For my children, and their children. And all who come after.



PART ONEAMBITIONS

Power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring.

—SIR FRANCIS BACON



CHAPTER ONE

Georgetown

The first time Adrian Rizzo met her father, he tried to kill her.

At seven, her world consisted primarily of movement. Most of the time she lived with her mother—and Mimi, who looked after them both—in New York. But sometimes they stayed in L.A. for a few weeks, or in Chicago or Miami.

In the summer, she got to visit with her grandparents in Maryland for at least two weeks. That, in her opinion, was the most fun because they had dogs and a big yard to play in, and a tire for a swing.

When they lived in Manhattan, she went to school, and that was fine. She got to take dance lessons, and do gymnastics, and that was way better than school.

When they traveled for her mother’s work, Mimi homeschooled her because she had to be educated. Mimi made learning about the place where they stayed part of being educated. Since they were in DC for a whole month, part of school meant visiting the monuments, taking a White House tour, and going to the Smithsonian.

Sometimes she got to work with her mom, and she liked that a lot. Whenever she got to work in one of her mom’s fitness videos, she had to learn a routine, like a cardio dance or yoga poses.

She liked learning; she liked dancing.

At five, she did a whole video with her mom geared toward kids and families. A yoga one because, after all, she was the baby in Yoga Baby, her mother’s company.

It made her proud, and excited that her mother said they’d do another. Maybe when she was ten, to target that age group.

Her mom knew all about age groups and demographics and things like that. Adrian heard her talking about them with her manager and her producers.

Her mom knew plenty about fitness, too, and the mind-body connection, and nutrition, and meditation, and all sorts of things like that.

She didn’t know how to cook—not like Popi and Nonna, who owned a restaurant. She didn’t like to play games like Mimi—because she stayed really busy building her career.

She had a lot of meetings, and rehearsals, and planning sessions, and public appearances, and interviews.

Even at seven, Adrian understood Lina Rizzo didn’t know a whole lot about being a mom.

Still, she didn’t mind if Adrian played with her makeup—as long as she put everything back where it belonged. And she never got mad if they worked on a routine and Adrian made mistakes.

Best of all on this trip, instead of flying back to New York when her mom finished this video and all the interviews and meetings, they got to drive to visit her grandparents for a long weekend.

She had plans to try to negotiate that into a week, but for now she sat on the floor in the doorway and watched her mother work out another routine.

Lina had chosen this house for the month because it had a home gym with mirrored walls, something as essential to her as the number of bedrooms.

She did squats and lunges, knee lifts, burpees—Adrian knew all the names. And Lina talked to the mirror—her viewers—giving instructions, encouragement.

Now and then she said a bad word and started something over again.

Adrian thought her beautiful, like a sweaty princess, even though she didn’t have her makeup on because there weren’t any people or cameras. She had green eyes like Nonna and skin that looked like she bathed in the sun—even though she didn’t. Her hair—pulled back in a scrunchie now—was like the chestnuts you could buy all warm and smelling good in a bag at Christmastime.

She was tall—not as tall as Popi—and Adrian hoped she would be, too, when she grew up.

She wore tight, tiny shorts and a sports bra—but she wouldn’t wear anything that showed so much for videos or appearances because Lina said it wasn’t classy.

Since she’d been raised to be mind-body-health conscious, Adrian knew her mom was fit, firm, and fabulous.

Muttering to herself, Lina walked over to make some notes on what Adrian knew was the outline for the video. This one would include three segments—cardio, strength training, and yoga—each thirty minutes, with a bonus fifteen-minute express section on total body.

Lina grabbed a towel to mop off her face and spotted her daughter.

“Crap, Adrian! You gave me a jolt. I didn’t know you were there. Where’s Mimi?”

“She’s in the kitchen. We’re going to have chicken and rice and asparagus for dinner.”

“Great. Why don’t you go give her a hand with that? I need a shower.”

“How come you’re mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

“You were mad when you were talking on the phone with Harry. You yelled how you didn’t tell anybody, especially some bad-word tabloid reporter.”

Lina yanked the scrunchie out of her hair the way she did when she had a headache. “You shouldn’t listen to private conversations.”

“I didn’t listen, I heard. Are you mad at Harry?”

Adrian really liked her mother’s publicist. He snuck her little bags of M&M’s or Skittles and told funny jokes.

“No, I’m not mad at Harry. Go help Mimi. Tell her I’ll be down in about a half hour.”

She was, too, mad, Adrian thought when her mother walked away. Maybe not at Harry, but at somebody, because she’d made a lot of mistakes when she’d practiced and said a lot of bad words.

Her mother hardly ever made mistakes.

Or maybe she just had a headache. Mimi said people sometimes got headaches if they worried too much.

Adrian got up from the floor. But since helping with dinner was boring, she went into the fitness room. She stood in front of the mirrors, a girl tall for her age with her curly hair—black as her grandfather’s had once been—escaping a green scrunchie. Her eyes had too much gold in them to rate a true green like her mother’s, but she kept hoping they’d change.

In her pink shorts and flowered T-shirt, she struck a pose. And turning on the music in her head, danced.

She loved her dance classes and gymnastics when they were in New York, but now she imagined not taking a class, but leading one.

She twirled, kicked, did a handspring, the splits. Cross-step, salsa, leap! Making it up as she went.

She amused herself for twenty minutes. The last innocent twenty minutes of her life.

Then someone pushed the buzzer on the front door. And kept pushing it.

It had an angry sound, and one she’d never forget.

She wasn’t supposed to open the door herself, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t go see. So she wandered out to the living room, then the entranceway as Mimi marched in from the kitchen.

Mimi dried her hands on a bright red dishcloth as she hustled through. “For Pete’s sake! Where’s the fire?”

She rolled her deep brown eyes at Adrian, tucked the cloth in the waistband of her jeans.

A small woman with a powerful voice, she shouted, “Hold your damn horses!”

She knew Mimi was the same age as her mother because they’d gone to college together.

“What’s your problem?” she snapped, then turned the lock and opened the door.

From where she stood, Adrian saw Mimi’s expression go from irritated—like it got when Adrian didn’t pick up her room—to scared.

And everything happened so fast.

Mimi tried to close the door again, but the man pushed it open, pushed her back. He was big, so much bigger than Mimi. He had a little beard with some gray in it, and more in his hair, like silver wings on the gold, but his face was all red like he’d been running. Adrian’s first shock at seeing the big man shove Mimi froze her in place.

“Where the fuck is she?”

“She’s not here. You can’t barge in here like this. Get out. You get out now, Jon, or I’m calling the police.”

“Lying bitch.” He grabbed Mimi’s arm, shook her. “Where is she? She thinks she can run her mouth, ruin my life?”

“Get your hands off me. You’re drunk.”

When she tried to pull away, he slapped her. The sound reverberated like a gunshot in Adrian’s head, and she leapt forward.

“Don’t you hit her! You leave her alone!”

“Adrian, you go upstairs. Go upstairs right now.”

But temper up, Adrian balled her fists. “He has to go away!”

“For this?” the man snarled at Adrian. “For this she ruins my goddamn life? Doesn’t look a thing like me. She must’ve been whoring around, and she’s trying to pin the little bastard on me. Fuck that. Fuck her.”

“Adrian, upstairs.” Mimi whirled toward her, and Adrian didn’t see mad—like what she felt. She saw scared. “Now!”

“The bitch is up there, isn’t she? Liar. Here’s what I do to liars.” He didn’t slap this time, but used his fist, once, twice, on Mimi’s face.

When she crumpled, that fear dove into Adrian. Help. She had to get help.

But he caught her on the stairs, snapped her head back as he grabbed the tail of curly hair and yanked.

She screamed, screamed for her mother.

“Yeah, you call Mommy.” He slapped her so the sting burned like fire in her face. “We want to talk to Mommy.”

As he dragged her up the stairs, Lina ran out of the bedroom in a robe, her hair still wet from the shower.

“Adrian Rizzo, what the—”

She stopped, stood very still as she locked eyes with the man. “Let her go, Jon. Let her go so you and I can talk.”

“You’ve done enough talking. You ruined my life, you stupid hick.”

“I didn’t talk to that reporter—or to anyone about you. That story didn’t come from me.”

“Liar!” He yanked Adrian’s hair again, so hard it felt like her head was on fire.

Lina took two careful steps forward. “Let her go, and we’ll work it out. I can fix this.”

“Too fucking late. The university suspended me this morning. My wife is mortified. My children—and I don’t believe for one fucking minute this little bitch is mine—are crying. You came back here, back to my city, to do this.”

“No, Jon. I came for work. I didn’t talk to the reporter. It’s been over seven years, Jon, why would I do this now? At all? You’re hurting my daughter. Stop hurting my daughter.”

“He hit Mimi.” Adrian could smell her mother’s shower and shampoo—the subtle sweetness of orange blossoms. And the stink from the man she didn’t know was sweat and bourbon. “He hit her in the face, and she fell down.”

“What have you…” Lina took her eyes off him to look over the railing that ran across the second floor. She saw Mimi, face bloody, crawling behind a sofa.

She tracked her gaze back to Jon. “You have to stop this, Jon, before someone gets hurt. Let me—”

“I’m hurt, you fucking whore!”

His voice sounded hot and red, like his face, like the fire burning in Adrian’s scalp.

“I’m sorry this happened, but—”

“My family’s hurt! Want to see some hurt? Let’s start with your bastard.”

He threw her. Adrian had the sensation of flying, brief and terrifying, before she hit the edge of the top step. The fire that had been in her head now burst in her wrist, her hand, flared up her arm. Then her head banged against the wood, and all she could see was her mother as the man lurched toward her.

He hit her, he hit her, but her mother hit back, and kicked. And there were terrible sounds, so terrible she wanted to cover her ears, but she couldn’t move, could only sprawl on the steps and shake.

Even when her mother shouted at her to run, she couldn’t.

He had his hands around her mother’s throat, shaking her, and her mom hit him in the face, like he had Mimi.

There was blood, there was blood, on her mom, on the man.

They were holding each other, almost like a hug, but hard and mean. Then her mother stomped down on his foot, jerked her knee up. And when the man stumbled back, she shoved.

He hit the railing. Then he was flying.

Adrian saw him fall, arms waving. She saw him crash into the table where her mother put flowers and candles. She heard those terrible sounds. She saw the blood run out from his head, his ears, his nose.

She saw …

Then her mother lifted her, turned her, pressed her face to her breast.

“Don’t look, Adrian. It’s all right now.”

“It hurts.”

“I know.” Lina cradled Adrian’s wrist. “I’m going to fix it. Mimi. Oh, Mimi.”

“The police are coming.” Her eye swollen, half-closed, already blackening, Mimi wobbled up the steps, then sat and put her arms around both of them. “Help’s coming.”

Over Adrian’s head, Mimi mouthed two words. He’s dead.

* * *

Adrian would always remember the pain, and the quiet blue eyes of the paramedic who stabilized the greenstick fracture in her wrist. He had a quiet voice, too, when he shined a little light in her eyes, when he asked her how many fingers he held up.

She’d remember the policemen, the first ones who came after the sirens stopped screaming. The ones in the dark blue uniforms.

But most of it, even as it happened, seemed blurry and distant.

They huddled in the second-floor sitting room with its view of the back courtyard and its little koi pond. Mostly the police in the uniforms talked to her mother because they took Mimi to the hospital.

Her mother told them the man’s name, Jonathan Bennett, and how he taught English literature at Georgetown University. Or did, when she knew him.

Her mother said what happened, or started to.

Then a man and a woman came in. The man was really tall and wore a brown tie. His skin was a darker brown, and his teeth really white. The woman had red hair cut short, and freckles all over her face.

They had badges like on TV shows.

“Ms. Rizzo, I’m Detective Riley, and this is my partner, Detective Cannon.” The woman hooked her badge back on her belt. “We know this is difficult, but we need to ask you and your daughter some questions.”

Then she smiled at Adrian. “It’s Adrian, right?”

When Adrian nodded, Riley looked back at Lina. “Is it all right if Adrian shows me her room, if she and I talk there while you talk to Detective Cannon?”

“Will it be quicker that way? They took my friend—my daughter’s nanny—to the hospital. Broken nose, concussion. And Adrian has what the paramedic thinks is a greenstick fracture on her left wrist, and she hit her head.”

“You look a little rough yourself,” Cannon commented, and Lina shrugged. Then winced at the movement.

“Bruised ribs will heal, so will my face. He really focused on my face.”

“We can have you taken to the hospital now, and talk there once you’ve seen a doctor.”

“I’d rather go when … you’re finished downstairs.”

“Understood.” Riley looked back at Adrian. “Is it okay if we talk in your room, Adrian?”

“I guess so.” She got up, holding her arm in its sling close to her chest. “I won’t let you take my mom to jail.”

“Don’t be silly, Adrian.”

Ignoring her mother, Adrian stared into Riley’s eyes. They were green, but lighter than her mother’s. “I won’t let you.”

“Got it. We’re just going to talk, okay? Is your room up here?”

“Two doors down on the right,” Lina said. “Go on, Adrian, go with Detective Riley. Then we’ll go check on Mimi. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Adrian led the way and Riley put her smile back on as they walked into a room done in soft pinks and spring greens. A big stuffed dog lay on the bed.

“This is a pretty great room. And really tidy.”

“I had to clean it up this morning, or no going to see the cherry blossoms and get ice cream sundaes.” She winced, much like Lina had. “Don’t tell about the sundaes. We were supposed to get frozen yogurt.”

“Our secret. Is your mom really strict about what you eat?”

“Sometimes. Mostly.” Tears sparkled into her eyes. “Is Mimi going to die like the man did?”

“She got hurt, but not real bad. And I know they’re taking good care of her. How about we sit here with this guy?”

