The Steps (11 page)

“Lucy,” Patrick said. “Sydney's been good to you. You're growing into a lovely girl. You'll give your mother my best?” Lucy nodded shyly.

“How's my buddy Angus?” Ben asked. “Tell him thanks for the birthday card!” Lucy had told me that Ben was Angus's hero. Points for Angus.

“Mrs. Crosswell, this is the best chocolate soufflé I've ever had in my life.” Granny Nell beamed at Patrick's compliment.

“Are you seeing anyone, dear?” Granny Nell asked Patrick.

“No time, really,” Patrick said. He looked at Ben. “The boy keeps me pretty busy. We're training him for professional footy, you know. And he's going to work with me at some jobs this school holiday, right, son?” Ben's dad was a contractor who installed skylights, did electrical work, and generally made people's houses look and work amazingly, Lucy had told me. I could not name one boy at the Progress School who had a job with his dad.

Ben nodded eagerly, but his mouth was full. Another thing I liked about Ben was how unspoiled he was. He wasn't like those kids at the Progress School who can only talk about what computers their parents are going to get them, where their parents are taking them on vacation, what everyone could do for them. Ben was respectful and wanted to help his dad, instead of the other way around.

For some reason, seeing Patrick and Ben together made me feel better about Harvey and Wheaties coming into my family. Having men around added an exciting energy to the dinner table.

Lucy said to her grandmother, “Ben's interested in learning how to surf over the school holidays. I was thinking maybe we could give him one of Dad's old surfboards? There would still be plenty left for me and Angus, Granny. What do you think?”

“If it's all right with you, it's all right with me. Those are your boards to give away, Lucy love.”

I hadn't even realized the bait Lucy was throwing out until she said to me, “Annabel, why don't you go show Ben the surfboards in the shed while Granny and I make coffee?”

I love you Lucy,
I thought.

Ben and I jumped up from the table and went to the shed outside. “Wow,” Ben said when he saw how the shed glimmered in cleanliness and orderliness. “You and Luce really made this shed look great. I took some rakes out of here last winter to help Mrs. Crosswell clean up some leaves, and this shed was a mess!”

Now it was my turn to beam.

“You should come visit New York sometime,” I said, searching for something, anything, to say.

“That would be fantastic,” Ben said.
Fantastic.
Something only a megafine Australian guy would say.

The last specks of sunlight were shining into the shed as I showed Ben the surfboards. He stood up so close to me as we inspected the surfboards, and I could tell he was as nervous as I. He leaned in toward me, like maybe he wanted to touch my wavy-shiny hair, but then he pulled his hand back and touched one of the boards. “These surfboards are graayate,” he admired. We both knew he didn't care about the surfboards at that particular moment.

I knew we didn't have much time before Lucy, Granny Nell, and Patrick came outside to join us. This was our moment, but Ben was too shy to make the most of it. So I took matters into my own hands.

I would never have done what I did next if Justine hadn't told me about the move from a sexy book she read. I reached for Ben's hand and placed it on my hip, then reached to put my arm on his shoulder. I smiled a closed-mouth smile so my braces would not twinkle in the twilight. Ben figured out the rest. He turned beet red, and if I hadn't known better, I would have sworn he was counting in his mind “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi . . .” before he leaned down. He finally moved his head down toward mine, and our lips touched in the best moment of my life that far.

I counted. The kiss lasted five heartbeats.

I almost thought we had arrived at some parallel universe when we returned to Sydney the next morning. As Lucy, Granny Nell, and I walked out to the airport arrival area, who should be standing there waiting for us but: Penny and Jack, Angus holding Bubbe's hand, Beatrice in a Snugli on Angelina's chest, and Harvey and
Wheaties?
Excuse me?

“I told you there was a surprise waiting for you in Sydney,” Granny Nell chuckled as we walked toward them. We had thought she meant a surprise garage to clean or that we would be—surprise!—grounded until the next millennium was halfway over.

Both Lucy and I looked at each other like,
Now what do we do?

