“So why doesn’t she go after him?” Berni snapped.
“Two reasons: because of the wish you gave her and because Nellie doesn’t know how. You can’t just put wolf’s clothing on a sheep and expect the sheep to turn into a wolf. Nellie is Nellie, whether she’s fat or thin.”
Berni turned away from the scene, putting her hand to the side of her eyes. “I can’t bear to see any more.”
Pauline waved her hand, and Nellie and the room disappeared.
“So now what happens?” Berni asked.
“That’s up to you. We supply the—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m supposed to supply the wisdom. I haven’t been exactly wise so far, have I?”
“Oh, well, what does one fatty more or less matter?”
Berni winced. “You’ve made your point. So maybe I was wrong. You said Montgomery loved her. Would she be with him now if she wasn’t bound by the wish?”
“Probably, but who knows? One can’t predict these things.”
Berni looked back at the fog. “I would like to know more about Nellie. Is it possible to see all of her life? From the beginning?”
“Of course.” Pauline waved her hand, and there was a pretty woman in a Victorian bed straining to give birth.
“I’ll leave you,” Pauline said, rising. “I’ll return when it’s nearer Christmas 1896.”
Berni waved her hand absently and stretched out to watch. She’d already learned that time in the Kitchen wasn’t like earth time. The scenes seemed to fly past. Berni saw that from the beginning Nellie was a quiet, solemn, eager-to-please child. Her mother wasn’t well, so Nellie was never allowed to make even the smallest sound; and since her father’s business made little money in its early days, Nellie always had many chores. As a reward for all her obedience, Nellie was pretty much ignored by her parents.
When Nellie was eight her mother gave birth to Terel, then was seriously ill until she died four years later. But Nellie didn’t mind caring for the child. She held the screaming infant and looked at it with love. For the first time ever she was going to have someone who would return her love.
After his wife died, Charles Grayson seemed to have no qualms about leaving his twelve-year-old daughter with the responsibility of caring for the baby. Nellie was a good mother, but she was so starved for affection that she gave the baby anything she wanted, so that Terel grew up believing that Nellie had been put on earth solely to do Terel’s bidding.
In adolescence Nellie began to gain weight. Berni saw the way boys flirted with Nellie, making her blush, and how she looked back at them. Then, at home, Charles would forbid Nellie to go out and leave the toddler alone. Nellie would go to the kitchen and eat.
By the time Berni got to 1896, she really understood Nellie’s life. Nellie had no idea how to fight for what she wanted. All she knew was how to give.
Berni watched as Jace Montgomery came into Nellie’s life, saw the way she blossomed under his love, and Berni smiled warmly. Nellie deserved to have someone love her, deserved to stop being a slave to her father and sister.
Things changed when Nellie started giving her three wishes away, and Berni felt herself grow smaller. She hadn’t meant to hurt Nellie. Heaven help her, Nellie had had enough pain in her life, and she didn’t need any more, but the wishes had increased Nellie’s burdens.
Berni watched Nellie at the Harvest Ball and thought she looked beautiful. A little wide, perhaps, but she was so in love her entire body glowed. After the ball Berni saw what Terel did with Jace, sending the phony telegram, then stealing Jace’s letters to Nellie and hiring some poor woman to write replies to him so he’d think Nellie had answered him.
“You conniving little manipulator,” Berni muttered.
She watched as Jace returned to town, then saw the scene when Terel pretended to be ill. Berni heard Jace ask Nellie to leave with him, and she heard Nellie say she could not leave. “Because of the third wish,” Berni said aloud.
At last she came to Nellie hanging the greenery in the parlor. It was two days since Jace had asked her to leave with him and three days before Christmas.
The scene became covered with fog.
“What shall it be?” Pauline asked. “More wishes?”
“Can I go back to earth and help Nellie?”
“Go back to earth? You want to leave the Kitchen? Leave here for all the nastiness of earth? You know, you didn’t see all of the Feasting room. They have chocolate mountains in there. And it’s not wimpy milk chocolate but that really deep, rich, dark chocolate. You can eat all you want and never gain an ounce.”
