A Happy Catastrophe

“Nope,” he says. “I’m the one who gets to be in control of my fate.” And he pulls me over and starts kissing me.

We really get into making out and are just starting to think about removing clothing, when we hear Bedford barking outside, and it’s time to go greet Tessa and Fritzie, who have returned.

“Patrick! Patrick! Where are you?” Fritzie is yelling.

“See?” he groans as he hauls himself up off the floor. “This is the kind of thing we’re not going to be able to do anymore.”

“We’ll find ways, trust me,” I say. And he shakes his head mournfully.

There’s just one little thing that flattens me, I think, after he’s left to go upstairs. Tessa is a total wreck and she may have a life that’s never going to work out the way she planned it. But, damn it, she did have a baby with Patrick. Her cells and his cells mingled and created this walking-around, talking human girl who is a perfect genetic combination of the two of them, and who looks especially like him.

And I may never know what that’s like. I put my hands across my middle, where maybe, possibly, somebody’s in there, right now just a little ball of cells dividing and growing every day.

But what if there isn’t? And what if there never is? Then what?

“Marnie! Marnie!” Fritzie is yelling for me. “Marnie, come look at what Bedford found in the park! Somebody’s gross old boot!”

I go upstairs. And I’m smiling by the time I get there because the truth is it’s been a long time since Bedford brought home an old boot and had somebody think that was great.

A few days later, I take Fritzie with me to work. I’ve told her about the flower shop, of course, and also about the Frippery and all the fun people who come there, and the things they do. She marches along next to me, in torn denim leggings and a Purple Rain T-shirt and red flip-flops, and she oohs and aahs when we unlock the door of Best Buds and go in. I see it through her eyes: all the twinkling lights and the buckets and baskets of flowers, the cooler filled with roses and tulips and daisies, the long counter with its marble finish, and the sound of the alto flute music I put on. It’s a paradise in here, and I’m so pleased to see that she agrees.

She immediately sees the Frippery for what it is: a place for cartwheels among the pillows and beanbags. Then she runs over and writes with the markers at the desk, decorating a piece of construction paper to say: FRITZIE’S FRIPPERY.

“Marnie!” she calls while I’m talking on the phone to Patrick. “Can I call it Fritzie’s Frippery? Would you put up my sign? Fritzie’s Frippery! Because I never had a frippery before! I didn’t know anybody who has a frippery! We could put on the sign: ‘Come frip out at Fritzie’s Frippery!’”

“Yes, we could,” I say, and Patrick on the other end says, “Oh, dear God in heaven. This morning she came into my studio and wanted to know if we could sit together and do some oil paintings. She’s taking over, isn’t she?”

“What did you say to her? Please tell me you didn’t push her out of there.”

“Do you have any idea of the extent of the damage one eight-year-old girl could do with oil paints?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s epic. So I gave her some watercolors. I let her paint. She lasted fourteen seconds, and then she was wandering around wanting to know if, when you and I get married, she could be the flower girl, and what should she wear in her hair that day. And also if Mister Swoony could be in the wedding, too.”

I laugh. Mister Swoony is the stuffed animal she carries around with her, really just a piece of dirty, stitched-together fluff. “And what did you reply to that?”

“I said there were no such plans, and she could wear whatever she wanted in her hair any day of the week. And that Mister Swoony can make his own arrangements.”

After I get off the phone, she says to me, “It’s such a good thing you and my bio-daddy are going to keep me. Do you think he would mind if I called him Daddy? I always thought that Daddy sounded like a cool name. I never get to call anybody Daddy. Some people don’t have daddies. Of course I could use Dad or Papa or Father. Is he the type to like Father better? Maybe I should call him PapPap. That’s what my friend Asia calls her grandfather, but I think it sounds cool for a father, too. I think probably he’s going to have to get used to me before I ask him. Don’t you?” I’m at the counter trimming the stems of the flowers from the cooler, and she has the broom and is sweeping up, waving the broom rather dangerously around the counter area.

She suddenly does a cartwheel and when she stands up she says, “Can I tell you a secret? My mom and I came here the other day, before I met you. I didn’t know why we came here, but I think she wanted to see if you knew Patrick.”

“Oh,” I say.

She goes on to do five more cartwheels. “She’s kind of different from the other moms, did you know that? She isn’t really good at knowing how to do a lot of stuff. It’s because I am a surprise girl. She and my dad didn’t mean for me to happen, you see, and she told me she didn’t ever play with dolls so that’s why she doesn’t know how to be a mum. So she says we are really like friends in the world. That’s what she calls us: friends in the world.”

I feel my hands shake just a little. “You know, your mommy is lucky to have you being so understanding and all. A lot of kids—well, when I was a kid, I would have had a hard time, I think. And I want you to know, it’s okay if sometimes you have a hard time. You don’t have to be brave all the time, you know.”

She takes Mister Swoony out of her backpack and sets him up next to the cash register. She keeps licking her lips, like she’s nervous. “I’m okay,” she says and cartwheels herself over to the cooler door. “I think that cartwheel was my best one today,” she says, when she’s upright again. Red-faced and smiling.

I tell her I once could do a pretty decent series of cartwheels myself. I think my record might have been twenty-two in a row, but that was on the beach, and I was ten years old.

She regards me seriously. Then she says, “I need to see you do them! Let’s go to the Frippery!” and so I put down my cutting implements and the roses and we head to the back room, where she folds her arms and insists that I show my stuff. I do about two really, really lame cartwheels.

She frowns. “Hmm. You need some practice. Straighten out your knees, and then you’ll be good. We’ll work on it.”

Later, the Amazings drop in, and Ariana and Charmaine immediately take to Fritzie and show her how divine it is to put glitter on everybody’s cheeks; even Lola gets a dose of purple sparkles right across her cheekbones. Lola is knitting a long scarf, and she crooks a finger and beckons Fritzie over to ask how she likes Brooklyn so far. And if she’d ever want to come and live here.

“I do live here now,” Fritzie says. “This is my new home because Patrick is my bio-daddy, and he gets to keep me now while my mom goes to Italy.” She says this and then she gives me a big smile. “I belong with Patrick and Marnie now. And Bedford! Oh, and Roy! Roy is still getting used to me. Actually, Patrick is, too.”

“Oh, how exciting,” says Lola, startled, but then she turns her shock into a twinkle and smiles at me. “How interesting things are at your house these days, my dear. Where are you thinking of enrolling her in school?”