Seven Stories Up (21 page)

But as we both grew older, it became clear to me that my grandmother was not a happy person. In the final years of her life, she isolated herself. This was difficult for everyone in the family. I can’t begin to explain.…

The last time I flew to California to see her, her heart was failing. She was in physical pain, but beyond that, she was revisiting hard memories of a childhood spent (amazingly) in a grand hotel. “Like Eloise,” she’d told me when I was little. Only
this
didn’t sound like Eloise.

I didn’t know how to help her, so I just listened. The
last hour I spent with her, in the hospital, she kept going back to one particular summer, a lonely season spent in quarantine because she had rheumatic fever.

After she died, I returned over and over to that image—of a kid, locked away at the top of a hotel, in unrelenting solitude. Some part of me wished that I could open the door to her room, that I could lead her out.

And so (as often happens in the magical world of children’s books) my wish became a seed, and the story of Molly and Annie took root, blossomed.

This book is fiction. Molly is
not
my grandmother. But I do hope that wherever she is, my grandmother knows I’ve spent the last three years thinking about her daily, staring at her picture, and trying to make something happy from her saddest memory—a memorial to a singular woman, who lived through more than one lonely summer.

“Magic is what people call it when the universe corrects itself,” says Fortunata in the pages of this book. We do what we can to help it along.

Of course, this book does not belong
only
to my grandmother. It went through many drafts, and many early readers. Massive thanks to: Emma Snyder, Rachel Zucker,
Marc Fitten, Kate Milford, Sally Burke, Lisa Brown, Natalie Blitt, Gwenda Bond and Beth Revis, along with the other members of the Bat Cave Writers’ Retreat, Jennifer Laughran, Cynthia Von Buhler, Rebekah Goode-Peoples, Elizabeth Lenhard, and especially Paula Willey, who not only read this in its roughest state, but also helped me look up all sorts of weird 1937 Baltimore facts, librarian-goddess that she is!

As always, I’m grateful for the constant support of my dear friend Tina Wexler, who also happens to be my literary agent (lucky for me). I’d have thrown the second draft from a bridge if she hadn’t been there to talk me down.

And
Seven Stories Up
could not possibly exist without the very sharp eyes and endless patience of my editor, Mallory Loehr. She’s what people imagine when they picture a true editor: committed, insightful, smarter than me.

I also want to thank everyone at Random House who contributed to this book—Alison Kolani, Paul Samuelson, Tracy Lerner, Tim Jessell, Nicole de las Heras, Jenna Lettice, and Lisa Nadel. I’m lucky to have such a great team.

I suppose I should also acknowledge my fantastic
parents, who never locked me up in a hotel room. Not even in high school, when I probably deserved it.

Last but not least, I want to thank my family. My husband, Chris Poma, who (almost) never complains when I turn on the light in the middle of the night to scribble. And my hilarious, wild, beamish boys, Mose and Lewis.
We
are never alone.

(age 11)

Laurel Snyder is the author of many books for kids, including
Bigger than a Bread Box
,
Penny Dreadful
, and
Any Which Wall
. Though she now resides quite happily in Atlanta, she will always be a little homesick for her native Baltimore.