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Authors: Elizabeth Bass

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“I was going to say a hundred and fifty.”
“Make it a hundred and fifty-five and you’ll have a bargain.”
He smiled and wrote it down on one of the slips of paper provided.
Another couple, obviously parents, sidled up to the gumball jar. The woman smiled at Grace and introduced herself as Julie Otley-Richardson. “And this is my husband, Todd. We’re Alissa’s parents. She’s going to be playing harp at the recital in just a little bit.”
“I’m Grace,” she replied, only realizing the pitfall in the situation once she’d already begun. “I’m here with Dominic West. But I’m not really a parent. This is Dominic’s father, Ray.”
Julie Otley-Richardson’s bright smile remained firmly in place. “Significant other, then?”
“I’m not really significant,” Grace said quickly. “That is, not a significant other. Just a friend. Of Dominic.”
“And me,” Ray told her.
“Well . . .” Grace felt her brow pinch as she looked up at him. “Friend, yes. I mean, we’re neighbors. But not
significant
. . . that’s what I meant.”
“Oh.” His eyes registered that he suddenly understood the distinction she was trying to establish. He turned to confirm her assessment for the Otley-Richardsons. “No, not really significant.”
Julie and Todd’s faces had frozen into expressions of shared bemusement.
“Maybe we should go find Dominic,” Grace suggested to Ray, dragging him away.
As they moved through the hallway, passing well-heeled couples with their sheepish children in tow, Grace murmured, “I’m glad Lily told me I needed to dress up.”
Ray stopped to give her another once-over. “You look great. You did something to your hair. It’s pretty.” He added quickly, “I mean the color. I’ve always been intrigued by it. Is it red, is it brown . . . ?”
“Auburn.”
“Exactly—one of those sixty-four box Crayola colors.”
She laughed. “Like raw umber. I never knew what that meant.”
“Blizzard blue was always my favorite,” he said. “It only made sense if you didn’t think about it. But I guess they didn’t need more names for white.”
She laughed.
Impulsively, he reached for her hand. Even though their end of the hall was emptying out—everyone seemed to be herding in the opposite direction—Grace felt awkward. She tugged at her hand, but he held it fast.
“I’m glad you’re here, Grace. Probably a hundred times I’ve wanted to knock on your door, to apologize.”
“There’s nothing—”
“Yes, there is.”
“Hey!” Dominic skidded toward them, and Ray dropped her hand. “There’s a music recital. Everyone’s supposed to be there, so you have to go even if it’s boring, which it probably will be.”
Ray laughed. “That’s great salesmanship, Dominic.”
They entered the small auditorium as people milling about were starting to be seated. At first, Grace took the seat on the aisle next to her father, but then Dominic asked her to switch with him, so she moved in. She had only just sat down next to Ray when her father poked her on the shoulder. “Dominic has something he wants to show me. We’ll be right back.”
Grace cast an uneasy glance at a man wheeling a harp onto the stage. “Why don’t we all go?”
“No,” Dominic said quickly, stopping them from getting up. “I mean—we won’t be long.”
After they had left, she turned and smiled at Ray. “I think Dad’s having a good time.”
One of his eyebrows darted up. “Are you?”
A couple sidled past them to get to seats in the center of the row. In an effort to get out of their way, she and Ray half stood and shifted, colliding with each other. They collapsed back in their seats, facing forward. Grace absently rubbed her upper arm where he’d bumped it.
After a moment, Ray leaned toward her. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for . . . well, for practically everything I said last April. Later, when I’d had a chance to think, I wanted to kick myself.”
She shrugged, carefully nonchalant. “It’s been a bad year for both of us.”
“Dominic would talk about you, and about your father’s troubles, and I would want to say something to you, but I held back. At one point last summer Lily said she wanted to stay with her grandparents permanently, which devastated me. I wanted to talk it over with you, too, because I knew you would understand how I felt . . . but after all the things I’d said to you—and with so much anger—I expected you would slam the door in my face.”
“That, I would never do,” she said. “And I wasn’t exactly calm that day, either.”
