“Mommy, my socks feel weird.”
“Turn them inside out.”
“Can I take Cleo to school? Can I please? Please, Mommy? Oh, please?”
“Yes, but you’ll have to get her out of the dryer. Brendan, what did I ask you to do?”
Mary expertly flipped a portion of perfectly fluffed scrambled eggs onto each of their plates just as the bread in the four-slice toaster popped up.
“Breakfast!”
While the two older ones dug in, she took Adam to his room and dressed him in his red overalls and a sailor shirt. She cooed to him as she carried him back out to his high chair.
“Who’s the handsomest sailor in town? Who’s my little man?” she asked, and tickled him under his chinny-chin-chin.
“I’m your little man,” Brendan said with a smile. “I am, Mommy!”
“You’re my big little man,” Mary returned, chucking him lightly under the chin. She squeezed his shoulders. “And getting bigger every day.”
“That’s ’cause I clean my plate,” he said, chasing the last bit of egg onto a fork with the flat of his thumb.
“You’re a good cook, Mommy,” Ashley said.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Now come on, let’s go. B.B.W.W.”
While she cleared the dishes, Brendan and Ashley marched back down the hallway in a singsong chant. “Brush, brush, wash, wash. Teeth and hair, hands and face. Brush, brush, wash, wash . . .”
While the older two washed up, she put the dishes into the sink for later; gave Adam’s face a quick once-over with a wet paper towel; took the kids’ lunches, packed the night before, out of the fridge; and dropped each one into the appropriate knapsack.
“I’m going to put Adam into his car seat,” she called out. “Last one outside is a googly worm.”
Mary hated the rotten-egg thing, but she knew the value of a little innocent competition for keeping the kids in gear. She could hear them squealing in their rooms, half laughing, half scared they’d be the last one out the door and into her old jalopy. Gawd, who said jalopy anymore? Only Mary, Mary. And who said Gawd?
As she strapped Adam in, she tried to remember what it was that had kept her up so late the night before. The days—and now the nights as well—seemed to blur all together in a jumble of cooking, cleaning, driving, list-making, nose-wiping, and more driving. L.A. definitely had its major-league disadvantages. It seemed as if they spent half their lives in the car, stalled in traffic.
She should really get something more fuel efficient than the big old Suburban she had brought west.
She looked at her watch. Somehow, ten minutes had gone by. Ten precious minutes. How did that always happen? How did she seem to lose time?
She ran back to the front door and ushered Brendan and Ashley outside. “What is taking you two so long? We’re going to be late again. Jeezum crow, just look at the time,” said Mary Smith.
Chapter 5
HERE WE WERE, smack in the middle of an age of angry and cynical myth-busting, and suddenly I was being called “America’s Sherlock Holmes” in one of the country’s more influential, or at least best-read, magazines. What a complete crock that was, and it was still bugging me that morning. An investigative journalist named James Truscott had decided to follow me around and report on the murder cases I was working on. I’d fooled him, though. I’d gone on vacation with the family.
“I’m going to Disneyland!” I told Truscott and laughed the last time I’d seen him in D.C. The writer had only smirked in response.
For anyone else, maybe a vacation was an ordinary thing. Happened all the time, twice a year sometimes. For the Cross family, it was a major event, a new beginning.
Appropriately, “A Whole New World” was playing in the hotel lobby as we passed through.
“Come on, you pokes!” Jannie urged us as she ran ahead. Damon, newly minted teenager, was somewhat more reserved. He stuck close and held the door for Nana as we passed from air-conditioned comfort out into bright Southern California sunshine.
Actually, it was a full-out attack on the senses from the moment we left the hotel. Scents of cinnamon, fried dough, and some kind of zingy Mexican food reached our noses all at the same time. I could also hear the distant roar of a freight train, or so it seemed, along with screams of terror—the good kind, the “don’t stop” kind. I’d heard enough of the other kind to appreciate the difference.
Against all odds, I had put in for vacation, been approved, and actually gotten out of town before FBI Director Burns or his people came up with a half-dozen reasons why I couldn’t go away at this time. The kids’ first choice had been Disney World and Epcot Village in Florida. For my own reasons, and also since it was hurricane season down South, I steered us to Disneyland and their newest park, Disney’s California Adventure.
“California, indeed.” Nana Mama shaded her eyes from the sun glare. “I haven’t seen a naturally occurring thing since we arrived here, Alex. Have you?”