Extraordinary (3 page)

“You're obsessed with clothes,” Mallory said as she followed Phoebe.

“I'm really not,” said Phoebe seriously, over her shoulder. “I'm just looking out for you. Trust me.”

Mallory did not reply.

“But child, what you're saying doesn't make sense. You are absolutely sure the Rothschild girl is the right one? And yet you also say she is not ready?”

“Yes, she is the right one, and yes, she is not ready. That other human girl that we were watching, the one called Colette—she had not achieved what we thought she had. The Rothschild girl was fighting back. While she is not very self-assured, she has personal strength of will. Your Majesty, I now understand that when we observe human activity from outside, we can be mistaken when we try to interpret what it means.”

“So you came up with this new plan, of being friends with the Rothschild girl, so that you can finish what the girl Colette started?”

“Yes.”

“I sense you are holding something back from me, child.”

“No, no. You have the gist of it, Your Majesty. The important part. It's only—well, I have found it not so easy to function in the human realm. At the dwelling, it's difficult to keep the Tolliver woman calm. She cries in her sleep for her own daughter, though when she is awake, it is I she thinks she loves. Or mostly so. She demands a sugary treat, but then when she has it, she becomes very strange and angry with me and—well, I will not bore you, and I assure you, I can manage her, but she is—it is not easy. Once, I must confess, I even resorted to trying to use glamour on her—you must have felt the drain?”

“Indeed. But I trusted you knew what you were doing.”

“I am afraid I did not, Your Majesty. And you have my deepest apologies that I used up so much of our energy reserve fruitlessly. It turned out that because of the woman's volatile mental state, the glamour did not work well on her at all. It made her crazier and more frantic and paranoid; she screamed and cried all that night and well into the next day. And then I had to go to school for the first time, and that was fruitless too, for the Rothschild girl was not even there. She—the girl—she has an illness of the lungs and breath, called asthma, which comes and goes. And then I came home from school and the woman saw me and began screaming again. So. It is not what we thought it would be. And—and then . . .”

“Go on, child.”

“At the school, I made mistakes as well. I thought I would not be there for very long, and I was tired from dealing with the woman, and thus I was careless and made myself too conspicuous. And then it was too late to undo the bad impression I made, unless I were to deploy a great deal of glamour, enough to affect everyone who saw me there. Which would cost us all too much. And then it was several days longer before the Rothschild girl even appeared at school. It—it was a difficult time, Your Majesty.”

“I see. I am sorry, my child. I am glad you have told me now. Should I send your brother to you? It would deplete our energy reserves much more to have him out in the world too, for you know what he is. But if you need help?”

“No, no! I can manage. I shall manage alone, and very well too. I have found my path now at last. I am just explaining what has led to my new recommendation.”

“But these details do not seem to me to have much to do with your mission.”

“I—you are right. I shall not bother you with them again. I can manage. All that matters is that I now understand that if I am the girl's friend, I can influence her and complete my mission.”

“Very well. When will you become her friend? Immediately, I hope?”

“It is done, Your Majesty. She approached me today, soon after she returned to school, and asked me to be her friend.”

“So quickly? But I did not feel the drain of you using glamour to attract her to you.”

“I did not use glamour.”

“Because you were frightened that it would not work, as it did not work on the Tolliver woman?”

“No. The Rothschild girl is sane, unlike the Tolliver woman. I did not use glamour because she already liked me. On her own. She is . . . she is
kind,
Your Majesty. She is uncertain in many ways, but she has a soft heart, and I—I cannot describe it. I will get close to her.”

“How long will this process take, child?”

“Just a few weeks, Your Majesty. At most.”

Phoebe was disappointed that first day, when Mallory put off the shopping expedition, saying she needed to go straight home alone. But Mallory said that she could shop with Phoebe after school on the next day. This meant that by the time the last class ended, Phoebe was deep into trying to figure out the shopping. It was complicated, because Mallory needed
everything.
And how was Phoebe to broach the topic of money with her again? She knew it would be necessary to talk in specifics this time.

