Dina Santorelli
Authors: Baby Grand
Baby Grand
:
"Dina Santorelli has a natural talent for weaving
together characters and scenes, creating a plot that grips tighter with every
page. If you value your sleep, do not read before bed!"
— Torre
DeRoche, author of Love with a Chance of Drowning
"What an enjoyable read! It pulled me in at the beginning
and didn't let go until the last page. Very difficult to put down! I'm already
looking forward to the author's next book."
— Joseph
Mugnai, publisher,
Family
magazine
"A superb debut for Dina Santorelli. A well-crafted novel
that's also a page-turner.
Baby Grand's
a winner; you won't want to put
it down."
— Julia
Markus, critically acclaimed biographer and winner of the Houghton Mifflin
Literary Award for her novel
Uncle
"Dina Santorelli has the gift of a natural storyteller,
and
Baby Grand
sweeps along at a frantic pace, plunging the reader into
a tale with wonderfully real characters you care about. It's very human, very
exciting, and absolutely engrossing."
— Chris
Nickson, author of the Richard Nottingham series of historical mysteries
Baby Grand
By Dina Santorelli
© 2012 Dina Santorelli
Chapter 1
Baby Charlotte clung to the
skirt of the sofa. She yanked the dense pleats this way and that with her tiny
fist as if testing their construction, their ability to withstand duress.
Satisfied, she extended her left hand up to the top of the seat cushion, her
fat fingers clawing at the white piping along the perimeter, but after several
attempts, including a last-ditch swat, she relented and laid down her arm.
Quickly, as if not to lose momentum, she reached up with her right hand and
grabbed a good chunk of upholstered fabric in the middle of the seat, and,
while working her other hand up to steady herself, planted her feet and pulled
on the material so hard that she let out a little grunt.
Stunned,
Charlotte stood against the sofa front, her arms stiff and locked into place,
her hold so tight that the pink skin around her knuckles had become blotchy.
She peered at the tops of the cushions, the silk decorative pillows, the things
she rarely saw from her usual ground-level vantage point. Then she let go,
holding her hands in the air dramatically, as if she were performing a
death-defying circus act, and stood on her own, wobbling, for a full second
before toppling back down onto her diapered bottom, a puff of baby powder
released upon impact. She giggled.
From
a few yards away, Rosalia giggled too. She had been watching the determined
ten-month-old for days as she attempted to stand on her own. It seemed like
only yesterday that those blonde curls were zigzagging their way across the
floor in a hurry. The only crawling Charlotte did now was straight toward the
walls or sofas or coffee tables—any vertical surface, really—so that she could
begin her climbing regimen. That morning at breakfast, Rosalia caught
Charlotte, who was eating Cheerios in her high chair, studying the
back-and-forth of her legs as she wandered about the kitchen. Rosalia tried to
move a little slower for her rapt spectator, conscious of every step and muscle
flex. It took her twice as long to unload the dishwasher and clean the
countertop, but she enjoyed the attention—it had been a long time since anyone
took such interest in her legs.
Now Charlotte had decided to try a new tack: she placed her palms on the floor under her
shoulders as if she were going to do a push-up and straightened her legs. With
this approach, her butt arched up into the air and wiggled, but her little
knees gave out, and she tumbled to the hardwood floor again.
"
Hmpf
,"
Rosalia groaned, eyeing the unforgiving surface of the strip flooring.
As
beautiful as genuine hardwood was, Rosalia always had been fearful that the
baby would hurt herself with every move across the floorboards. She had been
only too happy to see several area rugs being brought into the house, which not
only warmed up the worn, aged look of the historically decorated living and
dining rooms but offered Charlotte more comfortable spots to crawl and play.
Charlotte had found something interesting in the far corner of
the room—the latest issue of
Time
magazine—and, taking a break from standing,
crawled her way over to it. Rosalia left the kitchen to be sure that Charlotte would not be getting into any trouble, that there were no electrical wires or
loose, small objects lying around, and took the opportunity to walk upon the
sumptuous threading of the Persian area rug in the living room with her bare
feet. Mrs. Grand frowned upon the staff taking their shoes off when indoors,
even late at night or on the weekends, but neither the governor nor his wife
were home, so Rosalia took the opportunity to stretch her tired arches. The
hand-sewn rug felt good on her soles, and she bunched the pile fibers between
her crooked toes. Rosalia smiled as Charlotte leaned backward and kicked her
feet toward the ceiling and appeared to be reading the magazine, which was
upside-down, over her head.
The
arrival of little Charlotte to the Grand household had been a blessing to
Rosalia and had reignited a fire in her belly. Her own two children, who were
grown and living downstate in Queens while attending college, didn't seem much
interested in babies—having them or acting like them, not even for the sake of
their aging and lonely mother—so Rosalia was more than thrilled when Mrs. Grand
told her that she was
with child
, as she put it; she'd said it as an
afterthought during Rosalia's year-end evaluation two Christmases ago. Rosalia
suspected that Mrs. Grand had become pregnant mostly to please the press and
her husband's constituents, and after the baby was born, the governor's wife seemed
to want nothing more than to get back to her social calendar, which was a dream
come true for the lonely housekeeper, who would become Charlotte's primary
caretaker.
