Hadley & Grace(26)
Mrs. Torelli smiles a smug see-I-told-you-I-had-a-good-idea grin that Grace very much wants to swat off her face.
“Come on, tell me I did good,” Mrs. Torelli prods.
“I’ll tell you you did good when you actually manage it,” Grace says. “We still need to find someone willing to loan us their car for that bundle of cash, which is a whole lot easier said than done.” In Grace’s experience, strangers aren’t exactly trusting of other strangers.
“Follow me,” Mrs. Torelli says, grabbing her crutches and hopping confidently out the door.
She follows Mrs. Torelli across the store and out the opposite exit from where they entered. Mattie carries the car seat and the diaper bag, and Grace holds Miles, who is sound asleep on her shoulder.
“Wait here,” Mrs. Torelli says when they’re outside but still beneath the canopy of the entrance. She sets the backpack on the ground at Grace’s feet and slides a bundle of hundreds into her skirt pocket. She hops on her crutches into the parking lot, where she stops beside the handicap spots, both of them empty.
For several minutes, nothing happens. It’s steamy hot, and sweat pools beneath Grace’s shirt. She hasn’t showered since yesterday and is still wearing the same clothes she wore to work yesterday. Aware of her stench, she takes a small step away from Mattie.
A few shoppers come and go, and Grace watches as Mrs. Torelli smiles sweetly at them but lets them pass without a word.
What’s she waiting for? Grace thinks. If it was the FBI at the hospital, they’re probably studying the surveillance tapes at this very moment. She imagines them clicking frame to frame until they spot the five of them leaving through the back parking lot and heading toward the mall.
A car, circa before-Grace-was-born, makes a wide turn into the parking lane, then an even wider turn to pull into the handicap spot nearest the entrance. It takes an eternity, but finally, the driver’s door opens and a woman with white cotton hair, a brightly colored blouse, and black sunglasses that wrap all the way around the sides of her head steps from the driver’s seat.
The woman is frail, white, and dotted with liver spots, and Grace tenses, worried that, if Mrs. Torelli approaches her, either she will give the woman a heart attack or the woman will scream bloody murder because she thinks she is being mugged.
Beside her, Mattie shifts her weight, nervous as well. Together they watch Mrs. Torelli hop forward, a smile on her face as if she has run into a neighbor or an old friend. She lifts her hand from her right crutch to offer a wave, and the woman stops. She looks up from her stoop and tilts her head curiously, like perhaps Mrs. Torelli is someone she might know but has forgotten.
Mrs. Torelli says something that causes the woman to smile, and Grace relaxes. At least the woman doesn’t think she’s being mugged.
“What do you think she’s saying?” Mattie whispers.
“I have no idea.”
Mrs. Torelli’s hands move with her mouth as she continues to talk, very animated as if she is telling a great story. The woman listens and several times reacts in surprise. Then she turns toward the entrance, her black glasses aimed at Grace and the kids.
Grace, not knowing what else to do, waves, and Mattie does the same. Then, before Grace realizes what’s happening, the boy runs from her side. He crosses the street and crashes into Mrs. Torelli’s hip. His arms wrap around her, and the old woman looks down at him. The boy pushes off Mrs. Torelli and tilts his head one way, then the other, and then he reaches out to touch the woman’s shirt.
It’s an odd gesture and one that, coming from anyone else, might be offensive, but coming from this curious kid in a Dodgers uniform, it’s nothing but sweet.
She points to the spot he’s touching, and Grace squints to see that the pattern on her blouse is of birds, a colorful print of parrots and toucans. The woman says something, and her expression softens into a smile; then she moves her finger to another spot on her shirt and says something else.
The boy nods along, his eyes wide and his grin mirroring hers, and as Grace watches the strange exchange, she notices how remarkable the boy is. There is something almost ethereal about him. Though he’s awkward, he is also beautiful—his eyes oversize and the soft color of worn blue jeans; his lips pink, small, and perfectly formed; and his skin so pale it glows.
When the woman looks back up at Mrs. Torelli, her face is transformed, still serious but more open and welcoming. Mrs. Torelli says something as she tousles the boy’s hair; then she points to Grace and Mattie, and Grace and Mattie wave again.
“Do you think she’ll do it?” Mattie says.
“I have no idea,” Grace says, unable to believe Mrs. Torelli’s gotten this far and that the woman is even considering it.
The exchange goes on for another three or four minutes, the two women now chatting and laughing like old friends, and Grace feels her pulse rate rising with each passing second, certain that, at any moment, the feds are going to descend on them. She considers throwing something at Mrs. Torelli, like a shoe, but decides against it. Ask to borrow her car. And let’s get the hell out of here.
And Mrs. Torelli must hear her because suddenly the money appears, and in the next second, the woman is holding out her keys.
Mattie nudges Grace’s shoulder excitedly, and Grace nudges her back, her insides lit up with relief and disbelief, unable to believe Mrs. Torelli has done it, managed to convince the woman to loan them her car.