Free Beach Girls by Luanne Rice Page A

slices of fresh peach: his daughter smiled so wide, you'd think it was her birthday. They all went into the living room, with a great view of the beach. Stevie put out cheese and crackers; she sat in a wicker rocker, while Jack and Nell squeezed together in a faded-chintz loveseat. The old cat curled up on the arm beside Stevie.
    “How's the bird?” Jack asked.
    “Oh, he's great,” Stevie said. “Eating every bug in the place.”
    “I heard about the bird,” Nell said. “From my best friend's brother.”
    “You have a best friend already?” Stevie asked. Jack watched her smile. She had a great, warm smile that lit up her whole face.
    “I do!” Nell said, so eager to talk that she bounced on the loveseat and nearly upset the cheese and crackers. Jack touched her arm to steady her, struck by her enthusiasm. “Her name is Peggy McCabe!”
    “Oh, Bay's daughter,” Stevie said. “Her brother Billy paid me a visit this morning.”
    “One of the hooligans?” Jack asked.
    “The what?” Nell asked.
    Stevie laughed. “They do it every year—a whole different age group. The story got started, so long ago now, that I'm a witch. I guess it's a rite of passage for Hubbard's Point boys to look in my windows and try to catch me—I don't know—stirring a cauldron, I guess.”
    “They're just dumb,” Nell said. “They don't know you.”
    “Thank you, Nell,” she said.
    “Can we see the bird?”
    “Nell—” Jack warned.
    “Sure,” Stevie said. “Do you want to come, Jack?”
    Her smile was radiant. He did want to go. But even more, he wanted Nell to have a minute with her—that was obviously what Nell wanted. “That's okay,” he said. “I'll keep Tilly company.”
    Nell gave him an approving look and tore up the stairs after Stevie. Jack sipped his wine and tried to figure out why he felt so uncomfortable. This wasn't a date or anything. It was dinner with an old friend of his wife's. That's all. He didn't even know Stevie—he was doing this for Nell.
    Jack didn't want Nell getting hurt. He was sure Stevie wouldn't intentionally do anything, but he felt protective anyway. Nell was one way with company, another way when she went to bed at night. Her mother's death had left her totally traumatized, and Jack knew that she was latching onto Stevie because she was a link to Emma. But he had to admit, it felt good to see her so happy.
    Their voices drifted down from upstairs—he loved hearing Nell laughing. He heard the bird chirping, Nell's voice trying to imitate the sound. After a few minutes, they came back down—Nell holding Stevie's hand.
    “Dad! You should see her studio! She has an easel in her bedroom! There are paints all over, and paintings and drawings of all these birds, and Dad—there's one of me! I'm a baby wren in it.”
    “Wow,” Jack said, watching his daughter's face glowing. He felt a knife edge—worrying that she was counting on too much from a woman they barely knew.
    “I inspired her,” Nell said. “Mommy and I did. . . .”
    “Really?” Jack said. He raised his eyes to meet Stevie's. Behind her smile, he saw the sadness he'd spotted that morning, looking like a lost soul in her too-big bathrobe. He had a distant almost-forgotten memory of Emma reading one of her books—about swans, he thought. She had disapproved of the way Stevie depicted violence in the bird world.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Her mother died when she was little, too,” Nell said.
    “Oh,” Jack said, and sipped his wine because he was momentarily tongue-tied. How was it that women and girls could get so much said so quickly? Had Stevie managed to tell Nell that upstairs, just now? How had she done it without anyone crying? Both Stevie and Nell were gleaming—he hadn't seen Nell happier in . . . he couldn't remember how long.
    “I'm sorry,” Jack said, finally.
    “She was okay,” Nell said. “She had a great dad, too. He was like you.”
    “He was,” Stevie said, nodding.
    “She's going to give me