Family Law, Gin Phillips [top novels of all time .txt] 📗

against her fingers as she climbed.

The girl rocked from one foot to another.

“Would you like to come in?” Lucia asked at last.

Rachel grinned. “Thank you,” she said, stepping carefully—almost daintily—inside as Lucia took a step backward.

“Have a seat,” Lucia said, motioning toward the sofa, which was half covered by the newspaper and her suit jacket. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lucia paused. What was there to drink?

“I have Tab,” she said. “And ginger ale and sweet tea.”

“I’ve never had a ginger ale. Can I try that?”

Lucia stepped to the refrigerator, and when she turned back with the soft drink, Rachel was still standing, one hand hovering over the piece of driftwood that ran the length of the bookshelf. She reached for the milk-glass chicken, tweaking its red comb, then yanking her hand away when the glass jangled.

“You’re fine,” Lucia said, holding out the ginger ale. “My mother carried that across the country during World War Two. It’s not that delicate.”

Rachel moved to the watercolor of the lighthouse, the great pale tower of it against a blue-black sky, and Lucia could still see Evan standing in the art gallery in Nantucket, saying, Do you ever fantasize about living in a lighthouse?

Rachel finally reached for the glass. Lucia waved a hand toward the sofa again. The girl sat—again, carefully—against the sofa arm, leaving the wide expanse of two other sofa cushions completely untouched. It was almost mathematical, the way she kept her leg from straying over the edge of her own cushion. Her feet were flat on the floor, knees properly together.

“This is really good,” Rachel said, sipping. “Thank you.”

Lucia sat down, occupying two couch cushions. She tucked her bare feet under her. “Do you go to your aunt’s every afternoon?”

“Most of them. She picks me up from school.”

“Your mom’s sister?”

“Yeah. This afternoon she was working on Easter stuff. She sews these little felt eggs, and she puts a quarter inside each one. She brings them to the church egg hunt. They’re cute.”

Rachel glanced at the end table and then rested the glass of ginger ale on her thigh.

“There are coasters,” Lucia said. “On the other side of the lamp.”

“Oh,” said Rachel. She lifted the glass, leaving a wet circle on her bare legs. She found the coasters. “I like your hair like that.”

“Thank you.”

“What do you call it?”

“A twist, I suppose,” Lucia said, rejecting the word “chignon,” which sounded pretentious in the best of circumstances.

“I might get mine done next week,” Rachel said. “For the prom.”

“How old are you?”

“I turn fourteen in May.”

“Junior high has a prom?”

“Ours does.”

“You have a boyfriend?”

“No. Just a guy, Reggie, who thinks—” She waved off Reggie, whatever he thought. “But Mom said that maybe the lady who does her hair could fix mine, but we’re not sure how expensive it would be, and maybe she has too many clients already, Mom says, or no room in her schedule. So Mom’s friend Helen can also braid, and I could just have Helen do a French braid. But I’d like it to be up, you know? Something more unusual than a braid.”

“The prom is next week?”

“Friday.”

“Where does your mother get her hair done?”

“Gayfers,” said Rachel. “Why?”

“What’s her hairdresser’s name?”

“Mildred?”

“Why don’t we check?”

Lucia got up and dug the phone book out of the kitchen drawer. Gayfers department store was easy enough to find: she ran a finger down the list of departments until she hit “salon,” and she called the number and asked the relevant questions.

“She’ll do any kind of updo,” Lucia said, hanging up. “Whatever you like. It’s twenty dollars. They said usually late afternoons aren’t too busy.”

The girl was staring. Lucia wondered if she’d crossed some line.

“Thank you,” Rachel said, unmoving.

“I could make you an appointment,” Lucia said slowly, “but I imagine you’ll need to schedule it for when your mother is free to drive you.”

Rachel picked up her ginger ale. The coaster stuck to the bottom of the glass before it clattered to the table. She slapped her hand over it, quieting it. “On Aunt Molly’s last birthday, Mom bought her coasters with monkeys on them. And a monkey-shaped candle and a monkey apron. And monkey socks.”

Lucia sat down again. She detested monkeys viscerally. She had never been able to make it through Planet of the Apes.

“So your aunt likes monkeys?” she asked.

“No. But Mom decided that Aunt Molly needed a hobby. She thought, like, hey, collecting monkeys would be good. So she bought up all the monkey stuff she could find, which is more than you’d think.”

“Does your mother collect things?”

“She likes knickknacks. Dad calls them that. Like Fenton glass and china figurines. Hummel, maybe? Little, pretty, breakable things. She likes finding them. It’s more like hunting than collecting.”

Lucia laughed. She was funny, this girl, now that she’d gotten comfortable. Although was it comfort? There was a certain stagecraft to her patter, not that Lucia begrudged a little acting. It was the next best thing to confidence. Practically the same thing.

“Is your father still—?” she started.

“He has an apartment right now,” Rachel said. “I go over there on weekends. Sometimes he gets me for supper on a school night. So where does your husband work?”

Lucia mentioned Baptist Hospital, and as she started explaining the role of the marketing department, it occurred to her that she should omit the specifics. If she dropped enough clues, Rachel might show up at Evan’s door. It would involve crossing the Southern Bypass, granted, but Lucia wasn’t sure the girl would be deterred by six lanes of traffic.

V.

Two weeks later, Lucia came home and found a blue-and-green egg made of felt on her doorstep. It had a quarter inside.

Two weeks after that, she found a flamingo pen—the bird bobbing on a spring—propped against the door. It matched her key chain. It was three months, though, before Rachel arrived again in person. When Lucia opened the door, her hand tight around Moxie’s collar, the girl held out a set of bacon-shaped stickers that said I