performance.

“You playing something on your cello?” Jim asked Lily.

“Bach,” she said.

Lily had on one of her dumb vintage dresses, a paisley button-down thing that needed to be hemmed.

“Bach,” Maisie said under her breath, imitating Lily.

“How about you, Maisie?” Jim asked.

Lily, Avery, Bitsy, Felix, Jim, and Daniel Dunne in his ridiculous red sailing shorts and raspberry polo shirt, all seemed to turn to look at her at once. Maisie kept her eyes on the peacock-and-peony pattern on the window-seat cushion.

The silence seemed to be about the noisiest things Maisie had ever heard. She shifted uncomfortably on the window seat but didn't look up at Jim.

“She's going to be my assistant,” Felix said finally.

“Assistant?” Bitsy said. Or maybe Avery said it. To Maisie, they were practically interchangeable.

“Sure,” Felix said. “Every magician needs an assistant, right?”

“Are you going to saw her in half?” either Bitsy or Avery said.

Everyone laughed at that brilliant idea.

“Or maybe make her disappear?” the other one said.

Maisie tried hard not to cry.

Even when Felix said, “Knock it off, guys,” Maisie still sat there on the window seat, the image of Pickworth peonies and peacocks blurring from holding the tears back, not moving.

“All right,” their mother announced when she came home from work and into the Library, “the three of us are going to That's Amore for pizza tonight. No maids. No butlers. No Great-Aunt-Maisie and Great-Uncle-Thorne.”

At the end of the day, their mother always looked so tired that everything about her seemed to droop. Her wrinkled, copper linen suit hung crookedly. Her hair fell flat around her face. And the small lines around her eyes suddenly appeared deeper and more plentiful.

“Yay!” Felix said.

He was practicing the disappearing handkerchief trick, which involved wearing a fake, hollow thumb over his real thumb, pretending to stuff the red silk into his hand while really shoving it into the fake thumb, then opening his hand and saying something like “Voilà! Vanished!” To Maisie, it looked like he was shoving that red cloth into a fake thumb. No one would fall for this trick.

“I thought Great-Aunt Maisie forbade magic tricks,” their mother said. She fished a tube of lipstick out of her purse and, without looking in a mirror, slid it across her mouth, leaving a red slash.

“She doesn't know,” Felix admitted.

“Just make sure she doesn't find out,” their mother said wearily. Great-Aunt Maisie and Great-Uncle Thorne were wearing her out with their fighting and their various eccentricities.

Felix opened his hand, the tip of the red handkerchief poking out from the fake thumb.

“Voilà!” he said. “Vanished!”

“Hey,” their mother said, impressed, “you're getting good at this magic stuff.”

“I can see the handkerchief,” Maisie said, pointing. “I can tell that's a fake thumb.”

Felix's face fell.

“Remember what Great-Uncle Thorne said?” their mother said, shooting an angry look at Maisie. “Good magicians get better by practicing.”

“How about crummy magicians?” Maisie muttered.

“Maisie!” their mother scolded.

“It's okay, Mom,” Felix said. “She's had a bad day.”

Maisie looked at him, surprised.

“I'm sorry Bitsy and Libby were such jerks,” he added.

“I don't care,” Maisie said, feeling her bottom lip start to tremble.

“Well I care,” Felix said. “I told them so, too.”

“I don't need you to defend me,” Maisie said, even though she felt grateful to her brother. “I mean, you're my
little
brother after all.”

They smiled at each other. She loved reminding him that she was seven whole minutes older than him.

“Is anyone going to fill me in here?” their mother said.

Neither Felix nor Maisie answered her.

“Okay then,” their mother said, “I'm thinking Hawaiian?”

“Yuck,” Felix said. “I cannot eat pineapple on a pizza.”

“How about anchovies?” Maisie teased.

“How about
extra
anchovies?” their mother said, dropping an arm around each of their shoulders.

At That's Amore, after they'd eaten their pizza and the salads their mother insisted they have to counter the pizza, their mother cleared her throat in a way that made Maisie and Felix know they were either in trouble or about to hear something they did not want to hear.