The moms came forward first. Penny grabbed Lucy toward her chest, and Angelina handed off Beatrice to Harvey and ran to me. “Oh, my baby,” she said, squeezing me into the fiercest hug I'd ever experienced. She kissed the top of my head over and over.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, even though words were difficult. Angelina had my face nuzzled so hard to her chest it was difficult to breathe, much less speak. She smelled like Chanel perfume and baby powder.

Oh, no,
I thought,
another airport scene.
I could just see future tourist billboard advertisements for Australia with pictures of me and the Steps and all our parents having weird reunions at the Sydney airport.

“After you hung up the phone on me, and I couldn't reach you by phone because you had unplugged it—you bad girl—I told Harvey we had to go to Australia right away to work this out. Bubbe said there was no way we were going to Australia without her, too. Harvey made hotel reservations, called the airline to cash in his million frequent flyer miles, and he had us on a plane to Sydney before I even had a chance to find out you had run away to Melbourne with Lucy. By the time we got here, you and Lucy were at Lucy's grandmother's. Your father might need to be hospitalized after the stress of these last few days. First you girls run away, then we show up unexpectedly. We're going to have a long talk this afternoon, young lady.”

That “young lady” again. Since when had Jack and now Angelina, too, become so . . . so . . . parental?

Jack broke away from hugging Lucy and lifted me in his arms like I was still a baby. Tears were in his eyes. His big, tall body was heavy with relief and happiness.

“Anna-the-Belle,” he murmured. And I'd thought Angelina's squeeze was tight.

“I'm so sorry, Jack,” I said. “Please don't be furious with me.” I tried to be cool, but the tears were streaming down my face and I was bawling like a baby.

“Kiddo,” Jack said.
Uh-oh,
I thought. Nothing good ever comes of a conversation a parent starts with the word
kiddo.
“Maybe it's time you started calling me Dad.”

I nodded into his neck and wished to stay in his arms forever.

*  *  *

Lucy and I were not allowed to go home right away. The first thing our parents did after releasing us from hugs and kisses was to sit us down. At the airport terminal, with a Sydney police officer they'd brought along!

The officer had a notebook filled with pictures of kids our age who had run away. Pictures of kids who were starving, who had been beaten, whose eyes begged for safety and warmth. Kids who had ended up homeless on the streets or lost forever, or worse, had been found dead. Lucy and I were shaking by the time the officer finished showing us the pictures.

“Do you understand the risks you two took?” he asked.

We both nodded. I think we were too shocked and horrified by the pictures to speak.

The officer said, “Maybe you think you were having fun and making a point to your parents at the same time, but what you did was stupid. Bloody stupid. You two don't know how lucky you were to make it to Lucy's grandmother's safely. Don't ever do anything like that again if you value your families or your life.”

We both gulped. We understood. Big time.

Angelina and I had the long talk, “young lady,” in her hotel room.

I had never stayed in a fancy hotel before. The beds were gigantic, and the curtains looked like they belonged in a museum. Our suite had plush sofas and armchairs, too. Harvey is very rich. He owns a chain of mattress stores all over the tristate area. He's on television more than all of Angelina's shampoo, telephone, and panty hose commercials combined. “Hi, I'm Harvey Weideman. You can trust your good night's sleep to me.”
Oy.

Bubbe, Harvey, and Wheaties spent the afternoon lounging by the pool while Angelina and I talked. Bubbe must have been weighed down by ten pounds of bridal and wedding magazines.

“What is going on with you?” Angelina asked when we were finally alone together. We drank herbal tea from a formal silver tea set. “Talk to me,” she said, and she did not sound like she was in a commercial.

I didn't have quite the words to answer. There was too much to say!

Angelina said, “I can't help you unless I know what's bothering you.”

I started with, “You and Jack broke up, then he moved away, and I had steps and a half sister. Now you're getting married, and I'll have another step and another half sib coming. I'm sick of it!”

“What would you have us do?” Angelina asked. “Not find other partners? Not ever be in love again? Not share our love with anyone but you?”

I hadn't considered it from this angle. “Hmm,” I said. I guessed now was not the time to tell Angelina about Ben and my first kiss.

