beach house and fell asleep with her lips parted and drool wetting the pillow, I’d take one look at her and be ready for round four.
“I see a young woman,” she said. “Fresh out of college or high school. Looking toward the next step in life, wondering how it will change her and if she has to change with it. That’s who my clothes are for. People hanging on to what makes them unique.”
“I like that.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “You’ll have your own line one day. I don’t doubt it.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up. “Being nice won’t win you any points.”
“Damn. Won’t bother, then.”
She laughed again and I had it on camera. I told myself as I passed the phone over that I wouldn’t be that pathetic fool listening to it on replay. But I was the same guy who couldn’t delete her texts.
“All right, Nathan.” She held my phone aloft. “Act out your favorite activity. No words. I have to guess.”
“Can do.” I squared my shoulders. Holding my arms out, I mimed like I was holding on to something. I rocked my hips back and forth.
“Nathan!”
“What? I’m hula-hooping while eating a sandwich. Get your mind out of the gutter, girl.”
“I hate you so much,” she delivered with a grin and teasing glint that softened the blow.
“Fine. Try this.” I wriggled my fingers in the air.
“Playing piano.”
“Got it in one.”
“Your turn.”
I consulted the list. “Share your favorite childhood memory.”
“Don’t even have to think about that one,” she said. “When I was eight, my mom took me to a butterfly garden. It was like entering another world. Small, enclosed, alive, and beautiful. Butterflies flitted around my head, and I remember my mom holding my hand and saying butterflies are God’s proof that we can have a new life. Look to them whenever I feel stuck.”
“I wish I believed that. I really do.”
Belle looked away. “Me too.”
We were quiet for long enough to make it uncomfortable. I forced myself to read the next one on the list.
Belle and I went through our tasks. Some of them made us laugh—like me singing and her doing her favorite dance—and the rest just made us talk like we used to do on the porch of my beach house.
“What do you want more than anything?” Belle asked.
We were both on the bench. The phone sat between us, off and ignored.
“To get my mom away from him.”
“He doesn’t... hurt her, does he?”
“No, nothing like that. The colonel would never lay a hand on her. But there are other ways to make someone miserable.”
“I’m familiar,” she whispered.
“You do that a lot.”
“What?”
I met her gaze. “Hint at something in your past. Something bad.”
She blinked, eyes widening, and dropped her head to keep me from seeing any more. “If you noticed, why haven’t you asked me to explain?”
“Because I do the same.” I rested my hand on her thigh, palm up. “And it’s only sometimes that I want people to ask. More often I want them to distract me. Which do you need, Belle?”
“Distraction,” she said as she slid her hand over mine, threading her fingers through. “Always distraction. Tell me about your mom.”
I focused on her fingers, tracing the tiny lines and grooves. When I met Belle, I told her our story from that point. Time to start from the beginning. “The colonel’s a hard man. Expects perfection. Needs control. He ran my mom’s life like a drill sergeant. A hundred math problems before bed. Five hours of piano practice for an hour of television.
“Every minute of her life was molded and scheduled to turn her into a success.” I shook my head. “I guess you could say it worked. Teachers called my mom a prodigy. She got straight As, won first at every science fair and earned early action into MIT.”
“But she was miserable,” Belle said. It wasn’t a question.
“Like you wouldn’t believe. She had no friends. Made it to her eighteenth birthday without going on a single date. The only person she was close to was her chef. When he deemed her old enough for a relationship, the colonel tried to control that too and sent her to the cove. Mom said it was the first that she spent any real time with people her age.
“They got her doing things she’d never thought she’d do and Dad was the worst one. The two of them stole a bottle of wine and sat on the beach all night talking. They skipped on a day of activities, chartered a