You Were Meant For Me (32 page)

“Thank you.” She jiggled Celeste, who was getting squirmy. “But maybe you should open it—I've got my hands full.”

Evan opened the package and held up a small hand-knit sweater and matching hat—both had blue and white nautical stripes, and the sweater sported a red fish on its front and red buttons in the shape of anchors.

“How adorable!” Miranda fingered the fine, soft-gauge cotton.

“I was thinking about the knitting challenge,” said Evan.

“Knitting debacle was more like it. It was sweet of you to remember.”

“I remember a lot of things.” He paused. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Somewhere a little more private?”

Before she could reply, her attention was caught by a sharp popping noise. “What was that?” Miranda looked wildly around. Did someone have a
gun
?

“Look!” Evan pointed upward. A balloon had drifted too close to the ceiling vent; the sharp corners of the vent caused it to break.

“Oh!” She laughed with relief. Just a balloon. But then another balloon popped and another. Celeste, startled, let go of her balloon and up it went.

“No!” cried Miranda. Evan jumped, trying to grab it, but he missed by seconds. The balloon drifted up and over and then—
pop!
Just like the others. Celeste's eyes followed its doomed progress, and when the balloon burst, she began to squall, beating her feet against Miranda's chest and reaching vainly for the balloon.

“We'll get you another one.” Evan darted off in pursuit of another red balloon, but when he presented her with it, Celeste refused to be mollified. And her crying had started a chain reaction. Now several other children were crying too. The remaining balloons were in a cluster in the corner, their strings hopelessly snarled; Evan attempted to unknot them.

“I think this party is winding down.” Miranda wiped Celeste's damp face with a napkin; Celeste twisted away.

“I hope I'm not too late, then.”

Miranda turned to see Judge Waxman, unexpectedly
elegant in a leopard-print coat. She had sent the judge an invitation but had not gotten a reply. “You came!”

“Of course I came.” Judge Waxman pulled off her gloves and looked at Celeste. “This is one of the happy stories; I don't see too many of them in my line of work.”

“You wouldn't think so from looking at her now, but yes, it is a happy story.” Miranda looked at the child she'd found that night a year ago: robust, thriving, darling—and wailing her head off.

Judge Waxman smiled. “I have something for her.” She handed Miranda a small, flat package wrapped in gold paper. “I'll even tell you what it is: a copy of
Anne of Green Gables
. It's always my gift of choice when the recipient is a girl.”

“I loved that book.” Miranda touched the gold-embossed cover. “I must have read it ten times. Thank you so much.”

“A story about an orphaned girl who finds her true home seems especially apt, don't you think?” Judge Waxman asked.

“Yes.” Miranda clutched the book tightly. “It is.”

By this time several of the other mothers with their own crying children in tow came over to say good-bye; Miranda asked Bea to bring Judge Waxman a cupcake—the last of the batch.

“Do you want me to take her?” Evan had walked back over to Miranda. “So you can start cleaning up?”

“I don't know. She's still kind of fussy.”

“Fussy? Who's fussy?” Evan reached for Celeste. “Are you a fussy girl?” He made a silly face, and after a moment, Celeste tilted back her head and laughed. “That's what I thought. No fussy girls here. Not a one.”

While Evan entertained Celeste, Miranda started gathering up the dirty paper plates. Lauren's son, Max, was now sobbing because his sister had eaten the last bite of his
cupcake; so she needed to get him home; Bea had left for a rehearsal. Finally, everything was done and Miranda went to retrieve Celeste. Evan was bouncing her on his knees; he had managed to untangle a white balloon from the cluster, and Celeste now held it in her hand.

“Thank you for distracting her,” she said. “And for coming too. It was really nice of you.”

“No problem.” He was looking at Celeste, not her, so his next words were a surprise. “I have my car; can I give you a lift?”

“Sure.” She tried to act as nonchalant as he was. “That would be so nice.” And convenient too—she would not have to call a car service.

