He went on, explaining the nanny’s educational background, all her sterling qualifications, and Andie watched Alice and Carter talk over their hamburgers, and thought about telling them that there’d be somebody new moving in to teach them, that she’d be leaving them alone again in all that weirdness.

Get out, every instinct she had said. Get out now. You hate it here, and the kids don’t like you, and the new nanny is more qualified than you are anyway. She does math.

“So she’ll be there Monday afternoon-”

“I’m staying,” Andie said, and there was a long silence before North spoke.

“For how long?”

“Until I can figure out a way to get them to Columbus. I’ll stay until they move in with you, and then Will and I will be in Columbus, and I can still see them and… help with the butterfly garden. Or whatever.” The instinct in her that was saying Run away was still there, just not so loud. She’d only been there three weeks. It hadn’t been that bad. It wouldn’t take that long to figure out what was going on and get them to Columbus. She’d have them out by Thanksgiving. Christmas at the latest. “Lose the nanny. I’m staying.”

After a long minute, North said, “All right. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Andie said, and then hung up, thinking, I’m sure Will won’t mind. Much. Especially if she never mentioned that she’d told North there might be a next time for them. Because there wasn’t going to be. She loved Will.

Then she called him to give him the news that she was staying, and he minded. A lot. “I’m coming down there,” he said when she told him she’d be there for at least another month. “I miss you, and I can write anywhere.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Oh, hell. “Because the people here think I’m still married to North. If you show up, I’m going to have some explaining to do.”

“Did he tell them that?”

“No, I did. He was as surprised as you are.”

“I don’t think ‘surprised’ really describes how I feel. What the hell, Andie?”

“Look, I’m starting to make progress with the kids, it’s just another month-”

“Is he there? Is he there pretending to be married, too?”

“No, of course not. He has a law practice, he’s not going to come down here and play house. Especially in this place. It’s creepy.”

“Can’t you bring the kids up here?”

“That’s what I’m working on. I’m hoping I can do it before Thanksgiving, definitely by Christmas.”

“Christmas?”

Andie felt a tug on her skirt and looked down to see Alice standing in front of her, ketchup on her chin. She pulled the chiffon out of Alice’s hands before any tomato got transferred and said, “What?”

“Can I have two ice creams?”

“No. That’s greedy. You can have one cone.”

“Andie,” Will said.

“Just a minute,” she told him as Alice said, “I want a big cone,” her usual calculating gleam in her eye.

“The last time you got a big cone, the top fell off. Wouldn’t you rather have a medium and keep the ice cream?”

“It won’t fall off this time. That one was a bad cone.”

“Okay, fine, big cone. You’ve got ketchup on your chin. Hold still.” Andie licked her thumb and wiped the ketchup smear off Alice. “I’ll be over in a minute to pay for your cone. Tell Carter he can have one, too.”

“Okay,” Alice said, and went back to Carter, yelling, “Andie says we can have cones. Big ones.”

“Okay, sorry about that,” Andie said to Will, licking the ketchup off her thumb.

“You sound just like a mother,” Will said, his voice softer now.

“More like a wrangler,” Andie said, looking after Alice’s straight little back.

“Ready to have some kids of our own?”

“What?” Andie looked at the phone. “I don’t want kids. Didn’t we have this conversation?”

“Yeah, but you’re a natural, Andie. I can hear it in your voice.”

“That’s exhaustion, which is probably about the only thing I have in common with real mothers. I’m not sleeping well here.”

“That’s because you’re sleeping alone. I’ll come down and-”

“And have sex with me? Somebody’s gonna notice that, Will. I will not be committing fake adultery. I’ll be back in a month. We’ll have an orgy then.”

Will sighed. “I don’t like any of this. You were supposed to be home next week. I miss you.”

Andie kept her eye on Alice, standing on tiptoe in front of the Dairy Queen window. “I have to go now.”

“I love you,” Will said.

“I love you, too,” Andie said, frowning as Alice took a towering cone from the counter girl. “I’ll-oh, for crying out loud.”

Alice began to scream.

“What?”

“Alice dropped her ice cream. I told her-”

Alice screamed louder.

“I’m coming, knock it off, Alice! Will, I have to go.”

“Call me-” Will began as she hung up the phone to go rescue Alice.

“Stop it,” she said to the little girl. “Stop crying and I will fix it. Keep crying and we’re going to the car. You cannot shriek every time something goes wrong, you have to fix it, Alice. Screaming doesn’t do any good.” Alice kept screaming, and Andie looked up at the counter girl. “Give us another large cone, please. And a cup.” When the girl handed the ice cream over, Andie paid her and took the cone, upended it into the cup, and stuck a spoon in it. “Here,” she said to Alice, “try not to wear most of it, please.”

Alice stopped screaming and took the cup. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Andie said, and Alice began to demolish her ice cream. “Alice, next time there’s a problem, just ask, okay? If you can’t fix it, I will.”

Alice licked her spoon, transferring chocolate ice cream to her nose, narrowly avoiding dragging the end of the stocking that drooped down from her topknot through the cup. Andie tied the stocking up higher as Alice said, “You’re not gonna be here.”

“Yes I am.” Andie gave the stocking a last tug. “You have chocolate on your nose.”

“Carter says you’re leaving on Halloween.”

Andie looked back at Carter who met her eyes without expression. “No, I’m staying with you. The only way I leave is if you leave.”

Alice licked up more ice cream from her cup. “How long are you staying?”

“As long as it takes,” Andie said.

“Uh-huh.” The little girl stabbed her ice cream with her spoon, looking mutinous again.

