150 Pounds Part 11

"Wow, that's great," Alexis said. She wasn't sure how she felt about his brewpub being so close to her. She felt edgy again, closed in. It had all happened so fast, overnight. She felt a churning within her; something was changing. The worry pa.s.sed, however, when Noah smiled across the countertop at her and she couldn't help but return it, shyly.

"Looks like we're in business," Noah said.

We?

Fat and Fabulous.

This is one of the strangest posts I've ever made. My great-aunt Mimi died last night. She was ninety, so I guess that means she lived a long life, but still: it's sad when anyone dies. I hadn't seen Mimi for a couple of years, since college, though I know my mother has visited her weekly. My father was raised by Aunt Mimi after his parents died in a car crash when he was eight.

Mimi loved the h.e.l.l out of some wigs and makeup. Since she left me the farm I found a photo alb.u.m at my mom's house and Mimi is shown equally blond, redheaded, and brunette throughout her life. She was married long ago, but my great-uncle Fred died in World War II. She never had children; I don't believe she could.

When I was thirteen and got my period, Mimi bought me maxi pads and showed me how to peel off the plastic liner and stick them into my underpants. I remember it felt like a torpedo. She was a Fattie, like me, and when she was young her job was to dress women to the nines for Universal Studios glamour shots. She even met Marilyn Monroe once. She knew how to dress a big body before the movement came along to do so, before one single fashion designer had nice clothing for curvy girls. She cut and sewed her own designs in all sorts of fabrics, silks, cashmeres, velvets ... and they were gorgeous, exquisite, and cla.s.sy.

Her farmhouse in Chester sits atop a stretch of fifteen acres that to me as a kid looked like the jungle in Where the Wild Things Are because Mimi never really had a green thumb. She let nature take over, which means all fifteen acres are forest, with thick brush intertwined with th.o.r.n.y rosebushes and hundreds of trees that are allowed to drop their seeds wherever they want when the wind blows. Letting the land remain overgrown was a metaphor for how Mimi lived her life; she didn't believe in forcing people to be one way or another. She thought wildflowers and woods were beautiful.

In the end, she'd gone a bit batty between the ears, but we still visited her from time to time. Once, a neighbor called my mom to tell her Mimi was sitting in a baby pool in her front yard, only she'd forgotten to put on a bathing suit and was drinking Manhattans all afternoon. When I lose my marbles, please let me be naked and drunk in a pool, not left to rot in an old-age home.

So, loyal readers, I'm sitting on a speeding train on good ol' New Jersey Transit to see my property. Yes, that's right: Mimi left her farm to me. Having been a city kid for so long here in Hoboken, I'm flabbergasted as to what to do with it, but Mimi was mysterious like that; you never knew when she was kidding, and I feel like somehow through me her legacy lives on. I just hope I'm worthy of the challenge!

Still, I can't imagine why she left a run-down house and land to someone who is used to living in a city with no backyard! I guess I'll find out. And all of you will, along with me. I love you, Mimi, always and forever. Fat and Fabulous will return after the trip to Chester. To be continued ...

Shoshana loved walking from her apartment to the Hoboken train station. She saw the same people every time, the characters that made up her neighborhood.

It had rained overnight and she kicked up wet leaves as she walked. One stuck to the side of her shoe but she didn't mind giving it a ride. FOR SALE signs were abundant, hanging from iron gates. Instead of front yards, or gra.s.s, buildings here had pavement and iron gates. Some had little bushes planted out front. She liked looking up and trying to guess whether the four- or five-story buildings were single-family or part of the many in Hoboken that were cut up and divided into several apartments. Some clues to determine a single-family were identical blinds or curtains in all windows, or pristine boxwood bushes and flower bed plantings in front. It was easiest to tell during the holidays, as often there would be a single candle lit and placed in all windows facing the street, but as it was spring she had a harder time playing the guessing game.

Shoshana pa.s.sed a long line of people waiting for Carlos Bakery to open.

She arrived at the train station and took a moment standing on the cobblestones outside to crane her neck and view the vast building. Only half the train station was active. The other, abandoned years ago, had brilliant copper turrets turned bright lime-green from age that reminded Shoshana of the peaks in the Statue of Liberty's crown. Rumors had persisted for years the town would turn this half into a mall, as if there weren't enough malls in New Jersey already.

