Kate Jacobs (24 page)

* * *

New York City was always quiet on holiday weekends—especially
during the summer. How could you tell? Well, it wasn't completely impossible to
book a table for brunch at Norma's on 57th and, unless it was raining, it was
pretty easy to catch a cab, the yellow cars circling the streets in search of patrons
who'd fled by Friday noon to the Hamptons or the Jersey Shore. And yet those
were the Saturdays that Georgia loved, the opportunity to organize the shop and
take stock while still remaining open for the handful of customers who just had
to get some chunky yak wool. Hey, it happens.
She knew Cat was coming in to go over a sweater pattern, aka sort out her life
with the only thing akin to a friend that she had, but right now, in this
moment, Georgia was okay with it. After peeking in on Dakota and rearranging
the covers she'd kicked off during the night, Georgia took a quick shower and
hit the shop early, around eight A.M. (Clearly Wednesday's little sleep-in
adventure had just been a stress reaction, she reassured herself, and she was
back to her usual morning-person self.)
Shortly after doing a quick tidy of the shop and pulling out her inventory log,
Georgia heard the familiar sounds of music from her apartment upstairs. MTV,
again. Oh, well, choose your battles, right? By nine A.M., Cat was there, pretending
to care about sweaters. (Earth to Cat—it's May. Summer is coming…Georgia just
rolled her eyes and half-listened. She knew Cat was mostly afraid of
confronting a long weekend with no parties to attend, no home to go to, no
over-bearing husband to rail against.) At ten, she opened the shop for
business—and was pleased to see a steady stream of customers roll in.
Finally, when
Peri
showed up for her shift at noon
and Dakota had yet to make an appearance downstairs, Georgia left Cat sitting
in the office, still pretending to look through pattern books, and marched to
her apartment, ready to let her daughter know that it was high time she turned
off the television and did something productive with her day.
But Dakota wasn't in the living room. The TV blared, skinny men in leather
pants kicking up their legs on the screen and screaming, but her little girl
wasn't there to see it.
She wasn't in the bathroom, the kitchen, sleeping in her bed. Georgia raced
into her own bedroom, hoping to find her daughter snooping in the private boxes
in her closet. She threw open the door.
"Dakota," she yelled. Even though she could see her baby wasn't
there. "Dakota?!" Running through the rooms again, in case a second
look-round would produce her missing child. "Dakota?!"
Her feet crunched on a discarded Walker and Daughter bag that had fallen onto
the kitchen floor. She picked it up and saw, in her daughter's handwriting, a
message.
GONE TO BALTIMORE.
That was all.
And in an instant, she knew. With every bit of blood and bone in her body.
James had taken her child. Waltzed in with kisses and stolen her baby's heart
right from under her.
She grabbed her cell phone, dialing his number.
Voice mail. "Please leave a message for James Foster…" said the
recorded voice. She slammed down the phone. Fucker! Picked up, hit redial.
"Please leave a message for James Foster…" She threw the phone across
the room, dashed over to retrieve it, and hit redial. "Please leave…"
A beep. An incoming call. Dakota?
"Baby, is that you?" Breathless. Hoping.
"Georgia! This is James, I was on the line with my boss, but your number
keeps coming up—"
"You stupid bastard, you took her!" Crying now. "Where is she?
Just let me talk to her! Please!"
"Georgia, what's going on?"
"Where is Dakota?"
"Isn't she at home?" Concern creeping into his voice. "Georgia,
where is Dakota?"
"I don't know! She left a note, 'Gone to Baltimore,' that's all it says.
You said you'd take her there. She's with you!"
"Georgia. Listen to me. I'm at the work site in Brooklyn. You
kiboshed
the Baltimore thing; it didn't happen."
Shivers down her spine, a realization that anything could happen to her little
girl. Dakota was out there. Somewhere. On her way to Baltimore. All alone.

sixteen

James's voice was still there. On the other end
of the line.
"Go to Dakota's room. Do it now, Georgia. What's missing? Did she pack
anything?"
Opening the closet, her dresser, looking under the bed. A list of what's
missing: A striped backpack. The felted purse she had just made with
Peri
. The tiny stuffed tiger she still took to bed at
night. The sock where she kept her allowance. Everything else seemed just as it
always did. Georgia wandered around the apartment, in a daze, looking for a
clue. And then she saw it. Or, more precisely, didn't see it.
Dakota's bike, typically propped up near the doorway, was missing.

