A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity by Kathleen Gilles Seidel

grandparents’ house was a minor loss in comparison to those.
    And, anyway, what did her wonderful memories have to do with Faith coming? We bought the house when Erin—and therefore Faith—had been three, and it had been sitting on the market for at least six months before that. Faith would have no memories of the place.
    “It may feel like an altogether different house,” I said. “We have made a lot of changes.”
    “I had heard that. You got the house for such a good price it’s no wonder you felt that you could do a lot.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe how little we had paid for the house. That offended me; we had negotiated a fair price, but we had not done better than that. “My grandmother had such wonderful taste. I think that’s why I became interested in interior design, because my grandmother’s house was so exquisite. Tell me you didn’t strip the dining-room wallpaper, do tell me you didn’t do that.”
    “We did.”
    She winced. “It was hand-blocked in China; it was more than a hundred years old when my grandmother put it up. It was so valuable. I don’t suppose you realized that or you wouldn’t have acted so precipitously.”
    I didn’t say anything. Both her grandparents had smoked. From their first potty trip in the morning to turning out the light at night, the pair of them had had cigarettes going. The house sat on the market so long not just because of its absurdly high asking price, but also because it had reeked of tobacco. All the carpets and window treatments had to be ripped out before we moved in. The walls—even the ones that had been papered—had to be coated with a sealant to kill the smell.
    “Of course,” I said, “I can’t insist on Faith coming to our house, but Erin really minds that Faith is telling the other girls that she is not allowed to come.”
    “Oh, it’s just girls.” She waved her hand. “They won’t pay any attention.”
    I wondered how I could take a picture of her that would be wildly unflattering. The woman didn’t have even a trace of softness under her jaw, but I knew that if I positioned the camera and the light right, I could make her look as if she had a double chin. And there was a streak of makeup caught in the two delicate lines at the outer corner of her eye. The lines were years away from being crow’s feet, but I could make them look like the Red River Valley.
    “No, Mary Paige.” My secret vindictiveness gave me enough serenity to keep my voice calm. “This is really making my daughter uncomfortable.”
    “Well, if it is that important, of course, I will speak to Faith. But you know, teenaged girls. One word from their mothers and they do the exact opposite. Now tell me about Grandmother’s azaleas. I can’t wait to see them again this spring, although I suppose they were a little overgrown.”
    Like everything else in the yard, the azaleas had not been pruned in years. They had been big and showy when they bloomed, but underneath the outer layer of blossoms, they had been full of spindly branches. Blair had finally taken over and pruned them ruthlessly, warning me that it was going to be two years before they would fill out at the appropriate proportion.
    Mary Paige thanked me beautifully as I signed the credit card slip, but I knew that talking to her had been a mistake. I could hear what she would go home and tell her daughter.
    Mrs. Meadows thinks you aren’t being very nice to Erin.
She would roll her eyes, making it clear that Erin was too pathetic to worry about. That would only make things worse.
    Had I just done exactly what Fran Zimmerman and Candace Singer had done at the beginning of the year? No, I was innocent on that score. I hadn’t tried to make Mary Paige feel bad; I was trying to fix this. I was trying to be helpful.
    Which was undoubtedly what Fran and Candace would have said that they had been trying to do.
    It’s all so different when it is your own kid.

5
    Chris Goddard asked Blair