“I need a Laylah fix,” she told Jackie Weir when she answered the lacquered goldenrod door on Shakespeare Street. “Has she eaten breakfast yet? May I take her to Jimmy’s with me?”
“She’s not eaten breakfast, but that’s not my fault,” Jackie said drily. “The kitchen is knee-deep in Cheerios and bananas. Please take her with you. Keep her for a little while, why don’t you? You can bring her back when she has a college degree.”
“Right,” Tess said. She’d hate to see what happened to anyone who dared to get between Jackie Weir and her toddler daughter, Laylah. She followed Jackie into the kitchen, noting with great glee the disorder that Laylah brought to what otherwise would be a too orderly house. She had wrought the same transformation on her just-so mother, softening the grim perfection that had been her trademark. If anything, Jackie was more beautiful these days, lipstick forgotten as often as not, her clothes decorated with juice stains and smashed banana bits.
“What brought on today’s sudden urging?” Jackie asked, wiping down Laylah’s face and then lifting her from her booster seat. They were both still in their night clothes-a pale pink sleep suit for Laylah, a red cashmere robe over what appeared to be silk pajamas for Jackie. “Did the biological clock go off in the middle of the night? Did Crow try that ‘I-want-to-have-a-baby-with-you’ crap that some men think is so sexy?”
“Please-I don’t have generic baby needs. I have Laylah needs, pure and simple. Morning, sweetie.”
“Sssser. Sssser.” Laylah held out her arms to Tess and chugged her feet, as if she could run through the air. Tess thought she might be able to. She looked like more of a person as she grew, but she still had her Puckish features, her endless delight at the world around her. People who didn’t know better were always commenting on the resemblance between mother and daughter. Their skin was the same color, a velvety dark brown that was richer, lusher than the prosaic comparisons it inspired. But Jackie’s features brought to mind Nefertiti, while Tess never looked at Laylah without thinking of an African-American Harpo in full googly mode.
And never failed to feel better for it.
“What does Laylah want for Christmas?” She asked her question sotto voce, as if Laylah might know what was going on.
“Nothing,” Jackie said, her voice sharp, her smile fond. “Between your mother and you, this girl is already spoiled rotten. It won’t be long before she’s presenting me with a careful list of her material needs, with links to Internet toy sites, and a cc of her e-mail to Santa. Let’s enjoy this part while it lasts.”
Laylah pulled at Tess’s braid with warm, sticky palms. She liked to pull on Esskay’s tail, too, but the dog wasn’t as easygoing.
“Whatever you say, Mom. What do you want for Christmas, by the way? You’re terrifying to shop for, your taste is so good.”
“I’d like a four-year plan that will put Baltimore schools on track before I have to start paying $10,000 a year for Laylah to go to private school, or give her a crash course in Catholicism so she can attend the parish school. I’d also like a boyfriend who’s not a spoiled momma’s boy, and peace on earth, goodwill to men. But I’ll settle for a scarf with some green in it, to go with my new suit. You?”
“Same, except for the green scarf. I could use some earrings that make me look like a grown-up.”
“Can’t be done, child,” Jackie said. “Much as it pains me to say it, some things are beyond the power of accessorizing.”
They smiled at each other over Laylah’s curly head. Tess and Jackie were relatively new friends, and the relationship had almost the same tang as two lovers might have at this six-month mark. To make it more complicated, they had met through Tess’s business, only to find out they had more in common than Tess had ever dreamed. They were still courting each other, with Tess being the one who had to pursue a little harder. Jackie had a natural reserve, she kept most people at arm’s length. She was not unlike Whitney that way. Right now, for example, Tess would have liked to make some physical contact, to squeeze Jackie’s arm or give her a hug. But it was unthinkable. So she kissed the top of Laylah’s head, hoping Jackie knew the kiss was for her as well.
“I’ll drop her off before I go to work,” Tess said. “What times does the babysitter get here?”
“Nine,” Jackie said, holding out her hand and letting Laylah grab it. “Try to keep her hat and mittens on, even if it is only two blocks from here to Jimmy’s. It’s raw this morning.”
“Okay, mommy.”
“Mommy,” Laylah said suddenly, as if it were a wildly original thought, a concept of her own invention. “Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy.”
And Tess knew whatever she got Jackie for Christmas, it could never match the gifts that Laylah gave her every day.
Take Your Daughter to Work Day was still twenty years in the future the last time Tess had visited the sad little downtown midrise that housed the liquor board inspectors. It hadn’t changed at all, which was mildly disheartening. Perhaps it was simply too ugly to tamper with. Employee’s daughter or no, she followed the procedure required of all visitors, calling from the lobby and waiting for an escort upstairs.
“Your father’s out, but he told us what you wanted,” said the secretary, Marley, who greeted her. A new face to Tess, but she acted as if they were old friends. If this had been her mother’s office, Tess would have worried that her life was the office soap opera, a tale told in exhaustive detail over every lunch hour and coffee break, until everyone felt as if he or she knew her. But her father wasn’t as inclined to babble about his life.
“I have to say, from what Pat says you’re looking at, it sounds like kind of a wild goose chase.”
“You’re telling me,” Tess muttered. How many bars did Baltimore have anyway? Given the size of the files before her, it appeared there was one tavern for every one hundred citizens.
A man in a boxy leather jacket walked through the office, head down as if distracted by his own thoughts. Still, he managed to give Tess the quick once-over some men automatically throw toward any remotely female form. Tess had even seen them do it at mannequins in department stores.
This man blushed when he got to the face. “Tess,” he said. “Little Tess. How long has it been?”
She recognized the man as one of her father’s longtime colleagues. Not a friend-her father always said he wanted to be respected, not liked. But he thought well of this guy, she remembered that much, if only because he was one of the few old-timers left, and this gave them a bond. She groped for the name. George Foreman, Georgie Porgie, Gene-Gene Fulton.
“It’s been quite some time if you still think of me as ‘little’ Tess. I hit five-nine in the eighth grade.” She didn’t use his name, because she couldn’t decide if he was still Mr. Fulton to her, or now an equal named Gene.
He apparently suffered no such confusion, given the way his heavy-lidded eyes continued to track up and down, up and down. Big Tess was fair game in a way that Little Tess had never been.
“When you going to settle down and give your old man some grandbabies?” Gene asked, as if he couldn’t sleep nights for wondering if Pat Monaghan was ever going to dandle a baby on his knee. Tess knew he was fishing, trying to find out where she was on the dating-engaged-married-divorcing continuum.
“Between us”-Tess leaned forward, a finger on her lips, knowing her words would get back to Pat before the day was out-“sooner than he might think.”
“You engaged then?” That was Marley. Tess had suddenly dropped off Gene Fulton’s radar. Some men live to poach. Others figure it’s too much trouble. Fulton was a lazy bastard, bless his heart.