Chapter 21: Boris, born for apartment living, owns a house

On the midtown direct train, which was stalled in the Meadowlands for a brush fire delay, Boris looked out the window at what passed for nature and looked like a set for "The Sopranos." Long, brownish-green grasses leaned sideways in the wind, the field bisected by marshes or swamps, Boris didn't know which.

Even now, having read, written and spoken English since seventh grade, there were expressions that puzzled Boris. What was the difference, he wondered, between a creek and a brook? He read the Harry Potter books on his iPod, and still puzzled over the difference between ogres, trolls, and fiends. Size? Ferocity? He made a note to find Harry Potter in Russian, to look up the words, or to ask his mother.

In other realms, Boris knew the words and concepts. He reveled in the language of finance, where precision was all. He could talk about Star Wars and Star Trek in three languages. Somewhere in the house, or in his mother's apartment in Jersey City, there was a Klingon-Russian dictionary that Boris and his brother Evan crafted in middle school.

Boris thought about the boxes and the big house, his big, old house on Orange Heights Avenue. There was no question that he and Naomi had bitten off more than they could chew, a favorite expression of Boris and his brother, suggesting as it did a glorious excess. Nothing had prepared him for owning a house. Born in Moscow, raised in a massive apartment complex, Boris had known no other life -- everyone he knew lived the same way -- until he was 13 years old.

Still, Boris sometimes woke at night imagining himself in the Moscow airport -- he could see the Cyrillic letters painted on the wall in grey -- sitting on a suitcase next to his brother. The two of them waited silently, among another 50 travelers to find out their destination, whether New York or Tel Aviv. The resettlement agents charged around the waiting area waving sheafs of papers at Soviet officials, calling names, calling again, then sending families to either one boarding gate or another. Boris remembered watching passengers disappear down one long hallway, sometimes turning around for a last look, others rushing towards the plane.

His mother and father hoped for New York, where two uncles and a dozen cousins already lived.

"Greenpoint," Boris and Evan said aloud, when his parents talked about the move. "We live in Greenpoint."

"Not yet," said his mother, eager to ward off the ill temper of fate. "Don't even think it."

But how could he not, wondered Boris. The doorway was framed with postcards from Manhattan, a nighttime view of a bridge, gaudy buildings, the iconic Statue of Liberty. Boris drew the same images in the corners of his school notebooks; his hopes, too, lived in Manhattan.

As the New Jersey Transit train lurched forward, Boris shook his head and returned to the present.

"Next stop, Penn Station," said a conductor over the loudspeaker. "The end of the trip, last stop, final destination."

If only that were so, thought Boris, thinking of Orange Heights. That's my final destination now.

Chapter 20: Would you like to introduce your cousin to the whole school?

At Livingston Academy, Rohit slouched against the wall. He moved slowly along the hallway between classes, as if the swirling crowd of students around him weren't there, or as if he had a timetable unconnected to their tightly-scheduled days. He watched the tiny loops of yarn that made up his sweater catch on the rough cement between the wall's smoother panels and wondered if he could create enough friction with his sleeve to create a fire. He consider the possibility, wondering what the punishment would be for starting a fire in a crowded hallway with a sweater. What if no one got hurt? What if the only victim was the sweater? Rohit sighed deeply and walked even slower to his Humanities class.

With Jairaj visiting, it seemed unlikely that the conversation at home would turn to school and Rohit and his future happiness at Columbia High School. Even as a child, Rohit realized that such changes meant conversation with his parents, his father making decisions quickly, his mother crafting a list of pros and cons, weighing the options carefully. She planned even the smallest outings, researching all the possibilities, and contingency plan was one of her favorite expressions. Rohit sighed again. Perhaps he shared these characteristics; how else could he explain his irritation at his cousin's surprise visit?

Rohit stopped beside a trophy case full of bronze golfing figures and rubbed his sweater against the wall again, back and forth, back and forth, as he thought about his cousin. Rohit's earliest memories were of BA flights to India, and climbing onto the suitcases his parents packed carefully weeks ahead of their trips. His mother hoarded Clinique and jeans chosen to match relatives' measurements, while his practical father gathered Advil and granola bars, both for himself, both staples of his daily life. Nearly every summer the family traveled to Lahore, and they had squeezed shorter trips -- for weddings and birth ceremonies -- into shorter school holidays. Rohit sometimes returned dazed by jet lag and puzzled when his classmates talked about Thanksgiving turkeys, while his memories were of crowds and dancing.

