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“Lizbeth had hundreds of copies ofSweet Mallow.But not a single copy ofDancing with the Dellawisps.I wonder why?”
“Because she hated the dellawisps. I enjoy drawing them, but Roscoe should have known that most people wouldn’t want to read about them. They’re like spoiled toddlers. Who wants to read about spoiled toddlers?”
“I would,” Zoey said. “I think they’re beautiful, and unusual.”
“Me, too.” He smiled. “There are birds, and then there areotherbirds. Maybe they don’t sing. Maybe they don’t fly. Maybe they don’t fit in. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be an other bird than just the same old thing.” He took his phone out of his work shirt pocket and called something up. “Now, for the reason I’m here. Oliver sent me a text this morning.” He handed the phone to her.
She read the text, wondering why Oliver hadn’t responded to her. She’d been checking her phone all morning. She handed his phone back to him.
“Don’t take it personally,” Frasier said. “He’s under a lot of stress. He just graduated from college.”
“Really?” Zoey asked. “Where?”
“California. He was whip-smart as a boy, interested in everything. He used to spend a lot of time with me in the garden. His favorite thing to do was search the brugmansia trees for things the birds had stolen, like he was sure one day he would find great treasure.”
“So you’ve known him all his life?” she asked, and he nodded. “How long have you worked here?”
“Since Roscoe bought it.”
Something suddenly occurred to her, and it felt like a sharp ray of light through a slit in a dark curtain. She sat back on her heels, the enormity of it almost too much. “Then you knew my mother!”
“Yes,” he said, standing as if she’d said something alarming. “Not well, and not long. But, yes.”
“What was she like?”
He began to back out of the room. “She was dramatic. And very beautiful. I was sorry to hear when she died.”
“How did you find out?” she asked as he eased closer to the door.
“Your father told me after it happened. Eleven, almost twelve, years ago now. He said the studio was being kept for you for when you moved out.”
Her father had told her as much, never saying outright that she would have to leave when she graduated, but the implication was there. She knew from her stepmother Tina that they had hoped Zoey would want to move out last year when she’d turned eighteen, to spend her senior year of high school here. Maybe she should have, but she had only just come into her money and she didn’t know anything about what it would take to manage it or how to move yet. It had taken her a whole year to figure it out.
She’d seen on Tina’s Facebook page that they were all planning a vacation in Florida now that Zoey’s younger twin stepsiblings were out of school for the summer. Tina did this not by announcing that they were going, that would be far too obvious, but by asking,Does anyone have resort suggestions for a Florida stay?
Florida was close, close enough to stop by and see Zoey if they wanted to.
But they wouldn’t.
“Do you rememberme?” she asked Frasier.
“I do. And I remember that Paloma loved you very much.”
“I’ve been looking for her here, any trace of her,” Zoey said helplessly. “It’s like she never existed.”
“You’re here, Zoey. She’ll always exist as long as you’re in the world.”
She felt tears come to her eyes, which surprised her. She wasn’t a crier. There had been no point. Her family would never have responded to tears in any way she would have wanted them to. She supposed it was because this was the first time anyone had ever said anything good about her mother. “Why didn’t you say anything when I moved in?”
“Because, Zoey, there are some stories that shouldn’t be told,” he said as he left.
Zoey appreciated that he seemed to want to spare her feelings, that he didn’t want to reveal a secret he thought might upset her. But he really needn’t have bothered.
Her father had told her a long time ago that her mother had been a prostitute when he’d met her.
Chapter Eleven
Charlotte had never given much thought to what the other condos at the Dellawisp looked like. When she followed Zoey up the curling metal staircase for lunch later that day, she didn’t know what to expect. Certainly not this sea of pink and white. She stopped in her tracks. The studio was undeniably stylish, like something out of a magazine, but utterly devoid of personality. She never would have guessed that this was where Zoey spent most of her time. Zoey, with all her energy and imagination and plots. The only real teenager touches were the clothes on the floor and the books, some of them piled several feet high, scattered around. The rest of the space was dominated by an obscenely large white sleigh bed against the far right wall and a go-go-boot-white leather couch against the far left wall.