* * *

"A twelve-year-old kid wouldn't really
believe she could ride her bike to Baltimore, Georgia."
Peri
shook her head. "There's no way."
"Is James on his way?" asked Cat. The back office wall was right
against the stairs; Cat had heard Georgia come peeling down the steps, yelling.
Now they were all in a huddle, as the three of them tried to decide what to do
next. Yes, James was on his way. No, she didn't want to call Anita in Atlanta
and worry her.
They assessed the ways to get to Baltimore. Car. (Oh, please, God, not
hitchhiking.) Bus. (Was there any place more
skeevy
than Port Authority?) The train. Penn Station.
"You can take your bike on the train!" Words tumbled out of
Peri
. "College kids do it all the time."
"I had no idea—" began Cat, the least likely to have ever used public
transportation.
"Let's go," cried Georgia, all three ready to dash out of the shop
and leave the customers behind. They ran down the stairs, paused.
"I'll watch the store—you go."
Peri
raced
back up, leaving Cat and Georgia on the street. Georgia's cell was ringing;
James's number.
"We think she's riding her bike to Penn Station," she yelled into the
phone, standing in the street and frantically waving her arms to attract a cab.
One pulled over. Cat opened the door and they clambered in, Georgia realizing
too late that she'd forgotten her purse.
"I don't have any money on me. Shit!"
"Georgia, I've got it," said Cat, then shouting at the cabbie.
"Penn Station and fast!"
"I'm on my way from Brooklyn—I called my parents and told them if someone
named Dakota calls or shows up to welcome her and let me know right away,"
said James. "Needless to say, they were a little startled, but I didn't go
into the details of who she is."
"Oh, James, what if something has happened to her? What am I going to
do?"
"Nothing is going to happen to her, baby." His voice was reassuring.
"We are going to find her and yell at her until she's good and scared and
then we're going to just go home and sort out the whole mess."
Georgia was sobbing now as Cat's arms grabbed her in a big hug.
There was no traffic. It was a holiday weekend. Light after light was green.
And still, it was too slow. Lincoln Center. Columbus Circle. West 57th.
"Head over to Ninth Avenue when you get to Fiftieth! Skip Times
Square!" Clearly Cat was used to getting around aboveground in Manhattan;
Georgia knew every subway route on the West Side, but she'd be damned if she
knew the quickest way to navigate the streets by car.
And then they were flying across 34th, stopping in front of the side entrance
to Penn Station/Madison Square Garden, and Georgia was out the door, leaving
Cat to settle up. Down, down the steps, and through the dark tunnels to Amtrak.
And there, at the front of the line, five foot five and beautiful, stood her
in-so-much-trouble-now-but-thank-you-God-she's-alive daughter. Felted purse
over her arm. Backpack at her feet. Sock in hand as she doled out dollar bills
to the ticket-taker.
Georgia race-walked the last few steps to stand behind Dakota.
"Thanks," she told the man at the counter. Not wanting to draw
attention. The last thing a single mom wants is to draw attention.
Steering Dakota to the side.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Her voice hard behind gritted
teeth.
"I just wanted to see my family!" Dakota wailed.
Georgia knew, of course, that this was the moment where she was supposed to be
all tough love and punish Dakota for her irresponsibility. But that wasn't what
was in her heart. She was so grateful to see her only daughter, alive and
shouting, holding her in a tight hug, that she decided to listen first, yell
later.
"You wanted to trek all that way just to see some fusty old relatives you
don't even know?"
"Yes, I do, Mom. I need to know where I come from."
"You come from New York. Pennsylvania. You come from me." Georgia
shook her head at her naive daughter, rushing off to meet the grandparents that
might not even know about her. James had never even said if he'd told them yet.
"I know, Mommy, but it's not enough." Dakota was crying now,
frustrated at her inability to find the words.
"You want to know your history." Georgia filled them in for her
daughter. "Well, it's not all Baltimore and Foster, little girl. If you
want to know your roots, then I'll show you. I'll take you to them." She
stroked Dakota's hair, smoothed it out of her eyes, oblivious to Cat, who had
joined her a moment ago, and the thousands of anonymous strangers walking by,
rushing to trains late and on time.
James had found them now, panting; he'd clearly been running through the rabbit
warren that was Penn Station.
"Dakota, what has gotten into you?" He was frowning, angry. Georgia
held up her hand.
"Situation under control, James, thank you very much," she said, the
teamwork of the past hour lost in a renewed resentment of the complications he
brought into her life.
"Dakota and I have made a decision: I'm taking her on a trip to meet her
granny in Scotland."

