Chapter 24
Lizanne
At seven in the morning, Rose tried to claim she was fine. She said it in a voice that sounded like crushed glass, followed it with four violent sneezes, and had to slump onto the edge of the bed.
Lizanne pulled the duvet back up. “Stay put.”
“I have to get Daisy up. Quinn is leaving and—”
“I’ll get Daisy.”
Rose squinted at her, her eyes glassy with fever. “You’ll get Daisy up?”
“I am capable of waking a child, Rose.”
“She has a whole routine—”
“Rose.” Lizanne tucked the duvet around her, her hands lingering for a second too long for it to be just about the blankets. “Bed. Now. I can manage.”
She managed to sound more certain than she felt. She beat a retreat down the hall before Rose could start listing the ways this would inevitably go wrong.
Quinn was already standing in the pool house doorway with his bag over his shoulder.
“Where’s…”
“She’s sick,” Lizanne said.
“Got it.” He shifted the bag. “Daisy’s already up. She was briefing the bear when I walked past.”
“I’m on it.”
Quinn looked at her in that particular way he had—assessing, not quite unfriendly, but not exactly warm. Six weeks of filming and they had managed to exist in the same house without ever actually talking, which was its own kind of skill.
“You’re good with her,” he said. “Rose, I mean. And the kid.”
Lizanne didn’t offer him anything back.
“Rose doesn’t let people take care of her. Hates it, actually.” He picked up his bag. “So. For what it’s worth.”
***
Daisy was already awake, sitting up in bed giving Professor a detailed account of a birthday party. She looked up when Lizanne appeared in the doorway and accepted her presence there without any real surprise.
“Mommy is sick,” Lizanne said. “So I’m the deputy today. Tell me the plan.”
Daisy got out of bed, opened her wardrobe, and pulled out a pink and gold princess dress without hesitation.
“It’s Saturday,” she said, as though that explained the logistics of the day.
Getting Daisy into the dress involved more steps than Lizanne had anticipated.
An undershirt first, then the dress itself with twelve small buttons up the back.
Lizanne ended up kneeling on the floor while Daisy stood perfectly still and Biscuit watched from the bed with what Lizanne could only interpret as professional judgment.
“It’s tricky,” Daisy said.
“I’m finding that out.”
“Mom does it fast.”
“Your mom has had more practice.”
“You’ll get practice,” Daisy said, in the tone of someone conferring a gift.
Lizanne did the last button and stood up. Daisy smoothed the skirt, checked her reflection, and nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Now breakfast. Although I should have showered.”
“Oh.” It hadn’t even occurred to Lizanne that the child might need a wash first. Deciding to ignore this oversight, she moved on to breakfast.
“Can we eat in the big house?”
“Yes, that is actually a good idea, so I can keep an eye on your mommy as well.”
Together, they made their way to the main house. Fortunately, Lizanne had always been a cereal aficionado and Daisy soon found one she liked. With Daisy squared away, she turned her attention to Rose’s breakfast. She would need something with protein.
The truth was, she didn’t really cook. Trina had done the cooking on the days the housekeeper was off, and when it was just Lizanne, she would eat up something from the freezer. That wouldn’t do.
Lizanne stood at the counter and thought about what she could actually pull off. An omelet. She had made one years ago in a Burbank apartment on a two-ring stove.
She found a pan, found eggs, found cheese. Good so far.
Daisy dragged a chair over to oversee the operation, then fetched her bowl.
“Mom likes over easy eggs.”
“I see,” Lizanne mumbled and cracked two eggs into a bowl. She pushed the trash can open and dropped the shells in when she saw it. Torn pieces of a card, white with a cartoon elephant on the front. Why was it torn?
She reached in and grabbed a couple of pieces while Daisy was busy poking her finger in the eggs to get out a piece of shell.
The card was signed Papa and the address on the back identified the sender as Jeremy Planter. Daisy’s father. She gulped but dropped the pieces back before transferring the eggs onto the pan.
As the eggs cooked, she looked at the trash can again. Why hadn’t Rose told her about this? And what did this mean? What did this man want? For all she knew, he hadn’t paid any mind to Daisy at all. And now he was back?
The heat was too high. By the time Lizanne came back to herself, the eggs had adhered to the pan in a way that made their future very clear. Then the smoke alarm went off.
It was a continuous shriek that bounced off every surface in the kitchen. Daisy’s hands went to her ears and her face crumpled—not a tantrum, just genuine fright.