What would an entirely new wardrobe cost? There was a reality TV show in which people who dressed badly were publicly mocked, after which they were coached in how to dress well and sent out with five thousand dollars. It seemed to Phoebe that this was probably the right amount. Could she do it for less? Yes, but the thought of Colette and company continuing to sneer at Mallory's clothes made Phoebe cringe inside.

She went into the girls' room and took two puffs from her asthma inhaler.

First she would meet Mrs. Tolliver, she decided. Then she would assess the situation. Today, perhaps, they would buy just a few things. Underwear. A single pair of jeans. A couple of 100 percent cotton tees, in plain colors.

If only she dared to charge absolutely everything to her own account, and explain it to her parents later. What was that saying, that it was easier to get forgiveness than permission? However, she would also need to get Mallory and Mrs. Tolliver to agree to this. People did not always like to take handouts. And she hadn't known Mallory for very long.

Spinning thoughts like these had Phoebe roiling with anxiety by the time she met Mallory in the front lobby of their school. They went together to the car that had been sent to pick Phoebe up. “Normally I'd walk home on a nice day like today,” Phoebe said apologetically. “But because of the asthma attack last week, my parents sent someone to get me.”

Mallory nodded. Phoebe had the thought that she too looked tense. Well, taking your new friend home to meet your mother, who you had already implied was messed up—that couldn't be easy.

Jay-Jay was at the wheel of the car. “Jay-Jay, this is my new friend, Mallory Tolliver.” Phoebe held the back door open for Mallory. “Mallory, this is Jay-Jay Epstein, who works for my parents. He mostly does the cooking but sometimes he gets roped into driving me places too. He's also a writer. He's working on a screenplay.”

“I'm on my third screenplay, actually,” Jay-Jay said. “Dreams die hard. Where are we going, ladies?”

“First, Mallory's house,” said Phoebe. “After that, maybe Bloomingdale's. After that, who knows?”

Jay-Jay removed his hands from the wheel and turned to look into the backseat, where Phoebe, who would ordinarily have sat up front with him, had followed Mallory. “Phoebe, you're scaring me. Is this going to take all afternoon? One place after another?”

“Maybe. Is that okay?”

“No, darling, not okay. I have the dough for a couple of loaves of bread rising. I have to be back in an hour to punch it down. And then there's my halibut sauce still to make.”

“All right, sorry. What if we're quick at Mallory's? And then maybe you could just drop us off at the mall? And I'll call later?”

“Now you're making sense.” Jay-Jay nodded at Mallory in the mirror. “Mallory? Seat belt.”

Mallory was sitting bolt upright. “What?”

“Buckle your seat belt,” Phoebe said absently. She pulled on the belt she had already fastened around herself.

“Oh,” said Mallory. Her eyes darted from side to side.

“It's hanging on your right,” said Jay-Jay. “Yes, that's it. Keep pulling. One long smooth tug—oh, you've dropped it. It's always a little confusing in a new car. Phoebe, help her? Now you've got it. Mallory, where do you live?”

It took Mallory a moment before she recited her address.

“I think I know where that is,” said Jay-Jay. “Behind Whole Foods, off Crafts Street. Yes?”

Mallory hesitated again. “My mother and I just moved there. I don't really know the neighborhood. But I know how to walk there from here.”

“Direct me,” said Jay-Jay easily.

A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of a normal-looking ranch house with a big driveway, a peeling paint job, and sad, overgrown bushes. The sight of the house filled Phoebe with even more anxiety about how she would get Mallory properly dressed. She chewed the inside of her cheek.

“We won't be long,” she said to Jay-Jay. She trailed Mallory up the walk to the front door of the house. Mallory let them in with a key, and called out, “Mother! I'm home!”

Phoebe looked around. The living room seemed fine, even if it was the kind of fine that was completely without color or personality: white walls, beige sofa and love seat. There were no boxes or mess or other indications of the family having so recently moved in. But then again, there was very little stuff, period. No family photos or pictures on the walls.