Riley sat on the side of the bed, gave the big dog a pat. “What’s his name?”

“He’s Barkley. Harry gave him to me for Christmas. We can’t have a real dog now because we live in New York and travel too much.”

“He looks like a great dog. Can you tell me and Barkley what happened?”

It poured out, a flood through a break in a dam.

“The man came to the door. He kept buzzing and buzzing, so I went out to see. I’m not supposed to open the door myself, so I waited for Mimi. She came out from the kitchen and opened the door. Then she tried to shut it again, really fast, but he pushed it open, and he pushed her. He almost knocked her down.”

“Did you know him?”

“Nuh-uh, but Mimi did, because she called him Jon and told him to go away. He was mad and yelling and saying bad words. I’m not supposed to say them.”

“That’s okay.” Riley kept petting Barkley like he was a real dog. “I get the gist.”

“He wanted to see my mom, but Mimi said she wasn’t here even though she was. She was upstairs taking a shower. And he kept yelling, and he slapped her face. He hit her. You’re not supposed to hit. Hitting somebody’s wrong.”

“It was wrong.”

“I yelled at him to leave her alone because he had her arms, and he was hurting her. And he looked at me—he didn’t see me before, but he looked at me, and it made me scared how he looked at me. But he was hurting Mimi, and I got mad. Mimi said to go upstairs, to me, I mean, but he was hurting her. Then he—he hit her with—with his fist.”

Adrian made one with her good hand while tears began to slide down her cheeks. “And there was blood, and she fell, and I ran. I ran to try to get to Mom, but he caught me. He pulled my hair, he pulled it so hard, and he pulled me up the stairs like that, and I was yelling for Mom.”

“You want to stop, honey? We can wait for you to tell me the rest.”

“No. No. Mom ran out, and saw him. And she kept saying for him to let me go, but he wouldn’t. He kept saying she’d ruined his life, with a lot of bad words. The really bad ones, and she kept saying she hadn’t told, and she’d fix it, but to let me go. He was hurting me. And he called me bad names, and he—he, threw me.”

“He threw you?”

“At the stairs. He threw me at the stairs, and I hit, and my wrist, it went on fire, and I hit my head, but I didn’t fall down the stairs very far. Just like a couple, I guess. And my mom screamed at him, and she ran at him, and she fought with him. He hit her face, and he had his hands on her like…”

She mimed choking.

“I couldn’t move, and he hit her face, but she hit back, she hit back hard, and she kicked him, and they kept fighting, and then … then he went over the railing. She pushed him to get away, to get to me. Her face had blood, and she pushed him, and he went over the railing. It was his fault.”

“Okay.”

“Mimi crawled up the steps while Mom got me and held me, and she said help was coming. And everybody had blood on them. Nobody ever hit me before he did. I hate he was my father.”

“How do you know he was?”

“Because of what he was yelling, what he called me. I’m not stupid. And he teaches at the college where my mom went to college, and she told me she met my father in college. So.” Adrian lifted her shoulders. “That’s it. He hit everybody, and he smelled bad, and he tried to throw me down the stairs. He fell because he was mean.”

Riley put an arm around Adrian’s shoulders and thought: That sounds about right.

* * *

They kept Mimi in the hospital overnight. Lina bought hospital gift shop flowers—the best she could do—to take to her room. Adrian had the first X-ray of her life, and would earn the first cast of her life once the swelling went down.

Rather than try to complete Mimi’s dinner plans, Lina ordered pizza.

God knew the kid deserved it. Just like she herself deserved a really, really big glass of wine.

She poured one, and while Adrian ate, broke her long-standing rule and poured a second.

She had a million calls to make, but they’d wait. Every goddamn thing would wait until she felt steadier.

They ate in the back courtyard with its shady trees and privacy fence. Or Adrian ate while Lina nibbled on a single slice between sips of wine.

Maybe it was a bit cool for outdoor dining, and more than a little late to have Adrian fill up on pizza, but a vicious day was a vicious day.

She hoped her daughter would sleep, but had to admit she was a little vague on the nighttime ritual. Mimi handled that.

Maybe a bubble bath—as long as she kept the temporary cast dry. The thought of the cast, and how much worse it could have been, had her longing to top off her wineglass again.

But she resisted. Lina had a good handle on self-discipline.

“How come he was my father?”

Lina looked over, saw those gold-green eyes watching her.

“Because I was once young and stupid. I’m sorry. I’d say I wish I hadn’t been, but then you wouldn’t be here, would you? Can’t fix what used to be, only what’s now and coming up.”

“Was he nicer when you were young and stupid?”

Lina let out a laugh, and her ribs whined pitifully. How much, she wondered, did you tell a seven-year-old?

“I thought he was.”

“Did he hit you before?”

“Once. Only once, and after that I never, ever saw him again. If a man hits you once, he’s probably going to hit you again, and again.”

“You said before that you loved my dad, but things didn’t work out, and he didn’t want us, so he didn’t matter anymore.”

“I thought I loved him. I should’ve said that. I was only twenty, Adrian. He was older, and handsome and charming and smart. A young professor. I fell in love with who I thought he was. And he didn’t matter between then and now.”

“Why was he so mad today?”

“Because someone, a reporter, found out, and wrote a story. I don’t know how, I don’t know who told him. I didn’t.”

“You didn’t because he didn’t matter.”

“That’s exactly right.”

How much did you tell? Lina thought again. Under the circumstances, maybe all of it.

“He was married, Adrian. He had a wife, and two children. I didn’t know. That is, he lied to me, and told me he was in the middle of a divorce. I believed him.”

Had she? Lina wondered. So hard to remember now.

“Maybe I just wanted to, but I believed him. He had his own little apartment near the college, so I believed he was essentially single. Later I found out I wasn’t the only one he lied to. When I found out the truth, I broke things off. He didn’t really care.”

Not fully true, she thought. Screamed, threatened, shoved.

“Then I realized I was pregnant. Later, much later than I should have realized, I felt like I had to tell him. That’s when he hit me. He wasn’t drunk, like today.”

He’d been drinking, she thought, but not drunk. Not like today.

“I told him I didn’t want or need anything from him, that I wouldn’t humiliate myself by telling anyone he was the biological father. And I left.”

Lina edited out the threats, the demands she get rid of it, and all the other ugliness. No point in it.

“I finished out the term, graduated, then I went home. Popi and Nonna helped me. You know the rest, how I started doing classes and videos when I was pregnant with you—for pregnant women, then after for moms and babies.”

“Yoga Baby.”

“Right.”

“But he was always mean. Does that mean I will be, too?”

God, she sucked at this mother thing. She did her best to think what her own mother would say.

“Do you feel mean?”

“Sometimes I get mad.”

“Tell me about it.” But Lina smiled. “Mean’s a choice, I think, and you don’t choose to be mean. He was right, too, that you don’t look like him. Too much Rizzo in you.”

Lina reached across the table, took Adrian’s good hand. Maybe it felt too much like speaking adult to adult, but it was the best she could do.

“He doesn’t matter, Adrian, unless we let him matter. So we won’t let him matter.”

“Are you going to have to go to jail?”

Lina toasted with her wineglass. “You’re not going to let them, remember?” Then she saw the quick fear, and squeezed Lina’s hand. “I’m joking, just joking. No, Adrian. The police could see what happened. You told the detective the truth, right?”

“I did. I promise.”

“So did I. So did Mimi. You put that out of your mind. What is going to happen is because there was this story, and then this happened, there’ll be more stories. I’m going to talk to Harry soon, and he’ll help me deal with that.”

“Can we still go to Popi and Nonna’s?”

“Yes. As soon as Mimi’s better, after you get your cast, after I deal with some things, we’re going there.”

“Can we go soon? Really soon?”

“As soon as we can. Just a few days, maybe.”

“That’s soon. Everything will be better there.”

A long time, Lina thought, before things would be better. But she polished off her wine. “Absolutely.”



CHAPTER TWO

Lina’s career had its roots in her unplanned pregnancy. In a matter of months, she went from college student and part-time personal trainer/group fitness instructor to the world of exercise videos.

The green shoots took awhile to break through the ground, but determination, persistence, and a canny head for business pushed them toward bloom.

In the months before Jon Bennett had shoved through the door in Georgetown, her career blossomed, with Yoga Baby’s sales—videos, DVDs, personal appearances, a book (with another planned)—generating over two million in profit.

An attractive, quick-witted woman, she made the most of segments on morning shows—then late-night appearances. She wrote articles for fitness magazines—and boosted those with photo shoots.

She was a young, attractive woman with a long, buff body and knew how to use both to her advantage.

She even snagged a couple of cameos on network series.

She liked the limelight, and wasn’t ashamed of it, or her ambitions. She believed, absolutely, in her product—health, fitness, and balance—and believed, absolutely, she was the best person to promote that product.

Working hard posed no issues for Lina. She thrived on it, on the travel, the packed schedules, and the planning for more.

She had a line of fitness gear in the works, and in consult with a nutritionist and MD, had begun plans for supplements.

Then she’d shoved the man who’d inadvertently changed the direction of her life to his death.

Self-defense. It didn’t take long for the police to conclude she’d acted in defense of herself, her daughter, and her friend.

And in a horrible way, the publicity boosted her sales, her name recognition, and the offers.

It didn’t take her long to decide to ride that wave.

A week after the worst happened, she made the drive from Georgetown to rural Maryland with plans to make the best out of it.

She wore enormous sunglasses, as even her skill with makeup couldn’t hide the bruises. Her ribs still ached, but she’d started a modified workout routine, and added extra meditation.

Mimi still got the occasional headache, but her broken nose was healing, her blackened eye fading to sick yellow.

Adrian found her cast annoying, but liked getting it signed. In two weeks, according to the doctor, she’d need another X-ray.

It could have been worse. Lina reminded herself constantly it could have been worse.

Since Harry bought Adrian a new Game Boy, she entertained herself in the back seat during the drive. Lina saw the shadows of the Maryland mountains, the pale lavender against a bold blue sky.

She’d wanted so desperately to escape from them, from the quiet, the creepingly slow pace, and into movement, crowds, people, everything out there.

And she still did.

She wasn’t made for small towns and country living. God knew she’d never wanted to make meatballs or pizza sauce or run a restaurant—family legacy or not.

She’d craved the crowds, the city, and, yes, the limelight.

She considered New York home base if not fully home. Home was, and always would be, she thought, where the work and the action lived.

When she finally turned off I-70, the traffic vanished, and the road began to wind through rolling hills, green fields, and the scatter of homes and farms that spread over them.

Well, she thought, you could go home again, but you just couldn’t stay there. At least not Lina Theresa Rizzo.

“We’re almost there!” Adrian’s voice came like a cheer from the back seat. “Look! Cows! Horses! I wish Popi and Nonna had horses. Or chickens. Chickens would be fun.”

Adrian opened her window, stuck her face in the opening like a happy puppy. Her black curls danced and blew.

And would, Lina knew, end up in a rat’s nest of knots and tangles.

Then the questions poured out.

How much longer? Can I swing on the tire? Will Nonna have lemonade? Can I play with the dogs?

Can I? Will they? How come?

Lina let Mimi field the questions. She’d have others to answer before much longer.

She turned at the red barn where she’d lost her virginity at not quite seventeen in the hayloft. Son of a dairy farmer, she recalled. Football quarterback. Matt Weaver, she thought. Handsome, built, sweet-natured but no pushover.

They’d sort of loved each other, the way you do at not quite seventeen. He’d wanted to marry her—one day—but she’d had other plans.

She’d heard he’d married someone else, had a kid or two, and still worked the farm with his father.

Good for him, she mused, and meant it. But not and never for her.

She turned again, away from the little town of Traveler’s Creek, where Rizzo’s Italian Restaurant had stood on the pokey town square like an institution for two generations.

Her own grandparents who’d built it had finally accepted they needed a warmer climate. But hadn’t they started another Rizzo’s on the Outer Banks?

In the blood, they said, but somehow—thankfully—that gene had skipped hers.

She followed the creek, drove toward one of the three covered bridges that brought photographers, tourists, and weddings to the area.

Charming, Lina supposed, standing as it did on the little rise at the curve of the creek. And as always, Mimi and Adrian let out twin Woos! as she drove between those barn-red walls, under that peaked blue roof.

She turned again, ignoring the way Adrian bounced like a rubber ball on the back seat, and at last onto the winding lane, across the second bridge over the creek that gave the town its name, to the big house on the hill.

The dogs came running, the big yellow mutt and the little long-eared hound.

“There’s Tom and Jerry! Woo! Hi, guys, hi!”

“Keep your seat belt on until I stop, Adrian.”

“Mom!” But she did as she was told, just kept bouncing. “It’s Nonna and Popi!”

They came out onto the big wraparound porch, Dom and Sophia, hands linked. Sophia, chestnut curls framing her face, hit five-ten in her pink sneakers, and still her husband towered over her at six-five.

Fit and strong, both looked a decade younger than their ages as they stood in the shade of the second-story porch. How old were they now? Her mother around sixty-seven or sixty-eight, her father four years older or so, Lina thought. The high school sweethearts with nearly fifty years of marriage under their belts.

They’d weathered the loss of a son who’d lived less than forty-eight hours, three miscarriages, and the heartbreak of a medical opinion that there would be no baby for them.

Until—surprise!—with both of them in their forties, Lina Theresa came along.

Lina parked under a wide carport beside a shiny red pickup and a burly black SUV. She knew her mother’s baby—the sleek turquoise convertible—had its place of honor in the detached garage.

She’d barely set the brake when Adrian jumped out. “Nonna! Popi! Hi, guys, hi!” She hugged the dogs as Tom leaned against her and Jerry wagged and licked. Then ran full out into her grandfather’s open arms.