Friends and classmates asked, "How was India?" or said, "Tell me about the Taj Mahal." It was only last summer, after years of nagging, that Rohit finally visited the Taj Mahal. His weeks spent in India sometimes felt like a parade of relatives, though he was the parade forced to march through a dozen sitting rooms, drinking hundreds of cups of tea.

He read the Harry Potter series of books in India, after resisting the trend for years, and completed all seven in a week. Another summer brought him Dickens, leather-bound volumes from a great-uncle's collection. Last year, he barrelled through the Hitch-Hiker's Guide series. When he thought of India, he felt the thin, humidity-soaked pages under his fingers, and saw the angular print on the page. The British spellings intrigued him; how could people speaking the same language agree to disagree on spelling, but limit the possible spellings to two? Why could favorite and favourite be correct, but no other version of the same word? And why the favorite child in every single sitting room, dance hall, and kitchen not him, but Jairaj? Why did Jairaj, who seemed to have the attention of all of India, come to New Jersey for more?

"Loud," Rohit said. "Big. Attention-sucking."

"Same to you," said Julian, nudging him from behind with his backpack."What are you doing out here? Scottland's gonna yell at you."

"I don't care," said Rohit, knowing even as he said it that he sounded like a child. "I don't like that teacher anymore."

Julian stared at his friend and waited.

"My mother told her that my cousin is visiting from India, and wants to come to school. So she --" Rohit gestured towards the classroom door with his shoulder, "invited him to talk to the class. About India."

Rohit saw that Julian didn't understand. "My cousin is a huge pain in the -- " he added.

"So?" asked Julian. "You get extra credit if you bring someone in. Remember how I made my grandmother come when she visited from Bruges? Extra quiz grade, buddy, can't miss."

"But Jairaj is loud," protested Rohit. "And he's boring. India is boring. We spent the whole fall doing India. Boring."

Julian shrugged. "Kylie brought in her cousin from Canada, which is like next to upstate New York. That's boring," he said. "Anyway, we gotta get in there."

Rohit followed his friend to the classroom door, aware that they were entering late. Julian held the door open for Rohit. As Rohit passed, his friend asked, loud enough for the class to hear, "What happened to your sweater? It looks like you were chewing on it."

Rohit didn't reply. The teacher turned to them. Instead of a reprimand, she greeted them gleefully. "A cousin from Lahore, Rohit. How lucky you are. How lucky we are." She turned to the class to include them in the luck. "And Rohit's cousin made a powerpoint of his whole life -- and you, yes, pictures of you, Rohit."

Rohit looked at the floor and then at his classmates as the teacher talked on about the anticipated pleasures of powerpoint and baby photos. This must be bad, he thought, looking around the room. They weren't even laughing at him; the rest of the class looked as mortified as he felt.

Chapter 19: Here's to you, Mrs. Robin

Emma's teacher smiled at the group of waiting kindergarteners. "We have the grand finale in the poetry festival," she told them with the air of magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. "The whole evening leads up to us."

Emma looked around the classroom at the other five and six-year-olds, all of whom looked awed. Jeremy looked like he might cry, while Annabel was already waving her hand in the air.

"Can I have the big part?" asked Annabel. "In Beauty-and-the-Beast-on-Broadway --" she pronounced this as if were one long word -- "there was a beautiful princess in the grand finale." She paused to inhale. "In Disney-Princess-Fantasia-on-Ice there was a finale with all of the princesses." Annabel looked around the class almost, Emma thought, as if she were challenging the bunch of them. "I could be the beautiful princess," Annabel said.

"Thank you, Annabel," said the teacher. "The whole group will be the finale, in fact."

There was a nervous silence as the children waited.

"We're reciting a poem called 'The Butterfly Ball," and -- yes, Annabel, I see you hand -- we'll all be animals," said Mrs. Robin.

"Is that because your name is Mrs. Robin?" asked Ethan, which Emma thought was a good question. He forgot to raise his hand, she noticed.

"I won't be an animal in the poem," explained the teacher. "I'll be the director animal." She laughed, and the class laughed with her politely.

