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her head at Casey’s mostly disposable wardrobe, “never goes out of style.”
    “Do you want to unpack your things?” Nanna asked. She retrieved her bifocals from her chest and put them on, so that her blue eyes were magnified. “Or would you like a cup of tea first?”
    Tea? In this heat? The thought made her dizzy. “Actually, Nanna, I met some girls in the lobby who go to my school, and I told them I might go hang out with them this afternoon—if you don’t mind,” Casey added quickly. She kind of felt a little guilty that she was planning to take off the minute she arrived, but it was her first day in Manhattan! What was she going to do? Stay inside with her grandmother all afternoon? Not likely.
    “Why should I mind?” Nanna said grandly, checking the slim, gold watch she wore on her left wrist. “I have a bridge game down at the club at four anyway.”
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    Casey smiled. Guess Nanna wasn’t exactly going to be waiting with a plate of homemade cookies every day after school . . .
    not that she was complaining or anything.
    “Let’s put your things in your room, and you can unpack later,” Nanna said decisively, springing to her feet and picking up Casey’s suitcases like it weighed as much as a Nerf ball.
    Casey grabbed the other and followed her grandmother into the back of the apartment, where it was dark and cool.
    “This was my sewing room, until recently,” Nanna said with a smile, flicking on the overhead light. The room was small, bordering on claustrophobic, a twin bed with a quilt in blue and yellow dominating the space. An antique mirror hung over the bed, the glass wavy and slightly darkened. There was a small wooden desk in the corner, and oak shelves stuffed with skeins of wool, knitting needles, fabric scraps, and other miscellaneous equipment. All that stuff is going to fall down on me in the night , Casey thought, slightly horrified. I’ll probably be impaled on a pair of knitting needles . Good- bye, cruel world!
    The room resembled some demented se nior citizen episode of Project Runway . Casey half- expected Tim Gunn to come strolling in from the living room screaming, “Make it work, Grandma!”
    “I know it’s probably not what you’re used to,” Nanna said worriedly, squinting at the room, “but feel free to put anything on the walls you like.”
    “It’s totally fine,” Casey said, dumping her suitcase onto the bed, which squeaked like no one had used it for years.
    “Well, I should be off soon,” Nanna said crisply, looking 2 9

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    at her watch again and moving toward the door. “Who did you say you were meeting?”
    “These girls that go to my school.” Casey bounced on the bed a little to make it squeak louder. “I think one of them is named Madison?”
    “Madison Macallister ?” Nanna stopped in her tracks and looked slightly impressed, one eyebrow raised. “The Macallisters live upstairs—in the pent house.” Casey knew nothing about Manhattan real estate, but she did know that to live in the pent -
    house in a building like The Bram, you had to be completely loaded. “Well, well,” Nanna mused thoughtfully, pursing her rose- colored lips, “you’ve done very well for yourself on your first day in New York! You’re like me, Casey Anne,” Nanna said with satisfaction, taking Casey’s face between her soft, wrinkled hands and grabbing her chin playfully. “You’ve got moxie!”
    “I guess,” Casey mumbled, pawing through her suitcase and praying that there was a least one item of clothing that wasn’t impossibly wrinkled. She didn’t exactly know what moxie was, or if she even wanted it. She hoped it wasn’t contagious.
    “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Nanna said brightly. “There’s a set of keys for you on the kitchen counter. The big brass one is for the top lock, and the little silver one is for the bottom.”
    Casey looked up from the total mess that was her suitcase, nodding