“Everything’s been better lately—because of you. You were right, straight down the line. I let Jordan go, and she’s come back relatively sane. And Lily’s doing well too.”
She had forgotten how his voice, rich and deep, affected her. She turned to him, bracing herself to look into his dark eyes, and smiled.
“It was you, Grace,” he said. “I’m glad—”
Impatience spiked within her when his words broke off. “You’re glad . . . ?”
“That you came along,” he said.
A rush of emotion knotted in her throat. Until just this moment she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him—how many times she’d wished he was there to talk to.
As the lights dimmed and the spotlight came up on Alissa Otley-Richardson, who was a quarter of the size of her harp, Ray leaned toward Grace and added in a whisper, “I almost asked Muriel.”
She stiffened. “Muriel?”
“We’ve been hanging out a little,” he confessed.
Grace was grateful for the dimmed lights, because she was pretty sure the flush in her cheeks would have been visible otherwise. He hadn’t meant that he was glad she’d come along into his life, which was the conclusion she had jumped to. He’d meant that he was glad she was there
tonight.
She faced forward, arms crossed. She was even glad to hear the opening plucked strains of “Ave Maria,” so she wouldn’t have to render an opinion on Ray
hanging out
with Muriel Blainey.
40
M
ORE
I
NVITATIONS
L
ily waited until she knew Grace was alone before knocking, but even so, she had to rap twice on the door and stand waiting for a while. Grace finally answered, her face puffy and her eyes red. The words Lily had rehearsed flew out of her mind. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing.” Grace shook her head. “Dad just left on a walk with Dominic. Would you like to come in?”
Lily stepped into the house. “I brought you this.”
Grace took the small old glass bottle from her and studied the label with a furrowed brow. “Cinnamon sticks?”
“I read on the Internet that you should boil them in water before people come over to look at the house. It’s a psychological thing. It will make the house smell homey and then people will want to buy it.”
At her words, Grace went from looking slightly depressed to openly weeping. She barely squeezed out a trembly “Thank you!”
“Is something wrong?” Lily asked.
Grace gulped a few times before attempting to speak. “Earnshaw died,” she squeaked.
“Dominic told me. I’m really sorry.”
She waved her hand in front of her face as if to cool off her tears. “It’s okay. It’s stupid for me to be so upset—she was really sick. I mean, I knew it was going to happen.”
Lily nodded, but didn’t want to say anything more. The only times she’d glimpsed Earnshaw, she hadn’t been very impressed. The cat had spent months squatting under furniture, looking hunted. “Is Heathcliff okay?”
“
He’s
never been better,” Grace said with a trace of bitterness. “All these years, I thought the two of them were devoted to each other—that they couldn’t live without each other. But Heathcliff is gamboling about like a kitten. He’s never been so frisky!”
“Maybe he’s glad to have you all to himself. Maybe
you’re
the one he’s devoted to.”
Grace considered this. “I still feel disillusioned.” She held up the tiny jar. “Anyway, thanks for the cinnamon sticks. I suppose I should try to use them—although I’m secretly tempted to sabotage any possibility of a sale.”
“I wouldn’t want to leave this house, either. It’s so much cooler than ours.”
“Your house is bigger.”
“Yeah, but it’s never felt right since . . .” She didn’t finish, but she didn’t need to. Grace was nodding in understanding.
A small object on the bookshelf caught Lily’s gaze. An object that looked strangely like herself. “Hey!” She picked the piece up and examined it. It was one of the little push puppets that Grace collected, but this one was painted with her face, and was even carrying a tiny plastic clarinet. Just to test it, she pushed the plunger and watched herself collapse and pop back up again.
“Where did you get this?” she asked Grace.
“It’s a mystery. They keep appearing in my mailbox. So far I’ve got Dad, Iago, and Dominic. And now you.”
“Where do they come from?”
“I don’t know. They arrive in little boxes with Austin postmarks.”
“But you must have some idea,” Lily insisted.
“I have a suspicion.”
Lily narrowed her eyes.