It was clear to Emma what was going through her classmates' minds. Which animal would each child be? Would there be a selection process? A food chain of kindergarten animals, where the most powerful in the class would select first. Would costumes be involved? And, of course, who would be the butterfly?

Repeating after the teacher, the children said, "If I can't find a a dress that's smaller than small, then I can't go to the butterfly ball."

"Hmmm," said Mrs. Robin. "Not bad for the first day, but it's almost as if you're all thinking about something else. That part is the chorus that we'll repeat over and over. Then each animal or pair of animals has a special line."

Pair of animals, thought Emma. A new worry.

Chapter 18: Stats and a Long Shot

Back home after driving the neighborhood looking for Ann and Dylan, Joe sat down in front of his computer to ponder Match.com. In less than a day, the personal ad that Cole crafted yielded almost 200 replies from women of every age and stage.

"How am I supposed to choose?" he asked Daisy, as NewsRadio88 played behind him. He scanned the listings and found photos of women dressed formally, casually, even hardly dressed. He looked at their names: Smiley, GingerCat, OrangeTabby, MostlyHappy.

He glanced down at his sleeping dog. "I guess the cat ones are out," he said. "That's a problem right there." He moved to delete a listing labelled FancyCat, but hesitated.

"Cole would tell me that I'm looking for reasons to limit this list," said Joe aloud. "He would be right."

Walking to the kitchen, where he poured a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter, Joe picked up the Star-Ledger and glanced at the sports pages. It was the habit of a lifetime; he had written a good bit of what he read, and knew the scores already, but couldn't resist. Derek Jeter homered against the A's, and Joe mentally calculated the player's batting average.

"Not bad," he murmured, then shook his head when he read of the Mets' fielding errors.

A quantifier by nature, Joe tallied the losses and wins in his mind, keeping track of the local teams' scores so far in the season. Swallowing the coffee, he returned to his desk and looked again at the website before him.

"Stats," he murmured. "That's what I need. Stats will show the way."

And taking a pen and piece of graph paper, he began labelling columns across the length of the paper. He turned it sideways to copy the names. TabbyKat led the list.

Naming Names

Names are important to writers. Yes, I know the old Shakespeare line about "What's in a name?" Indeed, I teach Romeo and Juliet every year, and that line bugs me each time. Shakespeare, it seems to me, is a master of choosing names with meaning, names that resonate with their characters' intentions. An example? Sure, Romeo means pilgrim and in that same scene, R&J meet and speak a sonnet together. You remember from high school the "Hand to hand is holy palmers' kiss" line, when he wants to kiss and she offers a hand instead. And talk about an eponym -- how about old mercurial Mercutio? But I digress...

Joe and Cole Atkinson have names that represent a generation gap. Joe is a traditional name; he's probably Joe Junior, in fact, and broke tradition by choosing the name Cole. I suspect that it was a family name from his wife's side. It's cool, which suits Cole. He can carry off an individual name with no problem. He likes signing cards "Cole" and knowing that the recipient will be certain that it's he.

The Amin family is next in line for name revision. I like Neil's name, but I'm not satisfied with Rohit and Surya. Rohit, though it means 'red,' which matters for this story might be more of a Rohan. And Surya needs a name with a bit more surprise to it, as she is a character who has a few tricks up her sleeve. Jairaj is well-named, especially since he will work hard to become the center of our attention.

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 17: The Dumbwaiter Mystery

For the second time in a week, and again in her pajamas, Naomi found herself plied with tea and biscuits by the neighbors. She was exhausted from the waves of anxiety that she felt in the basement, but exhilarated after its release on her psyche and her stomach. She couldn't eat cookies quickly enough as she sat in Surya's kitchen, hands still shaking as they clutched a mug of Five Roses tea.

"Thank you," she said again, looking at Surya. "Thank you for getting us out."

"It was nothing," said Surya. "And it was my father's doing. I'm sorry he had to leave so quickly, but a cousin was driving him to Best Buy this morning and nothing would deter them from browsing for large, useless electronics." Surya grinned to show Naomi that she was joking.

Naomi nodded and smiled. She glanced at the tea cup in front of her.

"You must wonder what we were doing in there," she said at last.

"Were you looking for something in particular? Or perhaps getting to know the house?" asked Surya, taking a sip of her tea.

