All the Little Lights(27)

“Again,” Poppy said, absently pulling bleached blades from the ground.

“Mama wanted to be a princess her whole life,” I said with reverence. It was the same tone Dad used when he recounted the story at bedtime. Every night until the day before he died, he told me the Story of Catherine. “When she was just ten, Mama dreamed about fluffy dresses and marble floors and golden teacups. She wished for it so hard she was sure it would come true. She just knew when she fell in love with Dad that he had to be a secret prince.”

Poppy’s eyebrows and shoulders lifted as she became lost in my words, and then her expression fell. “But he wasn’t.”

I shook my head. “He wasn’t. But she loved him even more than she loved her dream.”

“So they got married and had a baby.”

I nodded. “She wanted to be royalty, and bestowing a name—a title—on another human being was the closest she would ever get. Catherine sounded like a princess to her.”

“Catherine Elizabeth Calhoun,” Poppy said, sitting tall.

“Regal, isn’t it?”

Poppy’s face scrunched. “What does regal mean?”

“Excuse me,” a deep voice said from the corner of the yard.

Poppy stood, glaring at the intruder.

I stood next to her, raising my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. At first, all I could see was his silhouette, and then his face came into focus. I almost didn’t recognize him, but the camera hanging from a strap around his neck gave him away.

Elliott was taller, his frame thicker with more muscle. His chiseled jaw made him look like a man instead of the boy I remembered. His hair was longer, now falling to the bottom of his shoulder blades. He hitched his elbows over the top of our peeling picket fence with a hopeful grin.

I glanced over my shoulder to Poppy. “Go inside,” I said. She obeyed, quietly retreating to the house. I looked to Elliott and then turned.

“Catherine, wait,” he pleaded.

“I have been,” I snapped.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki cargo shorts, making my heart ache. He looked so different from the last time I’d seen him, and yet the same. Far from the lanky, awkward teenager just two years earlier. His braces were gone, leaving a perfect smile behind his lying lips, bright against his skin. The deepness of his complexion had faded, and so had the light in his eyes.

Elliott’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “I’m, um . . . I’m . . .”

A liar.

The camera swayed from the thick, black strap hanging from his neck as he fidgeted. He was nervous, and guilty, and beautiful.

He tried again. “I’m—”

“Not welcome,” I said, slowly retreating up the steps.

“I just moved in,” he called after me. “With my aunt? While my parents finalize the divorce. Dad is living with his girlfriend, and Mom stays in bed most of the day.” He lifted his fist and gestured behind him with his thumb. “I’m just down the street? Do you remember where my aunt lives?”

I didn’t like the way he ended his sentences with question marks. If I were to ever talk to a boy again with even a smidgen of interest, he would talk in periods, and only sometimes in exclamation points. Only when it was interesting, the way Dad use to talk.

“Go away,” I said, glancing down at his camera.

He held up the boxy contraption with his long fingers, offering a small smile. Elliott’s new camera was old and had probably seen more than he had. “Catherine, please. Let me explain?”

I didn’t respond, instead reaching for the screen door. Elliott dropped his camera, holding out his hand. “I start school tomorrow. Transferring my senior year, can you believe it? It would . . . it would be nice to know at least one person?”

“School has already started,” I snarled.

“I know. It took me refusing to go to school in Yukon for Mom to finally allow me to come.”

The hint of desperation in his voice softened my resolve. Dad had always said I would have to put a lot of effort in to cover my soft center with a hard shell.

“You’re right. That sucks,” I said, unable to stop myself.

“Catherine,” Elliott begged.

“You know what else sucks? Being your friend,” I said, and turned to walk inside.

“Catherine.” Mama balked as I walked face-first into her throat. “I’ve never seen you behave so rudely.”

Mama was tall, but she had soft curves that I’d once loved to snuggle. There was a time after Dad died when she wasn’t so soft or curvy, when her collarbones stuck out so far they created shadows, and being held by her was like being hugged by the lifeless branches of a dead tree. Now her cheeks were full and she was soft again, even if she didn’t hold me as much. Now I held her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. She was right. She had never witnessed me being rude. It was something I did when she wasn’t around to keep persistent people away. Mama’s profession was hospitality and rudeness upset her, but it was necessary to keep our secrets.

She touched my shoulder and winked. “Well, you’re mine, aren’t cha? I suppose I’m to blame.”

“Hi, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Elliott. Youngblood?”

“I’m Mavis,” Mama said, pleasant and polite and light as if the humidity didn’t choke her like it did the rest of us.