Some Kind of Miracle (25 page)

“You’re nuts, Louie.”

“Oh, am I? From now on I’m making sure her interests are taken care of by a business expert. Me! You want to work with her? You call me, and I’ll let you know if she’s available,” he said. Then he marched past her to where he’d seen Sunny disappear, and within a few seconds he hustled Sunny out of the room toward the door. Sunny was carrying the same Macy’s shopping bag she’d brought to Dahlia’s, and it was filled with a lot of clothes.

“Bye, Dahl,” Sunny said. “I’ll call you.” And she never looked back as Louie escorted her to his car.

F
or the next week, every time Dahlia called Louie’s house, which she did at least twice a day, the answering machine picked up. By now she had the damned message memorized. “This is Kassie, this is Robin, and this is Michael,” the children said individually in their cute little singsong voices. Then in a chorus they said, “We’re not here right now, but leave us a message and we’ll call ya back as soon as we can. Bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye,” Dahlia said along with them, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice as she left another message.

“Uh, hi…this is Dahlia calling again to speak to Sunny. Please ask her to call me,” she said, knowing that it was futile.

Louie had to be the one who played the messages back at the end of the day and then never even men
tioned to Sunny that Dahlia had called. Some things never changed. Here it was all these years later, and Louie was still jealous of his sister’s relationship with Dahlia.

Harry Brenner called her every day to tell her that he and the engineer were mixing the tracks, which sounded great, and to describe his plans for the demo. He knew exactly where he was planning to send it and who the music business biggies were that he was planning to assault with phone calls after he was sure they’d received the demos. He was confident about how much they were going to love the music. But Dahlia barely heard a word he said. Her house was empty, and she felt lonelier than she ever had before she’d met Seth, and long before Sunny came back into her life.

It was the eighth day of no return call from Sunny. Every day Dahlia tried working on a few new songs but couldn’t seem to finish any of them. Yesterday at the market, she threw a package of tortillas into her basket because Sunny’s favorite dinner was burritos. She was all the way at the checkout line when she remembered she wasn’t cooking for Sunny anymore, and sadly she wheeled the cart back to the tortilla section and tossed them back into the case.

Today she was sitting at the piano with the French doors open to the brick patio, and she heard an odd chirpy sound and looked outside. On the small glass end table next to one of the patio chairs sat a creature that had to be Rose, the squirrel, looking right back at her.

“I know,” Dahlia said. “I miss her, too.”

Then she played “Stay by My Side” at a melancholy tempo, and it sounded like a dirge. She decided to focus on the newspaper, so she turned the pages until she found what she was looking for. The astrological forecast. Then she moved her finger down the column to her astrological sign, Pisces. Her horoscope today read
Getting together with family members will cheer you.

“Ha! I
would
if they’d pick up the freaking phone,” she said out loud sadly to the newspaper. Then she dumped cornflakes into a bowl and poured some milk on top of them, realizing, when she looked at the contents of the bowl that she hated cornflakes. She was thinking about making some toast when she stopped and listened, trying to figure out what that insistent little tweeting sound was that she heard repeating itself again and again. Then she walked in the direction of the bedroom, because it sounded as if it were coming from there.

Of course! It was that silly plastic timer she’d bought to remind her every morning to make sure Sunny took her pill. She hadn’t seen it since Sunny left and hadn’t bothered to look for it, but now it had gone off for some unknown reason and it wouldn’t stop beeping until she pushed the off button. She marched into the bedroom following the sound, which seemed to be coming from somewhere in her dresser, but she couldn’t tell where.

“Damn it,” she said aloud as she tore open each drawer and pawed through it. First the underwear drawer, then the T-shirt drawer, until she finally spotted the stupid timer under the dresser, where it must have fallen. With a sigh she stooped, grabbed for it,
and pushed the off button, then sat on the floor holding the timer in her hand and let herself cry.

Lolly stood at the door of the apartment. The baby-sitter was standing a few feet behind her. “Who
is
it, Lol?” she asked.

“Nobody,” Lolly said, and her reply was so obviously intended as an insult that Dahlia had to stop herself from laughing. “My dad’s not here,” Lolly seemed pleased to be able to report to Dahlia.

“Didn’t come to see him,” Dahlia said.

“Try his office,” Lolly said, and she started to close the door, but Dahlia stopped it with her foot.

“I came to bring something for you.”

