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/ betrayed my sister, Dolly thought, her heart feeling as if it were being ripped apart, and now I’ll be betraying my sister’s child.

Why does it have to be a secret?”

Laurel peered at Uncle Rudy in the swimmy gloom. The aquarium at Coney Island seemed like a funny place for her to be meeting him. But Aunt Dolly, who often took her places on Saturdays, said it wouldn’t be any different than going to the zoo or the park with her. On the way over here in her chauffeured Town Car, Laurel’s aunt had explained that Uncle Rudy wasn’t going to hurt her or tell on her-he just wanted to see her and make sure she was okay. But if that was all, then why had her aunt’s face looked all puffy and red, as if she’d been crying? And why was Uncle Rudy now making her promise to keep this a secret, even from Annie?

Laurel wished Dolly was with her now. But her aunt had stayed in the car, saying she’d be back in an hour to pick her up. Laurel had been so scared at first, but Uncle Rudy had been nice, leading her through the shimmerygreen walkways lined with huge tanks, and pointing out the different kinds of fish. He’d asked her all about school, and Brooklyn, and the Grubermans. He hadn’t tried to hug her, or even hold her hand-she would’ve hated that. And he hadn’t said one word about her and Annie running away … until now.

“Trust me,” he told her. “It’s better this way.”

“But if Aunt Dolly knows, then shouldn’t Annie know, too?” she asked, whispering even though this early in the morning there was nobody around to hear.

“Your sister … she wouldn’t understand,” he said, his eyes sliding away from hers. He had that look grownups got when they were holding back from telling you

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something they thought maybe you were too young to hear.

Starting to feel a little scared now, she stared at him, his rubbery face with its bulging forehead making her think of the shapeless manatees swimming behind the thick glass in front of her. Until now, she’d never really thought about her uncle one way or the other. He was just this funnylooking little man who came to see Val, and had hardly paid any attention to her except that he stared at her a lot, which gave her the creeps. Only now he was talking to her, and he really seemed interested in her, so maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

“If I told her … if I explained that you-“

“Look,” he cut her off, “you’re a big girl so I’m gonna be straight with you.” He leaned close-they were almost the same height-his fat neck jutting from the collar of his wrinkled raincoat, his eyes small and black. “Val … your dad … that night you ran away … well, he was in pretty bad shape. By the time I got him to the hospital, he was out of it. Whatever Annie hit him with, it messed up something in his brain. The doctors did everything they could for him, but he …” Now Rudy was looking away, squinting at the manatee twisting in lazy circles behind the greenish glass. “He didn’t make it.”

Dead? My father dead? Laurel felt suddenly hot and dizzy, the hot dog he’d bought her at Nathan’s on the way over backing up her throat, seeming to swell into something huge and liver-tasting. Then she remembered-Aunt Dolly had said she’d spoken with Val on the phone. So how could he be dead?

“It’s not true!” she cried. “He isn’t dead. Aunt Dolly would’ve told me.”

“Your Aunt Dolly, she’s a good lady. And she’s looking out for you and your sister … just like I am. She knows what’d happen if something like this got out. If the police knew it was Annie that …” His voice trailed off.

Laurel shuddered, remembering the blood on Dearie’s Oscar and on her blanket. “Annie didn’t mean to. I know she didn’t!” She was almost sobbing now, her breath coming in dry, hot gasps.

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“Sure, I know that.” Now he was clumsily patting her shoulder. “That’s just what I told the doctors, and the police who came nosing around … that it was an accident, that he must’ve slipped and fallen and hit his head on a table or something.”

“You didn’t tell them about …”

“Annie? Of course not. Listen, kiddo, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m on your side. From now on, I’m gonna be looking out for you. Whenever I’m in New York, I’ll visit you, and if you ever need anything … any little thing … all you have to do is just pick up the phone and call me. Collect. But it’s gotta be our little secret. Laurel gulped back her tears. The dim walkway with its weird, ripply light made her feel as if she were underwater, gulping for air, drowning almost.

“But why … why can’t Annie know?” she choked.

“You want her to know she’s a murderer? How do you think she’d feel? Look, I know Val wasn’t the easiest guy to live with, but not even your sister would’ve wanted … well, what happened.”

