Triple Love Score (6 page)

“See,” Miranda said, “to people watching on television that’s magic. But it’s not magic. It’s a year of planning and then people working all night on the day before a family holiday to pull it off.”

“But it’s magic to her,” Scott said.

Lynn strained at the barricade, craning her neck to see down the street and the rest of the balloons staged there.

“Sure, it’s magic to her. She’s a kid. Kids have to believe in magic. When you really grow up, it’s different.”

“I guess I’m not really grown up then,” Scott said. “And maybe I don’t want to be.”

“So you haven’t changed?” she asked.

“Whoa, that’s a little unfair. But maybe I haven’t, not on the inside. You haven’t either, Randa. We’re still like yin and yang, don’t you think?”

She did think so, but she didn’t want to admit that, at least not out loud. At least not yet.

They rounded the corner, and there was Kermit the Frog, face forward with a huge fisherman’s net weighing him down. The air inside the balloon shifted, and it looked like Kermit was breathing. For a second, Miranda imagined him lifting up his head and saying, “Hi ho, Kermit the Frog here.”

“Wow,” Lynn said. “Look at Kermit. He’s bigger than a bus. Two buses!” Lynn rushed forward to the barricade and the mass of people congregated there. “Look they have to hold him down. It’s just like trying to keep your balloon at the carnival. Only, bigger. A lot bigger.” Lynn bounced up and down and clapped.

Miranda couldn’t help herself; she clapped, too.

“Turn around, you two,” Scott called. He held up his phone and snapped a picture of them clapping in front of Kermit.

They moved up the row. Hello Kitty, only partially inflated, incited a sort of polka from Lynn. She galloped around Miranda and Scott spouting facts about Hello Kitty and her twin sister, Mimmy.

“I didn’t even know Hello Kitty had a sister,” Miranda whispered to Scott as they moved up the row to Sonic the Hedgehog.

“You learn lots of things when you have a kid,” he said.

“About Hello Kitty?”

“Yes, and other important stuff. Like this.” He gestured to the space between them. “I’m glad you came tonight.”

“I’m not allowed to play that,” Lynn said pointing one mitten-covered hand at Sonic. She didn’t dance, but instead turned her nose up at Sonic and kept going.

“Who is that?” she asked, pointing to the Pink Panther.

Scott started to hum the theme song and slink up the sidewalk, looking side to side like a detective on the watch.

Lynn watched; her brow furrowed as she looked from her Dad to the balloon.

“He’s a detective,” Miranda said.

“A pink cat detective?” Lynn asked.

“Yup, it’s hard to explain. You have to see it. Maybe we can watch it together one day. As you can tell, it’s one of your dad’s favorites.”

“Really?” Lynn asked. “I’d like that.”

Lynn’s pace slowed, and the crowd surrounding the balloons started to thin out. Almost all the balloons were inflated. The workers even started to break down some of the barricades and head home for a few hours of sleep before the big day.

“Tell me a story about my dad,” Lynn said, snuggling next to Miranda on the train home. Scott sat across from them, holding his head in his hands, faking concern.

“You don’t want to hear any of her stories,” he said.

“But, Daddy, you said she tells the best stories. You said she was a writer. A real writer, exact quote!”

“She does tell the best stories, but not about me.”

“Really? Not about you?” Miranda asked. “Let me find a good one.”

“I knew you would do it, Randa. You’re my best friend.”

“Best friend? I like that. Shake on it.” Miranda extended a gloved hand.

Lynn shook off her mitten. “No glove,” she said. “We have to do this for real.”

“Okay, for real,” Miranda said, removing her glove and accepting the shake. But it wasn’t any ordinary handshake; Miranda remembered it clearly. Lynn first moved Miranda’s hand up and down, then curled her fingers into a fist. They tapped their fists together, first Lynn’s on top, then Miranda’s on top. Then they flipped their hands and touched the backs of their hands together before wiggling their fingers over their heads.

“That’s a story I could tell you about your Dad. I could tell you where that handshake came from.”

“I remember that,” Scott said. “We were just kids.”

“I was eight,” Miranda said. “I had just gotten back from that disastrous summer camp with the horses.”

“Horses,” Lynn chimed in. “I love horses.”

“I love horses, too,” Miranda said, “But I don’t love jumping over things while on a horse.”

“They made you do that?”

“Yup, until I fell off and broke my arm.”

“Wowzer,” Lynn said. “That smarts.”

“Smarts indeed. And it meant I couldn’t go swimming that summer when we went to the beach. But your dad, even though he loves swimming, he stayed with me on the deck the entire trip. We made a fort to keep out of the sun and everything. Your dad named it Randa’s Cove. We demanded Oreo cookies and portage to the ice cream store for passage to the other side of the deck and the propane grill.”

“Like a pirate’s fort?”

“Exactly, but we needed a secret handshake to protect it. You can’t let just anyone into your fort, you know.”

Lynn’s head started to lean more heavily against Miranda’s shoulder. She nodded a little. “Uh huh,” she mumbled.

“So we worked out the handshake. It didn’t use to have the wiggling fingers at the end though; we added that when your Grandpa Linden started to figure it out.”

Lynn’s eyes closed, and her breathing shifted to the slow rhythm of sleep. Miranda looked up to see Scott smiling at them.

“How did you wind up with this magical kid?” Miranda asked. “Eventually, you are going to have to tell me.”

“Shhh,” Scott said. “We don’t want to wake her. It’s late.” He reached across and squeezed her knee. “Thank you for tonight,” he said, before leaning his head against the window and closing his eyes.

Miranda steadied herself; she didn’t want to move and break the spell.

