“Why what? Why am I helping you?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess I just want to see what happens,” I said.
“Maybe you’re a nicer person than you think you are,” she said.
I don’t know why I was insulted by that. What kind of person could be?
I could feel her studying me. For a reaction? For hints of that likeness I had mentioned? I said, “Watch the road before you kill us both.” And turned my head away.
THE TOWN EDITH MAXWELL LIVEDin was cute. Too cute. Like a whole Barbie Dream Town, trademark symbol, blown up life-sized, and draped in garlands ofLIVE LAUGH LOVEsigns—as well as actual garlands, since it was the buildup to Christmas and everything. The town center was basically an open-air mall. A catalogue, paper-thin. Everything was charming and for sale, and everyone was beautiful and buying.
Edith lived by her motto of living well in an overly embellished micro-mansion a few blocks on the other side of the shops. The housewas a specific color of blue. Sea glass. I could tell that a lot of effort had been made to match the paint to someone’s vacation photos.
What was Idoinghere?
Following Sicily up a stone path to the house, I thought longingly of a Metra Rail commuter train station and a long ride home in the quiet car, rethinking my life’s choices.
Was that a song? Riding the suburban train back to the city…
“Are yousinging?” Sicily said as she stepped up on the porch.
“Huh? No,” I said. “So how do we play this?”
“What do you meanplayit?” Sicily grasped a brass door knocker shaped like a dragonfly and banged it with urgency.
Going straight at it, then. And not overthinking what to say or ask when—
The door opened and there she was, Aunt Edith in the flesh. She was a sprite of a person, tiny and trim, those just-right glasses and a sleek silver bob shining. She looked a little more tired than she did in her ads, but who among us wouldn’t ask for a little touch-up if we were MAXing out our faces on bus benches?
“Sis, my goodness!” the woman exclaimed. “What a nice surprise. I didn’t know to expect you. I would have baked a little something…”
She immediately had her hands on Sicily, pulling her in and bundling her into a welcome. I didn’t buy the delight. I had some skill spotting a put-on from hanging at McPhee’s, although, yes, it had failed me with Joey.
But this con was easy to spot: Edith’s flare of joy went flat as soon as she had Sicily pressed against her. She was surprised, all right, but not the right kind.
And then Edith caught sight of me, and I could tell she knew exactly who I was.
Sicily disentangled herself. “Aunt Edie, where’s Mom?”
“Your mother,” she said in wonder, still looking at me.
“Well, hey there, Aunt Edie,” I said, with a hint of Doll Devine sassafras.
Her eyes fluttered away from me. “What? Your mother? What do you mean?”
Sicily, impatient, was through the door, calling for her mom, and after a quick glance back at me, Edith hurried after her, pulling the door behind them a bit so that the brass bug on the door nearly hit me in the face as I started to follow them.
I stood on the porch, noticing the ropes of evergreen draped around the doorway and along the windows, the perfectly shaped miniature pine trees lined up in pink-orange clay pots in a conga line along the porch. Through the front window, I spotted a ten-foot Fraser fir loaded down with white velvet and golden bling. Around its base, piles of packages, all beribboned in gold.
Fa la dee dah.
Anyway, it was all set dressing. And so was Edith.
At my back, the town was still, clean and bright, and a snow had started, small, hard pellets that wouldn’t stop anytime soon.
The door to the house had been left open a crack despite the cold. That look Edith had given me—she’d meant for me to stay right here. Right here on the other side of this threshold, outside, trash left at the curb.