mastering a complicated stitch

It becomes exciting as you begin to see the
pattern take shape, when you can go row after row without even looking at your
hands, when you move on from knit and purl to cable and slip stitch and
intarsia. (There's nothing like your first argyle!) It's the reward for
perseverance. Don't let it go to your head or stick to the same moves; learn
new stitches and see how far you can go.

seventeen

The three adults swayed on their feet for a
bit, all of
them—even Georgia—surprised by her sudden plan. For one thing, Georgia didn't
make spontaneous decisions. For another, it wasn't as though she could just
leave the store to babysit itself. There were lots of complications. Not to
mention that the morning's excursion had left them more than a little exhausted.
"Maybe let's find some water," she suggested.
Dakota sensed none of the adults' stress, her fists pumping the air, whoops and
hollers coming out of her mouth. At least she wasn't so close to being a
teenager that she wouldn't act like a goof in public, thought her mother. Her
daughter, meanwhile, was already soaring, in her mind, on a 747—her first plane
ride and over an ocean, too!—and busy deciding which of her friends she would
call first.
"Hey, Mom—are we leaving tomorrow? There's a lot I have to do before we
go."
"Soon, sweetheart, soon." Georgia was savoring the look of
consternation on James's face. She wasn't, actually, paying much attention to
Cat at all.
But Cat was listening to her every word, watching Georgia's every move. Seeing
her hold Dakota in her arms as if everything she ever needed or wanted was
right there. The spirit of Cathy Anderson left in her soul always nudged at Cat
Phillips. Telling her she wasn't doing enough with her great education, her
natural flair for style, her God-given intelligence. Would it have been
different if she'd been a mom? Maybe. Probably. But the situation, as it stood,
left her with no marriage, no career (career? There'd never even been a job!),
and barely anyone on the planet who cared about her or whom she cared for. Her
life wasn't anything like she imagined it would be.
Cat had nothing and Georgia had everything—and Cat knew, just absolutely felt
in her gut, that her old friend was the only one who gave enough of a damn that
she could teach her how to have it all too.

* * *

After a certain age—following college, perhaps,
or upon turning thirty—there's so much stuff in the brain that other things get
shoved out. To the back of the line. Sometimes a woman just doesn't remember
everything that's taken place in her life. And who could blame her? Georgia
didn't have that experience all that often. Her life centered on such a small
core group of people, but, on occasion, K.C. would regale her with some amusing
anecdote from their time at Churchill Publishing and how Georgia had made some
comment or other that really put so-and-so in her place. And Georgia would have
no memory of the event, but smile anyway and go along, not sure if K.C. was
misremembering or if she was losing her own mind.
So when Cat, standing in the background at Penn Station, responded to Georgia's
declaration about Scotland with enthusiasm, Georgia was pleased. In a mild way.
She wasn't really considering Cat's take on the matter, but support was always
welcome. She'd been expecting a more insecure reaction when Cat absorbed the
fact that she would suddenly find herself without any support system for a few
weeks. Yet she was totally blindsided to hear what Cat had to say:
"
Omigod
, that's the trip we always said we'd
take together after college!" she squealed. Had they made such a pact?
Georgia was caught off-guard, any such
utterings
made
while she was still a high school student long erased from her memory and also
considered, by the logic of adulthood, null and void by now. Right?
"It's a great idea," continued Cat. "I'll use my air
miles."
"I, uh, was thinking of a mother-daughter trip, Cat."
The blond woman—dressed today, Georgia noticed, for the first time not in a
power suit but in a pair of casual slacks and a pressed but plain sage-colored
blouse—made a pained face.
"You know my mom is gone, Georgia," she said. "So it'll just
have to be me."