Pretty Baby novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Sunday Dinner

Lydia moves into Stefan's townhouse and meets his mother, who recognizes her and orders her out.

I moved into Stefan Hartwell's townhouse the next Sunday with two suitcases and a ring that cost more than my mother's car.

It was a diamond the size of a cough drop.

"It's heavy," I said, holding up my hand in his front hall.

"It's insured," he said. "Try not to lose a finger."

The house in Lincoln Park had four floors and a staircase that curved.

The nanny looked at me.

The only room that felt lived in was the one at the top of the stairs.

Mabel's door was open, and the floor inside was covered in crayon bridges.

"Are you really going to marry my daddy?" she asked from the carpet.

"For a little while," I said.

"Why only a little while?"

"Because I'm bad at staying places."

She thought about that with her whole face.

"Pickle is bad at it too," she said, and held up the rabbit. "He gets lost under the couch."

"Then we'll get along," I said.

She gave me a crayon.

I drew a bridge, and she corrected my bridge, and for ten minutes I forgot why I was there.

Then Stefan knocked on the frame.

"My mother's car is outside," he said. "Brace yourself."

Winifred Hartwell didn't walk into a room.

She was delivered to it.

She was sixty-three, with a silver bob, a string of pearls and a cream cashmere coat.

She crossed the dining room.

"Stefan," she said, and kissed the air beside his cheek.

Then she turned to me, and her smile was a perfect little thing.

"And you must be the fiancée," she said. "We've heard nothing at all about you, which is how I knew you were serious."

"Lydia Kaufman," I said. "It's lovely to finally meet you."

"Kaufman," she repeated.

She said it slowly.

A lean grey man in a three-piece suit stepped out from behind her.

He wore a heavy gold signet ring on his little finger and carried himself.

"Alistair Crane," he said, and shook my hand with two fingers. "I handle the family's legal affairs."

My whole arm went cold.

This was the man who'd signed a paper that took my baby, and he was holding my hand like a stranger's.

"Mr. Crane," I said. "I've heard so much about you."

"Have you?" he said pleasantly. "From whom?"

"From Stefan," I said.

Stefan, who had never mentioned him to me once, didn't blink.

Dinner was roast chicken, and it was a trial.

Winifred asked where I'd grown up, and I said Cicero.

She asked what my parents did, and I said my father had left and my mother worked "odd jobs."

Crane asked about my schooling, and I said I'd left nursing school.

"What a waste," Winifred said. "And now you do what, exactly?"

"I keep people company," I said.

"How modern."

Under the table, Stefan's knee pressed once against mine.

It was a warning, or it was help.

I couldn't tell which, and the not knowing annoyed me more than the question.

"Mabel," Winifred said, turning her silver smile on the child. "Sit up straight, darling. Grandmother's friends will be at the gala."

"Yes, Grandmother," Mabel said, and sat up like a spring.

She hummed under her breath while she ate, a few soft notes over and over.

I knew that tune.

I'd hummed it to my belly for eight months, in a bathroom stall at the diner where I worked.

I put my fork down very carefully.

"That's pretty," I said. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Mabel said. "I just always know it."

Across the table, Winifred's eyes were on me, bright and still.

After dessert, Stefan took a call, and Crane went to find his coat.

Winifred touched my elbow.

"Walk with me," she said. "I want to see the garden."

There was no garden, only a stone patio the size of a rug.

She shut the glass door behind us and stood with her back to the light.

"Kaufman," she said. "Your mother's name is Bernadette."

I didn't answer.

"She cleaned my floors for eleven years in Lake Forest," Winifred said. "She had your mouth. I'd forgotten how much."

"My mother never mentioned the Hartwells," I said.

It was true, and it was the first time I understood why.

"No," Winifred said. "I imagine she wouldn't."

She stepped closer, and I smelled something powdery and old.

"I know exactly whose daughter you are, Miss Kaufman," she said softly.

"And I know why a girl like you wants to be in my son's house."

"I'm here for the money," I said.

"Of course you are," Winifred said. "Pack tonight."

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