“What is it?” I asked, rolling back on my heels. Grandma Dalia got in her car and started the engine so it would cool off a little. Kai was on the other side, shoving things onto the backseat floorboards. With him and Grandma Dalia so close, it didn’t occur to me to be afraid.
“Come here,” the man said, and when he grinned, something flashed in his eyes, something that reminded me of the way a dog’s eyes look when the sunlight hits them just right. I took another step toward—
“Back!” Grandma Dalia screeched, startling me by appearing at my side. Her wrinkly hand gripped my bicep like a vice; I squirmed, but she held tight. She yelled again, shouting at the man. People were turning, looking over their cars, craning their necks from the display of begonias by the storefront. I began to turn red.
The man looked at Grandma Dalia, then back at me. I expected some sort of apology, a claim that he wasn’t hurting anything, palms held up. But instead, the strange flickery thing happened in his eyes again, and he smiled. Smiled so that the skin around his face stretched, like rubber, and he again looked like something in a costume instead of a man.
“Back!” Grandma Dalia screeched again, shoving me behind her. I peered around her flowery dress and watched the man turn and walk away. Not toward the store, but through the parking lot, to the main road. People returned to their conversations, shrugging, and Grandma Dalia all but shoved me into the car.
“Who was that man?” Kai asked as we buckled our seat belts. Grandma Dalia whirled around to face us, and I realized that her face was white, her hands shaky.
“Don’t ever be so stupid,” she hissed at me. “You think they wouldn’t love to eat you up?”
“Who was he?” Kai whined.
“Mind them,” Grandma Dalia said, pointing a finger in my face. “Mind the beasts, Ginny.”
It was one of the few times she used my name instead of calling me “the neighbor child.” It was also one of the few times that she seemed to genuinely care about me. But what I remember most was that I knew she was right. That something dark, darker than a man had been there, and that she had saved me from it.
Ever since then, underneath my certainty that Grandma Dalia was just a crazy, paranoid old lady was a spinning, hungry fear that she was right about the beasts.
“You’ve been playing a long time then?” Mora asks as she picks at her casserole, not really eating it. It doesn’t look like something a girl like her would eat—too much cheese, perhaps. I stick my fork back into my serving, struggle to lean forward over the footstool I’m sitting on. Grandma Dalia wasn’t kidding about there not being enough chairs, I guess.
“Since I was three,” Kai says. “My grandmother was a little obsessive.”
“No, that’s not obsessive. It’s fantastic,” Mora says. “My family hated the arts. We weren’t allowed to dance, and we listened to this awful droning music. All the money in the world, but it was like being trapped in a place without beauty. I got into singing for a little while, after I moved out, but now… I mostly just appreciate musical talent. Are you any good, then?”
“He’s brilliant,” I tell her, smiling. “He’s going to study in New York this summer.”
“New York!” Mora says. “I love New York. Only downside is you can’t drive there.”
“Not a fan of taxis?” Kai asks.
“Ha,” Mora says. “Not a chance. I’m antitaxi, anti–factory radio, and anti–automatic transmission. Tell me you know how to drive a stick shift, Kai, or I’ll have to leave right now.”
“I don’t,” he admits.
“What! That’s crazy!” Mora exclaims, as if this is deeply offensive.
“I don’t, either,” I say coolly, shrugging.
“Well,” Mora says, “I guess I can forgive you this time. But call me when you’re there, Kai—I’ll show you around. There’s this little comedy club that does musical improv every Thursday….” She speaks quickly and her words flow; they have a cadence that makes me stare at her lips forming each syllable. Kai is nodding, grinning, smiling, agreeing to New York, to plans she’s making, plans that change what he and I—
“I’m going, too,” I interrupt. Mora looks over at me, surprised.
“You play something as well?”
“Just cards,” I joke. She doesn’t react. “Er—no. I don’t play anything. I’m going just to go. With Kai.”
“Oh,” Mora says, looking at Kai. He looks a little awkward, but he nods, then smiles at me; I’m relieved. “I see.” She looks back at Kai. “What’s the plan after the intensive, then?”
“Well…” Kai pauses. “I promised my grandmother I’d come back here and audition for the Atlanta Philharmonic so I could stay close. But now…” He looks at his hands and shrugs, and I can see him struggling with the realization that he’s free to make other plans—and doesn’t want to be.
“So, Mora,” I say quickly, drawing her eyes off Kai so he has a moment to recover. “What’re you in town for?”
“How do you know I’m visiting?” Mora asks, amused.
“You drove through the snow yesterday like it was nothing,” I say. “No way you could live here. Plus, you don’t have freckles.”
“Freckles?”
“Everyone from the South has at least a few freckles,” I say, shrugging. Mora’s face is perfectly smooth, a single, solid color—she looks like a photograph.
“Noted,” Mora says, nodding. “You’re very observant.”
“No kidding,” Kai jokes. “Don’t play poker with Ginny. She’ll figure out your hand based on your eyebrows. We used to bet on games of Go Fish in elementary school.”
“Not eyebrows,” I say. “I just remember when the good cards are coming up.”
“Ah. Clever,” Mora says, then pauses before answering my question. “I’m from everywhere. I lived on Cape Cod, a long time ago, then in South Carolina by the beach, and now I live up north.”
“How long will you be here?” Kai asks.
“Not long,” she says, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “But I’ll swing by your grandmother’s funeral tomorrow, if you want.”