by Luanne Rice
They pedaled along, and without being asked or told, Peggy pedaled up toward the Point. At high tide, the parking lot flooded with water from the boat basin and a patch of marshland, so they splashed through the salt water, scattering minnows as they went. Up the hill behind the tennis court, and then onto the Point.
When they got to Stevie's house, Peggy pulled over.
“How did you know this is where I wanted to come?” Nell asked.
“I'm your best friend,” Peggy said.
Nell nodded, the weight in her stomach even heavier. They headed up the hill, and when they got to the sign—it wasn't there! Nell saw a little hole in the ground, where the small post had gone. Maybe some kids had stolen it. She hurried up the hill, to knock on the door, but Stevie was right there, waiting—as she had been that first day, when Nell had come to call.
“Your sign's gone!” Nell said.
Stevie nodded. “I know. I took it down.”
“Took it down? How come?”
Stevie smiled. Her eyes looked serious, through her dark bangs, but the smile was slow and warm, and Nell felt it imprinted on her heart. “That would take a long time to explain,” Stevie said, “and I'd rather spend this time talking about you.”
“Where's Tilly?” Nell asked, looking around. But then she looked down and saw the cat right by Stevie's side—pressed lightly against her leg—as if she somehow knew that Stevie needed protecting today.
“Come on in,” Stevie said, and they all went into the living room. From here, they could see the beach, with the big storm waves rolling in. They were more like ocean breakers, not the calm little Long Island Sound waves Nell had known all summer. It was as if the weather knew her mood and was responding accordingly.
Nell and Peggy sat on the loveseat, and Stevie and Tilly sat in their wicker chair. Stevie had made sugar cookies, and they were on a flowered china plate on the table, but no one felt like eating them.
“Tara said we should kidnap Nell, and I think that's a good idea,” Peggy said, gulping tears.
“I had some thoughts along those same lines myself,” Stevie said, her eyes still warm and serious. “But I know . . .”
Nell blinked slowly, hanging on Stevie's words.
“I know her father knows what's best for her. And he has a good plan. And . . .”
“And what?” Nell asked, because she didn't believe the first part at all.
“And we'll both write her lots of letters—right, Peggy?”
Peggy nodded, red hair bobbing into her tearstained eyes. “My mom already got me some overseas airmail stamps. They're more expensive than the other kind. But she said she'd get me as many as I wanted.”
“Oh, I remember . . .” Stevie began, then bit her lip. She tried to brush whatever she'd been about to say away by focusing on Tilly, who sat on the chair arm beside her. “Tilly, Tilly—will you write to Nell too?”
“What do you remember?” Nell asked. She leaned forward, and Stevie must have seen that she needed to hear.
“I remember being just like this when your mother and aunt would leave at the end of the summer,” Stevie said. “We couldn't stand to go away from each other. Our goodbyes were endless. We'd say goodbye, and forget one thing we'd meant to say, and then our parents would have to drive us to each other's houses on the way out of Hubbard's Point, so we could say it.”
“Like what kind of things would you forget?”
“Like, ‘Remember when we rowed over to Rocky Neck for a picnic?' Or, ‘Don't forget how we convinced all the beach kids that the ice cream man was buying crabs for bait, and how all summer his line was filled with kids trying to sell him crabs and he couldn't figure out why!'”
“We should have tried that!” Peggy said, laughing and sniffling.
“My mom and aunt did that?”
Stevie nodded. “The three of us did—that first summer we met, when we were still young enough to get away with such things. The later summers, the things we wanted to say had more to do with boys.”
“Oh, like kissing at the movies, right?” Peggy asked.
“Yes, like that.”
“Kind of gross,” Peggy said.
Stevie just smiled a little sadly, as if she knew things they didn't. Nell shivered—as if the wind had turned cold, which it hadn't. She looked out the window, saw crows in the sumac on Stevie's hill.
“Are they—?”
