Jack smiled at his friend’s genteel déshabillé. Buttons missing from the stained cashmere overcoat, expensive Italian shoes scuffed and cracked, the lapels of his Donna Karan jacket frayed: all part of Jule’s slow-motion decline since his daughter’s death. Emma had lost herself in her work; Jule merely got lost. He was a big man, six-foot-three, burly and elegant as a gangland lawyer, with curly black hair shot with white and the woeful brown eyes of a cartoon hound.
“That sonofabitch! I wondered what happened to him!” Jule roared with laughter, some joke that Jack had missed. At his side Emma shook her fuzzy blond curls as she cast a wary glance at Jule’s glass, and then at Jack.
“Mmm, he was kind of a head case,” she began, but her glance had drawn Jule’s: he downed his whiskey and poured another. Emma said nothing, only stared at Jack, her blue eyes beseeching.
Jack turned to his friend with a huge fake grin. “Uh hey, Jule—you wanna help me with something?” He motioned at the door behind them. “I got to fill the coal bin, you could do it in about three—”
Jule opened his mouth to boom some reply, then stopped, whiskey poised in midair as he stared into the entry room. Emma raised her eyebrows, Doctor Duck meeting a new patient.
“Umm—hello?” she suggested. “More company?”
Jack turned to see Marz standing in the doorway. Struwwelpeter hair combed for once, wearing a pink Shetland sweater and shapeless plaid uniform skirt. White bony bare legs, bare feet. She really did look like a refugee.
“Ah—who’s that?” said Jule sotto voce. “Kate Moss’s cadaver double?”
Jack frowned. “That is our houseguest. Marzana.”
“Marzana? What kind of name—”
“Jule,” warned Emma.
“Mary Anne,” said Keeley with a sweet smile.
“Hi,” said Marz. “I’m going to take a nap. Okay?” She turned to go upstairs.
“Let me help her,” cried Mrs. Iverson, and followed. Jule stared after them. When they were out of sight, he raised an eyebrow at Jack. “So tell me—did Fagin kick her out for not meeting her quota? Or what?”
“She’s a runaway.”
“Jack found her,” explained Keeley, “in the garden.”
“What, under a cabbage leaf?” Jule ignored a sharp poke from Emma. “Jackie?”
Jack sighed. “She was in the garden. She was crying—I mean, Christ, Jule, she’s just a kid—”
“How long?”
Jack hesitated. “Two months, I guess. Maybe three.”
“Three months?” exploded Jule. “Jackie, you—”
“She’s pregnant,” said Keeley. “I’m so glad you came, Emma—she hasn’t seen a doctor—”
“Pregnant?” Emma tilted her head. “Oh! Wow. Well. This is quite a lot for you all to be handling, Keeley. Jack. And for three months… I didn’t think it was that long since we talked.” She shot Jack an accusing look. “But you’ve spoken to Julie, Jack. About the magazine—why didn’t you tell us?”
“It wasn’t something I could just bring up. When it was—well, the phones,” said Jack defensively. “I wanted to call, I mean I tried to call—you know what it’s like.”
“But you’re sure she’s pregnant? She’s been tested? She’s been tested for everything?”
“Of course not! She hasn’t been tested for anything! I don’t even know who she is—”
“She sounds foreign,” brooded Jule.
Keeley set her teacup on the side table. “She’s Polish. Marzana is Polish for Mary Anne.”
Jule and Emma exchanged another look.
Keeley sighed. The Queen was weary of bickering courtiers. “I’m tired. Emma, could you help me upstairs?”
“I’m sorry, Keeley, of course, of course—” Emma helped Keeley to her feet and guided her from the room.
“You can stay for dinner?” Keeley’s voice was plaintive.
“Of course—we brought food, Jule will bring it in. You’re not to do a thing, Keeley, I forbid it. But if it’s all right, we thought we’d stay over tonight—”
“Oh, darling.” Keeley stopped, catching her breath, and looked up at Emma with full eyes. “We would love that.”
“Great!” Emma straightened. Her voice took on the brisk cheerfulness of the doctor on duty. “All right! Up we go.”
When they were gone Jule refilled his glass.
“Jackie, Jackie,” he rumbled, “you fucking idiot. Some cracked-out kid—”
Jack grabbed the bottle. He poured a shot into his teacup and gulped it. “I was going to call Emma. To ask what I should do with her.”
“What, like feed her?”
“No, you asshole. Like tell me whether I should call the Child Welfare League or whoever it is you call about things like this.”
“Have you tried the police?”
“No. I told you, I haven’t told anyone. The phones are too screwed up.” Jack hesitated, trying to remember exactly why he hadn’t called anyone. “I mean, Keeley just took her over. You think I should call the police?”
Jule shrugged and knocked back his drink. “Was she breaking into the house or anything like that?”
“No. She was here, though. I mean she was on our land, so she was technically trespassing, I guess.”
“Well, these days you’re not gonna get a big response to a call about some kid trespassing,” said Jule dryly. “My suggestion would be that you give her a nice meal—if you can get her to eat it, she looks like she’s pumping ice or some such shit—and send her packing before she causes trouble.”
“That’s what I thought,” Jack broke in, “but Keeley is doing the whole stray-cat thing—”
“Yeah? Well, then, maybe you should go the whole nine yards and do the whole stray-cat thing and like, dispose of her. Don’t give me that look. I just mean take her somewhere, drop her off, and let her go back to wherever she crawled from. Capische?”
“I know, I know.” Jack nodded unhappily. “But she’s pregnant—”
“And the sooner the better. I mean, weeping Christ on a stick, Jackie, what’re you thinking? A kid like that, alone here with you and all these old ladies? Sometimes I think you have no common sense.”
“But she’s pregnant.”
Jules looked aghast. “Jesus, Jackie—not by you? Okay, okay—I just thought, you know—it happens. That’d be right up there with the Immaculate Conception, huh, Jackie? Kinda skinny for my taste.”
Jack grinned ruefully. “She’s not a bad kid. She’s incredibly quiet.”
“Does she help out? With Grandmother and Mrs. Iverson?”
“I guess. I don’t know what she does, really. I think maybe she sleeps a lot. I haven’t spent much time with her. Alone, I mean. But no, she’s no trouble. And Keeley and Larena, they just seem to love her. I guess because she’s a girl.” Jack gave a broken laugh. “I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”
Jule leaned back on the couch, balancing his glass on one knee. “A girl. Yeah, girls are different.”
His tone grew wistful, and Jack looked up, fearful of what he might see on his friend’s face. But Jule seemed peaceful. After a moment he asked, “But how are you, Jackie? You look pretty good—”
“Good, good, I feel—”
“—but you look skinny.” Jule’s red face folded into worry. “You getting enough to eat here? I mean, all of you soaking wet weigh five pounds—you getting enough to eat?”