Chapter 31
She was Tessa Calloway now. How many times had she reassured herself with that?
She peeled off her blazer, then her dress, and hung them in the hotel’s cramped closet, thinking about how being a best-selling author was essentially the same as being a traveling salesman: a happy salesman, sure, and a grateful one, but at the core, still pitching their wares while the family waited at home.
Dependent on them, but living their lives without them.
At least Linny and Zack had Henry, and they seemed happy and thriving, and Tessa would be home in three weeks, and normal would return.
Tessa’s own father, absent most of her life, had created a blank space, and she’d filled that gap with her imagination.
But she didn’t want to think about him, or her mother, it didn’t matter and it was long gone and her parents were long gone and everything was long gone and tonight she was so tired.
Her family now , that’s all that mattered.
A plush white bathrobe was looped over the hook of the bathroom door, and Tessa wrapped it, comfortingly, around her. And put on the white waffled slippers she’d carried with her from her first hotel.
Food first? Or Henry first? “Henry,” she said out loud. She needed to tell him about the purloined suitcase. And the earrings.
And then her cell phone rang. ESP , she thought, Henry on FaceTime. Nine thirty in Denver, eleven thirty in Rockport. Her heart lifted with their mind-meld connection.
But it wasn’t Henry’s face that appeared.
“Linny?” A billion hideous possibilities chased each other through her imagination.
“Honey? Are you okay? Is Daddy okay? Did he let you use his phone?” She squinted at the video of her daughter, incredibly, frustratingly too small, and the lighting impenetrable.
Linny, her wisps of blond hair in a ponytail on top of her head and her bangs too long, even with the bad lighting Tessa could see that.
Did she look thinner? Did she look sick?
What on earth was she wearing? Did she have on lipstick ? It was hard to tell.
“Hi, Mom.”
Tessa almost burst into tears at Linny’s thready voice. Yes, she was eleven, but she was her baby girl, and would never not be.
“Hi, sweetheart.” Tessa held the phone up, saw her own worried face in the square at the bottom of the screen. “Where are you, honey? I can barely see you. Are you okay? Daddy said you had a tummy ache.”
“I did, Mom. I don’t know what happened, I didn’t eat anything weird, I promise, I know what I’m not supposed to eat. I’m fine now, though, I promise.”
“Do you need something? Are you all right?” Like Zack, Linny had never individually called Tessa on the road before.
The kids hadn’t needed cell phones in the past, but now they would, and both had been constantly lobbying for them.
Tessa wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
On one hand, she could have so much more constant access, and they would be able to call for help.
They would never be alone. On the other hand…
it made them so vulnerable. So connected to bad things.
“I’m in the closet,” Linny said.
“In the closet?” Tessa’s brain raced. “What closet? Why?” Tessa realized she barely knew where the closets were in that house where she didn’t live.
“It’s like a pantry thing. By the kitchen. The yellow door. Anyway, Mom, I know Dad is going to call you soon, and he’s…”
“He’s what?” She’d heard the concern in her daughter’s voice. Tessa held up the phone with one hand, pushed the pile of jewelry to one side, sat on the edge of the bed. “Is something wrong with your dad?”
“No, he’s outside for a minute, so I—”
“Outside doing what?” Tessa tried to picture it, 11:32 at night in Rockport, and her husband outside? “Is everything okay? With Zack? Is he home? Linny, honey, you’re worrying me a bit, okay? Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“I wanted to know if I could wear your periwinkle sweater. With the pockets?”
Tessa blinked, pictured the brand-new slouchy cashmere cardigan. Her one post–book sale splurge. “My periwinkle—”
“Yeah. Dad was hanging up your clothes, and I was helping, and it was there, and it’s so pretty, and you’re not here, and I don’t have anything to wear.”
“Of course, honey, but not anything to wear… to what?”
“Awesome, awesome, awesome. But don’t tell Dad I asked you, okay? I don’t want him to be mad. He told me to go ahead and wear it, but I wanted to ask you. It seemed righter. So he can’t know I asked you. He’d be mad.”
“It’ll be our secret, baby girl,” Tessa said, “and I know you hate when I call you that, but there you have it. And no one is going to be angry with you.” Not ever, she thought, and wanted to tell Linny, I love you so much I could faint.
But she didn’t. “And I hereby present you with the sweater. It’s yours now. I’ll tell your father.”
“You’re the best, Mom, I’ll let you borrow it whenever you want.”
“Awesome,” Tessa, smiling, tried out the word. Still holding the phone, she took the few steps to reach her glass of wine, and peeled the plastic wrap from the top. “Anyway, I was just about to call your dad,” she went on. “Even though—isn’t it pretty late for you?”
“It’s summer . And you said you wouldn’t be mad.”
“Okay, sweetheart. I’m never going to be mad at you.”
“So, um, I’m coming out of the pantry now. And I see… Dad is still outside. Should I go get him?”
“What’s he doing?” Tessa took another sip.
“Oh my God , Mom, how do I—”
“Linny.” Her pet peeve, one of them, the Oh my God thing. It sounded so coarse.
“OMG? Is that any different?” Linny’s voice had the teenage back in it.
“Truce,” Tessa said. “Go on.”
“He’s—we’re—like, meeting the neighbors. They’re coming over, and bringing us stuff—muffins, and mac and cheese, and it’s delicious. I can’t eat it much, because you know, carbs, but Dad really likes it. Because he doesn’t have to cook. Hardly at all.”
“You can eat carbs, Linny. Everything in moderation. Except bananas.”
“Mom. I know. I’m not a child.”
So wrong. “But go on about the neighbors. So your father is outside talking to the neighbors?”
“And some of them are so cool, there’s like—”
“Like Nellie Delaney?” Tessa couldn’t resist. She could see Linny was in the kitchen now, which seemed to be yellow. Hadn’t it been white before? “Isn’t Zack at their house this evening?” Tessa frowned. “And if Zack is at her house, what is she doing at our house?”
“Mom. Mom. Let me talk.” Even the minuscule picture could not hide the eye roll. “Mrs. Delaney, yeah, she’s super cool, although her son is kind of nerdy so of course he hangs out with Zack—”
“Linny.”
“O kay . Anyway, though no, it’s not Mrs. Delaney. There’s a dog walker, like on the other side of the street? Remember the big white house, it has red flowers in the front, and a big lawn?”
“A dog walker? She walks people’s dogs?”
“She has dogs, I don’t know, she walks them. Her name is Barbara, and so funny, she looks like Barbie, isn’t that so weird? But she totally does look like Barbie. And Dad is out talking to her.”
“Barbie. I see. Isn’t it pretty late? I mean, I know it’s summer, but…”
“I guess,” Linny said. “I better get off the phone. And if Dad sees that someone used it to call you, can we say I missed you, and I wanted to call? Not about the sweater. It would be so much better if I had my own phone, Mom, it would, I’m old enough now.
And all my friends back at home, I mean in our other house—they’re gonna totally forget me. ”
“Honey, they’re not going to forget you. We’ll talk about it when I get home, sweetheart. I promise. And do you miss me?” Tessa pictured Barbie on their front porch as she considered it.
“Mom. You’ve only been gone for like three weeks, and we’re totally fine.
And listen, so cool, you’ll love this, there’s a bookstore in town, and we went, I did, at least, and I saw your books, they had a whole stack of them.
And when Dad came in to get me, he told everyone who you were. And that we live here now.”
“He did?” Tessa paused, picturing that.
“Yeah. He said we live in the peony house on Algonquin Street. And that you’re away on book tour.”