“I know you think I’m making a mistake,” Lina began, “but look at her, Mimi. This is best for her right now.”

“A girl needs her mother.” So saying, Mimi pushed out, put on a smile, and walked to the porch.

“Jesus, I’m not sticking her in a basket and leaving her in the reeds. It’s one damn summer.”

Her mother walked down to the porch steps, met Lina halfway. Sophia cupped her daughter’s bruised face in one hand, then, saying nothing, just enfolded her.

Nothing else in the past horrible week had come so close to breaking her.

“I can’t do this, Mom. I don’t want Adrian to see me cry.”

“Honest tears aren’t shameful.”

“We’ve all had enough of them for a while.” Deliberately she drew back. “You look good.”

“I can’t say the same.”

Lina worked up a smile. “You should see the other guy.”

Sophia let out a quick bark of laughter. “That’s my Lina. Come, we’ll sit on the porch, since it’s so nice. You’ll be hungry. We have food.”

Maybe it was the Italian or maybe it was the restaurant genes. Either way, Lina’s parents assumed anyone who came to their home had to be hungry.

The adults sat at the round table on the porch while Adrian played in the front yard with the dogs. They had bread and cheese, antipasto, olives. The lemonade Adrian hoped for filled a glass pitcher. Though it had barely struck noon, there was wine.

The half glass Lina allowed herself helped ease the tensions of the drive.

They didn’t speak of what had happened, not as Adrian ran back to sit—briefly—on Dom’s lap and show off her new Game Boy, or drank lemonade and chattered about the dogs.

Patient, Lina thought, her father. Always so patient with children, so good with them. And so handsome with his snowdrift of hair, the laugh lines crinkling around his golden-brown eyes.

She’d thought all her life how he and Sophia made the perfect couple—tall and fit, handsome, and so completely in tune with each other.

While she’d always felt just a beat out of step.

Well, she had been, hadn’t she? Just a beat off with them, with this place, with the town that locals called the Creek.

So she’d found her rhythm elsewhere.

Adrian giggled when, after her grandparents dutifully signed her cast, her grandmother sketched the dogs and added their names.

“Your rooms are ready,” Sophia said. “We’ll get your bags upstairs so you can unpack, take a rest if you want.”

“I have to go into the shop,” Dom added, “but I’ll be home for dinner.”

“Actually, Adrian’s been talking about the tire swing for days. Mimi, maybe you could walk around back with her, let her play for a bit.”

“All right.” Mimi rose and, though her single glance toward Lina signaled disapproval, she called cheerfully to Adrian, “Let’s go swing.”

“Yes! Come on, boys!”

Dom waited until Adrian ran around to the side of the house with Mimi following. “And what’s this?”

“Mimi and I aren’t staying. I have to get back to New York, finish the project I started in DC. It’s just not possible to finish it there now, so … I’m hoping you’ll be willing to keep Adrian.”

“Lina.” Sophia reached over to take her daughter’s hand. “You need a few days, at least, to rest, to recover, to help Adrian feel safe again.”

“I don’t have time to rest and recover, and where would Adrian feel safer than here?”

“Without her mother?”

She shifted to her father. “She’ll have both of you. I have to get ahead of this story. I can’t let it derail my career, my business, so I get ahead of it and I take the lead.”

“The man might have killed you—you, Adrian, and Mimi.”

“I know, Dad, believe me. I was there. She’ll be happy here, she loves it here. It’s all she’s talked about for days. I have the medical records so she can see a doctor here for the next X-ray. The doctor in DC thinks she’ll be able to have a removable splint in a week or two. It’s a common injury, and minor, so—”

“Minor!”

When her father exploded, Lina held up both hands. “He tried to throw her down the stairs. I couldn’t get to her in time. I couldn’t stop him. If he hadn’t been so stupid, stinking drunk, he’d have pulled that off, and she could have broken her neck instead of her wrist. Believe me, I’m never going to forget that.”

“Dom.” Sophia murmured it, patted her husband’s hand. “How long do you want her to stay with us?”

“For the summer. Look, I know it’s a long time, and I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“We’d love to have her,” Sophia said simply. “You’re wrong to do this. You’re wrong, Lina, to leave her now. But we’ll keep her safe and happy.”

“I appreciate it. She’s basically finished the school year, but Mimi has a few more assignments for her, and instructions for you. When the school year starts up again, this will be behind her, and me, us.”

Her parents said nothing for a moment, only stared at her. Her father’s golden-brown eyes, her mother’s green made her think of how her daughter was so much a blend of these two people.

“Does she know you’re leaving her here?” Dom demanded. “Going back to New York without her?”

“I didn’t say anything because I needed to ask you first.” Lina rose. “I’ll go talk to her now. Mimi and I should get on the road soon.” Lina paused. “I know I’ve disappointed you—again. But I think this is the best thing for everybody. I need time to focus, and I wouldn’t be able to give her the attention she might need right now. Plus, there’s no chance of some reporter getting pictures and slapping her face on a supermarket tabloid if she’s here, with you.”

“But you’ll go after publicity,” Dom reminded her.

“The sort I can control and guide, yeah. You know, Dad, a lot of men aren’t like you. They aren’t kind and loving, and a lot of women end up with bruises on their faces.” She tapped a finger under her eye. “A lot of kids end up with an arm in a cast. You can be damn sure I’ll speak about that issue when I get the chance.”

She stalked away, furious because she believed she was right. And frustrated because she suspected she was wrong.

* * *

An hour later, Adrian stood on the porch watching her mother and Mimi drive away.

“He hurt everybody because of me, so she doesn’t want me around.”

Dom folded himself down from his considerable height, laid his hands gently on her shoulders until she met his eyes.

“That’s not true. None of this is your fault, and your mom’s letting you stay with us because she’s going to be so busy.”

“She’s always busy. Mimi watches me anyway.”

“We all thought you’d like to spend the summer with us.” Sophia ran a hand down Adrian’s hair. “If you’re not happy—let’s say in one week—Popi and I will drive you up to New York ourselves.”

“You would?”

“That’s right. But for a week, we get to have our favorite granddaughter with us. We’ll have our gioia.” Our joy.

Adrian smiled a little. “I’m your only granddaughter.”

“Still the favorite. And if you stay happy, your popi can teach you how to make ravioli, and I can teach you how to make tiramisu.”

“But you’ll have chores.” Dom tapped a finger on her nose. “Feeding the dogs, helping in the garden.”

“You know I like to do that when I come for visits. They’re not like chores.”

“Happy work is still work.”

“Can I go to the shop and watch you toss pizza dough?”

“This visit, I’ll teach you how to toss the dough. And we can start when your cast comes off. I have to go to the shop now. So you go wash your hands, and you can come with me.”

“Okay!”

When she raced inside, Dom straightened. Sighed. “Children are resilient. She’ll be fine.”

“Yes, she will. But Lina will never get this time back. Well.” Sophia patted Dom’s cheek. “Don’t buy her too much candy.”

“I’ll buy her just enough.”

* * *

Raylan Wells sat at a two-top at Rizzo’s doing his stupid homework. The way he looked at it, he already had homework because he had chores at home, so why couldn’t schoolwork stay in stupid school?

At ten, Raylan often felt beleaguered and bewildered by the adult world and the rules laid down for kids.

He’d finished his math, which he found easy because math made sense. Lots of other shit just didn’t. Like answering a bunch of questions about the Civil War. Sure, they lived sort of near Antietam and all that, and the battlefield was cool, but all that was like over.

The Union won, the Confederacy lost. Like Stan Lee said—and Stan Lee was a genius: ’Nuff said.

So Raylan answered a question, then doodled, answered another question, and day-dreamed an epic battle between Spider-Man and Doc Ock.

Since they’d hit what his mom called the lag time—after lunch, before dinner—most of the customers were high school kids coming in to play video games in the back, maybe grab a slice or a Coke.

He couldn’t plug in any quarters himself until he finished his stupid homework. Mom’s rule.

He glanced across the mostly empty dining room, past the counter, and to the big open kitchen where she worked.

Six months earlier, she’d done all her cooking at home in their kitchen. But that was before his father took off.

Now his mom cooked here because they needed to pay bills and stuff. She wore the big red apron with RIZZO’S across the front, and had her hair up under the goofy white hat all the cooks and kitchen prep people wore.

She said she liked working here, and he thought she told the truth about that because she looked happy when she worked at that gigantic stove.

And, mostly, he could recognize when she didn’t tell the truth.

Like when she told him and his sister everything was fine, but her eyes didn’t say they were.

He’d been scared at first, but he’d said everything was okay. Maya had cried at first, but she’d only been seven, and a girl. But she got over it.

Mostly.

He figured he was the man of the house now, but he’d learned really fast that didn’t mean he could skip his homework or stay up later on school nights.

So he answered another dumb Civil War question.

Maya had permission to go to her friend Cassie’s house to do homework together. Not that she ever got very much. For him? Permission Denied.

Maybe because he and his best friend and his other two best friends had shot hoops and hung out instead of doing their homework the day before.

And the day before that.

Doc Ock had nothing on Mom Wrath, so now he had to report to Rizzo’s after school instead of hanging out at Mick’s, or at Nate’s or Spencer’s.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Mick or Nate or Spence could hang out with him at Rizzo’s. But their moms also had the wrath.

When he saw Mr. Rizzo come in, Raylan perked up a little. When Mr. Rizzo went into the kitchen, he’d toss dough. Raylan’s mom and some of the other cooks could toss it, too, but Mr. Rizzo could do tricks, like toss it up, spin around, catch it again behind his back.

And if they weren’t too busy, he let Raylan try it, let him make his own personal pizza with any toppings he wanted—for free.

He didn’t pay much attention to the kid who came in with Mr. Rizzo, because girl. But she had a cast on her arm, which made her marginally more interesting.

He made up reasons for the cast while he finished the last stupid questions on his assignment.

She’d fallen down a well, out of a tree, out of a window during a house fire.

With the questions answered—finally!—he started the last assignment.

He’d done the math first, because easy. The history junk next, because boring.

And saved the assignment of using this week’s spelling words in a sentence for last, because fun.

He liked words even more than math and almost as much as drawing stuff.

1.  Pedestrian. The getaway car from the bank robbery ran over the pedestrian as it raced away.

2.  Neighborhood. When aliens from the planet Zork invaded, the world counted on the one and only friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to protect them.

3.  Harvesting. The evil scientist kidnapped bunches of people and started harvesting their organs for his crazy experiments.

He finished up the last of the ten words as his mother sat down at the two-top.

“I did all the dumb homework.”

Because her shift had ended, Jan had taken off her apron and cap. She’d cut her hair short after her husband left and felt the pixie suited her. Plus, it required almost no time to fiddle with.

She thought Raylan could use a haircut himself. His once sunflower-blond hair had begun to turn toward her own dark honey tone. He was growing up, she thought as she gestured to Raylan to show her the work.

He rolled those wonderful bottle-green eyes at her—her dad’s eyes—and pushed his binder across the table.

Growing up, she mused, his hair no longer baby fine and spun-sugar blond but thick, a little wavy. He’d lost the baby roundness in his face—where did the time go?—and had the fined-down, sharp edges he’d carry into adulthood.

He’d gone from cute to handsome right in front of her eyes.

She checked his work, because though she might be able to see the man he’d become one day in the boy, the boy liked to goof off.

She read the spelling sentences, sighed.

“‘Plight. The Dark Knight’s plight was to fight for right with might.’”

He just grinned. “It works.”

“How come somebody so damn smart spends so much time and effort avoiding homework he can get done in under an hour?”

“Because homework stinks.”

“It does,” she agreed. “But it’s your job. You did good today.”

“So can I go hang out at Mick’s?”

“For somebody so good at math, you’re having a hard time counting the days left in the school week. No hanging out until Saturday. And if you screw off on your assignments again—”

“No hanging out for two weeks,” he finished in a tone more sorrowful than aggrieved. “But what am I going to do now? For hours.”

“Don’t you worry, sweetie.” She pushed the binder back to him. “I’ve got plenty of things for you to do.”

“Chores.” Now the aggrieved. “But I did all my homework.”

“Aw, do you want a prize for doing what you’re supposed to do? I’ve got it!” With a huge smile, with dancing eyes, she clapped her hands together. “How about I kiss your whole face?” She leaned toward him. “Just kiss your whole face right here in front of everybody. Yum-yum, kiss-kiss.”

He cringed, but couldn’t stop the grin. “Cut it out!”

“Big, noisy face kisses wouldn’t embarrass you, would they, my precious baby boy?”

“You’re weird, Mom.”

“I get it from you. Now let’s go get your sister and go home.”

He shoved his binder back into his loaded backpack.

People were starting to come for a beer or a glass of wine, or to meet friends for an early dinner.

Mr. Rizzo had put on the cap and apron now, and was doing his toss-the-dough tricks. The girl kid sat at the service bar on a stool and applauded.

“’Bye, Mr. Rizzo!”

Mr. Rizzo caught the dough, twirled it, winked. “Ciao, Raylan. Take care of your mama.”

“Yes, sir.”

They went outside onto the covered front porch, where some people already sat at tables drinking and eating. Pots of flowers sent out fragrances that mixed with the scent of fried calamari, of spicy sauce and toasted bread.

The town had big concrete tubs of flowers spaced along the square, and some of the businesses had more pots or hanging baskets.

As they waited for the walk light at the crosswalk, Jan had to stop herself from taking her son’s hand.

Ten years old, she reminded herself. He didn’t want to hold his mother’s hand to cross the street.

“Who was the kid with Mr. Rizzo?”

“Hmm? Oh, that’s his granddaughter, Adrian. She’s going to stay with them for the summer.”

“How come she’s got that cast on?”

“She hurt her wrist.”