“Annabel baby?”

“It's not that I don't want you to be happy,” I said. “But it's so many people, so quickly. And I only just started to like Lucy and Angus, and now I have to live with Wheaties?”

“His name is Alan,” Angelina pointed out. So that was his real name! Maybe everyone's called him Wheaties since nursery school because Alan sounds like a grown-up's name.

“Babies cry all the time!” I said. “Did you know that?” Beatrice was adorable, but try sleeping or reading or playing when she was hungry or tired!

Angelina laughed. “I remember. And I got a good reminder last night at dinner with Jack and Penny.”

“That's another thing,” I said. “I don't like it that you and Jack are still sore at each other. It makes me feel very strange if I want to talk to him about you, or to you about him. I don't like feeling I have to talk in secret to him on the phone so you won't hear us and feel bad all over again, or like I can't tell Jack about you because he gets all stressed hearing about you.”

Angelina stroked my hair. “I know. Your father and I were so young when we had you. We haven't always handled things in the best way. Only now that we're thirtysomething senior citizens of the world are we starting to figure out what we want and who we want to be with. But your dad and I would never, ever want you to feel awkward because we weren't able to work things out between us. That's why we got together for dinner last night. To try to make peace. To become friends. For your sake, and for ours. It's a pretty terrible thing to stay angry at someone for so long.”

“Really?” I asked. If Jack and Angelina could be friends, that would be a dream to me.

“We're going to try, baby. We're trying.”

I smiled.

Angelina said, “Guess what else? Yesterday Bubbe took Alan and Angus on a ferry ride around Sydney Harbour while Harvey and I had dinner with Jack and Penny. I think Angus is Bubbe's new boyfriend. They've developed quite an attachment.”

“She probably let him eat all the ice cream he wanted,” I said.

“Probably,” Angelina laughed.

“I like living at Bubbe's, Angelina,” I said.

“Annabel, I'm your mother. I think we've been just a little too cool with each other. It would be my privilege, honor, and joy for you to call me Mom.”

“Mom,” I muttered. How weird did that feel tripping off my tongue? Weird and exotic and just fine with me. I tried the name out again.
“Mom,
I'm not ready to move.”

“Bubbe, Harvey, and I talked about that on the plane ride over. Once we've found a place to buy, it will still be a few months before we could move in. So until then, we thought we could go slow, to give you time to become comfortable with this new arrangement. We thought you could spend weeknights at Bubbe's and weekends at Harvey's. And when we do move, we're planning to buy an apartment in the same neighborhood as Bubbe, so you'll never be far.”

“What about Wheaties?” I said.

“Alan,” Angelina-Mom reminded me.

“Alan,” I said, and rolled my eyes. I wasn't being fresh. Wheaties sounded better.

“He'll stay with Harvey and me. His mom lives in California.”

“He doesn't have a problem with that?”

“Not that he's told us. He's been reading the real estate listings for us, actually. He's pretty excited to move to a new apartment and have a baby brother or sister.” Wheaties had adored Angelina since nursery school. When we were four, he used to run into her arms so he could sniff her hair. I guess I was glad for him to have a stepmom-to-be as nice as Angelina, er, Mom.

All of a sudden Angelina-Mom jumped up from the sofa and ran into the bathroom. “I'll be right back!” she called out.

When she returned, she said, “Morning sickness. This pregnancy has been more like twenty-four/seven sickness, though.”

“Was I like that when you were pregnant with me, Mom?”

She took me in her arms and held me close. “You were perfect from the moment I found out I was pregnant. I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too, Ange—Mom.” I knew I was lucky to have her and Jack's safety and warmth.

“How long are you grounded for?” Lucy asked when we arrived at the Steps' house in Balmain for dinner.

“I'm not grounded,” I told Lucy. “It's worse. I get no allowance for six months, which means no shopping. I am banned from Bloomingdale's. But Harvey said in a couple of months, after the wedding, I could earn a couple bucks by helping him do inventory at one of his stores for a few hours on weekends. And no movies or TV for three months. What about you, Luce?”