“I guess that’s great.” I don’t dwell on her lack of enthusiasm as Lulu trudges into the kitchen.
“I think it’s poo-poo,” she mutters.
So it isn’t quite 5th Avenue, but it’s more than adequate for our needs.
“Would you like to talk to Tante Rose now?” I ask, sending her a quelling look.
“Yes, please.”
I pass over my phone, and Lulu begins to fill her godmother in with the details of her New York experience.
School is good.
She likes her teacher.
Her new best friend is called Zara.
Does she know New York has spouts where steam comes out of all the time like an old-fashioned train?
The new apartment is small, but it’s nice. (Lulu’s turn to send me a look this time as though to say is that fib big enough for you?) She doesn’t look forward to travelling by subway to school, and it’s going to take so long to get there (she’s right on that front, but what can I do?), and she doesn’t know how she’s going to talk to Uncle Carson’s plants when she’s living somewhere else and—
“My turn!” I say quickly, intercepting the call before she says anything else incriminating. “Say goodbye now.”
As I reach for the phone, Lulu spins until her back is facing me, raising her shoulder to make it difficult for me to grab my phone.
“Yes, I did say Uncle Carson. Same as Rocco calls him. He showed me photos, and he made me pancakes for bre’fast and paid me lots of dollars to talk to his plants while he’s on holiday. And do you want to know a secret, Tante Rose? I saw him try to kiss Mommy in the kitchen.”
“Thank you!” This time, I snatch the phone out of her hand. “Isn’t it amazing how fast Lu’s accent has changed?” I whitter, my heart beating a million times a minute as I bring it to my ear.
“Uncle Carson tried to kiss you, huh?”
“And he made me a princess—” I cut off Lulu the loudmouth’s shout by clapping my hand across her mouth. “There was no kissing,” I say definitively, shooting Lu a narrow-eyed don’t-you-dare glance. Over my fingers, she glares back.
“He called and said you guys had met, but he failed to mention any lip-locking.”
“Because there wasn’t any. You know what kids are like,” I declare a little half-heartedly. “Go and get yourself a glass, Lu.” I send my daughter another frown just for good measure as I yank open the fridge. “He was here for, like, two minutes. And that was weeks ago.” Eighteen days but who’s counting. Not me. Even if his absence has been surprisingly harder to adjust to than the crush of people on the streets or the rumble of the subway underfoot. “I mean, why would I kiss him? It’s just ludicrous!”
“I can think of one or two reasons.” Rose’s words are wavery with laughter. “Maybe even five years’ worth of them.”
“Ha, so funny,” I reply in a withering tone. “So funny it’s not actually funny at all.”
“Even if kissing Carson sounds like a title to an awesome country song?”
“It sounds more like one of Taylor Swift’s numbers. And you know her songs and me are never ever ever heard in the same room together.”
“I’m taking a cookie.” Lulu glowers, her hand already in the jar as though daring me to argue. If a cookie is the price of her silence, she’s welcome to it.
“Biscuits. They’re called biscuits,” I call after her, asserting my authority when and where I can.
“When in Rome,” Rose interjects.
“Yes, and when in New York, a biscuit is a cookie,” I find myself mumbling as I watch Lulu ignore the glass of milk in favour of the den and mindless kids' TV.
More hush money spoils I’m not going to argue over right now. Not with an audience.
“But what does New York make Fee?”
Right now, a little jittery. “New York still makes me a dull girl, I’m afraid,” I reply instead.
“There’s nothing dull about you, even if your love life could do with a little sparkle. Speaking of, what did you think of kissing Carson?
“I did not kiss him.” I wonder how many times I’ll get to repeat that before the big man upstairs smites me good and proper as punishment.
“What did you think of him?”
“I don’t think of him at all!” Except all of the time, and in a lot of those thoughts, he’s wearing that naughty smile of his and very few clothes.
“That’s not what I asked.” It’s Rose’s turn to sing-song now, it seems.
“What I meant to say was he wasn’t here long enough for me to form any kind of opinion.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I don’t know why.” Especially when I’m doing my best to convince you right now.
“You remember Amber, my friend?” she asks out of nowhere. “She’s married to the Australian.”