“Oh, right,” Lolly said, scowling in disbelief.

“I was cleaning my apartment, and I came across some things I don’t use anymore. I thought you’d like to have them.”

Lolly’s eyes looked tired. The expression in them was a cynicism far too developed for someone her age. She folded her arms in front of her chest and pursed her lips, waiting to hear what Dahlia would say next.

“Okay, what is it?” she asked.

Dahlia reached behind her back and produced the turquoise Chinese silk box that had been her mother’s and then hers. That morning she had sifted through it and removed a few of the best pieces and transferred those to a shoe box, but what was left inside was a treasure trove of glittering baubles, dozens of costume pieces she knew she would never wear.

Lolly stood silently as Dahlia opened the box, and when she saw all the sparkling necklaces and
bracelets and rings piled inside like pirates’ treasure, she grinned a grin much bigger than any Dahlia had seen on her face before.

“Where’d you get these?” Lolly asked.

“From my mother.”

“Wow! And how come you brought them over here?”

“Because I never wear them, and I said to myself, ‘Who do I know who likes sparkly stuff?’ And I remembered that your dad told me you like to play dress-up. So I thought…”

Lolly was touching the long strand of pearls and slowly extracting them from the box, then hanging them around her neck, looking down to see that the strand was so long on her that it nearly touched the floor.

“Oooh,” she said. “You’re giving this stuff to me?”

Dahlia nodded. “The box, too,” she said.

“Lolly,” Dahlia heard the baby-sitter call from inside, and then the woman was standing in the doorway. A middle-aged blonde wearing a green hooded sweatshirt and jeans.

“It’s okay, Mary,” Lolly said. “She’s my dad’s old girlfriend, and she wanted to bring me some stuff.”

The sitter smiled and went back inside, and Lolly came out and sat on the front step so she could go through the contents of the box. “Awesome,” she said. “I love this,” and she tried to clip a jet-bead earring onto her tiny lobe but couldn’t do it. “Will you help me?” she asked, and Dahlia did, while Lolly fished around in the box for the earring’s mate.

This poor little girl, Dahlia thought. Her mother
walked out on her. She’ll probably never get over that. She’ll always wonder what she did to make that happen. She’ll always hurt when she sees girls who are close to their mothers. She’ll have to limp along without that mentor in her corner to give her the kind of audience only mothers can give.

Dahlia and Rose. Two flowers in the vase. Remembering her mother made her want to pull Lolly onto her lap and give her a reassuring hug. But she knew she hadn’t earned that right with this child, and she felt sorry for all the times she could have been warm to her instead of distant. But she’d been afraid to let herself get too close, because she was so sure that she and Seth wouldn’t last, and then she’d have to part with not just him but the kid, too.

Now the sitter was back in the doorway.

“Lolly, you have to come and get cleaned up for ballet,” she said. “I’m going to take you, and Daddy’s going to pick you up.”

“Mary, look what Dahlia gave me!” Lolly said, standing and turning her head to show off the earrings and the long pearls.

“Very nice,” Mary said in one of those voices adults use to humor kids. “Now, say good-bye and come along.”

“Bye,” Lolly said as she picked up the jewelry box and headed inside, but she turned back to see Dahlia still standing there and added, “Thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Dahlia said, watching the door close and then walking slowly back to her car, wondering if what she’d just done was stupid or maybe even desperate. When Lolly saw Seth that night,
would she tell him that Dahlia had brought her jewelry, and would he think, Too little too late, babe! Forget trying to worm your way back through the kid.

Somewhere among Dahlia’s old photos there was a yellowing picture her mother used to have in a frame in the living room. It was a still shot her father had taken when Rose was trying to teach the seven-year-old Dahlia to ride a bike. She was afraid but determined to learn, and that particular day she’d been nervously wobbling along on the tiny old two-wheeler that had once been Sunny’s, with Rose holding on to the back and running along to keep the bike balanced.

“Don’t let go yet, don’t let go yet!” Dahlia would shout, and Rose didn’t. She held tightly until the moment she was certain by the feeling in her hands that Dahlia had the balance on her own, that Dahlia had finally incorporated the feeling into her own body, the sense of how she had to sit and move and tip to go it alone. And at the very instant she felt it, Rose lifted her arms joyously to the sky, Dahlia felt the ecstasy of her independence, which registered clearly on her face, and her father was there with the camera capturing the moment.

