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Casey sprinkled fish food into the aquarium next to the lizard tank, and they both watched the multicolored fish dart to the surface. Finally, some normal animals.
“That depends. I’m on the soccer team and I’ve always been involved in a bunch of activities at school.”
“What about after school? Is there someplace kids like to hang out?”
Casey shrugged. “At Paolo’s, the place where our parents bought the pizzas, or at the after-school drop-in at the community center. The boys like to go there because there’s a pool table and video games.”
She made it sound lame, and Kate sort of agreed. Except for the part about boys. In the city, she and her friends usually went to the mall after school. Lots of boys hung out there, too, but she mostly loved to check out her favorite clothing stores. Recently she had been paying attention to the window displays and she already had a ton of ideas. When she was old enough to have a part-time job, she wanted to work in one of those stores and wow shoppers with her displays.
“Do you spend much time at the drop-in center?” she asked.
Casey scrunched her nose, making her freckles stand out more than ever. “I usually come home and do my homework, but sometimes I stop at the library on my way. I read a lot.”
No kidding, Kate thought. The only room she’d ever seen that had more books than this one was a library.
“You said you’re not into science books,” Casey said. “What do you like to read? Or do you like to read?”
Kate hesitated, having a mental debate about whether or not to confess her dreams. Why not? It’s not as if they were as lame as living with rodents and lizards and dinosaurs.
“Magazines, mostly. Fashion magazines. Seventeen, Teen Vogue. I want to work in the fashion industry someday.” She couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud. She’d never revealed this to anyone, not even her closest friends in the city. They were only interested in goofing around or gossiping on Facebook, and they would either shrug off her ideas as totally not going to happen or, worse yet, make fun of her.
“Cool,” Casey said. “You should talk to my mom. She lives and breathes fashion trends, and pretty much everybody in town shops at her store. Except me.” Casey grinned. “She doesn’t sell the kind of clothes I like to wear.”
Kate had already noted the other girl’s attire, the same outfit she’d been wearing when she and her mom had delivered the cookies earlier that day. Faded denim cutoffs with rolled-up cuffs just above the knee, the soccer T-shirt, black-and-white high-top Keds. Ponytail. No makeup. Total tomboy. Still, Casey might not get where people like her mom and Kate were coming from, but she understood what it meant to have a dream.
“I can’t wait to see your mom’s store, but what I really want to do is work for a big fashion magazine someday as the editor in chief.”
“Oh, wow. Like in The Devil Wears Prada,” Casey said.
Kate laughed at that. “You saw that movie?”
“Yeah, my mom and I have a movie night every Saturday. Except tonight,” she added. “Since you and your dad came over. Have you seen it?”
“Yes. I loved the clothes, but I’ll be nicer when I’m the editor.”
“More like Anne Hathaway,” Casey said. “Although I liked her better in The Princess Diaries. You sort of look like her, actually.”
“Lots of people say that. It’s mostly the hair, before Anne cut hers. My mom interviewed her once when she was in Vancouver for something.”
“Really? Wow, that must’ve been so cool. Did you get to meet her?”
“No.” Not a chance. Her mom used to go on and on about the famous people she met, but whenever Kate asked to tag along, the answer had always been a firm no.
“She didn’t even let you watch from backstage, or whatever they call it in a TV studio?”
Kate gave her best careless shrug. “Those interviews were part of her job and it wasn’t appropriate to have a kid hanging around.” At least that had always been her mother’s excuse. But the cold, hard truth, as Kate eventually realized, was that her mother didn’t want those people to know she was a wife and mother.
“That’s too bad. Almost every summer we get a few famous people who bring their yachts into the marina here. Sometimes they’ll even stay a few days, do some shopping. Once in a while they go into my mom’s store, too. I’m never around to meet them, but it’s pretty cool that they like her store enough to shop there.”
“I’ll definitely check it out, especially if it’s the only good place in town to shop.”
“Be sure to tell her about the magazine stuff, too. If she knows you’re interested in more than just shopping, I’ll bet she can teach you all about the business end of things, too.”