“Okay, how about this,” Andie said. “I will bet you one of your necklaces that I will stay with you until you don’t need me anymore.” That seemed safe; she was pretty sure that Alice thought she didn’t need her now.

Alice tilted her head. “What if that’s forever?”

“Then I’ll stay forever,” Andie said, feeling a clutch of panic in her stomach. Forever.

“What do I get if you don’t stay?”

“What do you want?”

Alice thought about it. “Ice cream.”

“You’ll get that anyway, Alice. Think of something big.”

Alice tilted her head again, thinking hard as her ice cream melted, the striped stocking on her topknot sliding to the side of her head. “That skirt,” she said finally, nodding at Andie.

“My skirt?” Andie swished the blue-green chiffon, watching the turquoise sequins sparkle in the sunlight. Flo gets it right again, she thought, and said, “You’re on. What do I get? One of your necklaces?”

Alice frowned, looking down.

“Pearls?” Andie said, looking at the dingy lavender beads.

“They were my mom’s.”

“Oh,” Andie said, remembering that Alice’s mom had died giving birth to her. The pearls suddenly looked a lot more important. “The shells?”

“My daddy gave me those.”

“The locket?”

“No, I found that. It’s a treasure.”

“You’re going to need the Walkman.”

“It was my mom’s,” Alice said, nodding.

“So that leaves the bat,” Andie said, looking at the dubious piece of cheap metal and glittery stones.

“Aunt May gave that to me.”

“So we’ll think of something else.”

Alice frowned in thought. “No,” she said after some length. “You can have the bat if you stay.” She licked up more ice cream. “But you won’t stay. Carter is never wrong.” She looked at Andie again, frowning. “Are you really going to give me that skirt when you leave?”

“I’m not leaving,” Andie said. “Not without you anyway. But if something happens and I lose the bet, you get the skirt. Pinky swear.”

Alice nodded and went back to her ice cream, still evidently a nonbeliever but now in line to get a sequined skirt, and Andie turned to see Carter regarding her over his own cone, his expression as flat as ever.

“You want to bet?” she said.

“You don’t have anything I want,” he said, and went back to his ice cream.

“Fair enough,” Andie said.

One day at a time, she thought, one day at a time.


One day at a time may have been the plan, but it was the nights that were wearing Andie down. Alice was still having nightmares although not as often, and even when Alice slept through the night, Andie had her own dreams, carnal dreams about North that were so vivid that she woke up shaking, wanting him so much she ached. And she still heard whispers in her sleep asking, Who do you love? She’d told Mrs. Crumb she didn’t want her to bring a tray up to her bedroom anymore, sticking with the spiked tea she made herself, but the dreams persisted. Finally one night she bypassed the tea completely, so exhausted that she was half asleep already, and slid down under the covers to shut out the chill-it was always cold as hell in her room at night-and dozed off, only to sit up again to punch her pillow into shape, and see something at the foot of her bed.

She froze as the vague shadow grew clearer and she could see a young woman, a girl, really, big-eyed and pretty with masses of curly hair, her form translucent and shifting in what looked like a party dress.

Hello, the girl said, swishing her full skirt as she pirouetted, blue in the moonlight.

“Who are you?” Andie said, and her voice seemed dreamlike, as if it were coming from very far away.

Oh, I’m you. The girl laughed. I’m you when you were nineteen. She leaned forward, the illusion of her shadow shifting a few seconds behind her movement so that she disassembled and reassembled as she moved. Don’t we look alike?

“Don’t do that,” Andie said, feeling nauseous now. She didn’t have dreams about past lives, that was entirely too twee, or maybe too Flo. Her mother would be all over this if it were happening to her. She struggled to wake up, but the girl only moved again and disoriented her, and another wave of cold nausea hit, so she stopped.

What happens to me after nineteen? the girl said. Do I have wonderful adventures?

“What?” Andie sank back on the pillows, sick to her stomach.

I want to know what happens next, the girl said. I want to know the future. Do I fall in love? Is it wonderful?

Andie thought of North, and then guiltily of Will. “Yes.”

The girl drifted closer and the room grew colder and Andie shut her eyes to block out the sickening vertigo.

Tell me about him.

“He’s a writer.” Andie kept her eyes shut, picturing Will, laughing and warm.

Is he exciting? Does he make me crazy for him? Do I want him all the time?

“No.” Andie tried to roll over, away from her. “I’m thirty-four. I grew out of that.”

Terrible. That’s terrible. You never get exciting?

“The first one. Go away.”

Tell me about him.

“I’m freezing. Go away.”

The girl moved back to the window, and the air around the bed grew marginally warmer.

Tell me about the other one.

“I want to sleep now.”

Is he the one you dream about? The hot one?

She thought of North, of the muscle hidden by his suits, the passion behind that calm beautiful face, all of it focused on her in the first months of her marriage, those memories on perpetual replay in her dreams every night. “Yes. But then his uncle Merrill dies, and he works sixteen-hour days at the family firm, and he forgets I… we… exist, and I leave.”

You left that guy? You should have done something. You should have seduced him again. You should have-

“Hey,” Andie said, struggling to sit up. “I had therapy for this. Sometimes things end. The bastard broke my heart, and I got over it and moved on.”

The girl drew back, alarmed. All right. Andie lay back down, and the girl said, Tell me how you met. How do we meet him?

Andie closed her eyes. It was weird to be harassed in a dream. But she remembered… “We’re twenty-four, after too much to drink, we look across the bar and see a man watching us.”