That was what being a parent meant. That’s what being a valuable adult to a child was about. That kind of moment, not bringing her junk jewelry. Seth would probably laugh at the whole idea of Dahlia’s showing up with that stuff. But never mind. At least she’d made the kid smile for a change.

“Dahl, it’s me.”

“Sun? Are you okay! I’ve tried to call you a million times.”

“Really? Nobody around here mentioned it. I’ve been so busy with these children—and, Dahl, they are amazingly fabulous. You have to get to know them. They’re everything we wanted to be and more. Yesterday was their school fair, and Penny had to stay home and cook for this party she’s having, so I helped Kassie out in the face-painting booth. I’m really good at that! Maybe from all those years of nail polish,” she said, laughing.

“Anyway, I’m calling to tell you that there’s a big party here tomorrow night. Louie says he wants to show me off, so he’s invited a million people—some are in show business and some are just wholesale-hardware people—but I said I’d sing for them. The kids have never heard our songs, and Louie’s pushing it, so I thought…” Then there was silence on the line between them until Sunny said, “Dahl, I know you won’t like this, but I’m thinking about letting Louie manage me. I mean, he says he’s the only one I can trust. So I figure what he doesn’t have in experience, he makes up for in being on my side. And he says business is business. He’s convinced that if he can sell hardware, he can sell me. He says it’s okay with him if you use Harry to manage your half of the act, and I’ll use Louie for mine.”

“Louie’s wrong,” Dahlia said, her heart sinking, knowing that the battle lines were being drawn. The music business was hard enough without having to fight Louie from getting in the way of their success. “It’s not the same as selling a bicycle lock.”

“We’ll talk about it more when I see you,” Sunny said. “My mother used to say when there was a big decision that has to be made, ‘Hide and watch, and something will happen to tell you what to do.’ And I know it’s last-minute, but I really want you here for the party. Will you come?”

“Sure,” Dahlia said, certain that Louie would bristle when he saw her, but hoping that once she and Sunny were in the same room, she’d be able to convince her not only to come back but that Louie was a louse.

“I’ll see you here at five?” Sunny said.

“Yep.”

Dahlia hadn’t been to Louie’s house in years, but she remembered the tree-lined street where his small, pretty bungalow sat at the very middle of the cul-de-sac. A cute young valet-parking guy in a red vest said, “I love your car,” as he drove off to park it. Dahlia was perspiring as she rang the bell, and it wasn’t a very hot day. She could hear the piano and the voices of the crowd inside, and after a while a woman opened the door. It was Penny, Louie’s round little wife who matched him in size and shape as if they were salt and pepper shakers, except for their hair. Louie was balding, and Penny had a big pouf of red curls. The last time Dahlia had seen her, she was wearing her hair straightened and sprayed into a bouffant, but now the curls were natural and flyaway around her face.

“Penny? It’s Dahlia.”

Penny smiled and opened the door, then gave her a perfunctory hug and said, “Dahlia, it’s been far too long,” in an icy voice that made Dahlia know it was
only because of Sunny’s coercing that she’d been invited here at all.

The house was in a much better neighborhood than the one where Dahlia and Sunny and Louie had grown up, but the crowded living room, filled with people holding drinks in plastic cups and the buffet platter with cold cuts and paper plates and plastic utensils and large bottles of cola on it, made it look so much like a throwback to the way her parents and Sunny’s parents used to set up every party that Dahlia felt as if she were back in the past. A hired piano player wearing a white shirt and a bow tie sat at the upright piano in Louie’s family room playing “Moon River.”

Louie was out by the pool. Dahlia could see him through the glass doors talking and laughing with a few of the men. He was wearing jeans and an open denim shirt, and even from that distance, she could see he was wearing a thick gold chain around his neck. His dark Ray-Ban glasses were perched on his head, and he wore soft black leather loafers without socks. Wow, Dahlia thought. Give a guy his first showbiz management client and he goes Hollywood.

When Louie spotted Dahlia, he broke away from the men and headed toward her with what she could see was a tight smile on his face. A smile she knew was strictly for the benefit of the company. As soon as he was close enough to her so that she was the only one who could hear him over the surrounding din, he put his hand on her arm and squeezed. “Let’s be clear that from now on I’m in charge of every aspect of her career.” Then he held out his pudgy hand and enumer
ated his ideas about Sunny in a speech he’d obviously been rehearsing.