Walking into the station was like stepping back in time; conductors stood around in their dark blue uniforms, New Jersey Transit logo in gold on their breast pocket. They swung pocket watches, crossed their arms, and shot banter back and forth with coworkers, and wore 9/11 pins with the words NEVER FORGET. They often took off their stiff caps and peered at bright orange schedules tucked into the inside brim.

The flower salesman paced back and forth in front of his products, ever hopeful. Shoshana bought Gerber daisies, salmon-pink, canary-yellow, hothouse-orange, and she picked out the scratchy green filler leaves as she craned her neck searching for her track on the large board.

Her train was on track seventeen, which was only half covered with roof, and Shoshana caught a wet wind rushing over her from the direction of Jersey City. Spread out before her were the Gold Coast buildings, thrown up in a haste during the real estate boom of the early 2000s. Their glittering steel cast reflections into the Hudson River, as if someone were holding up a mirror and trying to burn ants.

On the train, she settled her large bag down next to her on the seat and reached her hand in to pet Sinatra, who had cheerfully come along for the ride. She produced a small bone from the pocket of her sweater, which he devoured with gusto, his crooked tongue touching her hand as she fed him.

Shoshana stuck her ticket inside the little loop on the stiff brown plastic chair in front of her and listened to Joss Stone on her iPod against the click-clack of the train's wheels. She opened her laptop and managed to pull a wireless signal out of the air and checked the recent message board comments on Fat and Fabulous. Yesterday she'd interviewed a gym teacher from Pennsylvania who devised a sports program curriculum for large girls who wanted to work out together after school but not enter traditional sports teams. So far she'd failed to get sponsorship from her town, but Shoshana hoped posting a story on it would shed enough light on her cause that the teacher would receive funding. She edited the interview for punctuation, cut some of its length, then hit the "go live" b.u.t.ton and experienced that little thrill she got whenever she wrote a great entry that would generate a lot of feedback from her readers.

She checked her e-mail, and read a letter from a sixteen-year-old in Idaho who wanted to know why a major clothing label had canceled their plus-size line without an explanation. Shoshana wrote back: "Not sure re: cancellation. Will contact corporate HQ and post their reply on F.A.F."

She then read another e-mail from the social committee of her temple, the United Synagogue of Hoboken, asking if anyone was able to put together fruit baskets for their upcoming book club meeting. They were reading The Help. It was a departure from the usual zipper-ripper romance novels or silly beach reads she usually liked. The meeting was next week and she was only one chapter in. Her blog took up so much of her time, and now, with going to Mimi's house and getting things sorted, she wasn't sure if she'd ever finish the book.

She sighed. What was with the fruit basket idea, anyway? Had the whole world gone mad from lack of calories? What ever happened to book club wine-and-cheese parties? Or at least coffee, brownies, and chitchat?

Sometimes she felt like she had to be the one to "bring on the awesome," which was a phrase she used often on her blog. Hearing the women in her book club constantly moan about how they hate their bodies depressed Shoshana. She knew it was merely a ruse to get Shoshana's treatment of kind words and positivity (after all, she was famous for helping women end the cold war with their bods), but at times she felt like she was speaking to a brick wall; her friends would just nod her to death and then go out and skip dessert and moan about the width of their thighs the second she turned her back.

She hit "reply all" and wrote: "Hey, everyone, I'll be there for the book club mtg. However, fruit baskets are not really my thing. A strawberry on a stick can only go so far. I'm just sayin'. Anyone up for mimosas and brownies? I am sure even Smaller Fats or Non Fats would enjoy them. If so, hit me back, I'd be happy to bring everything."

She logged back on to her blog and posted a picture from two weeks ago. Her roommates had thrown her a twenty-sixth birthday party in the back room of Onieals bar. Underneath the picture, she typed: "This is why they tell fatties not to wear stripes." She stared at herself, beefy arm thrown around Andrea and Greg, mouth a perfect, kissable pink from the new lipgloss Emily had bought for her that night. She was wearing a blue and white nautical dress and white flats that the weather had cooperated long enough for her to slip on. She'd thought the dress very trendy, and she smiled just looking at it. She knew she looked big and she didn't care. She loved her body. Eat your heart out, Victoria Beckham. Under the text, she added: "To those people, Fat and Fabulous says, 'Fongool!'"

