“The Vandenberg men weren’t very lucky in love,” I mutter, cutting off another bite.
Jude takes a drink of his coffee, his brow tightly knit, like he’s spent the past twenty-four hours thinking the same thing.
“Hey,” I say.
He drags his hand down his face, then looks up at me. “Rafe keeps talking about you.”
“What?”
His leg bounces faster.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know. It’s like he’s baiting me. Saying things.”
“What kind of things?”
Jude drums his finger on the handle of his coffee mug, clearly agitated. I try not to press, but morbid curiosity rises like flame on the tip of my tongue. If Rafe is talking about me, I want to know what he’s saying. But then I look at Jude—really look—and he’s clearly miserable.
“Just ignore him,” I say.
“That easy, huh?”
“It’s the best way to handle a jerk. Seriously, he isn’t worth your time.”
It’s true.
Rafe is a giant jerk. And while I may have thought the same about Jude a few weeks ago, I couldn’t have been more wrong. “Whatisworth your time, however, is pie from The Cobbler.”
I lift my fork, waving it back and forth with a perfectly-sized bite on the end. “Do you want to try some? It’ll cheer you up. Pie from The Cobbler cheers everyone up.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
I scoop the bite into my mouth, lifting my eyebrows in an attempt to entice him.
He chuckles softly, then rotates his coffee cup. “I’ve been thinking about your idea the first time we met.”
“You’re gonna have to refresh my memory. I have a lot of ideas all the time, and they sorta jumble together.”
He smiles a little, the crease between his brow losing some of its edge, and it’s the most tortured, beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. If I were Ezra Vandenberg, I’d paint it a thousand times over until I captured it perfectly. My own personal obsession.
“To carpool,” he says.
“Oh.”
“I’d be up for it, if you still wanted to—you know—decrease your carbon footprint.”
19
BIRTHDAY WISHES
Isit on the bench in the Midnight Garden, playing with a fallen ribbon. I rub the delicate fabric between my fingers and stare at the pond, no longer choked with fallen leaves. Its dark, glassy surface reflects the twisted silver tree behind me. Several of its limbs are still tied with ribbon like the one in my hand. I wonder what they were tied for? Protection? Remembrance? Wishes?
If I could make a wish right now, what would it be about? The portrait, which remains a mystery? Or perhaps it would be about the boy I’ve been investigating the mystery with.
More than a week has passed since Jude and I convinced the grumpy clerk at town hall to help us dig through old records. We found Molly’s registration of birth in a bound ledger from the 1700s.After that, the trail went cold. There was no record of marriage, no record of death. It’s possible such records were lost in the fire, but we found a record of her father’s death, and her brother’s, too. If those survived, it seems like Molly’s would have as well. We even checked different sections just to be thorough—land deeds, wills, taxes. It was to no avail. After Molly Ludwig attended the Yuletide Ball with Ezra Vandenberg, it was as if she vanished into nothing.
Just like the Vandenbergs.