"I was following that old woman," explained Naomi. "It seemed kind of like she was seeing things, kind of remembering things very vividly. It was strange, but sort of exciting." She looked up from her tea. "There's not a whole lot of mystery in life," she said. "I don't mind a little Nancy Drew."

She paused. "You have a son, right?" Naomi continued. "Do you know who I mean by Nancy Drew? I know boys don't usually read those books."

"Of course," replied Surya. "I read them in India, when my cousins brought them in the summer. Along with the Agatha Christie. Did you know that Nancy Drew's creator lived in Orange Heights?"

Naomi looked skeptical, but Surya spoke confidently. "Oh, yes," she continued. "Edward Stratemeyer and his daughters started the company, moved it to Orange, and wrote many of those books." She rose and walked to her refrigerator. Pulling the town calendar from the wall, she returned to the table and opened it to May.

"Look," said Surya, pointing at a photo of the town's Village Hall with a large clock in its cupola. "They say that Stratemeyer drove past this every day on his way to the writing factory in Orange. When he thought of Nancy Drew and crafted a mystery for her, he took inspiration and named the first book Mystery of the Old Clock."

Naomi considered this. Could Stratemeyer have been to her house? Did he find Nancy's inspiration elsewhere?

"The Mystery of the Old Dumbwaiter," she said aloud, then laughed, embarrassed.

Surya looked at her. "Don't forget to mention the china," she said. "Your dumbwaiter was filled with china, enough for a large party. But somehow it was forgotten, left there for decades. What happened?" She stood to refill their cups with hot water. "That, to me, is the mystery."

Naomi rose and opened her mouth to speak again.

"No more thanks," said Surya. "But when the time is right, I will go down to that basement with you and see what other mysteries we uncover."

Chapter 16: 108 years, 10 months, and 9 days

While Eileen waited for Shannon to be pulled from a meeting at her school, and Surya walked through neighbors' yards in search of Ann and Dylan, Naomi found herself following the old woman and the little boy through the hall of her own house.

Ann paused only to open the door to the basement and walked down. Naomi wanted to call out, to warn her of the rickety stairs or tell her where the light switch was, but Ann walked confidently down the stairs. Waiting only for Naomi and Dylan to reach her, Ann kept walking. She passed the laundry area, where Naomi and Ben had installed large red energy-efficient appliances. She passed the mountain of empty boxes, moving cartons that they had unpacked but not yet flattened or recycled.

Ann walked to what Naomi consider the edge of the basement, where the cement floor gave way to packed dirt with, Naomi hoped, some building material underneat. It disturbed her to think of the house resting on the bare earth, though Ben reminded that all houses did, at the very bases. This part of the basement was dark, and shards of coal and -- what is all of this stuff? -- rested on the floor. Naomi wished her slippers were shoes and she glanced at Dylan's feet. Sneakers with socks. Good.

For the first time, Naomi spoke. "Um, thanks for showing this to me. Could we go back up now?"

Ann hardly looked at her when she replied. "We're going in there."

Naomi and Dylan looked at where Ann pointed. Naomi saw three doors so old and dirty that it looked like they had been carved from the earth. She remembered that the house inspector couldn't reach them easily and had generally advised against opening them. Naomi hadn't argued, happy for them to stay closed forever.

To her surprise, the first door opened easily when Ann turned the doorknob. She, Naomi and Dylan peered into a small room, hardly larger than a closet, lined with shelves. The shelves were lined with newspapers. Naomi peered at the date on one. "1902," she said wonderingly. "August 12, 1902."

Behind her, Dylan murmured. "108 years, 10 months, and 9 days ago."

Despite the dirt and the uneasy feeling that she was surrounded by spiders, Naomi felt a thrill from scalp to dirty slippers. This was an old house, that had lived when Victoria was on the throne.

"What was this for?" asked Naomi.

"They told us not to play in it, but we did," said Ann, replying but not answering. "They used it some, though, for storage. Mary kept her butter here -- oh, she knew it was old-fashioned but she liked the old ways best, didn't she -- and the plates that came out at Christmas. You remember how they came down here to the summer kitchen, just behind that second door, when it was too hot upstairs. And remember the noise the coal made, when they delivered it and it fell down the chute?"

Ann was looking from Dylan to Naomi, asking for agreement or confirmation of her memories that they couldn't give. Naomi felt confused but also curious about the old woman's memories of the house.Ann rambled on, now talking not to the others but to herself or someone in imagination.

