Being Audrey Hepburn Read Online Free Page A

worries.
    “On my way, Lisbeth,” said Nan. She was precariously balancing a giant cheesecake on a silver platter from the kitchen. “Grab forks and plates, will you please, dear?”
    My phone buzzed. It was Mom. I hit IGNORE and stuck the phone back in my pocket.
    I dropped my backpack on the dilapidated gold velvet slipper chair by the front door. Nan’s place was the same as always—time-warped and tidy. Most of her furniture dated around the 1960s—an eclectically elegant mix of things from her life with Grandpa and the graceful Park Avenue furnishings she inherited when my great-grandmother and great-grandfather died, way before I was born. The rich burgundy embroidery was now yellowed and the silk draperies were probably older, maybe from the forties—and totally oversize for the tiny windows they now framed. But Nan made it all work.
    “What is this?” I asked. Nan’s eyes twinkled mischievously as she set the giant cheesecake down in front of me on the coffee table.
    “I was thinking, if you don’t mind, we should skip dinner tonight and go straight to dessert?” Nan was my kind of girl.
    I nodded and contemplated the cheesecake, which was smothered in chocolate and caramel and pecans. “It does have nuts on it…” I said.
    “Yes, and pecans are a good source of protein,” Nan added.
    “Totally, and you can’t beat chocolate for antioxidants!” I said.
    “Just what I was thinking!” Nan said, delighted. “It’s practically health food.”
    I gave Nan a hug, and she squeezed me very tightly.
    You have to understand what it was like to be hugged by Nan. You didn’t just hug Nan, you melded with her. It felt like your heart and her heart found each other, all perfectly lined up, and they started to beat together. As she hugged you, you noticed her tiny heartbeats grow stronger and stronger with every beat. It was total bliss.
    She was petite, as Nan would say, probably five foot five, maybe shorter. Nan did yoga and Aquacise and tap, plus she went ballroom dancing every Thursday. She was as fit as she could be. Once she actually did a headstand right in the middle of her living room. I could hardly believe it. It’s not every day you see an octogenarian upside down.
    But lately every time I saw her, it seemed as though she was shrinking a bit. I think that really happens—old people just get smaller because they’re so wrinkly. You know like how your shirt looks when you take it out of the dryer after a couple of days?
    “May I?” I said, cutting us each slices and delicately placing them on two small china plates, giving the biggest one to Nan. Nan always ate on china, even if it was just moo goo gai pan from Ping Chong’s Chinese. According to Nan, every day she had left on the planet was a special occasion. She certainly made it feel that way. She was leaving the china to me in her will, probably because I was her favorite and the only person in the family who wouldn’t pimp it on eBay.
    “Dear, do you prefer milk or champagne with your cheesecake?” Nan asked as she headed toward the kitchen. I laughed.
    “What are you having?” I asked, grabbing a couple of napkins from the veneer antique sideboard.
    “Personally, I think a little rosé champagne couldn’t hurt,” she said. She brought in two flutes of pink bubbly. “Everybody says wine is medicinal, and drinking champagne is like sipping starlight.” Her mischievous grin widened, and she whispered, “I want you to have some of the good stuff.” We clinked glasses, and the bubbles went right up my nose. And that’s when my phone buzzed.
    There was a text: “SOS @ MET. MMB.”
    It was Jess. She was working late at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that week. They were always giving her impossible projects to finish by dawn, like cataloging dirty and dusty dioramas or making hundreds of labels for every single jar, lid, bowl and floral collar that ever existed in the pharaoh’s funeral tomb. She impressed them every time, but