“But …”

“You love your sister, don’tcha?” His voice was a gravelly whisper. She could feel his breath against her face, warm and smelling of Juicy Fruit and cigarettes. “You don’t want to upset her, do you? A thing like that, it could really eat away at a person… and maybe wind up pushing them right over the edge.”

Like Dearie. He means she could feel so bad about what she did, that maybe she’d …

No, she thought, no, Annie wasn’t like that. She’d never kill herself.

But she might worry so much that she’d make herself sick. |

Laurel could feel tears running down her cheeks. The manatee swimming close to the glass seemed to be staring out at her, its eyes big and sad and eerily human. She remembered how she’d wished that there could be something big she could do to really help-something besides cooking and doing the laundry. And now she had

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found something, but she didn’t want it … she didn’t want to have to keep this horrible secret.

But if she told, her about Val, then Annie would really feel terrible. And maybe she’d forget it was an accident and start believing she’d meant to … to hurt him. And then … well, maybe Rudy was right: Maybe it’d eat away at her until she … she ended up like Dearie.

She thought of Annie’s fingernails, chewed down to the bloody quick. And how sometimes, waking up in the middle of the night, she’d see Annie sitting up in bed, just staring out at nothing.

“I won’t tell,” she said, her voice a thready whisper.

She didn’t feel so dizzy any more, and the watery dimness of the walkway had settled enough so she could finally breathe. She actually began to feel a tiny bit pleased with herself.

Even if Annie didn’t know, Laurel told herself, she would. She’d know that she was doing something important, that she wasn’t just some dopey little kid dragging her sister down.

She’d know that in a kind of a way she was taking care of Annie, just like Annie had always taken care of her.

PRWRPfiWOT

PartTv

wo

1972

The Queen was terrified, and offered the little man all the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her keep her child. But the little man said, “No, I would rather have some living thing than all the treasures of

the world.”

from “Rumpelstiltskin”

1

I

I ‘m going to fall flat on my face.”

JL Annie looked at the girl beside her in the back seat of the limousine. In the strobe flash of passing headlights, she looked younger than nineteen, and scared.

“No, you won’t,” Annie told her. “You told me you’ve sung that aria a hundred times. Anyway, you don’t have to sing it all the way through, just enough to give Mr. Donate the idea.”

“I don’t mean that.” The girl-Suzanne, wasn’t it? -rolled her eyes. “I mean this dress … it’s a mile long. I just know I’m going to trip over it. God, how did women ever get around in these things?” She plucked at the heavy wine-colored velvet puddled about her feet.

Trip? More likely it’d be something a lot worse. Annie’s eyes travelled up to the gown’s bodice-a hand’s width of fabric stretched across the Juilliard student’s chest; above the fabric, her breasts swelled alarmingly—and had a sudden, frightening image of Suzanne taking a deep breath to launch into her aria, and those big boobs of hers popping right out.

God, what a scene; Donate and the other men at the party would be gaping, and the women blushing, scandalized-and these people were the food industry’s top wholesalers and distributors. If that happened, and Donato found out who sneaked this overdeveloped singer in, Girod’s wouldn’t stand a chance.

No, she had to make this work. Donato’s, a branch of the renowned Donato’s of Milan, with its marble floors and frescoed ceilings, would be the most elite food store on the East Side, in the whole city even, when it opened

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this fall on Madison in the Sixties. And Annie wanted Girod’s to be among the select number of chocolatiers whose confections were sold there. She was determined that they would be.

Sure, she could’ve gone the usual route, sent samples over to Donato’s buyer and then followed up with a phone call or two, but every supplier in town was doing that. So why sit back and just be just one of the crowd?

No, better to take a chance … try something that might capture Donato’s attention. If she could pull this off, then the food magnate might well remember Girod’s to his dying day.