On the train, watching Jersey flit by in colors muted into pastels by the condensation on the window, she fiddled with the tiny diamond stud in her right nostril.

Emily had pierced it with a sewing needle when Shoshana was sixteen. Her little sister held an extremely high tolerance for pain and therefore thought everyone should be pierced and tattooed. Only Emily was bossy about it, and after begging Shoshana to let her "experiment," she'd tilted back Shoshana's head on her mother's impractical purple velvet couch, which got so hot in the summer your thighs got a fever, and stuck an ice cube up her nose. Then, she'd walked into the kitchen to hold the needle over the stove's flame.

Shoshana watched Emily as she rotated the needle around and around in the orange fire. Unfortunately, the glow cast upon her lit her face like a carnival monster and Shoshana began having second thoughts.

"At least put a towel under your neck to catch the blood," her father had said, stopping home from work for lunch and not appearing the least bit surprised by what his two daughters were up to. "You don't want to get any on your mother's couch." He was traipsing through the house, cakelike mud trailing off his boots and making tiny brown pancakes on the front hallway carpet. He wore a red and black flannel shirt that Kurt Cobain was out making hip at the time. His gut strained against the cloth, two missing b.u.t.tons near his navel proof he wasn't sticking to the Weight Watchers diet his doctor had ordered for him. His jeans had rips in both knees, and green stains from kneeling in the gra.s.s.

The good thing about their dad owning his own landscaping business was that he often was hired by the wealthier neighbors in the large houses a few blocks away, and would come home on his lunch break, setting his saw or his lawn mower or his black plastic trays of bulbs on the front porch. He worked all week, taking only one day off in the year: for their mother's birthday, May first. Every year on that day he would buy new dress socks at ShopRite and put on a green and yellow plaid flannel tie and take Pam to dinner and a movie. Later that night, Emily and Shoshana would hear the mattress squeaking, and Emily would lean over the side of her bed (they slept in bunk beds from post-cradle until they were in their late teens) and stick her finger down her throat, rolling her eyes, and they'd both giggle uncontrollably, the thought of their parents naked and slick like baby seals and rolling around on white sheets totally grossing them out.

On the day Emily pierced Shoshana's nose, their father arranged a frayed white towel underneath Shoshana's chin and then sat down at the kitchen table and ate a roast beef sandwich Pam had made for him before she left for her afternoon shift at Overlook Hospital, where she was a nurse in the recovery room. She was the first person people saw when they woke up from surgery and realized they weren't dead, a white and gold halo surrounding her head if she were leaning too close to the windows, sunlight streaming in and lighting her like an angel.

"You're getting mud all over the house," Shoshana scolded him, only it came out as "Yumgettingmverdaouse" because the ice was inhibiting her breathing and shoved halfway up her nose to "numb it good," as Emily had told her.

Her father chewed his food slowly. "Does your mother know you two are up to this?" He wasn't mad. He was genuinely curious. His daughters were a constant source of amus.e.m.e.nt for him. He wanted to know what made them tick, why green was Shoshana's favorite color, why Emily collected b.u.t.tons from flea markets. When they were small he taught himself to braid, and would set their hair in beautiful cornrows or plaits.

Pam was the disciplinarian, after he'd handed each girl twenty dollars, or bought them their second ice-cream cone. This sometimes left her exasperated with her husband. But she loved her big bear of a man, everybody did.

"Um ... not exactly," Emily said, peering at the needle. "I think this is ready."

"You think or you know?" Shoshana called out from her position on the scratchy velvet couch. She was getting tired of counting flies in the ceiling light. They'd mashed into one big black speck now: a Jackson Pollock.

The pinch in her nose hurt more than she'd expected, but that was because Emily'd had to stab her three times before she got the needle through. "It always looks so easy when James does it," she said, mentioning the tattoo and piercing mentor she was working with after school.

