Мэри Эндрюс: The Newcomer

The typed pill bottle label was for Tanya Carnahan, the drug’s name was one Letty didn’t recognize, and a single tablet rattled around inside. She handed it to Sammi. “It’s an antianxiety med,” Sammi said. “Looks like some doctor prescribed it not long after Maya was born.”

Letty looked at the envelope, which was somewhat smudged and crumpled on the edges, but blank.

She slit the flap with her thumbnail and extracted a greeting card featuring a whimsical Victorian drawing of two little girls.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I SMILE BECAUSE YOU’RE MY BIG SISTER

I LAUGH BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING

YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

Letty recognized the handwriting inside.

Happy birthday, Letty Spaghetti—

xoxo Tanya Lasagna

“Oh wow,” Sammi said, reading over Letty’s shoulder. “How sad. I guess she just didn’t get around to sending you this card. I wonder if she bought it right before … you know.”

“No,” Letty said firmly. “Tanya hadn’t carried this bag in ages. The pill bottle, and the Duane Reade receipts, they’re all from before and right after the time she had Maya.” She turned to the lawyer. “Did Tanya ever tell you that we were estranged back then? We had a fight. Over Evan. After she told me she was moving in with him and she was pregnant with Maya. I was so furious. I didn’t speak to her for more than three years—until I finally caved in and went to Maya’s third-birthday party.”

“I knew there’d been some kind of rift,” Sammi admitted. “But I didn’t press her for details.” She tapped the card. “Look, there’s writing on the back.”

Letty turned the card over. Tanya’s writing on the back was unlike the big, looped writing inside the card. This message was in tiny, cramped cursive.

Sissy—I’m so sorry for everything I did. Please don’t be mad at me anymore. You and my baby are the only good things in my life. I miss you, Letty Spaghetti.

Letty tucked the card back into the envelope. A single tear spattered on the lavender paper. She put it inside the Louis Vuitton tote and brushed away another tear.

“All right,” she said, her voice shaky with emotion. “Let’s get out of here.”

Sammi gave her a sympathetic hug. “Want to go get a drink? I know I could use one.”

“You go,” Letty said, slinging the Louis Vuitton tote over her shoulder. “Order a cosmo and drink it in Tanya’s honor, will you? That’s what she used to order when she first moved up here, you know. She never missed a rerun of Sex and the City. She thought drinking a cosmopolitan actually made her as sexy and sophisticated as Carrie and Samantha and Charlotte.”

“What about you?” Sammi asked, as they locked up the town house. “What are your plans?”

They were standing on the brownstone stoop, looking down East Sixty-Third Street.

Letty pulled her phone from the pocket of her skirt. “I need to call a guy.”

Sammi gave her a knowing smile. “I see. Keep in touch, okay? We’ll need to finalize some paperwork, but that can easily be done online.” She leaned over and pecked Letty’s cheek. “I still miss her, you know? But seeing you helps. You’re much more like her than you know. And that’s a compliment.”

“Thank you, Sammi.”

Letty sat on the top stoop of the brownstone. The marble step felt cool beneath the fabric of her skirt. She scrolled through the contacts on her phone until she found the one she wanted.

The icon was a photo she’d snapped of Joe at sunset, standing knee-deep in the surf, silhouetted against the glowing orange sky with his fishing rod cocked, mid-cast, over his bare shoulder.

She hadn’t talked to Joe since the night she’d arrived back in New York—just a brief call to tell him that she and Maya were okay. She’d sent a few emails and a couple of texts, but had been steely in her resolve not to call him.

Letty’s finger hovered over the tiny icon on the phone screen. Maybe he wouldn’t answer. She realized, with a start, that it was the Friday of Labor Day weekend. Maybe he was working. Or out on the boat. Maybe he’d ignore her call.

Enough uncertainty, she decided. Enough hesitation, enough maybes. Nothing in life was promised to us, Mimi had always preached. She tapped the icon and held her breath.

Epilogue

THE FIRST PINK STREAKS OF daylight were visible in the eastern sky as the truck bumped over the crushed-oyster-shell pavement.

She found comfort in the sight of the blinking neon MURMURING SURF sign. She turned in her seat to check on Maya. The child was sleeping, her head tilted to one side of her car seat, Ellie clutched in her hand.

Letty rolled her window down and inhaled the scent of salt air.

When Joe switched off the ignition, she heard the distant whoosh of waves lapping at the shore. “We’re home,” he announced.

“Yeah,” Letty said, smiling. “Home.”

“You’re sure this is what you want?” he asked, for what seemed like the tenth time since they’d left New York.

“I’ve had six months to think about it,” she said. “And yes, this is what I want, for Maya, and for you and me.”

“You’re full of surprises, you know that?” he said.

“But not secrets,” she replied. “No more of that.” She ran her fingertips across the strap of Tanya’s Louis Vuitton purse.

Somewhere south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, she’d summoned the courage to tell Joe about the remaining contents of her sister’s go-bag.

“How much money did you say was in there?”

“There was about nineteen thousand,” Letty admitted. “But I had to spend some of it—on the Kia, and living expenses.”

“How much is left?”

“About eleven thousand, after I sold the Kia. But ever since Sammi told me about Tanya’s will, I’ve been sort of sprinkling the money around.”

Joe chuckled. “Sprinkling?”

“I’m calling it Tanya grants. I gave the girls at the Lazy Daizy, the diner where I used to work, two thousand dollars to split five ways. And I gave the doorman at our apartment in the Village a thousand.”

“That’s some sweet tips.”

“I gave Zoey three thousand. I don’t know what I would have done without her. And I’ve set some aside, as a gift to Isabelle. And the rest for your mom, for a vacation.”

He looked at her in amazement. “I don’t think she’s ever taken a vacation. At least, not since she’s been running the Surf, she hasn’t.”

Letty chewed her bottom lip. “You think I should have turned the money in to the cops in New York, don’t you?”

“Not necessarily. You didn’t know where the money came from. Tanya told you it was hers, and she specifically told you to take it if something happened to her, so you could take care of Maya. Which is what you did.”

“I sold the push ring, by the way. Even after I paid the estate taxes, I made close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Joe let out a long low whistle. “Good for you.”

“I’ve got an idea I want to run past you. But you have to promise you’ll tell me your honest opinion, okay?”

“Okay.”

Letty laid out the plan for him as the truck sped south. She’d discussed it with Sammi, who’d discussed it with Demetria, the executor of Tanya’s estate, and with a real estate attorney Sammi had brought in for a consultation.

Joe hadn’t bought into the idea immediately. But shortly after they’d crossed the Florida state line, a slow grin spread across his face. Letty closed her eyes and dozed off, dreaming of palm trees and jasmine blossoms, white sand and turquoise waves.

She awoke as they were crossing the bridge over Tampa Bay. He’d rolled the window down, and the sound of traffic startled her.