“Yeah, it’s fine. Don’t worry,” Jenny said, trying to sound jaded.
Jenny had been to New York City several times at Christmas, to see the Radio City Christmas show with her mom, and she felt like an old pro, like the place belonged to her as much as it did to Kate. Her confidence was put to the test as the train pulled into the station, and Kate was nowhere to be seen. It would be just like Kate to forget all about them. What would they do if they lost track of her? Jenny hadn’t brought along Kate’s address or home phone number, since they expected to sit with her on the train. She thought she remembered Eightieth and Park, but was that enough information for them to find their way?
People began collecting their belongings from the overhead rack.
“Hurry up, get your things,” she said to Aubrey. “We need to find Kate.”
Out on the platform, that old New York City subway smell hit Jenny in the face, and she felt excited about the trip for the first time. She could handle Manhattan. The place was a grid. If you could count, you could navigate. She imagined living here—less than four years from now—going to work in a shiny office tower, in a suit and heels, carrying a briefcase.
They spotted Kate’s bright hair in the distance, heading up the escalator, and hurried to catch up with her. Outside in the cold, Kate beckoned to them from the open door of a yellow cab. The driver popped the trunk. They heaved their luggage in and piled into the backseat of the taxi laughing breathlessly. On the ride uptown, Jenny craned her neck and drank in the tall buildings. She really should put Lucas—and Kate in bed with Lucas—out of her mind, and enjoy this trip, or she’d be wasting an opportunity, and Jenny hated waste. On Park Avenue, Christmas trees lined the medians. Their white lights twinkled against the blue of the evening sky, making her happy, until Kate killed the mood by warning them about what to expect.
“Beware the stepmonster,” she said.
Kate’s mother had died of cancer when she was ten, and she was on her second stepmother.
“Victoria hates me. She’ll be all sorts of nasty when she sees you because she’ll hate you by association. Ignore her. Dad will run interference, since you’re from Carlisle, and anything Carlisle is cool with him.”
“Wait a minute. They know we’re coming, right?” Jenny said.
Kate waved her hand airily, and Jenny’s stomach fell.
“Relax. It’s fine,” Kate said.
The cab came to a stop in front of a stately brick building. A uniformed doorman rushed over and open the door. He was jolly, with a silver mustache and a big smile, and wore a jaunty cap with earflaps.
“Welcome home, Katie,” the doorman said, in a nasal New York accent, then knocked on the driver’s window. “Open the trunk, my friend.”
“Hey,” Kate said, waving at the doorman perfunctorily as she jumped out and hurried into the lobby.
The sidewalk was wide here, and spanking clean. Well-dressed people glided by in both directions, some in furs, others walking fussy little dogs. Jenny stepped hesitantly from the cab. Kate was inside already, and the doorman was pulling bags from the trunk of the taxi and loading them onto a shiny brass luggage cart. Apparently their bags would be taken care of, but what about the cab fare? Jenny reached for her wallet, trying not to feel resentful. She was getting free lodging in New York, after all, and she knew Aubrey couldn’t afford to cover the meter. Hopefully they wouldn’t be taking too many cabs, or she’d end up with no money to buy Christmas presents this year.
The lobby sparkled in the light of a tall Christmas tree and an enormous crystal chandelier. Kate stood inside the open elevator, practically bristling with anxiety and impatience. It had never occurred to Jenny before that Kate might be nervous to come home.
“Let’s go,” Kate said.
“Our bags,” Jenny said.
“Gus’ll bring ’em up in the service elevator.”
A second doorman lurked in the corner of the elevator, operating the old-fashioned controls. He slid the door closed noisily with a brass handle, and they started to climb. The elevator was dark and smelled of lemon furniture polish. A moment later, it deposited them directly into the Eastman apartment. The girls stepped into a grand entry gallery with a black-and-white checkerboard marble floor. There was no obvious place to put their boots and coats, only a carved table with a claw-foot base that held a tall vase of lilies, and impressive oil paintings on the walls. Three towheaded boys, who all looked to be under the age of eight, came running into the foyer, shouting Kate’s name.
“My favorite monsters!” she cried, patting them like puppies as they hugged her legs. Over their heads, she rolled her eyes at Jenny and Aubrey. “Every time Victoria pops out a little Eastman, my inheritance shrinks. Plus there’s my stepsister Louise. She’s not here, she lives in Switzerland with her mother. They spend money like it’s water.”
Money must be the source of the conflict, then. Certainly when Victoria came out to greet them a moment later, she didn’t seem remotely like a monster. To the contrary, she was young and pretty, with expensively highlighted hair, and did her best to be gracious in receiving her stepdaughter’s unexpected guests.
“A crowd at Thanksgiving, how jolly,” she said, smiling tightly. “Plenty of food, and we’ll make room at the table. I’ll have Gus bring up some caterer’s chairs from the storage room.”
Kate hugged her stepmother hello and they exchanged pleasantries. Every word out of Kate’s mouth dripped with contempt, no matter how innocuous the literal meaning. Comments as seemingly agreeable as “Don’t you look fab” and “What gorgeous earrings. Are they new?” carried a poisonous undertone that was as apparent to Jenny as it surely was to Victoria.
Victoria showed them to a hall closet where they could stow their things, and said she would get to work finding sleeping bags for the floor of the library.
“You can duke it out for the couch,” Victoria added.
“Can’t we sleep in the maid’s room so we can have some privacy? Rosalba’s off for the holiday, isn’t she?” Kate whined.
“She’d kill me if she found out. I don’t need her moping over it,” Victoria said, and strode off.
“See? She cares more about her housekeeper than she does about me,” Kate said, loudly enough that Victoria surely heard.
Kate led them to the library, which was basically a large, lavishly appointed, misnamed den. The walnut shelves held no books, but were filled instead with expensive-looking knickknacks and silver-framed photographs of the little stepmonsters. Kate dumped her bag on the floor, and only then did Jenny realize that it wouldn’t be just her and Aubrey camping on the gorgeous leather sofa. Kate didn’t have her own bedroom in her father’s apartment. This was Kate’s only home away from Carlisle, and it didn’t belong to her.
“Come on, this is better than the digs I usually rate,” Kate said, seeing Jenny’s dismayed expression.