Berni hesitated as she imagined chocolate mountains. “No,” she said firmly, “I want to return to earth. Nellie needs a teacher. She’s no match for that sister of hers. She needs some help.”
“But I thought you liked Terel. I believe you said she reminded you of yourself.”
“Terel is exactly like me, and that’s why I need to fight her.”
“Fight her?” Pauline said. “But I thought you wanted to make her into Cinderella.”
“She already thinks she is Cinderella. What right does she have to take everything away from Nellie? Nellie is a hundred times the person she is. Can I go to earth or not?”
“You may go, but the limit is three days, and I warn you, these visits rarely work out.”
“I’ll take my chances. Now, I’ll need to know some about the family. I plan to arrive as the Grayson family’s long-lost relative, their very rich relative. Do you think I might have a wardrobe, something in green silk to match my eyes?”
Pauline smiled. “I think something might be arranged. There are rules, though. What has happened stands. You cannot change what Nellie has already wished.”
“I don’t plan to disturb her family’s comfort,” Berni said with a smile. “They’ll be the most comfortable family in America.”
“And three days,” Pauline said. “That’s all the time you have.”
“I won my second husband in three days, and I didn’t resort to magic. How about a hat with an ostrich plume? And how about shoes with lots of buttons?”
“I hope you do this well,” Pauline said softly.
“I always get what I want. Terel doesn’t stand a chance against me.”
Pauline sighed. “All right, then, come along. We’ll embed you in the memory of the Graysons so they have some knowledge of Aunt Berni, then we’ll send you down.”
“And clothes,” Berni said. “Don’t forget clothes. How about an amber necklace?”
“You will have all the clothes you want. I hope I don’t regret this—and, more importantly, that Nellie doesn’t regret this.”
“Don’t worry. When it comes to being a bitch, I wrote the book.”
“That’s a book I don’t want to read,” Pauline muttered as she started walking.
Chandler, Colorado
1896
“How rich?” Terel asked, biting into one of Nellie’s crispy apple tarts.
“Very wealthy,” Charles said, putting down the letter. “And she has no other relatives besides us. It’s my belief that she wants to choose one of you as her heiress.”
“One of us?” Terel asked, glancing sideways at Nellie, who was sitting at the far end of the dining table. As usual, Nellie wasn’t paying attention. Not that Nellie was ever a barrel of laughs, but in the last two days, since that man had come storming into the house, Nellie had been a veritable gloom factory. “Why just one of us?”
“She says she doesn’t want her fortune divided. She wants it kept intact after her death, so I take that to mean she plans to leave it all to just one of you.”
“Mmm,” Terel said thoughtfully. “I do wish you’d told us of her visit before the day of her arrival.”
“I can’t think why I didn’t,” Charles said, genuinely puzzled. “I’m sure I knew about the visit, but I don’t know why I never said anything.”
“Oh, well,” Terel said, licking her fingers, “I shall do my best to take car
e of her. Nellie, you had best stay in the kitchen and cook. Your wonderful cooking will please Aunt Berni, I’m sure.”
Nellie didn’t bother to reply. She pushed the food about on her plate. For once in her life she wasn’t hungry. Being hungry meant that you were alive, and right now Nellie didn’t feel very alive.
Terel turned to Nellie and studied her. Yes, it would be much better to keep Nellie away from this rich relative. Terel wouldn’t have worried about the fat Nellie engendering love, but this new Nellie, slim, beautiful, unconsciously graceful, caused people to look at her twice. For the life of her Terel couldn’t figure out what about Nellie caused people to care so much about her. Miss Emily, the nosy old hag, constantly asked after Nellie, as did whole churches full of people. Terel assumed it had to do with the way Nellie kept giving their food away to the grubby kids of Chandler. No one ever thought to thank their father for paying for the food, nor did they thank Terel for having to do without because Nellie spent their family’s money on other people. No, everyone just saw Nellie playing Lady Bountiful.
