her pale red hair up in some complicated do decorated with flowers.
“Anna?” Allie assumed.
He’d found another photo. He handed it over and took the one from her hand. He laughed softly, looking at his sister. “Yeah. She grumbled all afternoon getting ready. I kept saying, ‘You don’t have to go,’ and she’d snap, ‘Yes, I do and you know why.’”
“Why?”
“There was this bitch at school who headed the popular clique and loved nothing better than belittling everyone else. I think it got so she was Anna’s personal nemesis. She predicted—loudly—that no one would ask Anna to prom. By that time Anna was asserting her calling as an artist partly by wearing sacky jeans or even overalls stained by clay or glazes all the time. Clunky boots. Flannel shirts.” Nolan smiled, remembering.
“My little sister. Mouthy, abrasive, didn’t take any shit from anyone. Now, she wouldn’t let some stuck-up airhead get to her, but she was a teenager, after all. She had some guys who were buddies, and bullied one of them into taking her to prom. I think they stayed all of a couple of hours, breathed a sigh of relief and went home.” He set down the photo. “Anna’s...well, not a beauty, but closer now. The men like her, anyhow. She’s always got one around.”
Lifting the other picture, Allie recognized it as a senior photo. Nolan’s brother appeared terribly young and yet didn’t have that unfinished look either his sister or Nolan did. He was conventionally handsome, his brown hair lying smooth, his smile for the camera confident and unshadowed.
“He really doesn’t look like you,” she said, handing it back. “Or Anna, does he?”
“No. Jed takes after our...his father. Anna and I...who knows? Except her coloring comes from Mom. Her eyes, too, I guess.”
“You don’t think you might have the same father? It seems as if you have the same bone structure.”
“I doubt it.” But he studied the photo again for a moment before carefully tucking both back into his wallet and restoring it to his hip pocket.
She might have argued had his tone not been so final. Because he knew something about one or the other of their fathers? Because he didn’t want to know? Or because he hated the idea that his mother might keep going back to the same man even more than he hated the idea of serial affairs?
“Do you have a picture of your brother?” he asked. Which she supposed was a natural question.
“I...actually do,” she admitted. “His prom picture. What an awful moment for all of us to be frozen in time.”
She went to get it from her purse, locked behind the counter. There wasn’t any reason she shouldn’t show it to Nolan, was there? She couldn’t think of one. She also kept a picture of her father in her wallet and couldn’t think of any reason not to show Nolan that one, too.
He took them from her with such care, it was obvious he thought she was giving him a gift in sharing them with him. That made her ashamed. He hadn’t hesitated to take out the pictures of his sister and brother, while having to pry every nugget of information about her family from her.
He studied both photos for a long time, as if fascinated. “You do look more like your mother,” he said at last. “Except for the coloring. Both you and your brother—Jason?—got that from your dad.”
The bell over the door rang and she turned her head to see that a couple of women had come in. They weren’t regulars. She stood and called, “Hi, I’ll be right with you.”
Nolan returned the pictures to her with what she thought was reluctance. “I’d better get back to work, and let you do the same.”
“Thank you for bringing lunch,” she said.
“I wanted to see you.” He glanced toward the women, who had their backs turned, and kissed Allie. “I’ll call,” he said roughly.
She tried to smile. “Please.”
“Allie, I wish I thought...” He shook his head. “Never mind. This isn’t the time.” He nodded toward the customers. “I’ll clean up. Go on.”
She did, but was very aware when he left a minute later without saying anything else to her. The panic that felt like a small bird trapped in her chest was with her every time she saw him lately, and every time he left and she had to wonder if she’d given away anything new this time.
Fairfield. She had admitted to that, but couldn’t see how it mattered. Although Mom wouldn’t be