Blue Bloods (Blue Bloods 1) - Page 21
The two of them loped up the stairs. Schuyler walked inside her room and shut the door behind her dog.
"Home so soon?"
Schuyler nearly jumped out of her coat. Beauty barked, then wagged her tail, galloping joyfully toward the intruder. Schuyler turned to find her grandmother sitting on the bed with a stern expression. Cordelia Van Alen was a small, birdlike woman - it was easy to see where Schuyler got her delicate frame and her deep-set eyes, although Cordelia usually dismissed remarks about family resemblance. Cordelia's eyes were blue and bright, and they stared intensely at her granddaughter.
"Cordelia, I didn't see you," Schuyler explained.
Schuyler's grandmother had forbidden her to call her Grandmother, or Grandma, or as she heard some children call them, Nana. It would be nice to have a Nana, a warm and chubby maternal figure, whose very name spelled love and homemade chocolate chip cookies. But instead, all Schuyler had was Cordelia. A still-beautiful, elegant woman, who looked to be in her eighties or nineties, Schuyler never knew which. Some days, Cordelia looked young enough to be in her fifties (or forties even, if Schuyler was being honest with herself). Cordelia sat ramrod straight, dressed in a black cashmere cardigan and flowing jersey pants, her legs crossed delicately at the ankles. On her feet were black Chanel ballet slippers.
All throughout Schuyler's childhood, Cordelia had been a presence. Not a parental, or even an affectionate one, but a presence nonetheless. It was Cordelia who had changed Schuyler's birth certificate so that her last name was her mother's and not her father's. It was Cordelia who had enrolled her at the Duchesne School. Cordelia who signed her permission slips, monitored her report cards, and provided her with a paltry allowance.
"School let out early," Schuyler said. "Aggie Carondolet died."
"I know." Cordelia's face changed. A flash of emotion flickered across the stern features - fear, anxiety, concern, even?
"Are you all right?"
Schuyler nodded. She barely even knew Aggie. Sure, they'd been going to the same school for more than a decade, but it didn't mean they were friends.
"I've got homework to do." Schuyler said, as she unbuttoned her coat and shook off her sweater, peeling each layer of clothing until she stood in front of her grandmother in a thin white tanktop and black leggings.
Schuyler was half afraid of her grandmother, but had grown to love her even though Cordelia never showed any inclination of reciprocating the sentiment. The most palpable emotion Schuyler could detect was a grudging tolerance. Her grandmother tolerated her. She didn't approve of her, but she tolerated her.
"Your marks are getting worse," Cordelia noted, meaning Schuyler's forearms.
Schuyler nodded. Streaks of pale blue lines blossomed in an intricate pattern, visible under the skin's surface, on the underside of her forearms all the way to her wrist. The prominent blue veins had appeared a week shy of her fifteenth birthday. They didn't hurt, but they did itch. It was as if all of a sudden she was growing out of her skin - or into it - somehow.
"They look the same to me," Schuyler replied.
"Don't forget about your appointment with Dr. Pat."
Schuyler nodded.
Beauty made herself at home on Schuyler's duvet, looking out the window toward the river twinkling behind the trees.
Cordelia began to pat Beauty's smooth fur. "I had a dog like this once," she said. "When I was about your age. Your mother did, too." Cordelia smiled wistfully.
Her grandmother rarely talked about Schuyler's mother, who, technically, wasn't dead she'd slipped into a coma when Schuyler was hardly a year old, and had been trapped in that state ever since. The doctors all agreed she registered normal brain activity, and that she could wake up at any moment. But she never had. Schuyler visited her mother every Sunday at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital to read to her from the Sunday Times.
Schuyler didn't have many memories of her mother - apart from a sad, beautiful woman who sang lullabies to her in the crib. Maybe she just remembered that her mother looked sad because that's how she looked now, when she was asleep - there was a melancholy cast to her features. A lovely, sorrowful-looking woman with folded hands, her platinum hair fanned against the pillow.
She wanted to ask her grandmother more questions about her mother and her bloodhound - but the faraway look had left Cordelia's face, and Schuyler knew she wouldn't get any more tidbits about her mother that night.
"Dinner at six," her grandmother said, leaving the room.
"Yes, Cordelia," Schuyler mumbled.
She closed her eyes and lay on the bed, leaning against Beauty. The sun began to set through the blinds. Her grandmother was such an enigma. Schuyler wished, not for the first time, that she were a normal girl, with a normal family. She felt very lonely all of a sudden. She wondered if she should have told Oliver about Jack's note. She'd never kept something like that from him before. But she was worried he'd just call her silly for falling for some stupid joke.
Then her phone beeped. Oliver's number flashed on the text message, almost as if he knew how she was feeling right then.
MISS U BABE.
Schuyler smiled. She might not have parents. But at least she had one true friend.
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