“So,” their mother began, “there have been some interesting changes in our lives since Christmas.”

“Great-Uncle Thorne,” Felix said.

“Elm Medona,” Maisie added.

“And servants and fancy cars and tuxedos and”—their mother's voice rose with each new word she said—“and . . . and . . . all sorts of nonsense!”

“I kind of like living in the mansion,” Maisie admitted. “It's fun.”

“My room scares me to death,” Felix said. “I mean, there's a bull's head on the wall.”

They started to giggle.

“How about mine?” their mother said.

They giggled even harder.

Their mother was ensconced in the Aviatrix Room. Among his many interests, Phinneas Pickworth adored female pilots. According to Great-Uncle Thorne, he'd been engaged to at least two different ones. Whenever one visited Elm Medona, he put them up in what was now called the Aviatrix Room.

“Brave Bess Coleman, Pancho Barnes, Amy Johnson,” their mother said through her laughter. “And only one of them survived her flying. It's creepy living with all those dead women's pictures and goggles and leather jackets everywhere.”

“But,” Maisie pointed out, “you have real airplane wings hanging from your ceiling. We don't have anything that cool.”

“You have tusks,” Felix reminded his sister, which sent them all into a new fit of laughing.

When they had caught their breaths again, their mother took a breath.

“All of this . . . this crazy stuff going on right now, it's all temporary. You guys understand that, don't you?” she said solemnly. “Soon enough we will be back upstairs, making our own beds and washing our own dishes.”

“I can't wait,” Felix said.

Thinking of that apartment where they'd spent the months before Great-Uncle Thorne showed up made him miss his twin bed and the desk with the rickety leg where he did his homework and the three of them sitting around the enamel kitchen table eating spaghetti.

“I can,” Maisie said. “I like being rich.”

Their mother wagged a finger at her. “The problem is, you aren't rich. Great-Uncle Thorne and Great-Aunt Maisie are. I mean, even my father wasn't rich. Phinneas Pickworth made all the money and kept it in his own lineage. We grew up perfectly happy and perfectly middle class. And so will you two.”

Maisie sighed dramatically. “Living inside Elm Medona makes me feel rich,” she said. “I feel special for a change,” she added.

“Special and rich are two different things,” their mother reminded her. “I understand, though. I do. I always felt like you do when we'd visit Elm Medona, seeing the way my father's aunt and uncle lived. Living that way for a week or so every summer. But then it was back to reality.”

Maisie sighed. “I hate reality.”

The waitress came over to the table with their bill, and their mother pulled out her wallet. She handed the waitress her credit card.

As soon as the girl had walked away, their mother said, “There's one other thing. I mean, it's nothing really. Or, I mean, I'm sure it won't be anything.”

“Huh?” Maisie said.

Their mother blushed. “It's just that Bruce Fishbaum invited me to dinner tomorrow night. That's all.”

Bruce Fishbaum was one half of Fishbaum and Fishbaum, the law firm where their mother worked about ninety hours a week.

Felix shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Don't you spend, like, practically every minute with him, anyway?”

“Wait a minute,” Maisie said, narrowing her eyes. “Are you saying he asked you out on a
date
?”

“Well,” their mother said, her blush deepening. “No. I mean, yes.”

“You can't go on a date!” Maisie said.

“What about Dad?” Felix asked.

“I know how awkward this must seem. It is awkward. But your father and I have been divorced for almost a year now and—”

“But what would Daddy say if he knew?” Maisie insisted. Her stomach was doing that thing it did whenever she got upset, rolling and flipping. The taste of something sour filled her mouth.

“You have to tell Bruce Fishbaum that you can't go, that you're practically married,” Felix said.

“Oh dear,” Maisie moaned.

Their mother fidgeted with her napkin, folding it and unfolding it, smoothing it on the table then folding it again.

“I'm sure nothing will come of it,” she said.

“Then why go at all?” Felix asked.

“Oh dear,” Maisie said again, standing up.

“Now sit down, sweetie,” their mother said.

Maisie's hand shot to her mouth, but it was too late to stop her from throwing up all over the table and her mother's wrinkled, copper linen suit.