“How?” he asked as they crossed the street.

“She fell.”

Because she felt Raylan’s eyes on her as they walked down the next block, she glanced over. “What?”

“You get that look.”

“What look?”

“You get that look when you don’t want to tell me something bad.”

She supposed she did get a look. And she supposed in a town the size of Traveler’s Creek, with the Rizzos so much a part of its fabric, Raylan—with his bat ears—would hear anyway.

“Her father hurt her.”

“Seriously?” His father had said and done a lot of mean things, but he’d never smashed up his wrist or Maya’s.

“I expect you to respect Mr. and Mrs. Rizzo’s privacy, Raylan. And since I’m going to take Maya over there—she and Adrian are the same age—to see if they’ll make friends, I don’t want you to say anything to your sister. If Adrian wants to tell her, or anyone, that’s her business.”

“Okay, but jeez, her dad broke her arm!”

“Wrist, but it’s just as bad.”

“Is he in jail?”

“No. He died.”

“Holy crap.” Stunned—and a little excited—he bounced on his toes. “Did she like kill him or something to defend herself?”

“No. Don’t be silly. She’s just a little girl who’s been through an ugly ordeal. I don’t want you peppering her with questions.”

They reached Cassie’s house, right across the street from theirs.

They got to keep their house because the Rizzos gave his mother a job after his father walked out on them and took most of the money out of the bank.

That was one of the really mean things he’d done.

Raylan had heard his mom crying when she thought he was sleeping after that—and before she got the job.

He’d never do anything, say anything to hurt Mr. or Mrs. Rizzo.

But the girl kid seemed a lot more interesting now.



CHAPTER THREE

Everything about the summer changed when Adrian met Maya. Her world opened up with sleepovers and playdates and secrets shared.

For the first time in her life, she had a real best friend.

She taught Maya yoga and dance steps—and almost a handspring—and Maya taught her how to twirl a baton and how to play Yahtzee.

Maya had a dog named Jimbo, who could walk on his back legs, and a cat named Miss Priss, who liked to cuddle.

She had a brother named Raylan, but all he wanted to do was play video games or read comic books or run around with his friends, so she didn’t see that much of him.

But he had green eyes, greener and darker than her mother’s and her grandmother’s. Like they got a super-charge of green.

Maya said he was mostly a doody-head, but Adrian didn’t see any real evidence of it, since he steered clear of them.

And she really liked his eyes.

Still, it made her wonder what it would have been like to have a brother or a sister. A sister would be better, obviously, but having somebody close to the same age in the house seemed like fun.

Maya’s mom was really nice. Nonna said she was a jewel, and Popi said she was a fine cook and a hard worker. Sometimes when Mrs. Wells had her shift, Maya came over and stayed all day, and if they asked in time, some of the other girls could come, too.

After the cast came off, she had to wear a removable splint for three more weeks. But she could take it off if she wanted a bubble bath or if she got invited to swim in Maya’s friend Cassie’s backyard pool.

One day deep in June she went upstairs with Maya to get everything they needed for the tea party they planned to hold outside under the big shade tree.

She stopped by Raylan’s open bedroom door. Always before, he’d kept it closed with a big KEEP OUT sign on it.

“We’re not supposed to go in without permission,” Maya told her. She had her sunny blond hair in French braids today because it was her mom’s day off and she’d had time.

Maya put a hand on her hip the way she did and rolled her eyes. “As if I’d want to. It’s messy and it’s smelly.”

Adrian didn’t smell anything from the doorway, but messy hit the mark. He hadn’t made the bed even a little. Clothes and shoes spread all over the floor along with action figures.

But the walls gripped her attention. He’d covered them with drawings.

Superheroes, battles with monsters or supervillains, spaceships, strange buildings, scary-looking forests.

“Did he draw all these?”

“Yeah, he draws all the time. He draws good, but it’s always stupid stuff. He never draws anything pretty—except he did once for Mom for Mother’s Day. He drew a bouquet of flowers and colored them and everything. She cried—but because she liked it.”

Adrian didn’t think the drawings were stupid—some were kind of scary, but not stupid. Still, she didn’t say so, since Maya was her best friend.

As she poked her head in just a little farther, Raylan ran up the stairs. He froze in place a moment, eyes narrowed. Then he bounded over and into the doorway to block it.

“You’re not allowed in my room.”

“We didn’t go in, poop-brain. Nobody wants to go in your stinky room.” Maya gave an exaggerated sniff, slapped a hand on her hip.

“The door was open,” Adrian said before Raylan could retaliate against his sister. “I didn’t go in, honest. I was just looking at the drawings. They’re really good drawings. I especially like the one of Iron Man. This one,” she added, and posed as if in flight, with one arm out, hand fisted.

Now those furious eyes tracked to hers. Instinctively she cringed back as her wrist throbbed with phantom pain.

He saw her cover her braced wrist with her hand—and remembered about her father.

Anybody would be scared if their own father broke something on them.

So he made himself shrug like he didn’t care. But maybe he was a little impressed she even knew who Iron Man was.

“It’s okay. That was just practice. I can do better.”

“The one of Spider-Man and Doc Ock’s really cool, too.”

Okay, more than a little impressed. None of Maya’s other girl dopes knew Doc Ock from the Green Goblin.

“Yeah, I guess.” Considering that enough conversation with a girl, he sneered at his sister. “Keep out.”

So saying, he went in, shut the door.

Maya smiled her sunny smile. “See? Poop-brain.” Taking Adrian’s hand, she skipped down to her room to get tea party supplies.

That night before bedtime, Adrian got some paper and a pencil to try to draw her favorite superhero, Black Widow.

Everything she drew looked like blobs connected to lines or more blobs. Sadly, she went back to her standard—a house, trees, flowers, and a big round sun.

Even that wasn’t very good, none of her drawings were—even though Nonna always put one on the refrigerator.

She wasn’t good at drawing. She wasn’t really good at cooking and baking, even though Nonna and Popi said she learned fast.

What was she good at?

To comfort herself she did yoga—even though she had to be careful not to put too much weight on her wrist.

When she finished the nightly ritual, she brushed her teeth, then put on her pajamas.

She started to go out to tell her grandfather she was ready for bed—her grandmother had the shift at Rizzo’s—when he tapped on her open door.

“Look at my girl. All clean and shiny and ready for bed. And look at this,” he continued when he saw her drawing. “This has to go in our art gallery.”

“It’s baby drawing.”

“Art’s in the eye of the beholder, and I like it.”

“Maya’s brother, Raylan, can really draw.”

“That he can. He’s very talented.” He glanced at her, and her sulky face. “But I’ve never seen him walk on his hands.”

“I’m not really supposed to do that yet.”

“But you will again.” He kissed the top of her head, then nudged her toward the bed. “Let’s get you and Barkley tucked in so we can read another chapter of Matilda. My girl reads better than most teenagers.”

Adrian snuggled in with her stuffed dog. “Active mind, active body.”

When Dom laughed and sat on the bed beside her with the book, she curled up against him.

He smelled of the grass he’d mowed before dinner.

“Do you think Mom misses me?”

“Sure she does. Doesn’t she call every week to talk to you, to see how you’re doing, what you’re doing?”

I wish she’d call more, Adrian thought, but she doesn’t ask so much what I’m doing.

“I think tomorrow I’ll teach you how to make pasta, then you can teach me something.”

“What?”

“One of those routines you make up.” He tapped her nose. “Active mind, active body.”

The idea delighted. “Okay! I can make up a new one for you.”

“Not too hard. I’m new at this. For now, read me a story.”

* * *

When Adrian looked back on that summer, she realized it had been idyllic. A pause in reality, responsibility, and routine she’d never fully know again.

Long, hot, sunny days with lemonade on the porch, the cheer of dogs in the yard. The thrill of a sudden thunderstorm where the air turned silver and the trees swayed and danced. She had friends to play with, to laugh with. She had healthy, energetic, attentive grandparents who made her, for that brief moment of time, the center of their world.

She learned good kitchen skills, and some would stay with her for the rest of her life. She discovered the fun in picking fresh herbs and vegetables that grew right outside in the yard, and how her grandmother smiled when her grandfather brought in a handful of wildflowers for her.

That summer she learned what family and community really meant. She’d never forget it, and would often yearn for it.

But the days passed. A parade and fireworks on the Fourth of July. A hot humid night of colored lights and whirling sounds when the carnival came to town. Catching and releasing fireflies, watching hummingbirds, eating a cherry Popsicle on the big wraparound porch on a day so still she could hear the creek bubble.

Then everyone talked about back-to-school clothes and supplies. Her friends buzzed about what teacher they’d have and showed off new backpacks and binders.

And summer, despite the heat, the light, the long days, rushed to an end.

She tried, and failed, not to cry when her grandmother helped her pack.

“Oh now, my baby.” Sophia drew her into a hug. “You’re not leaving forever. You’ll come back to visit.”

“It’s not the same.”

“But it’ll be special. You know you’ve missed your mama, and Mimi.”

“But now I’m going to miss you and Popi, and Maya and Cassie and Ms. Wells. How come I always have to miss somebody?”

“It’s hard, I know, because Popi and I are going to miss you.”

“I wish we could live here.”

She could live in this big house, with this pretty room where she could walk right out on the porch and see the dogs, the gardens, the mountains. “I wouldn’t have to miss anybody if we could live here.”

After a quick rub on Adrian’s back, Sophia stepped away to lay a pair of jeans in the suitcase. “This isn’t your mom’s home, my baby.”

“It was. She was born right here and went to school here and everything.”

“But it’s not her home now. Everybody has to find their own home.”

“What if I want this to be mine? How come I can’t have what I want?”

Sophia looked at that sweet, mutinous face and her heart cracked a little. She sounded so like her mother.

“When you’re old enough, you might want this to be home. Or you might want New York, or someplace else. And you’ll decide.”

“Kids don’t get to decide anything.”

“That’s why the people who love them do their best to make good decisions for them until they’re ready to make their own. Your mama does her best, Adrian. I promise you, she does her best.”

“If you said I could live here, she might say yes.”

Sophia felt the crack in her heart widen. “That wouldn’t be the right thing for you or your mama.” She sat on the side of the bed, took Adrian’s tearful face in her hands. “You need each other. Now wait,” she said when Adrian shook her head. “Do you believe I always tell you the truth?”

“Yes, I guess. Yes.”

“I’m telling you the truth now. You need each other. It might not feel like it right now when you’re sad and you’re angry, but you do.”

“Don’t you and Popi need me?”

“Oh boy, do we.” She pulled Adrian in for a fierce hug. “Gioia mia. That’s why you’re going to write us letters, and we’re going to write you back.”

“Letters? I never wrote one.”

“Now you will. In fact, I’m going to give you some pretty stationery to get you started. I’ve got some in my desk, and I’ll get it. We’ll pack it up for you.”

“And you’ll write letters just to me?”

“Just to you. And once a week, for sure, you’re going to call and we’ll talk.”

“Promise?”

“Pinky swear.” Sophia locked a finger with Adrian’s and made her smile.

She didn’t cry when the car drove up—a big, shiny black limo—but she clung to her grandfather’s hand.

He gave hers a squeeze. “Look at that fancy car! Aren’t you going to have fun riding in style. Go on now.” He gave her hand another squeeze. “Go give your mom a hug.”

The driver wore a suit and tie, and got out first to open the door. Her mother slid out. She had on pretty silver sandals, and Adrian saw that her toes were painted bright pink to match her shirt.

Mimi got out the other side, her face all smiles even though her eyes glistened.

Even at not quite eight, Adrian knew it was wrong to want to run to Mimi first. So she walked across the lawn to her mother. Lina bent down for the hug.

“I think you’re taller.” As she straightened, Lina ran a hand down Adrian’s curly ponytail. And her eyebrows drew together the way they did when she didn’t like something. “You definitely got a lot of sun.”

“I wore sunscreen. Popi and Nonna made sure.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Where’s mine?” Mimi threw out her arms. This time Adrian did run. “Oh, I missed you!” She lifted Adrian off her feet, kissed her cheeks, hugged harder. “You got taller, and you’re all golden, and you smell like sunshine.”

Everybody hugged, but Lina said they couldn’t stay for food and drink.

“We flew in from Chicago. It already feels like a long day, and I have an interview on the Today show in the morning. Thank you so much for looking after Adrian.”

“She’s nothing but a pleasure.” Sophia took both of Adrian’s hands, kissed them. “An absolute pleasure. I’m going to miss your pretty face.”

“Nonna.” Adrian flung her arms around her.

Dom hauled her up, gave her a swing, then a cuddle. “Be good for your mom.” He kissed the side of her neck, then set her back on her feet.

She had to hug Tom and Jerry, and cry a little with her face buried in fur.

“Come on, Adrian, it’s not like you’re never going to see them again. It’ll be summer again before you know it.”

“You could come for Christmas,” Sophia said.

“We’ll see how it goes.” She kissed her mother’s cheek, then her father’s. “Thank you. It took a lot of stress off knowing she was away from … everything. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but I have to be in the studio by six in the morning.”

She glanced back to where Mimi already had Adrian in the limo and was trying to distract her by showing her how the lights worked.

“This was good for her. Good for everybody.”

“Come for Christmas.” Sophia gripped her daughter’s hand. “Or Thanksgiving.”

“I’ll try. Take care now.”

She got in, closed the door.

Ignoring her mother’s orders to put on her seat belt, Adrian knelt on the back seat so she could look through the rear window of the big car, see her grandparents waving goodbye as they stood in front of the big stone house with the dogs at their feet.

“Adrian, sit down now so Mimi can buckle you in.” Even as she spoke and the limo slid under the covered bridge, Lina’s cell phone rang. She glanced at the display. “I need to take this.” She shifted down to the far side of the bench seat. “This is Lina. Hello, Meredith.”

