she got that part right. "Well, here's the thing, Mom. I need to spend the evening mending and treating the stains on that stack of clothes on the bed, and it would go a lot quicker if I had your help."
"Stains on your clothes? My goodness, Em, what did you do? Buy them at a resale shop? That's not like you at all."
I could go through the whole long explanation, but what was the point? Much as I'd like to blame someone for my clothes fiasco, I really couldn't fault Mom. As always, she'd only been trying to help.
"I'd be delighted to give you a hand, Em." Mom's face split into a smile as wide as an octave on a piano. "In fact, I'd be thrilled to help you. I even have a little sewing kit. But do you think George would feel I was taking advantage of him if I asked him to keep your grandmother company again this evening?"
Oh, yeah. Nana was going to owe me bigtime.
"Bless you, Emily. When I die, you're gettin' all my money," Nana vowed fifteen minutes later. "You've earned all eight million."
"I thought it was seven million."
"Bull market, dear. My investments are all on an earnin' streak."
We were standing at the northwest corner of the eight-sided baptistry that fronted the Duomo, trying to hold our own against the hordes of tourists who swarmed the square. Jackie and I had wended our way down some side streets and along the Borgo San Lorenzo to discover that it was impossible to get lost in Florence by day, because if you were headed anywhere near the Duomo, all you had to do was look up, and there it was. We'd spotted Nana on the fringe of the baptistry crowd, taking pictures of all the activity, so we'd crossed the street to join her, which is when I'd made her day with the news about my pre-arranged sleepover with Mom.
"Don't know how you ever spotted me in this crowd," Nana said as she coddled a stack of Polaroids in her hand.
"Radar," I teased, and the fact that she was the only person in Florence wearing Minnesota Vikings wind pants and a pink teddy bear top.
"Did you get some good shots of the baptistry, Mrs. S.?" Jackie held her hand out to indicate she'd like to see the photos. "The tour book said the building is at least seventeen hundred years old. Can you believe it? I mean, that's older than the Empire State Building!"
I threw her a bewildered look. Thank God we'd never had children.
Nana lifted her chin and sniffed. "Do you smell somethin', Emily?" Grabbing on to my arm, she checked the bottoms of her sneakers. "I hope I didn't step in nothin'. These are the only shoes I got left."
Jackie shuffled through the photos. "I guess unbaptized people weren't allowed to enter a church way back when, so the congregation had to construct a whole other building for the sole purpose of baptizing babies so they could enter the real church." She looked suddenly perplexed. "You don't have any pictures of the baptistry here, Mrs. S."
"I know, dear," she said, rubbing her nose, "but I got some dandy shots a the crowd. Only time Windsor City gets a turnout like this is for the Hog Days Festival and parade."
"Where's George?" I asked, scanning the crowd in search of his seed-corn hat.
She nodded toward the baptistry. "He's just north, takin' pictures a the door some fella spent twenty-somethin' years makin'. Too bad he couldn't a gone prefab. Woulda saved a whole bunch a time."
"Well, well, well. Would you look at this." Jackie handed me one of Nana's photos.
I perused the glossy photo, surprised to find three familiar faces staring back at me. But the picture could have been better. Brandy Ann's hair looked washed out in the sunlight, and Fred's safari hat cast a dark shadow over his face. The only thing that had photographed well was the bolt in Amanda's nose. Funny about Fred though. After his remarks in the open-air market, I didn't think he'd be cozying up to Brandy Ann and Amanda anytime soon. I held the photo up for Nana. She squinted at the image.
"That's the girl with the rugged sinuses," Nana said in a whisper. "Amanda. She was real good about lettin' me take her picture. They'll never believe this back at the Legion a Mary. I bet knowin' a girl with a can opener in her nose will be way