It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Isn’t that what Dolly was always telling her? And in the six years she’d been working at Girod’s, hadn’t she proved that over and over? Annie found herself thinking about burly, bearded Nate Christiansen, food and beverage buyer for the Carlyle, how for months she’d chased after him, calling him, sending letters, even taking him to lunch. And Nate, jovial, friendly, flirtatious even, laughing boisterously at all her jokes … always hinting, but, dammit, never allowing himself to be backed into any kind of commitment. What he had let slip was that he was a G. K. Chesterton fan. And wasn’t it lucky that, after combing secondhand bookstores, she’d unearthed an autographed first edition of a Father Brown mystery? Wrapping the book in heavy floral paper, she had then sent it over to Christiansen with a pound of Girod’s assorted truffles. A week later, she was his guest for lunch, and they were hammering out an agreement for Girod’s to supply the hotel’s complimentary bedtime chocolates.

So why shouldn’t this work, too? The girl, Suzanne McBride, a student at Juilliard, had the voice of an angel. She even looked angelic, with her peaches-and-champagne coloring and Pre-Raphaelite red hair. And Donato, she’d learned, while he was in New York getting this store on its feet, had not just one, but two season subscriptions to the Metropolitan Opera. What better way to grab his attention than by having a lovely young woman show up

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS 2O$

unexpectedly and serenade him with the balcony aria from Rom้o et Juliette?

“Don’t worry.” Annie patted the girl’s hand, which felt moist and cool. “You’ll be fine. Just remember to pick up your hem.”

The costume was too long for her, but there hadn’t been time for alterations, and anyway, it was only on loan. A friend of Gloria’s who worked in a theatrical-rental store on Broadway had found it for them, and Annie had promised to have it back by tomorrow.

Now the limousine-Dolly’s Lincoln-was turning off Fifty-seventh Street onto Sutton Place, and gliding to a stop in front of a charming brick townhouse festooned in English ivy. Annie slid out, and helped Suzanne onto the curb, holding the hem of her gown up in back so it wouldn’t drag as she climbed the few steps to the front door. In her other hand, Annie carried a silver Girod’s shopping bag.

Ignoring the ornate brass knocker in the center of the heavy door, she rang the bell instead.

Shivering in the cool evening, waiting for the door to be answered, Annie could feel a pulse throbbing in one temple. She nibbled at a fingernail. What if, after all this, she was turned away? Or what if Suzanne, in front of a bunch of strangers, got stage fright and froze? Annie took a deep breath, and smoothed the front of her dress, a simple black jersey sheath, elegant enough for this party, but one she knew wouldn’t compete with her hired soprano’s eye-popping costume.

I’m the one who’s going to fall on my face … and then I can just kiss good-bye any chance of my getting to Paris.

For ซme tantalizing moment, Annie allowed herself to think a^out Dolly’s promise to speak to Henri about the apprenticeship. Three whole months in Paris, learning how to actually make chocolates-God, if only she could! Working for Dolly was never boring, but she’d already learned practically everything there was to know about managing a store, setting up displays, packaging, romancing buyers. Now what she’d been dreaming about was to

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open her own shop. And what better way to learn how to make her own chocolates than under Henri’s Swiss-trained M. Pompeau, who had been turning out mouth-watering confections for Girod’s for over fifty years?

So, yes, this just had to work. If Donate liked her little surprise, and gave Girod’s the go-ahead, then Henri couldn’t fail to be impressed-an account like Donato’s might as much as double Girod’s U.S. sales. Being Dolly’s niece wouldn’t count for much, he’d once told her. Apprenticeship applicants were chosen based solely on their merit.

Annie’s thoughts were interrupted by the door opening in front of her. A young man in a dark suit and striped silk tie stood before her. Too suave-looking to be a butler, and with those dark eyes he had to be-

“Hello,” he greeted her. “I’m Roberto … Roberto Donate.” His gaze nickered over Suzanne’s dress, and one heavy eyebrow arched in amusement.

“I’m Annie,” she said. She hesitated before stepping inside, scared that he would want to see their invitations, or worse, ask why Suzanne was wearing that absurd dress. Then, quickly, before he could say anything, she added, “We’re a little late.”

But the young man, who probably had been pressed into service by his parents and looked bored out of his skull, merely nodded and allowed them to pass. “They’re all upstairs,” he said. “You missed my father’s big speech.”

“That’s okay.” Annie tossed him a grin. “We’re here for the encore.”