“We’ve got fizzy water and juice.” Mimi spoke brightly as she buckled Adrian’s seat belt. “And some berries, and those veggie chips you like. We’ll have a car picnic.”

“That’s okay.” Adrian unzipped the little cross-body bag her grandparents had bought her and took out her Game Boy. “I’m not hungry.”

New York City

From that long-ago summer, Adrian developed the habit of writing letters. She called her grandparents at least once a week, shot off the occasional email or text, but the weekly letter became a tradition.

Taking advantage of a warm and breezy September morning, she sat outside on the rooftop terrace of her mother’s Upper East Side triplex to write about her first week of the school year.

She could’ve typed it out on her computer and mailed it, but that felt no different from email to her. It was, she thought, the act of writing that made letters personal.

She texted, and often, with Maya, and even sent an occasional handwritten card.

She no longer had a nanny—Mimi had fallen in love with Issac, gotten married, and had two kids of her own. Besides, Adrian would be seventeen in six weeks.

Mimi worked for Lina still, but as an administrative assistant, helping schedule appointments, working with Harry to line up interviews and events.

Her mother’s career had skyrocketed with books and DVDs, fitness events, motivational speeches, TV appearances (she’d played herself on an episode of Law and Order: SVU).

The Yoga Baby brand shined sterling.

The flagship Ever Fit gym in Manhattan had franchises all over the country. Its fitness wear line, its health food line, its essential oils, candles, lotions, its branding on gym equipment had, over slightly more than a decade, turned what had been a one-woman operation into a billion-dollar national enterprise.

Yoga Baby financed camps for underprivileged kids and donated heavily to women’s shelters, so Adrian couldn’t claim her mother didn’t give back.

But most days after school Adrian came home to an empty apartment. She’d joked with Maya that she had a closer relationship with the doorman than her mother.

Their closest contact, essentially, Adrian thought, came during the weeks they worked together on their annual mother-daughter exercise DVD.

But that was her life, and she’d already decided what to do with the rest of it when she could make her own choices.

She’d already made one of her first, and sat now in the warm breeze waiting for the hammer to drop.

It didn’t take long.

She heard the glass doors behind her slide open, hit the stops with a solid thump.

“Adrian, for Christ’s sake, what are you doing? You haven’t begun to pack. We’re leaving in an hour.”

“You’re leaving in an hour,” Adrian corrected, and kept writing. “I don’t have to pack because I’m not going.”

“Don’t be such a child. I’ve got a full schedule in L.A. tomorrow. Get packed.”

Adrian set her pen down, shifted in her chair to meet her mother’s eyes. “No. I’m not going. I’m not letting you haul me around the country for the next two and a half weeks. I’m not going to live in hotel rooms, do school online. I’m staying here, and I’m going to the damn private school you pushed me into after you bought this place last spring.”

“You’ll do exactly what I tell you. You’re still a child, so—”

“You just told me not to be a child. Can’t have it both ways, Mom. I’m sixteen—seventeen in just a few weeks. I’ve had barely three weeks in this new school where I have no friends. I’m not going to sit alone most of the day in a hotel room or a studio or some event center. I can sit alone here after school.”

“You’re not old enough to stay here alone.”

“But I’m old enough to stay alone in some other city while you’re signing your new book or DVD, while you’re doing interviews or events?”

“You’re not alone there.” Flustered, baffled, Lina dropped down to sit. “I’m a phone call or text away.”

“And since Mimi’s not going with you because she has two kids she doesn’t want to leave for two weeks, she’s a phone call away. But I’m capable of taking care of myself. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been doing that for a while now.”

“I’ve made sure you’ve had everything you could need or want. Don’t you take that tone with me, Adrian.” Flustered and baffled turned to shocked and angry. “You’re getting the best education anyone could want, one that’ll get you into the college of your choice. You have a beautiful and safe home. I’ve worked, and worked hard, to provide those things for you.”

Adrian gave Lina a long, steady look. “You’ve worked and worked hard because you’re an ambitious woman with a genuine passion. I don’t hold that against you. I was happy in public school. I had friends there. Now I’m going to try to be happy and make friends where you planted me. I can’t do that if I’m out for two weeks.”

“If you think I’m leaving a teenager alone in New York so she can have parties and screw off from school and go out at all hours, you’re very mistaken.”

Adrian folded her arms on the table, leaned forward. “Parties? With who? I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs. I came close to having a boyfriend last year, but I have to start from scratch there now. Screw off from school? I’ve been on the honor roll since I was ten. And if I wanted to go out at all hours, I could do that when you’re here. You’d never know the difference.

“Look at me.” Adrian tossed up her hands. “I’m so responsible I annoy myself. I’ve had to be. You preach about balance, well, I’m going to take some for myself. I’m not getting pulled away from my routine again. I’m not.”

“If you’re determined not to go, I’ll see if your grandparents can have you for a couple weeks.”

“I’d love to visit them, but I’m staying here. I’m going to school here. If you don’t trust me, have Mimi check on me every day. Bribe one of the doormen to report my comings and goings, I don’t care. I’m going to get up in the mornings and go to school. I’m going to come home in the afternoons and do my assignments. I’m going to work out right in there, in that very nice home gym you set up. I’ll fix myself something to eat or order in. I’m not after parties and sex and drinking till I drop. I’m after a normal start to the school year. That’s it.”

Lina pushed up, paced over to the wall, and stared at the view of the East River. “You talk like … I’ve done my best for you, Adrian.”

“I know.”

Her grandmother’s words on that long-ago summer came back to her. Your mama does her best, Adrian.

“I know,” she repeated. “And you ought to trust me not to do something to embarrass you. If not, then you ought to know I’d never want to upset or disappoint Popi and Nonna. I just want to go to goddamn school.”

Lina closed her eyes. She could force it—she was in charge. But at what cost? And for what benefit?

“I don’t want you going out past nine, or leaving the neighborhood—unless it’s to go to Mimi’s in Brooklyn.”

“If I wanted to go to the movies on a Friday or Saturday night, it might be ten.”

“Accepted, but you’ll check in with me or Mimi in that case. I don’t want you letting anyone into the apartment while I’m gone—excepting Mimi and her family. Or Harry. He’s going with me, but he may fly back for a day.”

“I’m not looking for company. I’m looking for stability.”

“One of us—me, Harry, or Mimi—will phone every night. I won’t say when.”

“Spot-checking me?”

“There’s a difference between trusting you to be responsible and taking chances.”

“Accepted.”

The breeze stirred through Lina’s hair, the roasted chestnut sweep of it. “I … I thought you enjoyed the travel.”

“Some of it. Sometimes.”

“If you change your mind, I’ll arrange for you to go to Mimi’s or your grandparents’, or to fly out to meet me wherever I am.”

Because she knew her mother would do any of those things, and without too much I-told-you-soing, Adrian felt something soften inside her. “Thanks, but I’m going to be fine. School’s going to keep me busy, and I’m researching colleges. And I’ve got a project I want to start.”

“What project?”

“I have to think about it some more.” At sixteen, Adrian knew how to evade, and breezily. She also knew how to distract.

“Plus, I need to go buy a five-pound bag of M&M’s, a couple gallons of Coke, five or six bags of potato chips. You know, basic supplies.”

Lina smiled a little. “If I thought you meant that, I might knock you out and drag you with me. I have to go. The car’s going to be here soon. I’m trusting you, Adrian.”

“You can.”

Lina bent down, kissed the top of Adrian’s head. “It’ll be late here by the time I land in L.A., so I won’t call. I’ll text.”

“Okay. Have a safe trip, and a good tour.”

With a nod, Lina started back inside. Something twinged inside her chest when she looked back and saw Adrian had picked up the pen again.

She continued to write as if it were any other afternoon.

As she started down the stairs to the next level, Lina took out her phone and called Mimi.

“Hey, are you on your way?”

“In a minute. Listen, Adrian’s staying here.”

“She’s what?”

“She made a good case for it. I know it’s not what you’d do, but you probably would have thought through booking a national tour on the third week of the new school year. When she’s in a new school on top of it. I didn’t. Hold a minute.”

She used her house phone to call downstairs. “Hi, Ben, it’s Lina Rizzo. If you could send someone up for my bags, please. Thanks.

“Mimi, I have to trust her. She’s never given me a reason not to. And, Jesus, she’s tougher than I realized, so good for her, I guess. Would you just give her a call later, see how she sounds?”

“Of course. If she wants to stay here while you’re gone, we can make that work.”

“Her mind’s set—if it changes, I guess she’ll let you know—but she’s determined and that’s that.”

“Her mother’s daughter?”

“Is she?” Lina stopped at a mirror, checked her hair, her face. In looks, yes, she thought. She saw a lot of herself in her daughter. But the rest … maybe she hadn’t paid enough attention.

“Anyway, she’ll be fine. Just call or text her now and then.”

“No problem at all. I’ll stay in touch with her, and with you. Sorry, Lina,” Mimi added as the shouts blasted through the phone. “Jacob’s apparently decided to murder his sister again. I have to go, but you have a safe trip. And don’t worry.”

“Thanks. Talk soon.”

When the buzzer rang, she walked to the door.

And put everything else aside. She had some prep to do on the plane, and a full schedule ahead of her.



CHAPTER FOUR

Alone in New York, Adrian followed her morning routine. She got up with her alarm, did her morning yoga. She showered, dealt with her hair—always a chore—applied minimal makeup—she’d always had a love affair with makeup.

She dressed in the detested school uniform—navy pants, white shirt, navy blazer. Every day she donned the uniform she vowed never to voluntarily wear a navy blazer after graduation.

She put together a breakfast of mixed fruit with Greek yogurt, a slice of ten-grain toast, and juice.

Because Mimi had ingrained the habit in her, she did her dishes, made her bed.

A quick check of the weather on her phone promised mostly sunny and continued warm, so she didn’t bother with a jacket.

She shrugged on her backpack and took the penthouse’s private elevator down.

She couldn’t complain about the five-block walk to school, especially with the weather so fine. She used the time to go over her plan—her deviation from routine.

And the single rule laid down she fully intended to break.

When her phone rang, she checked the display. “Hi, Mimi.”

“Just doing my duty.”

“You can tell Mom when she asks that I was on my way to school when you checked. Of course, instead of going there, I’m going to grab a train to the Jersey Shore and soak up some rays, use my fake ID to buy a bunch of beer, and have lots of sex with strangers in a cheap motel.”

“Good plan, but I think I’ll leave that part out of my report. I know you’re fine, honey, but checking in is the right and loving thing to do.”

“I get it.”

“Do you want to come here for the weekend?”

“Thanks, but I’m good. If that changes, you’ll find me on your doorstep.”

“If you need anything, you call me.”

“I will. Talk soon.”

With that done, she put her phone away.

She had a backup plan if her first didn’t work. But she’d done her research, and thought Plan A had real potential.

She clipped her ID on the blazer as she walked up the short stone steps to the dignified brownstone that served as a school for grades nine through twelve—if you were rich enough and smart enough.

She went inside, through the small security vestibule.

The quiet, the gleaming wood floor, the pristine walls contrasted with the noise and movement and slight dinge of her old school.

She missed it, all of it.

Two years, she reminded herself as she turned away from the wide entrance to the hall on the left. Two years and she could make her own choices.

She intended to preview that by making one today.

By junior year, most of the students had formed their own tribes. Making room for the new girl took time, and she hadn’t had a full three weeks.

She knew those established tribes studied her, sized her up, considered. Though she’d never been shy, Adrian took her time as well.

The jocks could make sense for the next couple of years. Sports might not be so much her thing, but athleticism was. The fashionable girls could be fun, as she did love clothes. (Another reason to hate the uniform.)

The party animals didn’t interest her any more than the scarily serious eggheads.

As always, the group as a whole had scatters of the snobs, the bullies—often intertwined.

The nerds were, always, anywhere, deadly to social strata.

But for her project, that’s exactly where she aimed.

She made the choice during lunch period that would almost certainly doom her chances of joining the social hierarchy.

In the dining hall, Adrian carried her tray—field green salad with grilled chicken, seasonal fruit, sparkling water—past the table of jocks, away from the fashionable girls, and to the lowest of the rung, the nerd table.

She caught the lag in some of the conversational buzz, and a few snickers, as she paused by the lowly table and its three occupants.

Since she’d done her due diligence—reading back issues of the school newspaper, combing last year’s yearbook—she targeted Hector Sung.

Asian, coat-hanger thin, square-framed black glasses with dark brown eyes behind them. Those eyes blinked at her now as he stopped in the act of biting into a slice of veggie pizza.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

He said, “Um.”

She just smiled and sat across from him. “I’m Adrian Rizzo.”

“Okay. Hi.”

The girl beside him, with skin like caramel cream and a gorgeous head of braids, rolled big, round, black eyes. “He’s Hector Sung, and he’s thinking nobody sits here but us. I’m Teesha Kirk.”

She jerked a thumb with a thick silver ring to the boy sitting warily and red-faced beside Adrian. “The ginger is Loren Moorhead—the third. You’ve got about five-point-three seconds to move before you’re infected by nerd germs and permanently ostracized from society.”

Adrian had done her due diligence on Teesha as well, who’d have ranked with the scarily smart eggheads but for her nerd bones. She preferred Dungeons & Dragons tournaments or Doctor Who marathons to meetings of the National Honor Society or National Merit Scholars.

“Oh well.” Adrian shrugged, added a squirt of lemon to her salad, took a delicate bite. “Guess time’s up. So, nice to meet you, Hector, Teesha, Loren. Anyway, Hector, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

He dropped the pizza onto his plate with a little splat. “A what?”

“Business proposition. I need a videographer, and since that’s your interest, I thought you could help me out with a project.”