Now Nellie looked like the heroine of a tragic play, with her big eyes full of misery. Everyone who saw her seemed to be filled with pity for her. But why? Terel wondered. She’d come close to marrying a very rich man—not that Nellie deserved him—and in the end, she’d done the right thing by staying with her family, so why was she trying to make everyone else feel miserable? Terel knew Nellie’s moroseness was meant to punish her, Terel, but no one else seemed to realize that. That stupid Mae Sullivan said yesterday that she felt almost like telling Nellie the truth about Mr. Montgomery, that he hadn’t kissed any other woman in Chandler. “Except me,” Terel had said, and she turned on her heel and walked away.
Why were people such fools? Terel wondered. Why couldn’t they see that Nellie was so much better off with her family? Who knew what this man Montgomery was like? Maybe he was abusive to women. Maybe he drank. Maybe he was an impostor and not really rich at all. Maybe Terel had saved Nellie from a fate worse than death.
Anyway, Terel thought, forget about the man; there was Aunt Berni to think about. Terel thought she would make an excellent heiress. Paris, Rome, San Francisco, she thought. Furs, jewels, houses.
She looked again at Nellie. She’d better keep this rich aunt away from Nellie, in case she was one of those do-gooders who would fall for Nellie’s sad face. Terel didn’t mean to lose a fortune just because Nellie was temporarily a little upset.
“I think I’ll make up some menus,” Terel said thoughtfully. “We mustn’t skimp while Aunt Berni is here.” She smiled at Nellie, thinking of the complicated dishes she’d order. Nellie wouldn’t get out of the kitchen for a week, and as Aunt Berni’s visit was only going to be for three days…
Nellie was in the kitchen when she heard the commotion of her aunt arriving. She didn’t go out to greet her because both her father and Terel were there. She heard her father’s voice raised and the sound of men grunting as they carried trunks up the stairs. After a half hour or so Nellie prepared a tray with a mug of hot cider and a plate of Christmas cookies to take to her aunt. Just as she was leaving the kitchen Terel burst in.
“She brought six trunks of clothes with her,” Terel said, partly in horror, partly in admiration. “And she’s fifty if she’s a day, but she doesn’t have a line in her face.”
“That’s lovely for her.”
“Perhaps.” Terel picked up a cookie and munched it thoughtfully. “There’s something about her that I don’t trust. There’s something in her eyes.”
“Maybe she’s lonely. Didn’t Father say she lived alone?”
“It’s not loneliness, I can assure you of that. There’s something I don’t understand in her eyes.”
Nellie pushed open the kitchen door. “I’ll just take her some food and say hello.”
Berni sat in the parlor and smoothed her velvet skirt. She liked these ornate Victorian clothes: no synthetic fibers, lots of hand embroidery, intricate detailing. What she didn’t like was Terel. It hadn’t taken Berni but moments to see that Terel was out to get what she could for herself. Berni looked at her and smiled and thought, I’ll get you, brat, and I won’t need to resort to magic.
When Nellie entered the room Berni’s face softened, for she recognized the goodness in Nellie. All the images Berni had seen of Nellie’s childhood flashed before her eyes, and before she thought she gave Nellie a radiant smile.
Terel, just behind Nellie, saw that smile, and she vowed to find out what it meant, but she betrayed no wariness as she offered her Aunt Berni cookies and cider from the tray Nellie held. An hour later Terel was able to slip away from the house and find the dreadful child who called himself Duke.
“Well?” Terel demanded of the boy. He wouldn’t speak until she’d put a quarter in his hand. “Have you been watching the hotel like I told you to?”
“Sure thing, and this mornin’ there was a message in Montgomery’s box. I didn’t see nobody put it in there, it was just there.”
“Did you get it?” she snapped impatiently.
He handed her the note, and she read it quickly. It was an invitation to luncheon today at the Grayson house, and it was signed by Nellie. But Terel knew the note hadn’t been written by Nellie; the way it was worded wasn’t the way Nellie would write. She crumpled the note in her hand. It had to have been written by this Aunt Berni, but how had she found out about Nellie and the Montgomery man?
“She’s just like all the others,” Terel muttered. “They all think of Nellie, and no one thinks of me.”
