In Death 24 - Innocent in Death

brilliantly blue pants with legs as wide as Utah and a silky sweater in snow-blind white.
     
    197
    When she hesitated, he gave her a little nudge. “Go on. To the right through the archway, then left. Mavis will be thrilled.”
    The apartment looked nothing like it had under her style. There was so much color it was dizzying, and yet it was cheerful. So much clutter it was impossible to see it all, and yet it was happy.
    She passed under an archway that struck her as probably Moroccan in style, then turned into the nursery.
    She thought of Rayleen Straffo’s pink and white and frothy bedroom. There was pink here, too, and some white. And there was blue and yellow and green and purple in flashes and streaks, rivers and pools. There was everything.
    It was Mavis’s rainbow.
    The crib was swirled with color, as was the rocker system chair Eve had given Mavis for her baby shower. There were dolls and stuffed animals and pretty lights. On the walls fairies danced under more rainbows or around fanciful trees bursting with glossy fruit or flowers.
    And Eve saw stars sparkling on the ceiling.
    Under them Mavis stood, bent over a kind of high, padded table, singing in the squeaky voice millions loved, to a wriggling baby.
    “No more poopie for Bella Eve. You have the prettiest poopie in the history of poopies, but my beautiful Belle’s butt is all clean, all shiny. My beautiful, beautiful Belle. Mommy loves her beautiful Bellarina.”
    She lifted the baby now, who wore some sort of dress in pale pink that fell in soft folds and flounces. There were bows in the shape of flowers in the baby’s soft crop of dark hair.
    Mavis nestled and swayed, then did a little dancing turn.
    And saw Eve.
    Her face, soft with mother love, went bright and happy, and told Eve everyone had been exactly right. She should have come here before.
    “Poopie?” Eve commented. “You say poopie now?”
    “Dallas!” Mavis rushed over in green slippers that were made to look like grinning frogs.
    With the baby cradled in one arm, she hugged Eve hard with the other. She smelled of powder and lotion. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
    198
     
    “Just got here.” Eve made the effort, and found it wasn’t as hard as she imagined. She took a good look at the baby. “She’s bigger,” she observed. “Looks more…”
    Mavis lifted a glossy black brow. “You were going to say human.”
    “Okay, yeah, because she does. She also looks like some of you, some of Leonardo. How do you feel?”
    “Tired, happy, weepy, thrilled. Want to hold her?”
    “No.”
    “For one minute,” Mavis insisted. “You can time it.”
    “I could break her.”
    “You won’t break her. Sit down first, if you’re nervous about it.”
    Trapped, Eve avoided the rainbow chair and took the traditional rocker in neon pink. She braced herself when Mavis leaned over and laid the baby in her arms.
    No poopie, at least, Eve reminded herself, and stared down as Belle stared up. “I don’t like the way she’s looking at me. Like she’s planning something.”
    “She’s figuring you out, that’s all.” Mavis turned and beamed as Leonardo came in with drinks.
    Where he was big-redwood big-Mavis was a pixie. A little ball of energy with an explosion of hair currently the color of ripe apricots. She wore a lounge suit with more frogs hopping over her legs and a crowned one in the middle of her chest.
    “You can rock her,” Mavis suggested.
    “I’m not moving. Something may happen.” And at that moment, Belle poked out her bottom lip, then scrunched up her pretty face. Then let out a pitiful wail.
    “Okay, time’s up,” Eve decided, absolutely. “Come and get her, Mavis.”
    “She’s just hungry. I was going to feed her before, but she needed changing first.”
    To Eve’s relief, Mavis took the baby and sat in the rainbow chair. Then to Eve’s astonishment, Mavis tugged at the frog prince. Her breast popped out, and Belle’s mouth latched on like a hungry leech.
    “Wow.”
    199
     
    “There you are, my baby. There you go. Mommy’s milk train is in the station.”
    “You both really got the hang of that.”
    “We’re a mag team. Leonardo, would you mind if we had a little all-girl time?”
    “Absolutely not.” But he bent first to kiss his wife, then his daughter. “My beauties. My angels. I’ll be right out in my studio if you need me.”
    He set something frothy in the holder of the system chair, then gave Eve her wine.
    In the ensuing silence all