“Ebby's family,” Stevie said. “I think he might think I'm his aunt or something. See? There he is—”
Nell pressed her face against the window. Sure enough, there was the young crow—smaller than the others, but just as glossy and proud. She thought of how important family was, so important that a baby crow would stay loyal to his adopted aunt.
“The one thing I want to tell you,” Stevie said.
Nell turned to look at her.
“Both of you,” Stevie continued, “is how much I wish I'd stayed in touch . . . with my dearest friends.”
“My mom and aunt?”
Stevie nodded. “We meant so much to each other. And we swore we'd never grow apart. But life gets so busy, and before you know it, you forget who you used to be, those summer days with your best, best friends . . . and you stop writing to each other.”
“Never,” Peggy swore passionately. “My mother and Tara never stopped. . . .”
“They're smart, and they're lucky,” Stevie said.
Nell was silent, clenching her fists. She knew what it was like to stop. To love someone so much you'd spend every Thanksgiving and Christmas together, to call each other every Sunday, to remember birthdays and anniversaries—and then to just stop. “If I feel this way about my friends, you,” Nell said to Stevie and Peggy, her voice thick, “I can't imagine how I'd feel about a sister. How could a person just stop speaking to a sister?”
“I'd never stop speaking to Annie,” Peggy said.
Stevie just sat there, gazing at Nell with grave eyes. Nell knew that she knew this was about Aunt Maddie. She remembered the scene upstairs, weeks ago, when her father had carried her out in a weeping mess. She felt that way again, but she held the tears inside.
“I don't have any sisters either, Nell,” Stevie said. “But I asked my Aunt Aida about it.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she understands . . . because brothers and sisters can grow up being so close, the hurt is just that much stronger. So when it comes, the hurt, there's sometimes no other way out, except to hide from it.”
“But he's making me hide from it, too,” Nell said, feeling the tears spill over. “Hide from her, and now hide from you. I don't want to go to Scotland.”
“I know, honey,” Stevie said. She opened her arms, and Nell didn't even care that Peggy was right there watching her be a baby: she fell against Stevie and cried and cried. She cried for so long that she emptied herself out. She felt Tilly's whiskers tickling her face, and she felt Stevie's warm breath on her hair. She could have stayed there forever.
Finally, very gently, Stevie eased her right arm away, and reached for a portfolio—it reminded Nell of the ones her father sometimes carried his engineering drawings in. But this one was beautiful red leather, and small, just the size to fit under Nell's arm.
“This is for you,” Stevie said, handing it to her.
Nell blinked away tears, untied the red grosgrain ribbons that held the case together. It fell open—and inside were loose pages that looked just like pages from one of the many books of Stevie's that had gotten her through the summer's sleepless nights.
“What is it?” Peggy asked.
“It's Red Nectar,” Nell whispered. “Stevie's hummingbird book—right?”
“That's right,” Stevie said. “These are the first set of page proofs. I wanted you to have them.”
Nell saw beautiful, bright paintings of the pair of hummingbirds outside at Hubbard's Point, with the beach curving in the background and the blue cove and swimming raft . . . and on another page, another pair—feedi
ng at the red flowers growing up the crumbling walls of Aunt Aida's castle.
Breathless, she turned the pages, seeing the birds flying high over the world, migrating across oceans. And then coming back to Black Hall . . . she saw that Stevie had shown the hummingbirds flying above two girls on a blue bicycle-built-for-two—one with brown hair and one with red.
“Me and Peggy!” Nell exclaimed, and Peggy gasped.
And then there were pictures of the castle, the pair returning from their migration to see Aunt Aida painting another canvas of the beach and sea . . . the vine growing up the gray stones, brilliant with red trumpet flowers . . . with Nell's father standing at the top of the tower with Nell, and with his brass scope.
“It's all of us!” Nell said. “Except you . . . where are you, Stevie?”
“Oh,” she said, “I'm watching over you, painting what I see.”
“Look, Nell,” Peggy said, picking up a page without pictures that had fluttered to the floor. “It's the dedication!”