This was the first positive thing Kate had heard about Serenity Bay since she’d arrived. But was she brave enough to share her dream with an adult? “I wonder if she needs help with displays and stuff like that.”
“She might. She’s always super busy so if you’re interested, you should ask her.”
“I will. There’s just one teensy little hitch.”
“What’s that?”
“My dad.” Okay, not so teensy. “He’ll have a cow if he hears about it.”
He was always going on about how she needed to get a good education, and by that he meant math and science and history, and then get a good job doing whatever people did when they knew math and science and history. She had never told her mother any of this, either, because by the time she figured it out, her mother was gone. Now, when they were on the phone, her mom spent a lot of time talking about the places she and Xavier had been, the celebrities they met. Just as she did this afternoon when she called. Kate tried not to let it bother her, but it did.
“It’s not like you’re doing anything wrong if you talk to my mom about her business,” Casey said.
True. And Sarah did seem super nice.
“We’ve always had soccer practice every Tuesday and Thursday after school. If your dad doesn’t change the schedule, then you could drop by my mom’s store on one of those days and he’ll never have to know.”
Huh. For a kid who came across as a Goody Two-shoes, Casey might be pretty cool after all.
“I might do that.” Maybe living here wouldn’t be so bad after all, Kate thought, watching Casey remove a circle of cloth that had been fastened over the top of a gigantic glass jar with an elastic band. She dropped another cricket inside. “Is there something in there?” she asked.
“Manny lives in here.”
Kate leaned in for a closer look. All she could see was a bed of moss on the bottom of the jar and a dead tree branch angled against the side. “I don’t see—”
A twig on the branch suddenly moved and caught the squirming cricket.
Kate squealed and jumped backward. “What on earth is that?”
“A praying mantis. She’ll eat crickets when that’s all I have, but she really likes it when I catch houseflies for her.”
Okay, this was just plain disgusting. Seriously, no normal person kept a giant bug in a jar, especially not a bug that ate other bugs that she had to catch and feed to it. Gross, gross, gross.
Casey only laughed. “Last spring my science teacher had praying mantises in our classroom. I thought they were interesting, so she let me bring one home. I’ve had her all summer.”
“Your mom really doesn’t mind you keeping all these, um, critters in the house?”
“No. She gets that I love animals, and I think she’s trying to make up for not letting me have a dog.”
“Your mom seems really nice.” And then another idea popped into Kate’s head. “Is she seeing anyone?”
“You mean...dating?” Casey carefully fastened the fabric over the top of the bug jar. “No, she’s either at work or at home so I’m sure she’s not.”
“Would it bother you if she was?”
Casey narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know. Why?”
If Kate had learned one thing from her mother, it was how to choose her words carefully. “My dad hasn’t dated anyone since he and my mom split, and he and your mom seem to be hitting it off.”
“So you think they’ll start dating?” Clearly, Casey was not warming up to the concept.
“I’m not saying they will, but I wouldn’t mind if my dad had someone to focus his attention on besides me.”
“Really? Your dad seems nice and everything, but I don’t know. I think my mom must have really loved my dad because ever since he died, it’s just been the two of us.”
Kate shrugged. “Whatever. I just thought it’d be nice if my dad could be happy again. And otherwise occupied.”
“You want him to start dating so he’ll pay less attention to you?”
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. And I’ll bet if your mom was dating someone, you’d be able to use that to your advantage.”
“How exactly?” She seemed interested in spite of sounding skeptical.
“You said you want a dog, right?”
That got her attention. “More than anything.”
“Well, if your mom feels guilty because she’s seeing someone and not spending as much time with you, then she’ll want to do whatever it takes to make it up to you.”
Casey was grinning now. “And that something would be Petey.”
Kate shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
And then Sarah called to them from the bottom of the stairs. “Casey? Kate’s dad is leaving now but she’s welcome to stay a while longer if she’d like.”
“Thanks, Mom!” she yelled back. “Do you want to?”