“What’s that?” the boy asked.
“None of your business. Now go back and continue watching.”
The boy snorted and then walked away, hands in his pockets, whistling.
As Terel started back to the house she began to plan. She didn’t know why this Aunt Berni was here or what she wanted, but Terel meant to find out.
When Terel returned her Aunt Berni was in the guest bedroom, lounging on the bed eating chocolates and reading one of Terel’s novels. “There you are, my dear,” Berni said. “I was hoping you’d return soon. You will help me unpack, won’t you?”
“Nellie will—” Terel began, then she smiled radiantly. Better to keep those two apart. “I would be delighted to help.”
Two hours later Terel was furious, but she managed to hide it. She hadn’t “helped” Berni; she had done all the work of struggling with the trunks, opening them so they formed short closets, then inspecting everything to make sure nothing was damaged. The sight of the dresses alone was enough to make Terel vow to do anything to make Aunt Berni leave everything to her, but the jewels nearly undid her. “What is this?” she asked, holding up a long tube of what looked to be green glass.
“Actually, it’s a magic wand. One long emerald,” Berni said.
Terel gave a little smile, further angered that Berni would make fun of her. There’s something wrong here, Terel thought again.
Luncheon came and went, and Berni was puzzled as to why Jace didn’t come. He had seemed to genuinely like Nellie. So why didn’t he accept Nellie’s invitation? Perhaps a note wasn’t strong enough; perhaps Jace needed to see Nellie in person.
After luncheon Berni suggested Terel take a nap. “You have worked so hard today helping me. You deserve a little rest.”
“I do feel tired,” Terel said, yawning. “I think I will take a nap.” She went upstairs, climbed into bed fully clothed, and pulled the spread over her, concealing that she still wore her day clothes. Ten minutes later she heard the door softly open, and she saw Berni peek in at her and then silently close the door again.
Berni went downstairs to the kitchen, where Nellie was already working on dinner, and sat down on the other side of the big table. “You and I haven’t had much time to talk, have we?”
“No,” Nellie said, trying to smile, but she didn’t feel much like smiling.
Berni once again felt guilt. It was her fault Nellie was stuck in the kitchen now. If Berni h
adn’t interfered, Nellie would probably be on her honeymoon right now.
“Nellie, if you could have one wish in the world, what would it be?”
Jace, Nellie instantly thought, but she stamped down the idea. “I guess I’d want my family to be happy.”
“You mean, to get what they deserve in life?”
“Oh, no!” Nellie said, then she realized how that must sound. “I mean, yes, I want them to get what they deserve because they deserve only good things, but I wouldn’t want them to be unhappy.”
“All right,” Berni said, “it’s a deal. They’ll get what they deserve, and they’ll be happy with it.”
For the first time in a long while Nellie gave a genuine smile. “You’re very kindhearted, aren’t you?”
Berni looked away. No one had ever called her kind before. She turned back to Nellie. “I have a favor to ask of you. I have some friends whose son is visiting Chandler. Perhaps you’ve heard of my friend, LaReina, the opera star.”
“Yes, certainly I have, though I haven’t heard her sing.”
“Divine, utterly divine. Anyway, her son is visiting Chandler, and I’d like to ask him to dinner tonight, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course you may invite him.”
“But I was wondering if perhaps you would ask him. I think he may be a little shy.”
“I would be glad to ask him. Where’s he staying?”
“At the Chandler House. Just ask for Jace Montgomery. He—Nellie! Are you all right?” Berni hurried to the other side of the table and helped Nellie to a chair. “Did I say something wrong? Would you rather not have anyone here for dinner?”
“It’s not that, it’s…it’s that Mr. Montgomery and I…”
“Oh, so you know each other, do you? That’s wonderful.” She helped Nellie to stand, then took her heavy wool shawl and her wool felt hat from a peg by the door. Berni jammed the hat on Nellie’s head, wrapped the shawl about her, and shoved her toward the door. “Go and ask him to dinner. Terel is sleeping, so she’s comfortable, and your father isn’t here. Everyone is taken care of, so you’re free to go.”