His gaze darted between his two friends. “For school?”

“No. I want to do a series of seven fifteen-minute videos. One for each day of the week. I’d want voice-overs for some of them, real-time audio for others. I thought about setting up like a tripod and camera, just doing it myself. But that’s not the look I want.”

His gaze finally came back to hers, and she read interest in it. “What kind of videos?”

“Fitness. Yoga, cardio, strength training, and so on. To put on YouTube.”

“Maybe you’re messing with us.”

She shifted to Loren. His hair, painfully red and cut close to his head, framed a milk-white, freckled face. He had soft blue eyes and a good fifteen pounds of extra pudge.

She thought she could help him with that if he wanted.

“Why would I? I need somebody to video my segments, and I’ll pay fifty dollars for each one. That’s three-fifty for seven. I guess that’s negotiable, within reason.”

“I could think about it. When did you want to start?”

“Saturday morning—sunrise. I want to do segments at sunrise, and at sunset. I have a big terrace, and it would work for this.”

“I’d probably need assistants.”

Adrian ate more salad, considered. “Seventy-five per segment. Split it however you want.”

“What time’s sunrise?” Loren wondered.

Before Adrian could speak—because she’d looked it up—Teesha said, “Sunrise on Saturday, six-twenty-seven a.m. Sunset, seven-twenty p.m. EDT.”

“Don’t ask,” Loren suggested. “She just knows stuff like that.”

“Great. You’d need to get there in time to set up and whatever you need to do. I’ve got my address, and what I’ve outlined, the basic scripts.”

Adrian took a thumb drive out of her pocket, set it beside Hector’s tray. “Look it over, think it over, let me know.”

“Your mom’s the Yoga Baby lady, right?”

Adrian nodded at Teesha. “That’s right.”

“How come you don’t have her people do it? She’s got her own production company.”

“Because this is for me. It’s mine. So, if you decide to take the job, I’ll have you cleared to come up. It’ll probably take the whole weekend. Maybe longer. I don’t know how much postproduction time you’d need to get it done, get it up.”

“I’ll take a look, let you know maybe tomorrow.” Hector offered her a little smile. “You know, you really are screwed around here now. I hope it’s worth it for you.”

“Me, too.”

She got through the rest of the day by ignoring the smirks, the snide comments, and the snickers.

When she stepped back out into the air, Hector and his little tribe came after her.

“So hey, listen. I had a chance to look at some of your outline. Seems doable.”

“Great.”

“I’d want to see the space, though, before committing. Make sure it’ll work for what you’re after.”

“I can show you now if you’ve got time. I’m only a few blocks from here.”

“Now’s good.”

“We’re all going,” Teesha told her.

“Fine.”

“So…” As he trooped along beside her, Hector shoved up his glasses. “I took a look at a couple of your mother’s videos during my free period. Her production values are total, right? I’ve got some good equipment, but I’m not going to be able to match what she’s got going in the studio.”

“I don’t want what she’s got. I want mine.”

“I looked up stuff about her, and you.”

Adrian glanced back over her shoulder at Loren.

Debate team nerd, she remembered. Always picked last for any team in PE—and first to volunteer for hall monitor.

“And?”

“People are always running scams and stuff, so I wanted to take a look. Your mom seriously killed your dad.”

It wasn’t the first time someone had prodded her on it, but Adrian had to admit, Loren hit the most direct.

“He wasn’t my dad, he was my biological father. And he was trying to kill me at the time.”

“How come?”

“Because he was drunk and mean and maybe crazy. I don’t know. It was the first and the last I’d seen of him. And since it was almost ten years ago, it’s not relevant to any of this.”

“Jesus, Loren, let it go.” Teesha gave him a solid poke with her elbow. “Didn’t your uncle do time for insider trading?”

“Well yeah, but that’s a white-collar crime, not—”

“Said by the whitest white boy in white boy history,” Teesha tossed back. “Loren’s family’s the WASPiest of the WASPs. Three generations of high-class, high-priced lawyers.”

“So he likes to argue,” Adrian said.

“You got that. You say up, Loren’s going to say down and go off about it for an hour.”

“Up depends on where you’re standing.”

Teesha poked him again. “Don’t get him started.”

“Well, we’re standing down here, so we’re going in, then up. Hi, George.”

The doorman gave Adrian a big smile as he opened the door. “How was school today?”

“Same as always. This is Hector. And Teesha and Loren. They’ll be visiting now and again.”

“All right. You all have a real nice day.”

As they crossed the fragrant lobby with its small, exclusive shops, Adrian took out her key swipe. She passed the banks of elevators to one marked PRIVATE. PENTHOUSE A.

“If you decide to come Saturday, I’ll give your names to security and the desk. The desk will call up, and I can release the elevator to bring you up.”

“How high up are you?” Loren asked as they got on.

“Forty-eighth floor. That’s the rooftop level.”

“Uh-oh,” Teesha murmured as Loren blanched. “He’s got a thing about heights.”

Since that hadn’t come out in her research on him, she turned to him now with genuine sympathy.

“Sorry. You don’t have to come out to the terrace.”

“It’s no big.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “No big. I’m cool on it. I’m cool.”

The opposite thereof, Adrian thought, as he already had a little bead of sweat sliding down his right temple.

But she let it go. Nobody liked being embarrassed.

“Well, anyway, you’d take the other elevator on Saturday, and that would bring you to the main level, front door. You need a swipe for this way, then the alarm code.”

Teesha wiggled her eyebrows. “Swank.”

And Adrian shrugged. “My mother likes swank.”

The elevator opened into Lina’s home gym. A rack of free weights ran along a mirrored wall, and racks and shelves—stability balls, yoga mats and blocks, exercise bands, jump ropes, medicine balls, and kettlebells—flanked it.

A huge flat screen dominated the wall over a long, narrow gas fireplace. In the small, open kitchen area, energy drinks filled a wine fridge. A glass-front cabinet held Yoga Baby water bottles.

A wall of glass doors opened to the expansive terrace, and the city beyond.

“No machines?” Teesha wandered the space.

“Your body’s the machine, in my mother’s world.”

“Well, organic complexities are different from mechanical complexities.”

“The Terminator had both organic and mechanical complexities,” Loren pointed out.

“We’re years from Skynet,” Teesha pointed out. “Anyway, I get she means you use your body, your body weight, keep it in tune and all that.”

Adrian waited a beat. “Right. There’s a bathroom around the left of the kitchen if anybody needs it.” Adrian unlocked and pulled open the glass doors. “I want to do the videos out here.”

“Awesome.” Hector stepped out. “Awesome. We’ll want to move the furniture, have a clear space.” He glanced over to the hot tub humming under its cover on a platform. “And turn that off. You get some city noises, even way up here, but that’ll just add to it. Shoot this way, you get the river in the background.”

“And the sunrise,” Adrian added. “For the sunset shoots, we go the other way. You could see the Chrysler Building, the Empire State. I’m not sure what’s best for late morning or afternoon. I just want different angles.”

“Yeah, yeah. I can maybe hit my dad up for some equipment, bounce the light. Maybe he’d let me use his good camera.”

“Hector’s dad’s a cinematographer.” Loren spoke from just inside the doorway, where he’d stopped. And stayed. “He’s on Blue Line—the cop show. So, is there like anything to drink besides that health stuff? Like, you know, sodas?”

“Banned in this house—but I’ll get some for Saturday. There’s juice down in the main kitchen.”

“I’ll live without it.”

“Okay, so…” Hector did another walk around, studying angles. “Can we do like a rehearsal, one segment, get a solid feel?”

“Oh, sure. I need to change. I can’t work out in this.”

“How about you do that?” Teesha said. “Me and Hector can move some of the furniture. Loren can go out and maybe buy some Cokes.”

“There’s a shop right off the lobby downstairs if you want.” Adrian walked back, dug into her backpack, and took out ten dollars. “On me.”

“Cool.”

By the time Adrian had changed into yoga pants and a tank, Hector and Teesha had muscled two tables, two sofas, and a chair to the far side of the terrace.

She brought out a yoga mat, angled it so she faced southeast.

“I tested this out the other day, and you should be able to get me, the river, the sunrise.”

“I’m gonna video with my camera, just to test it. I mean, the light’ll be different and all that jazz, but we can check the timing, the angles, and I can plan better.”

“Great.” She glanced back as the elevator opened. Loren put her swipe on top of her backpack, then set the bag on the counter in the kitchen.

“Got Cokes, got some chips and stuff.”

Adrian thought of her mother, and had to laugh. “That would be the first time either of those came into this place since we moved in.”

“Man, what do you eat?”

“You mean for snacks?” Adrian smiled at Loren as he passed out Cokes. “Fruit, raw veggies, hummus, almonds, baked sweet potato fries are sometimes acceptable. It’s not so bad. I’m used to it.”

“Your mom’s way strict.”

“Fitness and nutrition? That’s her religion. She practices what she preaches, so it’s hard to bitch too much. Anyway.” She stepped to the front of her mat. “I want to do this, like I said, without the vocals, then voice-over after.”

“Fifteen, right?” Teesha pulled out her phone. “I’ll time it.”

She’d practiced the routine countless times, tweaked it until she felt it met her goals. A gentle and, well, pretty morning salute to the sun.

She let her mind go.

Since she was used to camera and crew when she did videos with her mother, Hector and the others didn’t distract her. When she ended with Savasana, she added the vocals.

“I’m going to talk this part out now, so you don’t think I’ve just fallen asleep. The voice-over’s going to instruct how to breathe, how to empty the mind, allow the body to fully let go. Relaxing from the toes, to the ankles, the shins, and up the body, how to visualize soft colors or light on inhales, expel dark and stress on the exhales.”

“You’ve got like ninety seconds left,” Teesha told her.

“That’s right. I’ll say to stay in Savasana as long as they like, then…”

She stretched out, arms overhead, before turning on her side, knees drawn up. Smoothly, she rolled into a cross-legged position on the center of the mat.

“Meditation position,” she said, putting her right palm over her left, thumbs touching. “Breathing in and out, blah blah.” She crossed her arms over her midsection, bowed forward. “Thanking yourself for showing up, holding the practice in, then…”

She sat up again, put her palms together, bowed her head. “Namaste. That’s it.”

“Fifteen minutes, four seconds.” Lips pursed, Teesha nodded. “That’s really good.”

“You’re really bendy.” Loren had edged out onto the terrace to sit on one of the sofas and munch chips. “I can’t even touch my toes.”

“Flexibility’s important. The thing is, a flexible person has to go farther than an inflexible one to get any benefit.” She could help him, she thought again. “Stand up, try to touch your toes.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s only embarrassing when you don’t try.”

He gave her a doubtful look but bent over from the waist, arms down. His fingertips didn’t come within six inches of his toes.

“You’re feeling the stretch.”

“Shit, yeah!”

She mimicked his pose. “I get nothing, nothing until I go all the way down.” She stretched down, palms on the floor, nose to her knees. “We’re getting the same benefit. Stand up, now inhale. No, when you inhale, you’re inflating the balloon. Fill your lungs, extend the belly.”

“Mine’s extended twenty-four-seven.” He laughed with it; so did the others. Adrian only smiled. “Just try it. Inhale, fill the balloon. Now you’re going to deflate it, drawing the belly to the spine as you bend over to touch your toes.”

When he tried it, she nodded. “And that’s already a full inch closer. Breathing. It’s all about the breath.”

She glanced over, saw Hector leaning against the wall, studying his camera display.

“How does it look?”

“It’s okay. I can study it and work out the angles. I can talk my dad into letting me use some stuff. You’re going to need to be mic’d for the other stuff, and you need like an introduction or opening bit, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve been working on it. Oh, thanks.” She took the Coke Teesha handed her, drank without thinking. Then stopped, closed her eyes. “Okay, that’s so freaking good.”

“I’ve got about twenty before I have to get home.” Hector switched off the video. “Maybe we could go over the opening, and the transitions between each segment.”

“We could storm the brain tomorrow.” Loren tried another toe touch. “At lunch period if you want to risk sitting with us two days in a row.”

“I’ll risk it.”

By the time they left, and Adrian disposed of empty Coke bottles and chip bags, she realized she hadn’t just found the production team for her pet project.

She’d found her tribe.

They brainstormed at lunch, rehearsed, and worked on details after school.

On Friday evening, she ordered pizza, stocked drinks. She helped her crew set up the equipment Hector scored. The light stand and barn doors and gels for evening shoots, the bounce, the umbrella for afternoons, the mic, the cables.

They managed to set up a makeshift studio with what Hector had begged or borrowed.

They ate pizza in the main level dining room with Loren’s playlist of ’80s hits rocking out.

With Wham! demanding to be waked up, Adrian finally had to ask. “Why the eighties?”

“Why not?”

“Because none of us were born?”

He pointed a finger. “That’s a why, not a why not. It’s history, dude. Music history. I’m thinking of doing one of the nineties next. You know, to analyze the societal fabric—where music plays into it—during our birth decade.”

“That is totally nerd.”

“Accepted.” He bit into another slice. “I dig on music, man.”

“The Music Man,” Teesha said between bites. “Robert Preston, Shirley Jones—the movie version, 1962. Preston also played the lead in the 1957 Broadway production, with Barbara Cook as Marian.”

“How do you know that?” Adrian stared in wonder. “And why?”

“She reads it, she remembers it,” Hector supplied.

“Hey, I should do a playlist of Broadway musical scores. Now that is total nerd.”

“You get right on that, son.” Hector glanced around. “This is an awesome space.”

“Says the kid who lives in a mansion every other week and a penthouse not unlike this one the next.” Teesha gulped some Coke.

Hector just shrugged. “Parents split, so I bounce between. Stepparents are okay, so far. And I got a little bro from the dad, little sis from the mom. They’re cool.”