They piled the gifts into the trunk and strapped Celeste, still clutching the balloon, into her car seat. She was asleep in about three minutes, and the balloon, untethered now, floated to the front seat, where Miranda snatched it before it could obscure Evan's vision. They were quiet on the drive back, and when they got to Miranda's house, Evan found a parking spot right out front. “You take her up and get her into bed. I'll deal with everything down here.”

“All right.” Miranda carried the sleeping child and her balloon upstairs into the apartment. Celeste's head pressed against her shoulder, a solid, grounding weight. Miranda was able to ease her gently into her crib; then, propping the door open, she went down to help Evan with the gifts. “Thanks. For everything.” She was nervous, but so what? She wasn't going to let that stop her from seeing this through. “Do you want to come in? For a glass of wine or something?”

“Why not?” He followed her inside and sat down on the sofa. Miranda brought them each a glass of wine; he sipped
his as he looked around. “What's with the boxes? Are you moving?”

“I am; the closing is at the end of the month.”

“Good for you.” He took another sip of wine. “Where to?”

She told him about the place on Eastern Parkway with its doorman and its big windows, its scarred floors and blistering paint; then they both lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. He was the first to break it. “So how come you invited me to the party?”

“How come you decided to show up?”

“Touché.” He set his wineglass down on the table and leaned back against the couch cushions. “I'll just come out with it. I've been lonely and I missed you; I missed you a lot.”

“I missed you too.” Miranda chose her words very carefully, not wanting—or daring—to give everything away all at once. “But I thought there was someone else.”

“There was, but that's been over for a while. And anyway, you can be lonely even with someone else—if she's not the right someone else.”

“This person, she wasn't the right someone?”

“No.” Evan held her gaze. “She wasn't. But you, Miranda—you are.”

“What about Jared?” She had to ask.

He moved closer to her. “What about him?”

“You accused me of cheating on you with him; you refused to believe me when I told you it wasn't true.” The white balloon had drifted in from Celeste's room and now bobbed overhead.

“I should have had more faith in you, Miranda. I'm sorry.”

She looked at him; he was utterly sincere, and she had to meet that sincerity in kind. “I can't say that I wasn't attracted
to him because that would be a lie. And I don't want to lie to you. But whatever I felt, it was—transitory. He was not the right one. He never was. No, the right one was you—
is
you: you were meant for me, Evan Zuckerbrot.” Then she waited, for several tense, awful seconds, until he pulled her close and kissed her. This was where she wanted to be. This was where she belonged. Why had it taken her so long to figure that out?

G
eneva had started driving before it was actually dawn, and now she could see a thin silver line of light at the horizon that grew wider and brighter as she sped along. A container of coffee sat in the cup holder and next to that, a bran muffin, taken from the motel's complimentary breakfast bar and wrapped in a paper napkin.

Outside the car's windows were the chalk and sugar maples, the yellow birch and the pig buckeye she recalled from her childhood; Geneva had spent eight years as a Girl Scout, and she'd learned to identify the flora and fauna of her native state. It was April, and everything was in lush, glorious leaf. The scenery was starting to look familiar now; she remembered this stretch of road. She drove up to the gates of the Eternal Springs Cemetery and parked in the adjacent lot. Then she picked up the bag that had been sitting on the seat beside her and pocketed the muffin; she might get hungry. From
here, she remembered the way easily. Her father had been buried in this place, and her mother too, along with various other Highsmith relatives. The bag bumped awkwardly against her thigh as she walked, so she ignored the handle and cradled it in both arms.

Shortly after Caroline's death, Geneva had claimed the body and had it cremated. The ashes had remained in an urn on the top shelf of her closet; she had been waiting for spring. Now that it was here, she had brought the ashes down to be buried in the family plot. It was the right thing to do.

The cemetery was impeccably kept—the winding paths swept regularly, the trees and shrubs neatly trimmed. The sky was fully light now, and there was a soft mist over everything. Geneva continued down the path, making a right turn and then a left. There was her father's stone, and next to it, her mother's. Caroline's, newly raised, was right beside them. In front of it was a freshly dug hole, perhaps two feet wide, and leaning against it was a shovel, just as she had requested. Good.