“My ears!”
Lizanne killed the heat, threw open the windows and lifted Daisy down from the stool she’d been standing on.
“Hey. Look at me.” She waited until Daisy looked. “It’s just the alarm doing its job. It’s telling us the eggs were a disaster, which they were. The noise stops in a moment. Want to help me make it stop sooner?”
“Ya…Yes…”
Lizanne lifted Daisy up and grabbed a dish towel.
“Here we go, wave it against the fire alarm.”
She grabbed another for herself and together, they waved until Daisy no longer cried and the alarm no longer screamed.
“There we go.”
“What about the eggs?”
“We don’t speak of it,” Lizanne said.
Daisy’s mouth moved toward a smile.
“Is everything all right?”
Rose was standing in the kitchen doorway in her dressing gown, her hair a mess and her eyes red at the edges. She looked exactly like someone who had dragged themselves out of bed to investigate a fire.
“Everything is under control,” Lizanne said.
Rose looked at the pan. At the open window. At Daisy in the princess dress. Her eyes flicked to the bin, then back to Lizanne. For a second, the air between them was thick with the things they hadn’t fought about yet.
“Back to bed,” Lizanne said, her voice softer this time.
“I can just—”
“Rose. Go. I’ll order something.”
Rose lingered, but then went back down the hall.
Cleaning the pan took a while. Daisy helped by handing Lizanne things she hadn’t asked for and asking questions about fire.
When the kitchen was clean, Lizanne stood at the counter and thought about the card.
She thought about asking; she thought about the way Rose had looked at the bin just now.
She decided that story was Rose’s to tell.
What she had to focus on now was whip up some food. She didn’t actually want to wait for someone to deliver something, because she was hungry and Rose needed to eat before she could take medicine.
So, she made soup from a can instead. She heated it with close attention, made a sandwich for Rose, and put it all on a tray.
“Can I come?” Daisy asked.
“Yes. Carry this.” She handed her the crackers she’d pulled out for herself.
They moved down the hall like a small procession. Rose was sitting up when they came in.
“You made soup,” she said.
“From a can,” Lizanne said. “I want to be clear about that. I did make the sandwich myself though.”
“It counts.”
Daisy climbed onto the bed and presented the crackers. “These are for Lizanne. She doesn’t like sandwiches with soup. That’s strange, right?”
“To each their own,” Rose replied and looked at the dress. “You’re very formal today,” Rose said.
“It’s Saturday,” Daisy reminded her, as if that explained anything. “I didn’t shower yet.”
Rose glanced at Lizanne and Lizanne saw her bite back a smile. Lizanne sat in the chair by the window, watching her while her own soup grew cold. There was a vulnerability to seeing Rose like this—stripped of the makeup, just a woman eating canned soup and a sandwich in a messy bed.
When the soup was finished, Lizanne went back to the kitchen and returned with crushed garlic and the olive oil.
“Give me your socks,” she said while Daisy looked up, eyes heavy with sleep.
“Socks?” Rose replied but did as she was told.
Lizanne mixed the garlic with the olive oil in a little bowl she’d also brought. Then, she walked up to Rose, the tincture in her hands. “Feet up please. I’m going to massage this in. Then we put your socks back on. It’ll suck out the illness.”
“Is this some Regency hack you learned on the show?”
“No, however, it’s an old wives’ tale. It probably does nothing.”
Lizanne rubbed the oil into the soles of her feet, her thumbs working the tension out of Rose’s arches. She pulled the socks over them and drew the duvet up. Rose looked at her from the pillow.
“Thank you,” Rose said. “Even if it doesn’t work, it felt nice. And thanks for everything.”
“The eggs were a tragedy,” Lizanne said. “The soup is the least I could do.”
Rose almost smiled. “I wasn’t talking about the soup.”
Lizanne didn’t say anything. She just let her hand rest on Rose’s ankle for a beat longer than necessary.
Daisy, who had watched the garlic ritual with great seriousness, lay down on top of the duvet between them and was asleep in thirty seconds.
Lizanne sat in the quiet. Rose’s breathing slowed. Daisy’s hand found Lizanne’s at some point and closed around one finger.
Lizanne thought about the apartment in Burbank.
The years of cinema floors and bus routes and auditions that went nowhere.
All the distance between that empty life and this crowded room.
She thought about the card in the bin, about Jeremy, and about how good it had felt to take care of Rose and Daisy this morning.
She closed her eyes and listened to the silence in the house without moving.