"Maybe I should have had him do it, then," Shoshana said dryly, holding the towel over her nose. It felt like a yellowjacket was perched on her face, stinging her. Her eyes watered.

"Noooooo!" squealed Emily, throwing her arms around her big sister. "It's good for me to practice."

"Is that thing going to set off metal detectors at the airport?" Bill asked, talking with his mouth full of sandwich. He'd come into the room and stood in the entryway, one muddy boot up against the doorframe. "'Cause if so, I'm not going to be seen with you," he joked.

Now Shoshana turned the tiny diamond stud around in her nose, remembering the shadow her father's body had thrown on the sandy wood floor, the wild pink hair Emily had tied with orange yarn in two buns on the sides of her head, the sound of the percolator bubbling in the kitchen. Dad took his coffee black. "Anything else is just water," he'd say.

Sometimes, even though he died three years ago, it was almost as if he were still alive, his deep, booming voice calling out for their mother down the hallway when he couldn't find a clean pair of socks or chuckling over some idiot he read about in the paper.

He loved to peruse the crime section of the Star-Ledger. His favorite stories were when a thief was caught and arrested because of his own stupidity. "Look at this moron," he'd say, sitting in his leather chair and laughing so hard he'd turn an alarming shade of red. Shoshana would peer over his beefy shoulder, squinting at whatever story he was so amused by. It was always the bank robber who left his wallet at the bank, the thief who wore his mother's dress to rob a jewelry store, and then she'd seen it on television and called the cops to turn her own son in.

Sometimes, even now, Shoshana would buy the paper just to look for stories that would have made her dad laugh. She'd run her hand over the print, blackening the pads of her fingers.

The train's signboard lit up with NEXT STOP-CHESTER and Shoshana gathered up her purse (today's was the ever-popular I'm-not-a-plastic-bag one) and Frank Sinatra and headed for the front of the train by the doors, grabbing on to the back of a seat for balance as the train rocked into the station. The conductor did that series of mysterious conductor tasks, such as putting down the huge metal platform, throwing a few unlabeled metal switches, and jogging down the steps as the doors opened.

"Thank you," she said. She always thanked the conductors, even though no one else did. It made her feel good, being polite. The tall, skinny conductor gave her an odd look. People in Jersey weren't usually so friendly. Usually it was a clear sign you were from somewhere midwestern-or Idaho.

She wore her favorite green wrap sweater. It had just begun to be warm enough not to need her winter coat anymore. She made a mental note to shop for a light spring jacket, but every year around this time she looked and never liked anything in the stores. The coats made for women her size always had ruffles sewn w.i.l.l.y-nilly on them, as though being fat meant you also wanted to look six years old. She drew the wool collar of the wrap around her neck as she walked from the train to Mimi's house. A warm drizzle made her face wet.

The last time she'd been here was when their father was still alive, and Mimi was just starting to lose her marbles. She'd made Emily and Shoshana egg-salad sandwiches, but when Shoshana bit into hers she heard a distinct crunching sound; Mimi had left some of the sh.e.l.l. Shoshana saw her sister's pink mouth twist across the table with disgust as she took a bite.

"There's eggsh.e.l.l in here," Emily blurted out.

"I can feel it crunching on my back molars," Shoshana said.

"Shhh," her father had said, glancing up to make sure Mimi was still puttering around in the kitchen trying to roust the teakettle to boil. "Be polite."

"Does being polite mean having to have my stomach operated on?" Emily had asked. Shoshana had kicked her under the table.

She stepped off the train now in Chester and looked around. Small antique stores stood next door to quaint coffee shops, and a few people braved the wind and wet to sit outside, the steam from their mugs rising into the gray air. A toboggan sled was propped against the door to one store; a price tag written in black scroll on white paper dangling from it read $250. Whoa. Expensive.

The townspeople wore dark Hunter rain boots, North Face jackets, sensible yet expensive clothing. A woman in her sixties with white hair done up in a bun walked a brown Labrador through town, laughing as the dog strained against the leash. A man with muddy boots propped up on an iron chair outside the cafe petted the dog as he galloped by. The man looked so much like her father, his build, the mud on his shoes, that Shoshana had to slow down her pace to catch her breath. This happened to her several times a month, and the kickback from remembering he was dead always left her feeling empty.

