from the same material: wood. The house was clean and smelled of comfort.
Honesty urged me to admit that the house smelled of him.
Maggie Beautiful beamed at me when I turned to face her. “What’s your name, Doll?”
“Scarlett. Scarlett Rose Poésy.”
Perhaps it was my imagination playing tricks on me, but she seemed more pleased after I had given her my name, or perhaps she was just always so vibrant that it was hard to tell with her. “Scarlett Rose fits you. And Poésy is a fine last name. Nothing depressing about it.”
I scoffed. “I have my days.”
She grinned. “Don’t we all. But all that matters is that you have the choice to change your name, if you ever want to. I’m Maggie Beautiful now. I will always be!” She snatched my hand, squeezing it in hers. Her fingers were especially long and thin for her curvaceous build. “I was getting the house ready when you rang. I’m having a little celebration for Brando.”
I looked toward the table. She had placed purple and green balloons here and there, thrown a plastic car-themed tablecloth over the table, and had lined toy cars up in a row in such a way that I assumed that they were about to race.
I wondered if I had the right Brando, or if she had somehow forgotten that her son was twenty- two. Around the same age my brother would have been. Elliott was a year older but in the same grade. Or perhaps I had stumbled in on a woman whose friends were not all aboard the boat, as Violet was prone to say.
Her attention was lost on the decorated area. “I have the cake on.” She squeezed my hand. “I have the balloons and all of the decorations ready to go.” Squeeze. “Craig and Marvin are bringing over the meatballs and spaghetti…” She squeezed harder, and then her eyes narrowed. “I think that’s it…”
“Is today Brando’s birthday?” I knew his birthday was August 11, thanks to my sleuthing skills. But I decided to ask in case my source of information had been wrong. I doubted it though. Eunice, the woman who helped raise my father and then me and my brother (and the spawn who had come after my brother, my sister), had given me the information. If there was one thing Eunice did right, it was birthdays. She wouldn’t have forgotten.
This question brought Maggie Beautiful’s attention back to me. Her eyes sparkled when she laughed. “Sure! Every day can be your birthday, if you want it to be.”
Somewhere in the world a cuckoo clock chimed.
“Then it wouldn’t be special,” I said.
She stared at me blank-faced for a few moments before she shrugged. “That’s another way to look at it. Like I said, saucy.” She winked at me and then tugged me toward the hallway. “You are going to freeze to death in those wet clothes! Let me get you some new ones.”
“Nooo,” I said as she pulled me forward. “I really can’t stay that long. I have to go—”
“Oh, but you just got here! Stay for a little while. The party hasn’t even started yet. Oh!” She let go of my hand suddenly, leaving me in the darkened hallway. “The music has to set the tone. Let me play something that reminds me of you.”
Her sequins glittered as she moved around the front room, changing the current music to Nat King Cole’s “Ballerina.”
“That’s better,” she said as she zoomed past me.
She opened the door to the room at the very end of the hall, which I assumed to be hers. She went to her dresser, opened up a drawer, and started searching.
“Just so you know, I only play Nat for special guests. Some people save good wine for their special guests. I save the best music for mine. Here we go!” She held up a long-sleeved green t-shirt in one hand and a pair of jeans in the other. The t-shirt had “The Grinch Can’t Touch This” in white letters across the front.
I laughed and read the wording aloud. “That’s good to know. I’m safe then?”
Maggie Beautiful shrugged. “Is that what it says?” She put her pointer finger to her mouth and then bit down.
I stopped laughing and nodded. It occurred to me that perhaps she couldn’t read.
“I forgot where I got it. But it has a Santa hat on the back. That’s why I bought it. See?” She turned the t-shirt around to face me. She examined her side, the side with words, and