Free The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George

smaller boy was clinging to his waist and shouting, “Hey, no fair! You stole it from me!”
    The dark boy tripped. Both boys stumbled. They fell onto the grass and laughed up at the sky.
    “Hey, you guys,” Debbie called out. “Come meet Becca King.”
    The older boy was the first to get up. He did so, still laughing, and he scooped the little boy under his arm like a football. He called out, “Ready to charge for a touchdown!” and his companion squealed till he set him down again.
    He turned then. Becca steeled herself for whatever might happen. His eyes met hers, as dark as the nighttime of his skin. And there it was again. Something passed between them as one random thought struck another.
    . . . if someone could only . . . rejoice . . .
    Then the boy crossed the lawn. He said, “Happenin’, Chloe?” and touched the little girl’s head softly. Then he said to Becca, “I’m Derric. You just move to Whidbey?” as if he’d never seen her before this moment.
    “Did,” Becca said, and felt like a fool. One word was all she could manage in reply?
    He smiled. He had the whitest teeth Becca had ever seen. His skin was so smooth it looked painted on. Standing before him, Becca wanted to wipe the hideous makeup from her face. She wanted to lose twenty pounds. She wanted to say, “I’m actually strawberry blonde.” She also wanted to kick herself for wanting all this. How lame was she? she asked herself.
    Derric said, “I think maybe I saw you coming over on the ferry?”
    “I think I saw you too,” Becca replied.
    “Well,” Debbie said, “that’s as good as married on Whidbey Island. Come on then, troops. Let’s have a snack.”
    The word snack set Josh’s and Chloe’s feet in motion. Chloe yelled, “Popcorn!” Josh yelled, “S’mores!” and both of them tore toward the front of the motel. Their grandmother followed.
    Derric and Becca brought up the rear. Derric walked at Becca’s side. He was very tall. He was like a dancer when he moved.
    He said quietly, “I saw you at Carol Quinn’s last night. That was you, right?”
    She ventured a quick glance his way. “Yeah. Why did you tell me to go?”
    He was quiet for a moment. She glanced at him. He met her gaze and she saw him swallow. “I completely don’t know,” he replied.

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    SEVEN
    B ecca was ready for school more than an hour before she needed to leave. She’d washed her dog-scented clothes in the bathtub on the previous night, but because of the cold and the damp, they were still hanging wetly over the shower curtain rod when Debbie knocked on her door. Debbie saw them and said, “You don’t need to wash your own clothes, darlin’. I c’n throw them in with ours.”
    Becca said, “Gosh. That wouldn’t be right,” because she had a feeling Chloe and Josh generated lots of laundry, especially Josh since during their snack the previous day he’d asked her if she wanted to slide down the bluff with him and Derric and look for dead crabs at the edge of the water. Debbie had mouthed “There aren’t any” in case Becca was worried about having to pick them up. Becca had said sure to Josh and the little boy had looked delighted. Still, it didn’t seem fair to throw her laundry in with theirs, no matter how much she played with the kids.
    Debbie said, “Well, if you feel that way,” and Becca could tell she’d hurt her feelings somehow although she couldn’t quite figure out why. Debbie went on with, “There’s a Laundromat. It’s way the heck up hill, though, at the top of Second Street, almost out of town.”
    “That’s okay. I need the exercise,” Becca said.
    “Whatever you want.” Debbie stepped back out of room 444 and lit a cigarette. Becca knew she was doing so in order not to feel something, and she wondered if it had to do with Debbie’s daughter. She couldn’t have said exactly why this might be the case other than having caught a glimpse of a single picture of a teenage girl among the others