Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Amity takes out her map and says, “Next stop Gordon’s Cha Cha,” which still sounds slightly obscene.
Wyatt looks at his phone. “We have to walk three blocks to the river, over a bridge, and across a big parking lot.”
Before we head toward Gordon’s, Germaine approaches and asks to have a word.
“With me?” I ask.
Germaine is exactly my height but makes me feel small.
“We haven’t formally met,” she says, “but you know who I am and vice versa. All is well? Wisteria Cottage suits you?”
“It’s lovely.”
“Roommates amicable enough?”
My roommates are standing there with me.
“They’re great.”
I introduce Wyatt and Amity. Germaine greets them warmly but seems only interested in me. I smooth down my hair, which I sense has wigged out from the humidity.
“I wanted to say something about your mother,” she says.
“Oh, no worries. It’s been months now. I’m fine.”
“Not condolences, my dear. I believe I already expressed them in my email. I hope it’s not too strange to be here without her.”
How do I explain to Germaine how much stranger it would be to be here with my mother? If we were in England together, would she still find a way to cut out early?
“It’s unusual to be here, period,” I say.
“I’m sure,” Germaine says. “But what I’m eager to know is, are you going to continue her quest?”
“What quest?”
“To find whomever she was searching for, of course.”
This is apparently of great interest to Wyatt and Amity, both of whom take a step closer. I tell Germaine I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“No? How peculiar. Your mother, whose many emails were delightful, led me to believe she had a very particular reason to be here, maybe even to find someone. She was coy about it, but in a delightful manner, like she was anticipating something wonderful. I’m so sorry she died.
I feel we would have been good friends.”
Another person charmed by Skye Little.
I fold my arms. I know I look defensive, but I don’t care.
“My mother often got carried away. It’s totally possible she convinced herself that she had ancestors in England and that with a little digging, she’d trace her lineage back to some landed gentry.
Or that like Sara Crewe in A Little Princess she’d discover some wealthy relative who’d been trying for years to find her to make good on a promise to bestow an inheritance. ”
My mother had given me A Little Princess when I was a girl. I’d loved the book as she had, but even then, unlike my mother, I knew that miracles like the ones in books don’t happen in real life.
Germaine looks skeptical.
“It seemed more grounded than that,” she says.
Behind us, the salon door opens. The constable leans out, again wiping his brow with a handkerchief, and tells Germaine that she’s needed urgently inside. Maybe the “corpse” is getting chatty again.
“Let’s continue this conversation later,” Germaine says. “I’ll share what I know, and you’ll do the same. Stop by my shop this afternoon. The Book and Hook . On Crane Street. Impossible to miss. Any time after two o’clock.”
“You see?” Amity says, once Germaine is gone. “There’s something there. I knew it.”
“You’ll go talk to her, won’t you?” Wyatt says.
I want to say I won’t, that I know better, but there it is again: that tiny spark of hope that never fails to emerge no matter how badly my mother has let me down. Even the finality of her death can’t extinguish it.
“What’s the harm?” Amity speaks gently, as if she knows how loaded this is for me. “I mean, you’re here, you might never be back. Maybe you’re right and it’s nothing, but what if there’s something you’d like to know?”
“Is it totally out of the question that it’s something good?” Wyatt says.
“You too?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Would I be here if I could resist a good mystery?”
Amity and Wyatt look at me expectantly. I may not be here with my mother, but nor am I alone.
Maybe digging a little with Amity and Wyatt will be more of a lark than a threat.
If we come up with nothing at all, I’ll have confirmed that I know my mother as well as I thought I did.
If we find something ridiculous, we can have a laugh at my mother’s eccentricity, toast her fanciful approach to life, and put it to bed.
And if my mother’s quest was for something worth finding? I don’t allow myself to consider it.