Nell read it out loud: “To Nell, who has the heart of a hummingbird.”
She clasped the book to her chest and couldn't speak. The heart of a hummingbird . . . those beautiful, strong, brave birds that flew so high and far . . . She wanted to say thank you, she wanted to ask Stevie why she'd picked her to dedicate the book to. She had a million questions, but they all just jumbled together. Suddenly Tilly heard something alarming, because she sprang off the chair and hid under the loveseat.
A knock sounded at the door. Just then Nell looked at Stevie's watch, and saw that it was after two. With Stevie's hand on her shoulder, they all walked into the kitchen.
Nell's father stood at the door.
“How did you know I'd be here?” she asked.
“Because I knew you were saying your goodbyes.”
“Can you come in?” Stevie asked, through the screen door. Nell saw something cross her eyes that reminded her of the wind outside—warm, salty, troubled. But her father, of course, just shook his head.
“We'd better get going.”
“He hates goodbyes,” Nell explained.
“I've noticed that,” Stevie said softly.
There were hugs that Nell would never forget. She held and rocked Peggy as if they were dancing. Peggy went on, almost blabbering, about writing every day, and Nell said the same things back to her. Then, Stevie. Nell reached up her arms, and Stevie bent down for a hug. It went on and on, and Nell didn't want it to end. She felt a lump in her throat, and she knew she would have it forever. Her cheeks were wet with tears—so were Stevie's.
“Thank you for the book,” Nell said.
“You're welcome. Thank you for everything. All the inspiration.”
“I inspired you?”
“More than you'll ever know.”
“If you talk to Aunt Maddie,” Nell said, “tell her about the book, okay? I want her to know.”
“I will. I promise . . .”
“Say bye to Aunt Aida.”
“Of course I will.”
“I don't want to go,” Nell said, clinging to Stevie's hand. She thought that if she held on hard enough, maybe Stevie would somehow keep her from going . . . would keep them both from leaving. . . .
Stevie crouched down till she was eye-level with Nell. Stevie's dark eyes were violet, calm, deep, full of such kindness and love that Nell felt a shiver from the top of her head down to her toes, at the idea of ever leaving her.
“Nell,” Stevie said. “You . . . well . . . you have to go.”
“No,” Nell whispered. Couldn't Stevie at least pretend to fight to hold on to her, to show her father how much she didn't want them to go?
“It's a mission,” Stevie whispered.
“A what?”
“A mission . . . you have important work to do. For the beach girls.”
“For the beach girls . . . What kind of work?” Nell asked, feeling her hair tingle again, as if a breeze had just swept through the kitchen.
“Well, you have to check out the beaches in Scotland. To see what they're like.”
“I already know they're not half as good as Hubbard's Point.”
“Well, I can understand why you'd think that—but they might be. They could be even better.”
“I know they won't be,” Nell whispered hotly.
“Maybe ‘better' isn't the point. Maybe you could just look them over, and report back on what you see.”
“Like what?”
“Well, the different kinds of shells you find there. And whether the sand is white, or pink . . . whether it's smooth or rocky . . . whether the seaweed is the same as here . . .” Nell closed her eyes, picturing the springy brown weed of Hubbard's Point rock pools, the long tendrils of kelp that lay in heaps along the beach's tide line after storms, the delicate, lettuce-y green weed to which tiny, almost microscopic periwinkles attached themselves. She felt her insides melt with grief, just at the thought of leaving Hubbard's Point seaweed. . . .
“What the sea glass is like,” Peggy added. “Whether the beaches have boardwalks, movies, crabbing places—right, Stevie?”
“Right,” Stevie said. “Those are exactly the kinds of things we need to know.”
“But why?” Nell heard herself ask, opening her eyes.
“Because maybe we'll go visit her in Scotland, right, Stevie?” Peggy asked, tears spilling over.