“I should probably go, too. We haven’t finished unpacking.”
Casey followed her downstairs and they joined their parents in the foyer.
Sarah was smiling. “Kate’s dad offered to give you a ride on the first day of school. Isn’t that nice?”
“Thanks,” Casey said. “But I always go with my friend Henry. He lives across the street.”
“Henry’s welcome to get a ride, too. The more the merrier. Right, Kate?”
Dad, don’t be lame. “Sure,” she said. “More is totally merry.”
She watched her dad exchange a look with Casey’s mom. “Thanks for having us over,” he said.
“Anytime,” Sarah replied.
Kate liked the way they were looking at each other. She winked at Casey, Casey winked back, and she gave herself a mental high five. This plan might work, she thought. It just might work.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_17cd447b-56b0-5347-9378-d3854b76856e)
SARAH CLOSED THE door after saying good-night to their new neighbors and turned to her daughter.
“That was okay, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. Kate’s dad seems pretty cool. Do you like him?”
That was an odd question, she thought, although Casey probably didn’t intend for it to sound the way it did. “He seems nice. I’m sure they’ll be good neighbors.”
Casey gave her an odd smile that suggested the question wasn’t so innocent after all. Best to let that go, especially since her conversation with Jonathan had ended on a sour note.
“How about you and Kate?” she asked. “Did you hit it off?”
“I think so. She doesn’t like my critters, though.”
Sarah laughed at that. “She’s not alone. A lot of people aren’t fond of rodents and reptiles.”
“True. She’s really into clothes and stuff.”
“She certainly seems to be. That was an expensive outfit she was wearing.”
Casey climbed two steps and draped herself over the banister. “I think her mom pays for a lot of her things but at least she wasn’t all, ‘oh, look at me and all my fancy stuff’ like some of the girls at school. She’s actually the only kid I’ve ever met...well, aside from Henry...who’s already figured out what she wants to be.”
“Really? And what’s that?”
“The editor of a fashion magazine.”
“Does she? That’s an ambitious goal.” One her father seemed to know nothing about, and given his scathing comments about fashion magazines and the mall, it was no surprise that she hadn’t told him. Poor kid. “Speaking of Henry, have you heard from him?”
Casey’s enthusiasm waned. “No. I was hoping he’d be home by now. He’s been gone all summer and school starts in a few days.”
“I’m sure he’ll be home soon.”
“I sure hope so.”
Sarah reached up and gave her a hug. “Why don’t you go upstairs and send him a text or an email? I want to clean up the kitchen.”
“Good idea. I also need to post the rest of the pictures I took at the shelter this morning.”
“I’ll pop in and say good-night when I’m done.” And there was no doubt she’d hear more about Petey when she did.
Back in the kitchen, she finished loading the dishwasher and turned it on, tossed paper napkins in the trash, stuffed the empty pizza boxes in the recycling bin, filled the sink with hot water and detergent. She swished the dishcloth in it and wiped every square inch of every surface in the kitchen. Take-out dinners meant she didn’t have to cook, and she loved that they made cleanup so easy. Now everything was spic ’n’ span, just the way she liked it.
Jonathan had not lived up to her first impression of him, and she found that more disappointing than she had any right to. Yes, he was way better-looking than any man needed to be, but looks weren’t everything, and it bugged her that she found him attractive.
There was a chance that she wasn’t giving Jonathan the benefit of the doubt. Moving was stressful, changing jobs was stressful, getting divorced was stressful, and he had hinted that Kate’s mother didn’t have much time for her. Casey had been young enough when her father died that the loss hadn’t seemed to have had an adverse effect on her, although there were times when Sarah wondered if losing her dad explained why her daughter didn’t form a lot of close personal attachments.
She strolled back out onto the deck and leaned on the railing where she and Jonathan had stood a short time ago. He was floundering with single parenthood, and tonight she’d been tempted to offer a little sage advice. Now she was glad she hadn’t. It wasn’t her place to interfere. She didn’t even know these people.