But today she had a purpose. A destination. "Well, here we go, Sinatra," she said to the dog, who peeked his head out of the bag to sniff the air. His tongue stuck out crookedly from his mouth. As she walked, he tasted the air. She took out a crumpled map the lawyer had provided for her, with Mimi's house marked with a red X. She reached inside her jacket pocket and turned down the volume on her iPod and leaned into the sound like it was a warm wind. Strains of Rusted Root's "Ecstasy" were muted and she smiled, imagining Emily's face if she knew Shoshana's music choice: "You've been listening to the same hippie bands since high school!" Then Emily would force her to download Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Rancid, 7 Seconds, Lifetime, or Anti-Flag: loud, fast punk music Shoshana hated but her little sister loved.

As the town receded behind her and gave way to dirt roads and forest, the map folded in her hand, Shoshana realized she felt kind of shocked-still unable to process the fact that she'd just inherited fifteen acres and a house. A tiny, run-down house. After living since college crammed into her little Hoboken apartment with four roommates, she wasn't sure she wanted to move to Chester, where she'd be all alone, and a good hour from Manhattan's hustle and bustle. Her mother and sister were only about an hour away, but still ... it seemed spooky, like she'd turn into a crazy cat lady who dies and then her cats eat her face.

She slid her finger over the map, pa.s.sing streets with tree names: Hickory, Cherry, Oak ... until she got to Apple. She wore several strands of colorful beaded necklaces and they clicked and clacked against one another as she walked uphill. She found the sign to Apple Road, which had been flattened by a large tree or struck by lightning-it was dangling from its metal post and its letters were so faded she had to brush off some dust and leaves to read it.

As she felt the muscles in her calves working away, and the ground retreating behind her up the hill, she came to two stone pillars and paused in front, a little out of breath. Different-shaped rocks were stacked from large to small, like a cairn that hikers leave along the trail. Thick ivy snaked through its foundation and up through the tops, where someone had mounted two metal, intertwined hearts, now rusty.

A squirrel sat perched on top of one pillar, his gray fur quivering as he worked a nut from its sh.e.l.l, his small paws so much like hands. "h.e.l.lo," Shoshana said to him. She was amazed how quiet it was here, how her ears seemed to somehow expand, to hear a bird tweeting in a bush behind her, or the slow drone of a prop plane buzzing overhead. She was so used to constant noise that the silence had a living, breathing presence. She put her finger to her neck and felt her pulse slow down after her walk.

She walked up the drive; it had probably once been filled with pebbles, as there were still a few white rocks scattered that crunched underneath her sneakers, but mainly the little road leading up to the house was distinct from the gra.s.s surrounding it only by the pillars and a slight indentation in the shoots of very green gra.s.s, like it had been trampled upon by many feet over the years.

She heard loud buzzing, and pa.s.sed overgrown rosebushes, fat and busy b.u.mblebees swarming around, their wings vibrating. Their life cycle was six weeks only. What would she do with her life if she only had six weeks to live it? Probably lie in bed and read. And eat chocolate, of course.

Sticks littered the ground. It had been raining often lately, and branches had been allowed to fall around the property without being collected. Small pools of water evaporated in the weak sun. Two giant willow trees covered most of the front of the farmhouse, but Shoshana caught her breath as she rounded the drive and the house came into focus before her. It was more beautiful than she remembered, and it was all ... hers.

The scene was from a fairy tale, a long stretch of ground inside a tunnel of lush trees. The structure was simple in its beauty: a white farmhouse with black shutters. All the sleepovers here with Emily when they were children, Shoshana terrifying her little sister with stories about a witch who lived in the attic and would visit them as soon as they fell asleep, whispering spells into their ears. She laughed now, remembering.

The house looked like it belonged in New England, with its black shutters, white wood detail, peaked roof, and small, falling-apart widow's walk off one of the top-floor bedrooms. The house was the shape of the letter L. The willow trees were in full bloom, their hunched branches reminding Shoshana of Aunt Mimi's curved spine. Shoshana felt a pang of pity for this kind woman who'd had no children and had felt Shoshana deserved her house.