Who would do this?
They were so cute, it would have to be someone with a sense of humor. Also, someone who knew Grace pretty well. And who was good at woodworking.
“I think I know who it is,” Lily announced.
“Who?”
“I’m not going to tell,” she said. “I want to find out for sure, first.”
Grace smiled. “So I guess we share a suspicion.”
Lily suspected Crawford. Crawford had carved a box out of the wood from the old elm tree and given it to Grace last Christmas.
If it was Crawford, she was doubly glad the figurine of her looked like the new her and not the old her. There were no glasses painted on her face, and her hair was loose, not in a ponytail. Aside from that, it was hard to know if her likeness was flattering or not. She was certainly flat-chested, but that wasn’t necessarily the artist’s fault. A cylindrical segmented body didn’t exactly give an artist much to work with.
The important thing was that Crawford—if it was Crawford—had been thinking about her.
She was so wrapped up in the puppet that she almost forgot the reason she had come over. The cinnamon sticks had just been cooked up as an excuse. “You and the professor are invited to our house for Thanksgiving,” she told Grace. “We kids want to make dinner. Do you think you’ll be able to come?”
Grace frowned. “Well, thank you, but—”
“Please? Say you’ll come. Last year was so awful—and this year Granny Kate and Pop Pop are taking a trip to Florida to visit Great-Aunt Jeannie.”
“It’s nice of you to invite us, but Dad has it in his head to have Thanksgiving here.”
“Again?”
Lily hadn’t foreseen this. “But last year was a disaster!”
Grace laughed. “I know, but since this will be our last Thanksgiving here . . .”
Lily left the house soon after.
Mission not accomplished.
Jordan would be annoyed that she hadn’t been able to persuade Grace to come for Thanksgiving. Now what were they supposed to do?
Crawford pulled into his driveway. He got out and smiled at her over the roof of his car. “Hey! Seems like I haven’t seen you in two hours.”
He was referring to their last-period band class. “I was talking to Grace,” she said. “She received a new one of those puppet thingies in the mail.” She watched him closely for his reaction.
His face twisted in puzzlement.
Oh, he was good.
“Didn’t you offer to drive me somewhere in your car?” she asked, crossing the yard toward him. Risks were worth taking when there was a mystery to be solved.
Now he looked really confused . . . but not displeased. “Okay—hop in.”
She did and he reversed out of the drive and sped off down the street. When they were stopped at a light, he turned to her. “You want to go grab something to eat?”
“Sure,” she said.
Crawford drove to Taco Cabana. Lily just ordered a Coke; her stomach was too jittery to actually eat. They hadn’t been alone together since last spring, and back then it had only been when someone else had happened to leave the room. It had never been on purpose—at least not on Crawford’s part.
After they sat down, Crawford took a bite of a burrito—he wasn’t too nervous to eat, apparently—and gulped it down with a swig from his drink. “You seem different this year,” he said.
“Well?” she asked. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” She sounded so defensive, she immediately wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
He tilted his head. “Why did you leave this summer? I never understood.”
“Just to get away,” she replied.
“From your sister?”
“Mostly,” she admitted.
His brows scrunched together. “But Jordan went away too.”
Did he still like Jordan? From his expression, she couldn’t tell. She sucked on her straw, fighting against all the old feelings that threatened to come roiling back.
“Did you have fun while you were with your grandparents?” he asked.
“Yeah, I did, but somehow it didn’t seem real. It was like I wanted to belong there more than I actually did.”
“But Dominic said that you were actually thinking of living in that place.”
“I was.”
“So why did you change your mind?”
“Because of something Grace said. Although really I suppose it was really something Oliver Wendell Holmes said about your feet leaving a place but not your heart.”
He laughed. “Well . . . you still talk in the same whacked way.
That
hasn’t changed.”
She smiled.
“All this time since you got back, I’ve wanted to talk to you,” he said. “But it seemed sort of weird because of . . .”
“Last spring,” she said.
“Yeah.”