Those
first few weeks after Charlotte had been brought home, Rosalia had begun spending
some nights at the mansion, rocking the baby to sleep and singing her the songs
that Rosalia's own mother used to sing to give her good dreams. Rosalia had met
every feeding and diaper change with enthusiasm and would sometimes just let Charlotte sleep in her arms during the day so that she could feel the warmth of her body
against her breast. In the past ten months, Baby Charlotte had grown into a
beautiful, inquisitive, and headstrong child.
Having
spotted Rosalia, Charlotte scooted across the wood floor toward her, but made a
pit stop at the center of the area rug in the main dining room, where her
favorite doll, Miss Beatrice, whom Charlotte called MaBa, had been abandoned
earlier.
Rosalia
returned to the kitchen to continue unpacking groceries. She sensed that she
was running late, and she was right. It was nearly ten o'clock, time for Charlotte's morning nap. Rosalia tried to keep Charlotte on a strict
schedule, so that she could do most of her chores in the morning and leave the afternoon
free for playtime.
There
was a tug on her polyester skirt. Charlotte was trying to pull herself up, but
she was slipping on the marble floor.
"
Ay,
Carlota
!" Rosalia said, bending down to scoop up the child. She ran her
hand through Charlotte's tiny blond curls, and the child mimicked her motions
by wrapping her little hand around Rosalia's long gray hair.
"Time
for a nap, my angel," Rosalia said, kissing Charlotte's forehead. "We play
later."
The
nursery, tucked away on the top floor of the mansion away from the publicly
viewed rooms, was a pale shade of yellow, and the furnishings were made of
delicately hand-carved brazilwood, which also complemented a small bookshelf
and an old-fashioned rocker. It was a pretty little space, decorated by some
local designers who got their pictures in the area newspapers for their
handiwork. The afternoon sun shone through the large window on the southern
wall, and a cool, gentle breeze caused the sheer drapes to billow, giving the
room a fresh scent.
Rosalia
placed Charlotte on her back in the crib, covered her with the checkered
blanket that she had knitted, wound the mobile above her head, and placed a
gentle kiss on her forehead. "
Te amo, Cara
," she whispered.
As
Rosalia was leaving, she heard tiny protests from Charlotte, who remained lying
on her back and peering at her through the crib bars, the blanket still neatly
placed up to her neck. The child hadn't moved, but her eyes had followed
Rosalia across the room, and her usually happy face had turned into a slight
pout. Rosalia blew a kiss toward the crib as Charlotte's eyes blinked with
drowsiness, and she turned and left.
Downstairs,
Rosalia entered the kitchen and turned on the baby monitor. She could hear Charlotte still making some weak sounds of disapproval. Rosalia took some boxes of
crackers off the table to put into the pantry, which was well stocked with
foods of all ethnicities and types, including a variety of cookies, the
governor's not-so-secret guilty pleasure. Sometimes Rosalia would come to work
in the morning and find cookie crumbs hastily brushed into the corners of the
pantry floor and brand-new boxes of candy-topped chocolate-chip cookies,
purchased the day before, half-eaten and stowed under full boxes. More than
once, the governor had chastised Rosalia in front of Mrs. Grand for buying the
bargain brand cookies, but when she wasn't looking someone inevitably would
scribble things like
Mini Oreos
and
Chewy Chips Ahoy
at the
bottom of her shopping lists. Rosalia never tattled, and she suspected that was
one of the reasons she managed to stick around for six years, well into the
governor's second term, while her coworkers seemed to come and go.
Rosalia
glanced at the baby monitor, which was now silent, the red indicator light
showing an uninterrupted glow. She smiled and grabbed some more groceries to
put away.
After
the kitchen counter was cleared, Rosalia ran her palm over the smooth granite,
feeling for crumbs, and spotted Miss Beatrice lying face down near the
dishwasher. She picked up the doll and examined it. The threading was beginning
to unravel under the left arm; she'd have to fix that. Rosalia brought the doll
to her face and brushed it against her cheek. She could smell Charlotte's shampoo
on the fabric, and there were traces of baby powder in the seams. She tucked
the doll under her arm and walked back up the staircase.
The
nursery was quiet. She tiptoed over to the far wall and placed Miss Beatrice on
the top bookshelf with all of Charlotte's other doll friends who leaned lazily
on one another with the familiarity of old pals. Then Rosalia had a thought:
She picked Miss Beatrice up again, brushed her off, and matted down her hair as
she walked toward Charlotte's crib. She smiled as she brought Miss Beatrice up
over the bars to place next to the sleeping child.
But
the crib was empty.