Nell saw the look in Stevie's eyes as she glanced up at Nell's father. Nell knew that parental code all too well—adults never wanted to get kids' hopes up or make promises they couldn't keep.
“Well,” Stevie said, “I don't know about that, exactly. But whether we go or not isn't even the point. We just want to know, Nell. We want to know about the way the sand feels under your bare tootsies . . . and how salty the water tastes when you go swimming . . . and what the sunsets look like reflected in the bays . . . and how bright the stars burn over the sea—because we're beach girls. That's all. That's the only reason.”
“It's a good reason,” Peggy whispered.
“It's time to go now,” Stevie said, squeezing Nell's hand a little tighter. Nell saw the tears rolling down Stevie's face, and suddenly she knew that Stevie had just made up the whole beach girl assignment—to make her feel better about leaving. Her feelings bucked inside her. She didn't know how she would live through this.
Her father had been standing outside the door. She thought he was just waiting for her, watching her say her goodbyes, but when she turned around, she saw that he was staring at Stevie. The look in her father's eyes was intense and mysterious, and it sent a fast, furious shiver down Nell's spine—she didn't know why. She hadn't seen him look at anyone like that before—maybe not even her mother. Or maybe she'd just been too young to notice. Or too happy and secure. But seeing his eyes do that for Stevie felt like magic, wildly filled with home. Those eyes were lightning bolts—and they told Nell he didn't want to go.
“I notice you took your sign down,” her father said, the look in his eyes sharper than ever.
“I did,” she said.
“What made you do that?”
She didn't reply. Nell grabbed Peggy's hand. They stepped aside, by the stove, holding on and never wanting to let go.
“Wish, wish,” Nell whispered. “Wish that Stevie can bring us back, me and my father, from wherever he has to go. . . .”
“I'm wishing,” Peggy said, her eyes closed tight.
“Me too,” Nell said, feeling the magic of the summer and the hummingbirds and the beach girls swirl like gold dust, straight into her heart.
Then the screen door opened, and Nell felt her father's hand touch her head. Stevie was pushing her out the door, portfolio in hand. Nell heard Peggy crying softly, and she heard her father whispering, “Come on, Nell.”
And then she heard something quiet and fast—two people kissing over her head. And then she heard her father say again, softly, “Come on, Nell.”
And then no one could speak, not even to say just one more goodbye.
And Nell and her father went to Scotland.
Chapter 23
STEVIE TRIED TO PAINT. SHE TRIED TO garden. Neither seemed quite possible. It was mid-August, her favorite time of year, but she hardly noticed. She no longer got up before dawn. She found herself staying in bed as long as she could, pulling the covers over her head to block the light and stay asleep—to help the days along, so they wouldn't feel so interminable. Paradoxically, she felt very tired—for, although she never seemed to fall into a deep sleep, she also never quite felt that she was all the way awake.
“It's called depression, darling,” Aunt Aida said to her on the telephone one day when Stevie had called to apologize for forgetting a meeting that her aunt had wanted her to attend with the lawyer, regarding the setting up of a foundation board.
“Really?” Stevie asked. “I've never been depressed before. I'm not the depressed type!”
“Be that as it may. What you are describing is classic. It's exactly what I felt after Van died.”
“I'm okay,” Stevie said.
“Darling, you're an artist, and an Irish artist at that. There's a certain amount of pain that comes with that territory, and once you throw love into the mix, forget it!”
“Love?”
“Let's not fool each other, shall we? We've been through too much together, dear girl. Jack and Nell. They're gone, and you're grieving.”
“I'm also thinking about my whole life, all the mistakes I've made,” Stevie said, her eyes flooding, “that led me to this point. Henry used to say I was a siren called Lulu, wrecking men's boats, wrecking my own. Aunt Aida, I really wanted this one to stay afloat,” she said, choking on a held-back sob.
“I know, Stevie,” her aunt said.
Stevie closed her eyes. Sunlight blazed on the bay's surface, filling the beach with pure white light. She couldn't look.