The Accidentals(28)

“Sorry, Ernie, but I’m going to knock with six.” I lay down my cards and cross my arms in front of my chest.

For a long moment, Ernie just stares at me.

“What? Do you have less?”

He lays his cards down on the sofa. “Sorry. You just look so much like your mother that sometimes I’m startled.”

“Wait…” What? “You knew my mother?”

Ernie’s expressive eyes widen. “You didn’t know that?”

I shake my head, speechless.

He swallows hard, and for a moment I think he won’t say anything more. “We waited tables at the same diner,” he says eventually. “In Claiborne. She was going to the prep school. I was in college.”

The hair stands up on the back of my neck. “Did Frederick work there too?”

“No. He didn’t meet her until later.” Ernie clears his throat. “I introduced them at a party.”

A party. I’m the product of a party.

From upstairs comes the sound of Frederick shouting. “So we’ll be late! I don’t fucking care!” A door slams.

Aftershocks.

“I’m getting a drink of water,” Ernie says. “Want one?”

“No thanks.”

When he gets up to go into the kitchen, my gaze settles on Henry’s phone. The screen is still lit.

I grab it off the table and press the menu button, then pull up Instagram. Sure enough, Henry is signed in as @FreddyRicks. I’ve been watching this account for years, thinking I was seeing the world as my father saw it.

Yet never once have I seen a social media app open on Frederick’s phone. I don’t even think he has them downloaded.

Later, I won’t know why I did it. But I aim Henry’s phone at the newspaper and frame a shot. Then I give it a caption. Just listening to a little 1D at home and reading up on their concert. Sounds awesome. #fanboy

Then I post it.





Frederick spends the evening upstairs in the music room, playing the electric guitar. Alone. There’s some very angry playing coming through the ceiling. His mood is no match for the soundproofing.

I spend the time reading Anna Karenina on the couch, too jittery to really concentrate. By my count, I’ve already cost Frederick a cool million and his mother’s approval. It’s no surprise that he doesn’t want to hang out with me.

Even worse—the Instagram post about 1D got four thousand “likes” and a hundred enthusiastic comments before it was deleted. Nobody’s pointed a finger at me yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

Someone knocks on the front door, which is odd. Frederick’s friends always announce their arrival just by tapping in the code. I pull the door open to find myself face to face with an older woman. Behind her, a taxi is pulling away from the curb.

“Rachel,” she whispers, her smile quivering. “I’m Alice.”

For a moment, I can only stare back. My grandmother is younger than I’d imagined. She has light brown hair and big hazel eyes.

“Can I come in?”

I jump back and open the door. Alice pulls a rolling suitcase behind her, but it gets stuck on the threshold, and I give it a yank to get it through the door.

“Thank you, dear.” She pulls the door closed. “I’m so sorry to startle you. I’ve just had a nice long flight to get used to the idea of seeing you.”

“Does he know you’re coming?”

She shakes her head.

“Should I…” I point upstairs.

“What if you didn’t?” Alice asks.

“Okay.”

Alice glances around at Frederick’s living room. “Still living like a college boy, I see.” She wheels her suitcase toward the kitchen. Alice has been here before. “Come with me, would you?”

In the kitchen, I watched as Alice unzips her bag. She removes a baggie full of what looks like flour, a stick of butter bagged with an ice pack, and a bag of chocolate chips. After a few more ingredients emerge, she lifts a plastic bowl and a cookie sheet from the bottom.

“Rachel, you and I are going to make cookies. Because that’s what grandmothers do. And also so that I don’t just stare at you and cry.”

“Okay.” I’m back to one-word answers again.

Alice dumps the flour into the bowl. I pick up a baggie that contains what looks like both brown and white sugars, and pour those on top.

“There you go,” my grandmother says. I look up to see Alice studying me. “Frederick is my only child,” she says. “I never expected to have a granddaughter.” Her eyes begin to look red. Alice sniffs. Then she dumps another white substance from a baggie into the bowl. Baking soda and salt, probably.

I take a fork out of the drawer and stir the dry ingredients together.

“I’m very angry with your father. I can’t even say ‘your father’ without my blood pressure rising five points. To think that I had a grandchild walking around in the world…” She puts a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry, Rachel. It didn’t have to be this way.”

Apparently, it did. I keep that thought to myself. “Should I preheat the oven?”

“That’s a fine idea.”

I tap 375 into the key pad, and then discover that it’s also necessary to press “enter” before the oven will heat. Frederick’s oven is about twenty years newer than the one in my Orlando house.