At the house, Scott carried Lynn out of the car. He waved to Miranda at the top of the landing and disappeared into the guest room furthest from hers. She watched the door close softly. With no other sounds in the house, it was easy to pretend this night didn’t just happen. Maybe it was better, safer even, to believe that there was no magic in the world, nothing exceptional, nothing worth noting year to year.

The Scrabble board remained out on her bed. She pulled out some tiles and spelled out magic. Magic, cannot, hold.

I
N THE MORNING, Lynn knocked twice, then leapt across the hardwood floor, to the Persian rug, and landed in the middle of Miranda’s comforter.

“Best friend,” she whispered, “it’s time.”

Miranda glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Too early, much too early. “Time?” she asked.

“The parade. We must see our new friends from last night. Please come.”

“Lynn,” Scott called out, trying to whisper, but failing. “Lynn,” he said again, this time a hiss.

Lynn burrowed under Miranda’s duvet, signaled a shush with one slender finger over her beautifully pink lips. Miranda sat up, grabbed her phone, and stared at it, pretending to be keying a vital, supremely urgent text. Scott poked his head in. Without knocking.

“Randa,” he said.

“Umm,” she said. She held up the universal symbol for one minute. Luckily, pillows filled the bed. Lynn could hide, and if no one saw her arrival they wouldn’t know. If she stayed as still as a pillow, that is.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.” And he pulled his head back out of the room.

Miranda and Lynn both took a deep breath. They let it out with a flurry of giggles.

Scott quickly poked his head back in. “I knew it,” he said. “The parade starts in ten. I’m making French toast, not that you sneaks deserve any.”

“I’ll help,” Lynn said. “I’ll cut the shapes.” She climbed out of bed and marched toward him.

“Take your vitamins,” Scott called out. “

“No,” Lynn said.

“Take them or no parade.”

“No,” she said again.

“Scott, it’s a holiday. Relax,” Miranda said.

“Randa. Don’t. Lynn, vitamins now.”

Miranda heard her heavy footsteps across the hall.

“Wow. You’re tough.”

“Not now, Miranda.”

“No really, an ogre routine before nine in the morning? She was just waking me up for the parade. I didn’t mind. You don’t have to be so mad at her.”

“I’m not. Just drop it, okay? I’m not mad at her. She just needs to take her vitamins.”

“Vitamins? Really?”

“Yeah, okay, can you drop it? It’s none of your business.” Then he turned his back to her and shut the door to her bedroom. The hollow thud filled the room. Something caught in her throat.

When Miranda finally got downstairs, the marching bands were in full swing. Lynn sat in the middle of the den, staring up at the screen, her plate of French toast untouched in front of her.

“Eat, sugar. It will help,” Scott said.

“It never helps,” she said.

Scott put his arm around Lynn, who started to cry.

Miranda stepped back from the den, afraid to interrupt.When Bunny Cramer arrived, the whole town knew it. Maybe all of Connecticut knew it. Perhaps the earth tremors with the anticipation of her every word just as Bunny Cramer believed it should. Today, she appeared in the foyer, an old-school fox stole draped around her shoulders and her outfit a splendor of russet wools and earthy plaids like something from a British hunting catalogue. “Darlings,” she called out. “I am Thanksgiving, and I am here.”

To Miranda, Bunny would have made an excellent drag queen. Her impeccable taste, over-the-top attitude, and ability to captivate a room made her a star of whatever constellation she orbited. She and Louise joined sides at a girlhood summer camp and never once let anything get in the way of their lifelong friendship. Despite her fancy clothes and big personality, Bunny held Louise’s hand through vomiting after chemo, helped her shave her head, and tried to teach Miranda that the world still had light even though Louise had left it. For this, Miranda would always love Bunny Cramer, even though at the moment she would like to scream at her. And Linden. And her father. Still, she got up and went out to the foyer.

Lynn apparently had the same idea. “Grandma Bunny,” she squealed.

“Granddaughter Lynn!” Bunny squealed back.

They stood face to face and jumped up and down.

Bunny raised a hand out like a stop sign. “Let me see your outfit,” she said.

Lynn stopped bouncing. She wore a pink sweatshirt with a yellow star in the center and pink sweat pants with a rainbow stripe down both legs. Her rainbow socks had slots for each individual toe. She wiggled her toes, her energy and desire to move barely contained.

Bunny looked her up and down. “Really, Miss? Don’t you think you’d rather try on this?” From a bag at her feet, Bunny pulled out a gorgeous green velvet dress with ivory lace trim. Even on a hanger you could tell the skirt would be perfect for twirling. “You brought tights, right? I told you to on the phone.”

Lynn resumed bouncing. “Yes, yes, yes. I did. I brought the tights. New ones!! Can I go change?”

“You certainly may. But hug me first.”

Lynn flung herself at Bunny, crushing the dress and burying her face in the fur stole. She pulled back a little, and then reached up a tiny hand to pet the fur. “Real?” she asked.

“Do you need to ask?”

“Oh,” Lynn said, taking the dress.

“Go change, I’m dying to see my pretty granddaughter done up right.”

Lynn rushed past Miranda, holding up the dress. “Randa Panda, look!”

Before Miranda could respond, Lynn rocketed up the stairs.

“Randa Panda,” Bunny said. “I see Scott is still as suave as ever and passing it on to the child.”

“I don’t mind,” Miranda said. “She’s a neat kid.”

“Of course, she is! Would my grandchild be any less?”

“Never, Bunny.” Miranda stood amazed at this transformation. How could you go from denying a child’s existence to insisting on her excellence?