The director, Mr. Emberly, had not wanted to do this at first. But he knew her, and he knew her family; eventually, he relented. “It's not at all regular policy,” he'd said several times during their conversation. “Please don't tell anyone I made an exception for you. And please, get an early start; I'd rather you kept this between us.”

Geneva walked up to the stone and laid her hand on the marble surface. The inscription was simple: name, dates of birth and death, and these words: daughter, sister, mother. She sat down and pulled out the muffin. Birds twittered nearby, and she recalled the litany of names she'd memorized as a Girl Scout. Some of these birds were probably in the trees right
above her though she was not sure she could identify them any longer.

She took a bite of the muffin. Gluey, cold, and stale. The birds wouldn't mind though; she began breaking it into bits and sprinkling it on the ground. Instantly, they began swooping down, first one and then a bevy, pecking and hunting in the grass for the crumbs. Most were brown and gray, but then a cardinal appeared, and, being so much bigger than the others, scared them off. But when Geneva reached into the bag that held the urn, even the cardinal fluttered away.

The etched brass vessel, ordered from Stardust Memorials, gleamed in the soft morning light. She had peeked at the ashes when they first arrived; they were not ashlike at all, but gritty and coarse—more like broken crockery. And they were surprisingly heavy. Their weight, added to the not-insubstantial weight of the urn, made it hard to handle, and it landed at the bottom of the hole with a small thud. “I'm sorry,” she said aloud. Was she talking to Carrie? Her mother? Miranda Berenzweig? It could have been any of the above because in some way, she owed each of them an apology.

Then she picked up the shovel and began to fill in the hole. Not a difficult job, but she still worked up a slight sweat while completing it. Next she unwrapped the seashells that were also in the bag and began setting them in front of the tombstone, the largest, the pearly nautilus, right in the center. Next to the nautilus she placed the conch, then all the rest: nacreous, striped, whorled, beaded, and studded. The shells were part of the collection she rotated in her apartment; Caroline had always been drawn to them, and Geneva could remember her picking up a shell, running her fingers along the surface, pressing it against her ear. The shells Geneva was leaving
behind today were her most beautiful, most unusual, most arresting. They were an offering. Or a penance.

Once she had finished, she sat on the grass as the mist slowly burned away. The birds returned, only this time the pack of mostly brown, gray, and whites was joined by another more vivid specimen: the Eastern bluebird. She identified him—she knew it was a male—in an instant, not only because of the Girl Scouts, but also because she had helped Caroline do a project on Eastern bluebirds for a grade-school science project. Her sister had been largely indifferent to the discipline of doing the research or assembling the facts. But Caroline had drawn a meticulous and haunting rendition of the bird, bearing down on the colored pencils until she'd complained that her fingers ached from the pressure and she'd snapped the points of the pencils. Underneath the drawing she had lettered the words
The Bluebird of Happiness
. Geneva had tried to get her to change it.

“That's not a scientific designation,” she'd said. “The teacher will take points off.”

“But it is the bluebird of happiness,” Caroline insisted. The lettering remained.

Geneva held very still as she watched the bird, the feathers on its breast a rusty red, the head and wings an impossible, vivid cerulean. Delicately, the bird searched for the crumbs; for a moment, it regarded her with a bright, black eye. Then it flew away. She got up, dusted off the seat of her pants, and headed toward the car. It had grown considerably warmer, even hot, and she peeled off her cardigan, tied it around her waist, and reached into the bag, now empty except for a crushable straw hat that she set on her head.

On the way out of the gates, she saw a family—mother,
father, boy, and towheaded little girl. Carrie had been that kind of blond. Geneva thought of their summers at the beach, Caroline growing more sun-kissed by the week, hair gone nearly white from the long, bright days. How she'd loved the beach, the water; what an irony that she, who had been such a good swimmer, had drowned.

When she reached the car, Geneva got in and switched on the ignition. Something made her look up, and there it was again: the bluebird, perched on the overhanging branch of a maple tree. It was only when the bird flew off a second and final time that she turned on the air conditioner and put her foot to the
pedal.