Her gaze lingered on the sofa as a series of lumps on it stirred and then resolved themselves into the figure of a woman. Fingertips appeared at one end of a beige blanket thrown over the sofa. As the hands pushed the blanket away, a large white face appeared, blinking sleepily. The figure beneath the blanket—Mallory's mother—struggled to sit upright. Mallory swiftly crossed the living room toward her, and Phoebe followed tentatively.

“It's Mallory,” said Mallory loudly, and then added, even more loudly, “Your daughter. I'm home from school.” She helped the woman to sit upright.

Mrs. Tolliver had a great big cloud of mussed, soft, graying brown hair, and heavy eyebrows that stuck out like an elderly man's. She was wearing a flannel nightgown that looked more than a little damp under her chin. “Can I have some Skittles?” she asked Mallory. Her voice slid abruptly high and whiney. “Just a few. Five. Or twelve. I've been good. I stayed right here and slept all day so you could go to school.”

Oh my God, Phoebe thought.

She listened helplessly while Mallory asked her mother questions about medication and sleep, and received evasive or nonsense answers. When Mallory tried to insist that her mother eat some food, Mrs. Tolliver countered again with the statement that she was owed Skittles because she had let Mallory go to school.

Phoebe ducked her head. She chewed on the inside of her cheek. She got it now: Mallory's lack of decent clothes had been the symptom of an even bigger maternal problem than she had imagined. Mallory was in serious trouble and she, Phoebe, was totally out of her depth.

But she knew someone who wouldn't be. I'll just bring Mrs. Tolliver and Mallory home, Phoebe thought. To
my
mother. Relief filled her. It was simple as pie; simpler by far than what she had done yesterday in dumping Colette and appealing to Mallory for friendship.

And there was no time like the present.

Phoebe moved briskly to the sofa and sat down on the other side of Mrs. Tolliver, intercepting Mallory's astonished stare with an apologetic smile.

“Mrs. Tolliver? I'm Phoebe Rothschild. I'm a friend of Mallory's from school, and I want to invite both of you to my family's house for dinner tonight. You have to meet my parents. Their names are Catherine and Drew. Catherine Rothschild and Drew Vale.”

“Phoebe—” Mallory began.

“You have to come,” said Phoebe to Mrs. Tolliver.

“Not today,” said Mrs. Tolliver dismissively.

“Yes, today,” Phoebe said. “Because, um, Jay-Jay—that's our cook—he does this dessert with Skittles that you will love and he's going to make it tonight.”

Mrs. Tolliver paused. “Skittles?”

“Yes, Skittles. He, uh, tosses them on top of this, this bed of homemade whipped cream. With—um, with drizzles of warm chocolate. He also puts a little dish of extra Skittles out so you can just spoon more onto your whipped cream if you want.”

Phoebe felt pleased with her invention. Maybe she was destined for a future in the culinary arts. She could apprentice to Jay-Jay and never have to wonder again about her purpose in life. She would specialize in sugary desserts. Or even just in Skittles. She could invent a whole cookbook's worth of Skittles recipes. It could happen.

She raced on. “Of course, we're not allowed to eat dessert until after the entrée. That's Jay-Jay's rule. We'll all eat our—our fish, I think he's making tonight. Then the Skittles. But it'll be worth it, don't you think? Eating the fish to get to the Skittles?”

“Yes, it's worth it,” said Mrs. Tolliver. She looked over at Mallory, like a child wanting guidance.

Phoebe also turned to Mallory and gave her a stare. “We'll just bundle into the car and go to my house
right now.”

Mallory's mouth opened and then closed. “No—that is, Phoebe, you don't understand.”

“I do understand,” Phoebe said intensely.

Mallory looked away.

“We will go,” announced Mrs. Tolliver. “I haven't visited anyone for so long. It's lovely to be asked for dinner. What was your name again?”

“I'm Phoebe.”

“Phoebe. Thank you for the invitation. We accept. I'll have to change.” Mrs. Tolliver pushed herself upright. “It won't take me long. Mallory, you should change too. That is not a dinner dress you have on. Why don't you try the pink dress with the little Alice apron? You wore it when you were five. Remember?”