Night Road(9)

“You’re the new girl,” he said quietly, pushing the long blond hair out of his eyes.

“She’s my friend,” Mia said, grinning so wide her braces were a multicolored blur.

His smile faded.

“I’m Lexi,” she said, although he hadn’t asked her her name.

He looked away from her, disinterested. “I’m Zach.”

A girl in tiny shorts and a midriff-baring top moved in behind him, draped herself along his side, and whispered something in his ear. He didn’t laugh, barely smiled in fact. Instead, he backed away from Lexi and Mia. “Later, Me-my,” he said to his sister. Slinging an arm around short-shorts girl, he led her toward the stairs and disappeared into the crowd of kids running upstairs.

Mia frowned at her. “Is something wrong, Lexi? It’s okay if I say you’re my friend, right?”

Lexi stared at the empty place where he’d been, feeling unsettled. He’d smiled at her, hadn’t he? At first, for a second? What had she done wrong?

“Lexi? Is it okay if I tell people we’re friends?”

Lexi let out the breath she’d been holding. She forced her attention away from the stairs. Seeing Mia’s nervousness, she realized what was important here, and it wasn’t a guy like Zach. No wonder he confused her. He would always be incomprehensible to a girl who’d grown up in the weeds. What mattered was Mia and this fragile beginning of their friendship. “Of course,” she said, smiling. For once, she didn’t care about her teeth. She was pretty sure Mia wouldn’t care. “You can tell everyone.”

*

The media room was full of kids, as usual. Some women might be overwhelmed by the noise and mayhem, but not Jude. Years ago—back when the twins were starting sixth grade—she’d made a conscious effort to make her house welcoming. She wanted the kids to hang out here. She’d known herself well enough to know that she didn’t want to be dropping her kids off into other women’s care; she wanted to be the one in charge. To that end, she’d designed the upstairs carefully, and it had worked. Some days, there were fifteen kids here, eating their way through her snack provisions like locusts. But she knew where her children were and she knew they were safe.

Now, as she unlocked the great room’s series of wood-framed pocket doors and opened them wide, she could hear movement upstairs; the floors groaned and footsteps thudded through the house.

For once, Mia wasn’t hiding out from all that horseplay in the media room, she wasn’t locked in her bedroom, watching The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast or another of her Disney comfort movies. She was out on the beach, sitting on the sandy edge with Lexi beside her. A heavy woolen blanket wrapped them together; black and blond hair tangled together in the salty air. They’d been sitting out there for hours, talking.

Just the sight of it, of her daughter talking to a friend, made Jude smile. She had waited so long for this, hoped for it so fervently, and yet now that it had happened, she couldn’t help worrying just a little. Mia was so fragile, so needy; it was too easy to hurt her. And after the thing with Haley, Mia couldn’t take another friend’s betrayal.

Jude needed to learn a little bit about Lexi, just to know who her daughter was hanging out with. It was a parenting choice that had yielded good results over the years. The more she knew about her kids’ lives, the better mother she could be to them. She stepped out onto the patio. The breeze immediately plucked at her hair, whipped strands across her face. Without bothering to step into any of the shoes that lay cluttered outside the door, she walked barefooted across the flagstones, past the collection of dark, woven outdoor furniture. At the edge between the grass and the sand, a giant cedar tree rose tall and straight into the pellucid blue sky. As she approached the girls, she heard Mia say, “I want to try out for the school play, but I know I won’t get a part. Sarah and Joeley always get the leads.”

“I was totally scared to talk to you today,” Lexi said. “What if I hadn’t? It’s no good to be afraid of stuff. You should go for it.”

Mia turned to Lexi. “Would you come with me to tryouts? The other theater kids … they’re so serious. They don’t like me.”

Lexi nodded, her face solemn with understanding. “I’ll come. Definitely.”

Jude stopped beside her daughter. “Hey, girls.” She put a hand on Mia’s slim shoulder.

Mia grinned up at her. “I’m going to try out for Once upon a Mattress. Lexi’s gonna come with me. I probably won’t get a part, but…”

“That’s wonderful,” Jude said, pleased by this development. “Well. I better take Lexi home now. Your dad will be home in an hour.”

“Can I come with?” Mia asked.

“No. You have a paper due on Friday. You might as well get started on it,” Jude answered.

“You’re already checking the Web site? It’s the first day of school,” Mia said, her shoulders slumping.

“You need to stay on track. Grades matter in high school.” She looked down at Lexi. “You ready?”

“I can take the bus,” Lexi said. “You don’t have to drive me.”

“The bus?” Jude frowned. In all her years of parenting on this island, she had never had a child make that offer. Most said they could call their moms; none ever offered to take the bus. Where would one even catch a bus around here?