Page 10 of The Stolen Queen

When Annie came home from school the first day of her mother’s new job, excited to have the place all to herself for once, Joyce was lying on the living room couch in a bathrobe, a cool compress over her forehead. The work had been too much, too demanding. Joyce couldn’t possibly answer all those phones, and, after mixing up the senior partners’ calls one too many times, she had been summarily let go.

“Great, you can take the cleaning job, then,” Annie said.

Joyce weakly lifted up one arm without removing the compress from her eyes. “It would damage my hands, darling.”

Annie let loose a stream of complaints about Joyce’s maternal deficiencies before storming off. When she finally cooled down enough to return home, her mother was sleeping heavily in her bed, and when Annie leaned over to check on her, still angry, she discovered an empty bottle of pills on the quilt. Annie called for an ambulance and, sick with worry, rode in it to the hospital, where Joyce had her stomach pumped. After, Joyce insisted to the doctor and to Annie that it had all been a silly mix-up; she’d completely forgotten how many she’d taken because Annie’s harsh words had “burned into my soul.” She promised to be a better mother and begged Annie’s forgiveness, and the doctor, thoroughly disarmed by her allure and charm, haddischarged her. The shock of that awful night had stayed with Annie long after. Her mother was delicate, and it was Annie’s job to protect her from the world.

After Annie graduated from high school, while many of the other students were heading to college, she picked up the waitressing job. It didn’t seem fair that others had the freedom to dream of the future while Annie was stuck in the present, hoping the check for the phone bill didn’t bounce and making sure to tell Joyce how beautiful she looked before she left for a go-see.

Annie checked her watch. She’d given her mother plenty of time to head off on her date with Brad. She reached their building and opened the door to the basement apartment, feeling the blast of heat that the overactive radiators emitted during the cooler months. However, as she set her keys down on the tiny table beside the coatrack, she heard a peal of laughter from the bedroom. Joyce and Brad were still here.

Annie picked up her keys and backed out the door, closing it behind her. She considered heading to the diner where she worked and ordering a hamburger and fries, but then she remembered the shopping bag filled with makeup. They couldn’t afford any more unnecessary expenses, even with her employee discount.

At least the rain had stopped. She sat on the steps to Mrs. H’s front door, tucking her raincoat under her. Neighbors passed wordlessly by, matronly women with little dogs out for their evening walk, men with briefcases returning from a work dinner.

“What are you doing out here, for goodness’ sake?”

The voice came from over Annie’s right shoulder. She twisted around to find Mrs. H peering out of one of her parlor windows, a silk scarf loosely covering the large pink rollers in her hair. She looked like one of those marionettes with huge heads and skinny bodies Annie had seen in a puppet show as a child.

Annie rose to her feet. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs? What about your knee?”

Mrs. H waved a pale hand in the air. “I had the nurse help me downstairs before she left. I’m sick and tired of staring at the same four walls. Are you locked out of the apartment?”

She considered lying and saying yes, but Mrs. H had an extra key. “My mom has someone over.”

“I see.” The woman’s lips pursed. “Come inside. You look like a drowned rat.”

Annie let herself in. Mrs. H was already halfway down the front hallway, leaning heavily on her cane as she made her way to the kitchen at the back of the brownstone. Annie knew every inch of the apartment by now, from the coffin corners on the stairway to the parlor adorned with European etchings and porcelain vases, and couldn’t help but notice a stark difference between the public areas and the ones where visitors didn’t venture, like the kitchen. There, a small sink stood next to a chipped countertop, a line of drunkenly crooked cabinets just above it. In one corner was a linoleum table covered by a stained tablecloth. Mrs. H often declared she was one of the “faded rich,” ladies who had lunched in style at the Russian Tea Room twenty years ago but were now trapped in their decaying, depreciating townhouses in a dangerous city.

Annie’s gaze was drawn to a large pot of spaghetti on the stovetop that Mrs. H’s cook had made.

“You want some pasta?” asked Mrs. H as she settled into one of the kitchen chairs. “Help yourself.”

Annie took a bowl from the cabinet and ladled a knot of spaghetti into it. She didn’t care that it was cold; anything would do at this point. She joined Mrs. H at the table, aware that they’d never been in such close proximity before. Mr. H had died a decade or so ago, although Mrs. H still constantly invoked the first-person plural whenspeaking of him, saying “We loved that restaurant until it closed,” or “We prefer the silverware polished weekly.” It was sad but also sort of sweet.

“So tell me, who’s the latest swain?”

Annie hadn’t realized how close an eye Mrs. H kept on their comings and goings. Lately, the men Joyce dated didn’t tend to stick around very long, which only made her clingier with the next one, accelerating the downward spiral. Instead of getting wiser with age, her mother was becoming more desperate, regressing into a lovelorn teen.

Annie jumped to her mother’s defense. “She’s very serious with Brad. He’s in sales.”

“What kind of sales?”

“Yachts.”

Annie had no idea what the man sold, nor did Joyce, probably, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

Mrs. H let out a small, disappointed sigh. “Tell me, girl, what are you going to do with your life?”

Annie was unprepared for the change in subject. “I’m not sure.”

“What do you want to do?”

For so long, Annie’s goal had been the same as her mother’s: help Joyce find a man so that they could live the life they deserved, with a nice apartment in one of the new white-brick high-rises and vacations to Florida. When Annie turned twelve, she’d taken over managing their money by necessity, but living on the edge financially had kept her focus on the here and now—mainly whether or not they could afford next month’s rent. She was too tired to imagine a life beyond the one she currently lived.

Before Annie could come up with an answer that might satisfy Mrs. H and allow her to eat more than two forkfuls of pasta, the phone hanging on the wall just above Mrs. Hollingsworth’s head letout a shrill ring. Mrs. H lifted the receiver and twirled the cord around her finger. “Hollingsworth residence.”

Annie got in another two bites before Mrs. H hung up. “I need you to run an errand for me.”

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