Page 31 of The Newcomer
“Uh-huh. Pink cake. And pink candles. And pink balloons,” Maya said.
“Whose birthday is it?”
Maya pointed at Letty with her purple crayon. “It’s Letty Spaghetti’s birthday!”
“Is it really?” Isabelle asked, looking at Letty.
“Not until November,” Letty said, blinking back tears. “She, uh, really loves birthday parties.”
“Okay,” Isabelle said. She stuck out her hand. “So Maya. Would you like to hang out and have some fun with me today?”
Maya smiled, showing her dimples. “Yes.”
Isabelle wore ripped and faded jeans and a navy T-shirt withEMORYin block letters across the front. She was slender with her dark hair worn in a single braid.
Now she swept Maya off the chair and propped her on her hip. “Do you know how to swim, Maya?”
“I’m a big girl,” Maya declared. “I put my face in the water and kick my feet.”
“Me too!” Isabelle said. She consulted Letty. “Okay if I take her to the beach for a while?”
Letty hesitated.
“Isabelle worked as a lifeguard at the Treasure Island pool for the past two summers,” Ava said.
“We’ll be super careful,” Isabelle said. She tickled Maya’s belly. “Won’t we, Maya Papaya?”
“I guess that would be okay,” Letty said. “But she hasn’t had lunch yet.”
“That’s cool. I haven’t either. We could walk down the beach to Lazy Larry’s and grab a bite. They’ve got a kids’ menu,” Isabelle said.
“You’ll need money.” Letty hesitated.
“I got moneys,” Maya said excitedly. She reached into the pockets of her shorts and pulled out the ten-dollar bills Arlene had given her earlier, waving them in the air.
“Whoa, dude,” Isabelle said, laughing. “We’re rich!”
“Mrs. Finocchia insisted on tipping me for unclogging her bathtub,” Letty told Ava. “When I wouldn’t take the money, she gave it to Maya.”
“That’s perfectly fine,” Ava said, patting her employee’s hand.“Arlene is always very generous. But she’s probably the only one of our regulars you’ll ever see do something like that.”
“Yeah,” Isabelle agreed. “The last time I got a tip, it was fifty cents, from Mr. Maples, after I helped him carry in, like, a thousand bags of groceries from Publix, in, like, two-hundred-degree heat.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “That’s Merwin, all right. The last of the big spenders. He used to own a company that printed those color advertising inserts you get in the mail. Sold it and made a ton of money. But I promise you, he hasn’t spent a nickel of that money since he retired. It’s like a game with him. They drive that beat-up fifteen-year-old Honda Odyssey minivan all the way down here from Poughkeepsie every winter, and after they get here, he loves to bore everybody here with what great mileage he got. He even makes poor Trudi eat dinner at four thirty when they go out, so they can get the early-bird special.”
“I was wondering about his wife,” Letty admitted. “What’s with the gloves?”
“Trudi’s got some kind of problem with her circulation. Her hands and feet don’t get blood like they ought to, so she’s always cold, which is part of why they spend winters down here.”
“It’s called Raynaud’s disease, Mom,” Isabelle said, and spelled it out. “Trudi told me all about it. She’s really nice, Letty. She doesn’t get out a lot, with the walker and all, so she watches a ton of television. Like, she’s seen every episode ofBuffy,ever. We usually order Chinese takeout and watchThe Bachelortogether on Monday nights.”
“Because Merwin has a coupon, of course,” Ava put in.
Letty felt the now-familiar tickle of fear. Could Trudi have spotted her in one of her rare television appearances over the years? She’d adopted a stage name early in her nascent acting career, because she didn’t want to be confused with the megastar Scarlett Johansson, but it wouldn’t take much digging for a shut-in with an uncanny memory for faces to discover that Chynthia Chase was actually ScarlettCarnahan, who was wanted for questioning in New York in connection with the murder of her sister and abduction of a small, adorable little girl named Maya.
“Isabelle, let’s go to the beach!” Maya said, tugging at her babysitter’s braid. “Swimmy, swimmy, swimmy.”
Avawatched the two girls walking hand in hand toward Letty’s room so that Maya could change into her bathing suit.