On the ground were scattered hundreds of spindly pea-soup-green seed stalks. As the wind picked up, the willow trees gently swayed, caressing the front of the house. Surrounding the front door were bunches of snapdragons in an array of colors: purple, deep blues, and yellows. She trailed her hand through them, basking in their softness. Sinatra gave a little "Yep!" and she carefully lowered him to the ground and he sprang forth, sniffing and quivering with excitement, looking for a place to pee.

She inhaled deeply, and was suddenly struck with remorse that she had not asked her mother and Emily to come along with her. Shoshana dug around in her purse until she found the key Mimi's lawyer had mailed to her. It was in a beat-up envelope and its tape stuck to her fingers a little. It was old-fashioned, large, and heavy, and was made of a kind of metal she couldn't place. Its top was adorned with roses. Her hand trembled as she opened the front door, pushing on a rusty pineapple-shaped knocker.

She stepped into the front room of the house, which Mimi had made into a living room, and was. .h.i.t with a not-unpleasant musky smell of wood chips. White sheets hung on the small oil paintings on the walls, as well as the couches and armchairs. She walked slowly into the room and placed her hand on the large, curved banister leading to the second floor. Through the arched doorway she could see the kitchen, with its fifties-style red and white tiles and once-bright white cupboards, now faded to pearl. The k.n.o.bs were crystal and sparkled in the late afternoon light. Something about their smoothness made Shoshana want to cup her hand over them.

She saw her father leaning over the stove, stirring something (his famous spaghetti?) with a long wooden spoon, tomato sauce stuck in his beard, her mother wearing a peach-colored wrap dress and a sparkly b.u.t.terfly clip in her hair, Shoshana playing hide-and-seek with Emily on the first floor, as the adults talked loudly in the kitchen, the sounds of Aunt Mimi's laughter filling the house and her mother asking when the sauce would be done. "You can't rush perfection, Pam," Bob said. Emily had been two, three, and Shoshana remembered the rough texture of the fabric under her fingers as she hid behind Aunt Mimi's robin's-egg-blue couch, Emily's legs crisscrossed on the Oriental rug as she counted to ten. That same rug was now faded from a deep red into a sort of sunset-orange, and it appeared to have gone into disrepair, with several little critter-made holes in it. Mimi had only been dead a month, but it looked like the place had been coming apart at the seams long before that. Shoshana felt another deep pang that she hadn't made more of an effort to come visit.

At her father's funeral, Mimi had bent over the grave crying. After the ceremony, Shoshana was collecting rocks to place next to the marker that would later become the gravestone and she saw Mimi and her mother standing close together. She overheard Mimi's gravelly voice: "I loved him like a son."

Birds twittering outside shook Shoshana out of her reverie. She ran her hands over the banister, the wood delightfully smooth and sandy, perhaps one of the few modern additions Mimi had made, and walked through the living room into the kitchen, where the image of her father stayed strong behind her eyelids. He was like a postcard she could take out and view any moment she wanted. She leaned over the deep white farm sink surrounded by a white porcelain counter to peer outside into the backyard, which stretched on in green splendor. It was hard to see past just a few feet, however, as large rosebushes spindled and twisted and grew against the house wildly. Shoshana wondered how Mimi had even gotten past them to walk around her property, then realized with sadness she might not have been feeling well enough to do so for quite some time. Spiderwebs covered part of the window and she made a mental note to buy cleaning products and paper towels. On the doorframe leading outside were markings. She stepped closer to peer at them. Drawn with silver pencil were indentations of her father's growth chart. She had to move closer to see the writing, which was faint and slightly smudged. She ran her finger over the dates, 1960, 1962, 1968. She thought of the love behind those numbers, how much Mimi had cared about her father, to keep track of his growth. She smiled. Maybe that is all any of us can ask for out of life; to be deeply loved.

Someone, perhaps the estate lawyer, had made a small attempt at tidying up, as the old-fashioned-looking refrigerator was clean and empty. Shoshana was grateful for that; dealing with rotting food would have been pretty gross at this point, and from what she could see of the house, she was going to have a lot of cleaning on her hands already.