“I used to want siblings. I had to get over it because that’s never happening. What about you?” Adrian asked Teesha.

“Two older brothers, and parents stuck together like glue. The brothers are mostly okay, except when they’re pains in my ass.”

“Sister.” Loren peeled a pepperoni off the pizza, popped it into his mouth. “She’s ten. Parents separated for a few months back when, worked it out, got back together, and out popped Princess Rosalind. Kind of a brat.”

“Kind of?” Teesha said with a laugh.

“Okay, a complete brat, but she’s way spoiled, so it’s not her fault so much. You got the only child deal,” he said to Adrian. “All the attention.”

“My mother’s career gets that, and I get what’s left. That’s okay,” she said quickly. “It means she’s not on my back most of the time. And I’m going to have my own career. You guys are helping me start that.”

“And when you’re a YouTube star…” Teesha heaved a big, exaggerated sigh. “We’ll still be the three nerds while you sit at the cool kids’ table.”

“Not a chance. And since it’s the nerd table for me for the duration, I should be an honorary nerd.”

“No honorary about it. You are a nerd,” Hector told her. “You drink carrot juice and eat granola on purpose. Your mom’s gone for a couple weeks, but you’re working instead of running on the wild side. You’re the fitness nerd.”

She’d never considered herself a nerd, by any standards, but when she’d finished her bedtime yoga practice and slipped under the covers by ten, she realized the term applied.

And she really didn’t mind.



CHAPTER FIVE

They started before dawn on Saturday morning. Adrian had what she called “craft services” set up with juices, bagels, fresh fruit, and since she’d learned all three of her friends went for fancy coffee, a pod coffee maker with a variety.

She’d have to store that in her room afterward, as Lina ran a strict no-caffeine household.

Pleased with the first segment—the light had been perfect—she went down to change her gear, maybe her hair before starting the next.

Teesha went with her as wardrobe assistant.

If it surprised Teesha that Adrian stripped down to the skin without a blush once the bedroom door closed, she tried to pretend otherwise.

“I was going to see if I can get my hair pinned back, but unless I spray it with concrete, it probably won’t stay through fifteen of cardio dance.”

Teesha pursed her lips as Adrian wiggled into sleek, snug, midcalf leggings. “Why don’t you braid the sides, pin those back?”

“Braids?” Adrian pulled on a matching blue sports bra. “With this hair?”

“Hey, I got Black girl hair. You see these braids? I can do it. What product you got?”

Adrian slipped a bright pink tank over the bra. And since she’d choreographed a hip-hop-influenced routine, she’d tie a plaid hoodie around her waist and wear high-tops.

“All of them, out of desperation and despair.”

“Sit down, girlfriend. I got this.”

And she did. Adrian stared in the mirror, awed with the results. “I can’t believe it. It’s a miracle. It looks cute and, you know, funky, but contained. You’re going to have to teach me.”

“Can do.” Teesha smiled into the mirror. “It’s nice, you know, having another girl join the club. I got me some balance now. You know, Rizz, maybe you can teach me some of the yoga stuff. It looks like fun.”

“It is fun. I’ll teach you.”

The cardio dance segment was fun, too. It took three takes before she and the others signed off with Loren working the audio, Hector the camera, and Teesha moving between both.

By the time the lunch she’d ordered in arrived, they had three segments. They fit in two more before the dinner break, and finished the day with the evening yoga at sunset.

“I didn’t think we could get so much done in one day. That only leaves the total body session, the voice-overs, and the introduction.” Adrian flopped down on one of the outdoor sofas. “Maybe I’ll work in a ten-minute ab bonus.”

“I’m going to burn a copy,” Hector decided. “I want to play around a little.”

“Like how?”

“Just try some stuff. No problemo if it doesn’t work, we’ve got the master. How about we start at like ten tomorrow? We keep up this pace, it’s done by one or two. Some production, editing, la-di-da, we get it up by the end of the week. If we need to reshoot anything, we can work that in, but I think we’re good.”

“That would be amazing.”

By the time they left, ravaging through any lunch and dinner leftovers, it neared midnight. Adrian stretched out in bed and smiled into the dark.

She had friends, she had work, she had a path, and she knew just where she intended to go on it.

* * *

They rolled right into it with Adrian doing the intro first so she wouldn’t get sweaty or need another change. She looked right into the camera, the city at her back.

“Hi, I’m Adrian Rizzo, and this is About Time.” She slid into her spiel, highlighting each segment, emphasizing the fifteen-minute length, the ability to do one, do a combination.

“You’re good at this,” Hector told her. “I hang with my dad sometimes when he’s shooting. The actors never—hardly ever—get it in one take.”

“I practiced. A lot.”

“It was solid, but let’s do a second take, just backup. And you could move around more. I’ll follow you.”

They wrapped the video by noon. They had to drag the furniture back into place before they set up in the quietest spot in the triplex: her mother’s dressing room.

“Wow.” Wide-eyed, Teesha wandered the ruthlessly organized room. “Your mom’s got some awesome clothes. I thought my mother had the duds, but yours beats her to hell and back squared. There’s like…” Her gaze tracked back and forth. “A hundred pairs of shoes. Twenty-six athletic shoes. Nice colors.”

“It used to be when she did a video or an appearance, they’d give her the workout clothes and shoes she wears in them. They get credit on the DVD, and she gets the gear. Now she has her own line.”

And so would she, Adrian thought. One day.

Adrian stood in the center of the room, Hector’s laptop open on a shelf in front of her and cued up to the first yoga segment.

“The mic has a pop filter,” Hector told her as he fixed it to the stand. “So you don’t like pop your p’s and all that shit. Dad let me borrow it. And the headphones. Everybody’s going to wear a pair and be like totally silent. You gotta fart, you hold it in.

“Loren’s on sound. He starts the recording, I give you the signal, I start the video, you start talking.”

“Got it.”

She put on her headphones, took some slow, easy breaths. When Hector swiped a finger through the air toward her, she began.

“Morning Sun Salutation. Stand at the top of your mat.”

When she finished with a Namaste, Hector waited a moment, then gave Loren the cut signal. “That was freaking perfect. Tell me you got it all, Loren, because that was freaking on!”

“Sound’s good. It’s really quiet in here. All inside walls. And she—you, Adrian—sounded, like, soothing.”

“Then the plan worked. Can we go ahead and do the sunset one, since we’re on a roll?”

“Fucking A!” Hector told her, and set it up.

At the end, Loren pulled off his headphones, shot up both thumbs. “Dudes, we got the gold.”

“We need to play them back, make sure everything worked like my dad said it would. Any screwups, he said I could call him and he’d walk us through.”

“He sounds nice,” Adrian said.

“Yeah, he’s a good one.”

“Let’s take it downstairs.” Blowing out a breath, Adrian rolled her shoulders. “Sit down, spread out, check it out.”

“And order pizza.”

She looked over at Loren. “We had pizza Friday.”

Rising from her seat on the floor, Teesha angled her head. “Your point?”

“Okay, I’ll order up pizza.”

She’d stocked Cokes, and knew she had to have any evidence of them out of the apartment before her mother’s return. She worried, a little, she’d developed an attachment to them that wouldn’t be so easy to break.

But as she sat slouched next to Teesha on the sofa while Hector cued up the video, she decided it was worth it. It was all worth it.

“You’re sure I sound okay? Not boring?”

“Calm,” Teesha said. “You got the calm down, Rizz.”

“Soothing,” Hector said at the same time.

“Do the cues really work? Wait! Let’s find out. I’m going to get a couple mats. Teesha and Loren can do the practice.”

“What? I can’t do that stuff.”

Adrian spared Loren a glance as she jogged up the stairs. “How do you know? And I’ll show you how to modify. Then Hector and I can do the sunset segment.”

Hector opened his mouth to protest, but she’d already jogged up to the third floor.

“I can’t do that stuff,” Loren repeated, his head ticktocking between his friends. “I could puke, or maybe break something.”

“Don’t be such a dumbass.” Teesha got up when Adrian ran back down with the mats.

“This is just what we need to make sure. Test out the segments. I should’ve thought of it before. Let’s take it out on the terrace. Fresh air, plenty of room.”

“I’m game.” Teesha marched over, opened the doors to the main level terrace. “Come on, Loren. Don’t be a wuss.”

“If I puke, it’s not my fault. And I could get like vertigo from the height.”

“Vertigo, 1958, Alfred Hitchcock classic starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.” Teesha shrugged. “I saw it on TV.”

Loren didn’t puke, but he did groan a lot. And flushed hot pink whenever Adrian moved to him, adjusted his stance or position with hands on his hips or shoulders.

“It’s working,” Adrian murmured to Hector. “I can see it’s working. They’re both total beginners but they can follow the cues. Just need help with alignment, need practice. But that’s what yoga is. It’s continual practice so … Pizza. I’ll get it.”

Thrilled, Adrian grabbed the money she’d set on the table inside and danced her way to the door.

Then froze when she opened it.

“Pizza party?” Harry Reese, Lina’s publicity director, held two pizza boxes.

His left eyebrow arched up the way it did when he was being sarcastic or amused, or both. As always, he looked trim and stylish in black jeans, a black leather jacket with a pale gray T-shirt, and low black boots.

“Harry. I didn’t think you were back until…”

He angled his head. “Until it was safe?”

“No. No. And it’s not a party. It’s work.”

“Uh-huh.” He stepped inside the foyer, six feet of handsome with perfectly styled brown hair, clever brown eyes, and a face her grandmother once said had been chiseled by skilled and magic elves.

“It is! You can see for yourself.” She took the pizza boxes. “My friends and coworkers.” She gestured to the glass doors through which she could still see Teesha and Loren trying to do the segment, and Hector grinning at them.

She also saw, as he did, the Coke bottles, the bag of chips, the pairs of sneakers, somebody’s hoodie, scattered over the living area.

“Did she send you to check up on me?”

“No. I came home for a couple days because Lina has this afternoon and all day tomorrow off, and I wanted to deal with some things. And I wanted to see Marsh. I ran into the pizza guy downstairs. I took care of it.”

“Thanks.”

Marshall Tucker and Harry had been together for three years, and though she adored them both, Adrian still cursed the timing.

“Going to introduce me to your friends?”

“Sure. Listen, Harry…”

“I’m not going to bust you for having friends over, unless I discover you’re holding sex orgies and didn’t invite me.”

“As if. We’re working, I swear. I had a project, and they’ve helped me put it together.”

Maybe her stomach jittered as she crossed to the doors, but she did her best to radiate confidence as she pulled them open. “Hey, guys, let’s pause it. This is Harry. He’s my mother’s publicity director.”

Maybe they could have looked more guilty, but Harry figured they’d have needed to work on it.

“How’s it going? Outdoor yoga with a pizza chaser. Sounds pretty good.”

“Harry, this is Hector and Teesha and Loren. We go to school together.”

So she’d made friends already, which he considered a positive—as he’d argued on her behalf when Lina decided to transfer her in her junior year.

“We’ve been working on a video,” Adrian continued. “Hector’s a videographer—his father let us borrow some equipment.”

“Yeah?” Harry moved toward the laptop. “What kind of video?”

“A seven-segment fitness video. We’re going to put it up on YouTube.”

“For school?”

“No. No, not for school.”

“Does this mean I can stop?” Loren pushed at his hair. “I’m getting sweaty.”

Harry walked around the table to look at the laptop screen where Adrian, on pause, held in Warrior II with the sun rising over the river at her back.

“Wow, that’s great light.”

“It’s the first fifteen-minute segment. The morning Sun Salutation. We were just trying it out.”

“Don’t let me stop you. Hector?”

Hector, who’d very carefully said nothing, shoved his glasses up his nose and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Jesus, let’s not do the ‘sir’ thing. How about pushing play.”

“Ah, sure.”

Continue to gaze over your right hand as you turn it, palm up, then raise your right arm up, looking up to your palm, lowering your left arm down the back of your left leg as you move into Reverse Warrior.

“I’m getting a Coke. Anybody want a Coke?”

Teesha gave Loren the bug eye and said, “Ssh!”

“What? I’m thirsty.”

“Got enough for the whole class?” Harry asked as he continued to watch Adrian on-screen. “Wouldn’t mind one myself. And the pizza smells good. A slice is the price for my silence.”

“I’ll get plates and stuff,” Teesha volunteered.

“Thanks. Harry,” Adrian added.

“Ssh.” He gestured her back, watched another minute before he hit pause. He looked at Hector again.

“You shot this?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, yeah.”

“How old are you?”

“Um. Seventeen.”

“What are you, a freaking prodigy?”

Hector hunched his shoulders, let them fall.

“Seven segments, Ads?”

“Yeah, I thought seven to—”

“How many have you finished?”

“Seven.”

“Jesus. Show me another.”

“Cardio dance. It’s instruction in eight-count beats, cumulative, repeating until we’ve got the whole deal, and we do that three times. I got the music from public domain. It’s okay, we just needed the beat.”

He watched the first few minutes, taking the glass of Coke from Teesha when she brought it over. “Changed your outfit and hair, smart, different angle on the city backdrop, that’s good. Lighting and sound are good, too. You’ve got presence and talent, Adrian, but you always have.”

He hit pause himself, sat back. “And you’re not putting these on YouTube.”

“Harry!”

“You’re not putting them up when your mother has a production company.”

“This is mine. We did this. It’s not hers.”

He took a slow sip as he studied her stubborn face. “You’ve got a product, she’s got the means to highlight and market that product. If the rest of this is as good as what I’ve seen, I’m going to bat for you. If it’s not, you’ll make it as good, and I’ll go to bat for you. What are you calling it?”

“About Time, and my company is New Generation. My company, when I work that out.”