She hoped he couldn’t see her shudder. After that episode, Crawford had probably thought she was a little psycho stalker. It was so embarrassing. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey—don’t apologize to me. As far as I’m concerned it all worked out great. Dad and Pippa broke up.”
She sat up straighter. “You used to like Pippa.”
“She was okay, but she and Dad would never have lasted. So there would have been a lot of arguing and stuff, like there was with my mom, and then they would have gotten a divorce. So what was the point?” He leaned forward. “Besides, without having a steady girlfriend, Dad got sort of into looking for cars with me. That’s how I ended up getting a new one. He hated all the used cars I looked at that I could have afforded on my own. So, if you think about it, I have you to thank for my wheels.”
He really was reaching. “That’s nice of you to say—but I was so embarrassed. I still am. I basically insulted everyone in the neighborhood.”
“You didn’t insult me,” he said.
She felt a blush creep up her face and she hunched over her drink, sucking Coke through a straw so she wouldn’t have to say anything. She’d spent her whole life reading books, but when she really needed words, her brain blinked out on her.
And yet Crawford, who usually didn’t talk that much at all, was able to keep the conversation afloat.
“So I guess you’re bummed about Grace and the professor moving,” he said. “I know I am.”
Here was her opening. She crossed her arms, preparing to watch his answer
very
closely. “Have you thought of doing anything . . . for Grace, I mean?”
He blinked. “Like what?”
“Oh, you know . . . any special farewell gift or something?”
“Not really.” Frowning, he asked, “Why? Do you think she expects me to?”
“Not if you don’t want to. I mean, I was just thinking, because you’re so good at making stuff, you might have had something in mind.”
He shrugged. “I haven’t had time.”
Lily frowned. He didn’t seem to be hiding anything. So apparently there was
some other
woodworker out there making her into a puppet. Weird.
As they were driving home, he asked her, “Would you ever be interested in going to a movie or something?”
For a moment, she couldn’t believe she’d heard him right. He was asking her to a movie. As in,
on a date.
No one had ever asked her on a date before. It had always seemed such a remote possibility that even in her imagination she’d never gotten to the part about how she was supposed to react. Her tongue felt frozen.
He darted a nervous glance toward her. “No? Yes? Think about it?”
“Yes,” she blurted out. “Of course yes. I mean, it sounds fun.”
When she got home, the moment she shut the door she wanted to whoop with joy. Or toe dance through the foyer. Or bound up the stairs three at a time.
But Jordan was waiting at the door for her, practically tapping her watch like an impatient parent. “Where have you been? You went over to Grace’s hours ago!”
“Crawford offered me a ride in his car.” She was still floating, so she didn’t feel compelled to add that he’d only offered once she’d asked him first. “We went to Taco Cabana.” “Congratulations,” Jordan said. “Did you talk to Grace?”
“Yeah . . . but it’s not good. She said no.”
“
What?
And then you just went out joyriding?”
“What else could I do? Grace said that the professor wants to have Thanksgiving at their house.”
“Did you try to talk her out of it?”
“How could I do that? It’s obviously the professor’s decision. Grace is really depressed about its being the last year at their house.”
“Crap!” Jordan plopped down on the stairs. “Now what do we do?”
Lily lifted her shoulders. “Give up, I guess.”
Jordan’s head snapped up. “Give up? With Muriel Blainey on the prowl? There’s no telling what that woman has planned for Dad over in her lair.”
Lily twisted her lips, thinking. “Maybe Dominic will be able to convince Grace to take the spa trip.”
Too late she realized bringing up
that
topic was akin to poking her sister with a pin. Jordan roared in frustration. “What is the matter with her? We go to all the trouble to win that stupid trip, and then she won’t even go!”
Lily still experienced a pang of guilt whenever she thought about those gumballs. “We shouldn’t have done that. It was cheating.”
Jordan, on the other hand, entertained no guilt about having sneaked into Dominic’s classroom during the Parent Night recital and counting gumballs when no one was looking. “It was
necessary
cheating, for a worthy cause. Or it would have been,” she grumbled, “if the cause would cooperate.”

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