Save Me - Lisa Scottoline [90]
Kristen was saying, “Melly, I’d better go, and I know you’ve gotta get to the lake. Rose, are you there? I’ll give you my cell and email.”
“Right here.” Rose picked up her phone, but the battery icon had turned red and it needed charging. “Hold on,” she said, moving John to her other hip and finding a scrap of paper and a pen. “Go ahead.”
Kristen rattled off her number and email, then said, “Well, good-bye, both of you. I’ll talk to you again, and you guys stay in touch.”
“We will,” Rose said, buoyed. “Thanks again. Stay well.”
Kristen added, “Melly, have fun at the lake.”
“I will, I’m taking my Hermione wand!”
“Good. See you!”
Rose hung up the phone, then crossed to Melly and gave her a hug. “You know what I was thinking? Maybe for our next family vacation, we can go to the Harry Potter theme park in Florida. Would you like that?”
Melly’s eyes lit up. “Is that a real thing? One of my friends in Club Penguin said they have that, but I didn’t think it was real.”
“Sure it is.” Rose gave her an extra squeeze.
“Yay! We can show Johnnie.” Melly boosted herself up in her chair and grinned at John, who leaned over and reached for her.
“Then let’s go to the lake!” Rose felt her spirits lift, but three hours later, everybody’s good mood had evaporated.
Chapter Forty-eight
Rose was in the driver’s seat with Melly in the backseat, unhappy. John was gurgling in his car seat, transfixed by his amazing plastic keys, and Princess Google was curled up next to him. They were an hour from the lake house, stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in rush-hour traffic when Melly announced that she wanted to call Kristen back. But Rose had left her cell number on the scrap of paper at home.
“Why didn’t you bring it with you?” Melly asked, frowning.
“I forgot, and it’s not in my phone because she called us on the house phone. Why do you want to call her back anyway?”
“I want to tell her about the Kristenburgers and a drawing I made for her.”
“We can tell her later, or email her.”
“Do you have her email?” Melly asked, with hope.
“No. It’s on the paper at home, too.” Rose couldn’t remember the email, which was an incomprehensible combination of letters and numbers, more password than email address. “We can write her when we get back.”
“Can’t we turn around?”
“No, honey. It’s too far.” Rose gestured at the traffic, red lights in a line like an airport runway, heat broiling from their hoods in wiggly waves. The clouds had cleared for another unseasonably hot day.
“I really want to talk to her, Mom. She loves Kristenburgers. I told her I would make them.”
“We can tell her another time.”
“And the picture I made for her, it was of Albus Dumbledore, and she loves him. I never got to give it to her.”
“We can send it to her when we go home.”
Melly looked out the window, quieting.
Rose felt a pang. She knew it wasn’t really about the drawing or the Kristenburgers. Melly was having a hard time saying good-bye to Kristen. “You okay, sweetie?”
“Fine.”
“Wait, I have an idea.” Rose reached into her purse and extracted her cell phone. “I don’t need her cell phone. I have her parents’ number and I can call her at the house.”
“Good!” Melly looked over, smiling. “But not while we’re driving.”
“We’re stopped now.” Rose double-checked. They were not only stopped, they were practically parked. She thumbed to her phone log, got the Cantons’ home number, pressed CALL, and let it ring. The call was picked up almost immediately by an older woman, probably Kristen’s mother. Rose said, “Hello, Mrs. Canton?”
“No, I’m sorry, who’s this?”
“Rose McKenna, the mother of one of Kristen’s students. We spoke with her this morning, and I wanted to tell her one more thing. Is she in?”
“Oh, you must be the woman leaving those messages.”
“Yes, sorry, that’s me. Thanks for giving them to her.”
“I didn’t. Is she the daughter?”
Rose didn’t understand. She felt like they were having a conversation of non sequiturs.