He smiled at her. “I’m going to help you work that out. Don’t be stupid and not use what’s in your lap, Ads. Your mother’s agent, her well-established company, me. New Generation works, and for now that production company can be under the wide umbrella of Yoga Baby. DVDs, Adrian. The agent, the lawyers, you, and your mom will work out all the details, and the deal. You’ll get money up front, you’ll get a solid percentage of sales. The lion’s share—I’m going to push for that, don’t worry. I’m on your side here.”

“You’re always on my side.”

“That’s right.” He put an arm out to draw her close to where he sat. “You know you can trust me to look out for you.”

“I do trust you.”

“Then listen to Daddy. Let me bring this to your mom—after I preview it all.”

Considering, trying her best to weigh each side—she’d really wanted just her own, but … “You guys have a say, too. We did this together.”

“Yeah, but it’s your project,” Hector reminded her.

“DVDs would be cool. Like for sale and everything. I’m just saying,” Loren added when Hector stared at him. “I mean YouTube, that’s cool, too, but if you look at the big picture…”

“Teesha?”

Teesha lifted her shoulders. “Your call, Hector’s right. But we did a really good job. I mean, like seriously.”

Adrian paced to the wall, stared out, paced back. “Say we did it your way. Say Mom agrees to produce and market. It’s my production company on the DVD, under the umbrella, like you said. And I’m billed as executive producer and choreographer.”

“That’s fair.”

“Hector’s billed as producer and videographer. Loren as producer and sound, Teesha as producer and lighting. And they get scale for each title.”

“What’s scale?” When Loren murmured it, Hector waved him away.

“And five percent of the profits on the back end. Each.”

“I think, realistically, your agent’s going to say two percent.”

“We’ll negotiate. If it gets that far.”

“DVDs like this sell for—it’s going to be a two-disk set because of the length.” Teesha, head angled, looked up at the sky. “Like $22.95.”

“She’s already a brand,” Harry pointed out. “Two-disk set, we’ll price it around $29.99.”

“Okay. Figure what Adrian’s invested, the cost of production and manufacturing, producing the cover and case, the vendor discount, marketing costs … Call it net $10.50, but that’s a guess until I do some research. So that’s—at the two percent—like twenty-one cents for each of us per sale, on top of the scale payment. Maybe it sells like a hundred thousand copies. That would be like twenty-one thousand dollars. Each.”

“With Yoga Baby behind it, the Rizzo brand, the fresh take?” Harry studied Teesha as he spoke. “We’d project a million in sales.”

She stared at him. “Two percent’s good.”

“Are you all prodigies?”

“We’re nerds,” Hector told him.

“Okay, nerds, let’s eat some pizza and look at what you’ve got here.”

When he finished, when nothing remained of the pizzas but fond memories, Harry sat back. “Okay. Okay, boys and girls. In my never humble opinion, you’ve got something here. Hector, can you burn me a DVD?”

“Sure. I could email you the file.”

“Do both. I’m flying out Monday afternoon to hook up with Lina in Denver. I’ll show it to her, give her the pitch.” He rose, rolling his shoulders as he strolled around the terrace. “It’s too late to get it produced, promoted, and distributed for holiday sales, but we can hit the January guilt spike in workout sales and interest.”

He turned back. “Nerds, if you haven’t told your parents what you’ve been doing, now’s the time. They need to clear you to sign contracts.” He dug into his pocket, pulled out his silver business card case, set a few cards on the table. “Any questions, your parents can contact me. Hector, you can send the file to the email address on the card. And be prepared. This is going to move fast.”

Hector carefully labeled the disk he’d copied. “My dad knows. I mean, except all this today. And, you know, he’s in the business and all.” He cased the disk, handed it to Harry.

“All right then, I’ve got to get home. Thanks for the pizza.”

“You paid for it,” Adrian pointed out as she rose to walk him out.

“You’re right. You’re welcome.” He draped an arm around her shoulders as they walked. “Does Mimi know?”

“No.”

“Tell her. She’ll be on your side.”

“Okay, but, Harry—”

“Trust me.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve got you.”

Two seconds after she closed the door, cheers erupted from the terrace. Awkward dancing ensued.

They didn’t know Lina Rizzo, Adrian thought. But what the hell, they had Harry in their corner.

She did a handspring.

* * *

Some thirty-six hours later and at thirty thousand feet, Lina watched two segments on Harry’s laptop. She sipped sparkling water—no ice—as the plane soared toward Dallas.

“Seven of these?”

“That’s right.”

“She should have done six ten-minute segments to make it a clean hour.”

“Two-disk set, the intro and opening and three segments on the first, four segments on the second. Two clean hours. Fifteen is more of a commitment, and put two together, you’ve got a thirty-minute workout.”

“What was that music in the cardio routine—and that outfit?”

“It’s hip-hop, Lina. It’s a good, fresh, energetic vibe. A fun one, and she outfitted herself to suit it.”

Lina just shook her head, played the next two segments. Knowing his quarry, Harry said nothing.

“You knew nothing about this?”

“No. She wanted to do it herself. She was enterprising, creative, work-focused. She found contemporaries at school who had the skills to help her realize it. They’re good kids.”

“You spent, what, a couple hours with them and know that?”

“Yeah. I also spoke with their parents, but yeah, they’re clearly good, smart kids. Seriously smart,” he added. “She’s made friends, Lina, and with them she accomplished something special.”

“And now, saying nothing to me, going behind my back to do this when I’m out of town, she expects me to not only approve, but to produce.”

“No, she doesn’t. I do. You can look at it as her doing it behind your back or you can look at it as her wanting to do something on her own. To prove herself. And you can’t look at what she did and claim she hasn’t proven herself. You should be proud of her.”

Lina studied her water, then took a slow sip. “I’m not saying she didn’t do a decent job, but—”

“Stop there.” He held up a hand. “Don’t qualify it. And we both know it’s a damn good job. Let me set aside my personal relationship with you, with Adrian, and talk to you as your publicity director. You help her set up her company, and you produce this two-pack DVD, you’re going to help her boost her brand. And you’re going to add more shine to your own.”

“A bunch of teenagers as producers.”

“It’s the hook, Lina.” He grinned, and grinned broadly. “You know a shiny gold hook as well as I do. And that story’s going to sell a crap ton of DVDs. I can pitch the angles to the moon and back.”

“You can pitch dirt to the moon and back.”

“That’s my skill,” he said cheerfully. “But this? This is solid, shiny gold.”

“Maybe. Maybe. I’ll think about it. Watch the rest and consider it.”

And he was right, she thought. She knew he was right. She just didn’t want to give in too easily.

“If you hadn’t gone home and dropped by … Which irritated the hell out of me,” she added, “you taking those two days.”

“I needed to keep an appointment, which I told you before we left.”

“Deserted in Denver.”

He smiled as she’d meant him to. “It was important.”

“And apparently a deep, dark secret.”

“Not anymore.” He blew out a breath. “Marshall and I have a surrogate.”

“A surrogate?” She’d lifted her water glass and now set it down with a clink. “For a baby?”

“Yeah. And before you start, we agreed not to say anything until she hit twelve weeks. It’s like the line. We want a family, Lina, so we have a surrogate, and Monday morning, we went with her for that twelve-week check. And we—we heard the heartbeat.”

His eyes teared up. “We heard the heartbeat and…”

He pulled up the briefcase at his feet, opened it to take out an ultrasound. “It’s our baby. Mine and Marsh’s.”

Lina leaned over, studied it, blinked at her own tears. “I can’t see a fucking thing in there.”

“Me either!” On a watery laugh, he gripped Lina’s hand. “But that’s my son or daughter—somewhere in there. And on or about April sixteenth, I’m going to be a father. Marsh and I are going to be daddies.”

“You’ll be great ones. You’ll be great.” She signaled the flight attendant. “We need champagne.”

“I want to tell the world, but you’re the first.” He gave her hand a hard squeeze. “Give me a present, and produce Adrian’s DVD. You won’t be sorry.”

“Tricky of you to get me when I’m emotional.” She let out a sigh. “All right.”

That didn’t mean she didn’t have things to say to her daughter, advice and demands she expected to be heeded. When she walked back into the apartment, tipped the bellmen for taking her bags into the master, she wanted nothing more than a long shower and the eight hours’ sleep she found impossible on tour.

But first things first. She couldn’t seem to help putting first things first. She unpacked, separating laundry from dry cleaning, putting away her shoes and the small selection of jewelry she allowed herself on the road.

She hung up the scarves and jackets she’d needed in the cooler cities.

She went downstairs, poured herself a sparkling water, added a slice of lemon. And decided she’d timed it very well when she heard the door open.

She walked out to see her daughter in her school uniform with a light jacket, as the weather had cooled enough, a backpack on one shoulder. And a careful expression.

“George said you were back. Welcome home.”

“Thanks.”

They crossed the room to each other, exchanged light cheek kisses.

“Let’s sit down and talk about this project of yours.”

“I spoke with Maddie, and since you approved, she’s willing to represent me and my friends. She said the contract should be ready soon.”

“I’m aware.” Lina sat, gestured for Adrian to do the same. “You can thank Harry for cheerleading you through this.”

“I do thank him.”

“Which wouldn’t have been necessary if you’d consulted with me.”

“If I’d consulted with you, it would have been a collaboration. I wanted to do it myself, and I did. Or I did it with Hector, Teesha, and Loren.”

“Whom I’ve never met, and know little to nothing about.”

“What do you want to know—that you haven’t already looked into?”

“We’ll get to that. If you’d wanted to do a project like this, I could have provided you with some guidance, a studio, professionals.”

“Your studio, your professionals. I wanted something else, and I did it. And it’s good. I know it’s good. Maybe it’s not as slick and polished as it would have been with your studio, your professionals, but it’s good.

“You started from scratch,” Adrian continued before Lina could speak again. “I know I’m not. I know I’ve got advantages you didn’t because you built something important. I know there are people who’ll say I have it all easy, breaking in, because you held the door open and boosted me up. Some of that’s true, but I’ll know I could do this. And I know I can build my own.”

“And how? On a rooftop with borrowed equipment and schoolmates?”

“It’s a start. I’m going to get into Columbia, and I’ll major in exercise science, minor in business and nutrition. I sure as hell don’t intend to get knocked up and—”

She broke off, shocked at herself, as Lina stiffened and sat forward.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, that was ugly and wrong and disrespectful. You make me feel like I have to justify everything I want or don’t, everything I do or don’t. But I’m sorry.”

Lina set her glass down, then rose to walk to the terrace doors. She opened them to the air. “You’re more like me than you realize. That’s a tough break for you. The video’s good—you have talent, we both know that. The concept and delivery are … interesting. Harry will hype the crap out of it, you’ll do whatever publicity he pulls out of his hat, and I’ll, naturally, endorse it. We’ll see where it goes.”

She turned back. “How long have you been working on this?”

“I’ve been working on the idea, the routines, the timing, the approach for about six months, I guess.”

With a nod, Lina walked back for her glass. “Well, we’ll see where it goes. I want a shower. We can order in for dinner.”

“I planned to make that chickpea curry you like. I thought you’d be tired of room service and restaurant food.”

“You’re right about that. That would be nice.”

* * *

New Generation, in association with Baby Yoga, launched About Time on January second. Adrian spent her winter break doing publicity, and so deeply missed spending Christmas with her grandparents she vowed never to do so again.

The sales for the first month told her she’d chosen the right path, and that she’d keep right on climbing it.

She started planning her next project.

She got her first death threat in February.

Lina studied the single sheet of white paper. The block printing, black and thick, composed a poem.

Some bring roses to the stone that marks the grave

As to their grief they are a slave.

But you will have no flowers and no stone,

For when I bring you death, you’ll be alone.

“It came in this.” With a trembling hand, Adrian held out the envelope to her mother. “It was in the post office box we got for the fan mail on the DVD. I picked it up after school. There’s no name or return address.”

“No, of course not.”

“The postmark, it says Columbus, Ohio. Why does somebody in Columbus, Ohio, want to kill me?”

“They don’t. It’s just someone being ugly. I’m surprised this is the first of this type of thing you’ve gotten. Harry keeps a file of mine.”

That shocked nearly as much as the poem.

“Threats? You have a file of threats?”

Lina reached for a towel. She’d been choreographing a new routine when Adrian burst into the gym.

“Threats, equally ugly sexual suggestions, garden-variety bitchiness.” She handed the letter back to Adrian. “Put it in the envelope. We’ll report it, make a copy. The police will take the original. But I can tell you, it won’t go anywhere. So we put it in a file, you put it away and forget it.”

“Forget somebody said I should die? Why would anybody want that?”

“Adrian.” Lina tossed the towel over one shoulder, reached for her water bottle. “A lot of people are just screwed up. They’re jealous, obsessed, angry, unhappy. You’re young, pretty, successful. You’ve been on TV, you were on the covers of Seventeen and Shape.”

“But … You never told me you’d gotten threats.”

“No point in it. And no point in you worrying about this. We’ll give it to Harry, and he’ll take care of it.”

“So you’re saying death threats are just part of the rest?”

Lina hung up the towel, set the bottle aside. “I’m saying this won’t be your last, and you’ll get used to it. Call Harry. He knows what to do.”

Adrian glanced back as she left, saw her mother facing the mirrored wall again as she restarted a series of burpees.

She’d call Harry, Adrian thought. But she’d never, never get used to it.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

NORA ROBERTS is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 230 novels, including Legacy, The Awakening, Hideaway, Under Currents, The Chronicles of The One trilogy, and many more. She is also the author of the bestselling In Death series written under the pen name J.D. Robb. There are more than 500 million copies of her books in print. You can sign up for email updates here.


Copyright © 2021 by Nora Roberts.

Excerpt from Identity copyright © 2023 by Nora Roberts.