She sighed, pushing a heavy lock of auburn hair out of her eyes. The question hummed in the air around her, filling the nooks and s.p.a.ces, the breath she took in. Why had Aunt Mimi left her this house? It was beautiful, and the idea of owning the fifteen acres of land thrilled her to no end thanks to The Secret Garden being her favorite book growing up.

But she was only twenty-six. She had no children to fill these rooms, no husband to make the many repairs that needed doing. Part of her felt she should just sell the house and split the proceeds with Emily, but she kept coming back to the fact that Mimi had left it to her in a will, for goodness' sake. Pam said the will had been made out twenty years ago, when Shoshana was only six years old. What had Mimi seen in the child version of her? She and Emily had both loved Aunt Mimi, and Em had said she was fine with having been left a lump sum of money, not the house: "You visited her way more than I did." But the feeling persisted, the unknowing.

"You were just your sweet self at six," Pam had said a few nights ago, when Shoshana had called her with the startling news she'd received from the estate lawyer just that afternoon. "Aunt Mimi was quite smitten with you. I used to take you there for sleepovers and she'd let you try on all her wigs and dresses. Because she raised your father, she felt more like a grandmother to you girls than a great-aunt. Later, she started to slip and became more withdrawn, stopped having people living in the house with her, and I'd visit her on my own from time to time. But she always asked about you and Emily."

Suddenly a man's wrinkled and weathered face appeared in the window. Shoshana let out a bloodcurdling scream. He emitted a choked sound, jumping backward, startled. Shoshana heard a thump as he crumpled onto the front stoop.

"Oh!" she heard herself cry out, and before she could think it through she ran through the kitchen, back into the living room, and flung open the front door, the leaves and dust again filling the air and making her blink. A very tiny, skinny old man was sitting on her front stoop, shaking his head a little. A black-and-white sheepdog ran around him in circles, barking. Sinatra came over to see what the fuss was about and the two dogs sniffed each other's b.u.t.ts in a friendly way. The man, stooped with age, wore a full suit, gray with tiny white stripes, that looked Italian, or at least expensive. He had a mustard-yellow silk handkerchief in the pocket, which lent him old-fashioned charm.

"Are you okay?" she asked, bending down to grasp his elbow. His skin felt paper-thin, his bones razor-sharp. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, I just was so lost in thought in there and I totally freaked and thought you were ... well, never mind." She'd been about to say she thought he looked like the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, his face was so leathery.

To her surprise, he laughed. "Scared the 'ell out of me, that's fer sure," he said in a thick Irish brogue, standing and brushing off his suit. "Pipe down, Patrick O'Leary!" he shouted to the dog, who wagged his tail even harder, barking excitedly in circles. "d.a.m.n mutt," he said, patting him on the head. The man was ancient-looking and shorter than her. He had a full head of neat, snow-white hair that looked freshly combed, a pencil-thin mustache she ordinarily wouldn't have thought handsome but suited him, and the bluest eyes she'd ever seen. He had deep rivers of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, as if he laughed hard and often, and she could see more tough skin where his neck met his crisp, sky-blue, expensive-looking b.u.t.ton-down shirt. The back of his neck was a bright red.

Shoshana apologized once again for startling him. He was so thin, just a bag of bones, really.

"'Tis all right. Nothing my friend Jack Daniel here can't cure," he said jocularly, and somehow as if by magic produced from the depths of his jacket a silver flask with the initials JM etched across. She realized his voice was cheerfully slurred. He stood tilted to one side, like he had a wooden leg. The dog sat at his feet obediently and watched him. Shoshana could swear it looked like he was happy for his master and might want a sip himself. The man screwed off the top, threw his head back, and took a swig. It was an act that clashed with the posh look he was sporting. Not that the rich didn't imbibe, they certainly did their share, but somehow Shoshana got the feeling this man was an alcoholic, and yet his dress suggested that he'd once been very successful and hardworking, at something.

Shoshana realized with a start he had extended his arm and was offering her a drink.

