I smiled to myself. If anyone else had asked him that, he hadn’t replied. I was making a difference already.
At least I knew that he remembered where he’d been. And that he didn’t want any part of it anymore.
Now, if I could just get him to tell me where.
15
Myra was overseeing one of the recently hired maids setting the table for dinner when I entered the dining room. She paused in her instructing as soon as I came in and looked at me with a broad smile on her face, her jackpot smile, as she called it, but she said nothing. She didn’t have to. I knew that look well. It always came quickly when she was proud of me.
“I’ll help bring things out,” I said, and went into the kitchen to get some of the condiments. I often tried to do something helpful in the house, even though it seemed like we had an army of servants. As soon as I was old enough, I always did something to help my mother at breakfast and especially at dinner. Doing things now that I used to do with her helped keep my memories of her vivid and alive.
My Faith looked up from the large salad bowl and flashed her special smile at me, too. I was ashamed of myself for having been angry at both of them. They were the best cheerleaders any girl my age could hope to have. The condiments were already organized on a tray. I picked it up.
“This is like a Christmas dinner,” I said, seeing her elaborate preparations.
“My grandmother used to say, ‘Child, nothin’ cheers up the troubled soul like a good meal.’ And we have our share of troubled souls here,” she added.
I carried the tray to the dining room and set up the condiments on the table in exactly the places Myra wanted them to be. Under her scrutinizing gaze, it was like setting up a chessboard. I knew that even though she was instructing the new maid on how to set dishes and silverware on a table, she was watching me. Like a snapped rubber band, her full attention returned to the new maid. She had put the salad fork where the entrée fork was supposed to be. To Myra, that was a capital crime.
“No, no, no, can’t you see the difference in the size?”
“Sorry,” the young woman said. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. Myra was also particular about how the napkins should be folded and placed in the Arnold monogram napkin rings. I watched the poor, flustered girl work at it until my grandfather entered.
He was smiling at me just the way Myra and My Faith had done. Obviously, Dorian had told everyone what I had been doing with the poisoned boy.
“I could eat a horse tonight,” he said, slapping his hands together and rubbing his palms.
“I believe it’s more like a pig,” Myra said, and he threw his head back and roared with laughter, an outburst I hadn’t heard since Willie’s death.
The new maid looked like she had come to work for the Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Her head down, she quickly followed Myra into the kitchen. I went around and sat at my place. Grandpa took his seat and looked at me with those steely eyes he could bring out whenever he wanted to be stern.
“So where did you take your bike ride today?” he asked.
From the way he was waiting for my answer, I had the feeling that he already knew. Perhaps he had run into one of the women who had been with their children at the playground.
“I went to the children’s playground on Jefferson Street,” I said.
He said nothing, obviously waiting for me to continue. If he knew I had been there, then he knew whom I had been there with. I was going to tell him anyway.
“Where I met Aaron Podwell. His father took away his driving privileges for a week after you called him, but his friend drove him there. You didn’t say I couldn’t see him,” I quickly added.
“And if I did, would you listen?”
“No.” I held my breath, expecting him to go into another rage, but instead, those steely eyes softened into not so much a pleasing look as a look of quiet resignation.
“No doubt whose daughter you are. Between your grandmother and her, I was about as effective and in control as the driver of a twelve-wheeler dump truck without brakes going down Devil’s Run.”
Before either of us could speak, Dorian entered. Grandpa turned to her, smiling in a way I hadn’t seen him smile since Grandma Lucy passed away. There was a special look of appreciation in it, something much more than a man would give an employee.
“I’m going to prepare his dinner tray,” she said. “Better he eats upstairs tonight. I’ll eat with him.”
Grandpa nodded, but I thought he looked disappointed. Dorian flashed a smile at me and went into the kitchen. Moments later, with Myra looking over her shoulder, the maid began to serve our dinner.
“Well,” Grandpa said, starting on his salad, “since I have little to say in the matter, when Mr. Podwell gets his privileges reinstated, maybe I’ll have you bring him around for dinner one night.”
“Really?”
“Your grandmother used to tell me you can’t fight city hall. City hall is a piece of cake compared with a woman who makes up her mind about something or someone.”