try modeling for the cover of magazines for seniors, and she had dismissed the idea with a contemptuous wave of her hand. He wasn't sure whether the contempt was aimed at the idea of modeling or the notion that anyone would think of her as a 'senior.' She talked about the 'old ladies' at her church as if they were an alien species.
Fiona exchanged the necessary kiss on the cheek with her only son and then looked at him closely.
'What on earth happened to you?'
'I had an accident.'
'Good lord! What on earth?'
Kylie looked up him too, squinting in the dim light.
'You have a black eye, Uncle Lee!'
'I ran into a door,' he lied. 'It was stupid.'
Kylie was satisfied with this explanation, but his mother was not. She raised an eyebrow at him, but he shook his head and glanced at Kylie. His mother took the hint and changed the subject.
'So where are you two going today?' she asked.
'Can we go to Jekyll and Hyde? Please, can we?' Kylie asked.
'Sure,' Lee replied.
Kylie turned to her grandmother. 'It's the coolest place!' She hopped from foot to foot, humming to herself.
'Well, mind you don't stay up too late,' Fiona said.
'We won't, we won't!'
'Okay, we'd better be off,' Lee said, twirling the car keys in his left hand. He had a tendency toward ambidextrousness, a trait Fiona claimed was inherited from his father.
'Would you like a cup of tea before you go?' his mother said.
Lee glanced at his watch. 'No, I don't think so. It's kind of a long drive.'
'Very well. Off you go, then,' she said briskly, whisking the two of them out the door after brushing her lips across their cheeks.
'Who's that?' Kylie asked when she saw the dark sedan parked out in the road.
'Oh, that's my own personal guard,' Lee replied, nodding to the plainclothes cop behind the wheel.
'Cool,' Kylie said, waving to him.
Lee decided to take River Road-he liked the view as it twisted and wound along the Delaware. As he headed toward the river through the farm fields, he rounded a familiar turn in the road. There, ahead of him, was McGill's Hill. A wide, steeply sloped incline, it was the prime sledding venue for everyone within miles. People came all the way from Doylestown to sled there. The hill humped steeply at the top; then a sharply angled grade bottomed out into a concave, bowl-like base, followed by a football field's worth of flat land all the way to the creek that snaked through a smattering of trees.
McGill's Hill was an exhilarating ride. The top was so abruptly humped that the sled left the ground, only to return with a thump on the fast downhill slope before rising into the air again at the bottom. After clearing the spoon-like hollow, it was straight across the flatlands to the creek. If the creek was frozen, and if you could manage the sharp turn, you could glide along the ice for a while. The trick was not to hit any of the trees lining the bank. He had seen more than one concussion suffered when head met tree trunk, and had banged his own head once or twice trying to make the treacherous turn.
McGill's Hill was a mecca still popular among local children, who zipped down the hill on everything from plastic bags to fancy hand-steered toboggans-and they still tried to make the dangerous turn, hoping to eke out just a little longer ride.
A thin dusting of snow clung to the brown grasses on the hill's slope, and Lee was reminded of a mocha cake with vanilla frosting. A lone terrier trotted along the crest of the hill, sniffing energetically at the base of a tree before depositing his calling card, casting a short shadow in the feeble February sun. A young woman followed at some distance, carrying a rolled-up leash and reading a book, not paying any attention to her surroundings.
Lee had to stifle an impulse to stop the car and tell her to be more careful. The sight of a woman alone in an isolated area always brought up these feelings for him now. Laura had loved sledding on McGill's Hill.
'Does your grandmom take you there to sled?' he asked Kylie, who was sitting next to him, her eyes half closed, lulled by the motion and warmth of the car.
'Sometimes,' she answered. 'And she likes to be called Fiona, not grandmom.'
Lee smiled. He didn't know what his mother's latest little quirk was about-not about her age, surely. She told anyone who would listen how old she was-usually after asking them to guess first. Then she would beam proudly when they guessed ten or fifteen years too low, as they usually did. Once a very young black waitress had gotten it right on the nose, and Fiona had been in a bad mood all during the rest of the lunch.
'Trying to insult me!' she'd muttered as she picked at her salmon mousse. 'She'll be lucky to look half this good when she's my age!'
'Well, you did ask her to guess,' Lee pointed out, but that didn't pass muster either.
'I don't care-it's just rude, that's what it is!' she insisted.
'Never mind, Mom. We all look the same to them,' Lee remarked, but the joke had gone so far over her head he could hear the rushing of wind as it passed.
He had left an especially big tip in case the girl had overheard anything his mother had said.
He looked over at Kylie, whose eyelids were sliding shut, her head resting against the windowpane, her breath forming a cold little spot of mist on the glass. She was a pretty child, with her father's coloring-blue eyes and blond hair. He breathed a silent prayer for her safety to gods he didn't believe in, an empty benediction without the power of faith behind it. Things that were mysterious in his childhood were mysterious to him still. Life's big questions remained unanswered, and he had no faith that would ever change.
Chapter Forty-one
Kylie slept during most of the drive back to the city, but as they neared Jekyll and Hyde, she woke up and began craning her neck for a better look at the restaurant.
'There it is!' she shrieked as the car shot up Sixth Avenue.
Jekyll and Hyde was a theme restaurant aimed at out-of-towners and the Harry Potter crowd-seven- to twelve-year-olds. It occupied all four floors of a curiously stubby building on Sixth Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street, snuggled tightly between towering banks and office buildings. The ornate sign on the neo-Gothic facade was in crimson lettering dripping like spattered blood.
The Jekyll and Hyde Club
Actors roamed the restaurant's four floors dressed in a variety of roles straight out of grade-B horror films- the mad scientist, vampiric hostess, dotty professor, lusty chambermaid-while grotesque statues of gargoyles and skeletons spoke and moved. The creepy portraits in ornate gilded frames lining the walls had eyes that really did follow you around the room.
As they walked toward the restaurant, Kylie bounced from foot to foot and chanted softly to herself. 'Chicken nuggets, chicken nug-gets.'
Kylie adored fried chicken strips, but Lee's mother refused to buy them for her, calling such food 'rubbish.'
They stepped into the building and were absorbed into the heavy Gothic atmosphere of the restaurant. Red velvet wallpaper lined the walls, and thick Victorian drapes blocked out any shred of sunlight that might sneak in through the floor-to-ceiling French windows. The club was in a state of eternal twilight, with only the flickering of thin yellow flames from gaslights to illuminate the patrons as they wandered through the dim, spooky hallways.
A cadaverous actor dressed as a vampire met them at the door and escorted them up the stairs to the second floor. They were seated at a table in the corner, underneath a portrait in an ornate gilt frame. The face in the picture was of a middle-aged man with heavy features, and he wore a fur-lined red velvet cape and hat, suggesting a nineteenth-century courtier. The man's eyes, under their heavy brows, actually moved. Lee supposed this was done by remote control. Perhaps there was one person on the staff whose job it was to move the eyes in