"I remember pulling the dumbwaiter myself more than once," she said, now moving behind the door and opening what looked like a large cupboard.Dylan and Naomi both caught their breaths in surprise. When Ann pulled the door, it opened to reveal a wooden shelf loaded with dishes, the dumbwaiter halfway up the shaft, like an elevator caught between floors. Ann pulled a frayed rope and it responded with a loud growl.

"Them's the wheels," said Ann knowledgeably. "Gotta get them boys with the oil can." As she pulled harder on the rope, she leaned on the door of the small room and it closed behind her. She pulled again, and the dumbwaiter reached its floor.

Naomi was torn between opening the door of the room and studying the contents of the dumbwaiter. She disliked small spaces and closed doors, and only concentration and habit made airplane bathrooms and elevators possible for her. She felt the first stirrings of panic; sweat broke out under her arms and her stomach clenched. She began to fidget with her hands and feet, and her ears felt like they were filling with water. Taking a deep breath, as dozens of yoga instructors over the years had told her to do, Naomi reached for the doorknob, which fell off in her hand. She pulled the door, the heavy wooden door that had been closed for years, and it stayed stubbornly shut.

Naomi felt the panic grow, as it reached her head. I'm in here forever, she thought. I will be found in here years later. I will faint now and this boy and old lady will do nothing. There will be pain and I will disappoint Ben. But just as the mental record began to replay, with the worst-case scenarios growing even more dire, Naomi felt Dylan's hand touch the back of her right wrist. So softly that she could barely hear him, she heard counting.

"Help me count," he whispered.

"What are we counting?" she asked, trying desperately to focus on Dylan, on numbers, on anything that would stave off the panic.

"Count the bricks," he said, nodding at the wall. "Count with me."

Naomi swallowed and obeyed, aware only of numbers and of Dylan's hand, now patting hers. She reached for his other hand, and felt better, as if the wave of panic was slowing, maybe even receding. Ann still stared at the china in front of her, lost in a reverie of decades past.

When Naomi had counted to 212 with Dylan, she felt calmer. "I forgot," she told him. "I have a cell phone. But I don't know if it will get a signal here."

Without speaking, he took it from her and pressed buttons. As he tried to find a signal, Naomi heard noises from outside. She heard the squeal of the garbage truck's brakes and the honk-honk of Walter, the UPS delivery man, telling someone on the block that he had a delivery. For an instant, she imagined shouting, and realized that no one would hear her. For another minute, she considered putting Dylan in the dumbwaiter and sending him upstairs. Yes, her anxiety was retreating.

"Don't worry," said Dylan gravely, looking hard at her. "My mother will come." He handed back the cell phone, useless without a signal.Naomi felt a stab of anxiety, but Dylan again took her hand. "Count more," he said, and she joined him in counting bricks in the wall behind them.

Naomi noticed that the noises were growing louder, as if someone was walking in the house above them. "Should we shout?" she asked Dylan.

"Yeah, let's shout."But he walked past her and past his grandmother and pulled the ropes of the dumbwaiter. The creaking was louder this time, and the other noises in the house ceased. Then they heard the rush of feet. Dylan pulled again, and the noises came closer until they could hear voices on the other side of the door.

"Dylan? Ma?" called a voice.

"We're all here," said Naomi. "We can't open the door."

Naomi heard a scream and then a scrabbling noise at the door. Another voice, accented and precise, was louder and spoke authoritatively.

"Eileen, this will not work. My father will open the door. Will you fetch the older gentleman from my house? Please tell him we need him to bring tools and come quickly."

Naomi heard the sound of footsteps above them again, and then, even before she had time to panic, she heard more footsteps. She held Dylan's hand, amazed at his ability to stand and wait.The door to the basement creaked, and she heard muttered voices on the other side. Finally -- was it minutes or hours? -- the door swung not open, but off. A short man, clearly Surya's father by the resemblance, held the door and Surya clutched screws and hinges.

In the instant before speech, before Eileen clutched her son and mother, and Surya hugged her father, Naomi felt a wave not of panic but of deep emotion, of gratitude, of triumph over anxiety, of lovefor this house and the little boy next to her. Tears rolled down her face, washing down the accumulated dirt of 108 years, 10 months, and 9 days.