"Just like me wife," he said, smiling that crinkly grin again. "Always lost in thought, daydreaming about the world."

"No, thank you," she said, putting her hand up as if to ward off the offered drink. "I'm kind of an after-the-sun-goes-down sort of girl."

"Suit yerself," he said jovially, sliding it back into the smooth dark silk lining of his inside pocket. "Hair of the dog, and all." He winked at Patrick O'Leary, who wagged his tail and let out a single bark.

"Joe Murphy," he said, sticking out his hand. When she grasped it she felt sandpaper slide across her palm.

"Shoshana Weiner."

"Well." His mouth hitched up on one side, a smile. "Tell yer the basics on me, sure. Born in Killarney and moved here to Chester back in ta fifties, my farm is just over those hills there."

She liked him immediately. There was something different about his reaction to her; usually when people encountered Shoshana for the first time their eyes did a sweep of her body, from head to toe, and then back up again, taking in her size. It was almost an unconscious thing, and they would smile at her after doing so, as she had such a warm, inviting face, but the body-sweep thing was so obvious that for someone not to care how big she was felt like a relief.

He bent suddenly and ripped a large dandelion weed out of the ground, the dirt falling from it like chunky chocolate chips. His gnarled fingers curled around the dark green stalks. "Been over 'ere ripping these things out for Mimi," he said. Shoshana looked around the front entrance to the house; there were thousands of dandelions, their yellow faces turned toward the sun, spread among the snapdragons.

Joe Murphy bent down and ripped another one out, holding it with a trembling hand and giving it a great big sniff.

Back among the trees lay many other types of growth, some snaking their way up trunks like gnarled fingers, others pushing through the dirt in a frenzy of knots. The brush was thick, and it would be a h.e.l.l of a job for whoever cleared it. He startled her by talking. The day had such a hush to it; the woods were thick with muted beauty. "Your great-aunt was really a fine broad. Got a kick out of her. Could drink like a fish."

"I remember her just a little from when she was still healthy," Shoshana said. "Um, would you like to come in?" She didn't normally invite strange men inside, but she figured he looked a hundred and ten, so if he tried anything weird she could probably knock him over with one finger.

"Sure! Used ta come over here all the time for afternoon tea, before Mimi ... well, you know. She wasn't all there in the end, d.a.m.n near broke my 'art." He took out his flask, tipped it at the sky in homage to Mimi, and had a deep sip. He again offered Shoshana a swig. She shrugged. What the h.e.l.l? This was turning into one of the strangest days of her life, and he seemed so comically pleased to share his whiskey with her that she giggled out loud and took the bottle from him as they walked inside. Joe Murphy and Patrick O'Leary followed her, the sound of the dog's nails on the dry wood floor sounding like tap-dancing.

"Now, you must be the older sister, right? The one who went off ta Princeton?" He pointed, and he was standing close enough to her that the smell of alcohol hit her like a slap. "Mimi always talked about ya girls," Joe said, leaning a little against the moth-eaten couch. He looked frail in the afternoon light. "She told me the older sister had auburn hair, like hers." It was true. Shoshana had seen pictures of Mimi when she was young, and she'd had the same long, fire-spun hair as her own. Emily's hair had been such a myriad of colors for so long she wasn't sure of its natural color anymore, but as a child it had been blond.

"Did you know my dad?" Shoshana asked.

"Course I knew Bob. Knew 'im since he was this high." He put a shaky arm out to demonstrate. "My wife and I used to watch ye girls running around here, chasing each other. Ye'd play hide-and-seek in my apple orchard, just like yer dad when he was a little boy," he said, smiling. "He ever tell you 'bout the time he fell out of one of your aunt's trees and broke three ribs?"

"No, he never said anything about that," Shoshana said, surprised. Her father had been a man of very few words, happy instead to listen to his wife and daughters chat. He was shy in many ways. He only spoke when he had something important to say.

"The poor chap. Must have been all of fourteen. Was trying to impress his mates, some boys who grew up down the road. Said he could pick an apple from one of Mimi's twenty-foot trees blindfolded."

"Really?" Shoshana exclaimed. She couldn't imagine her serious father ever showing off.