outsider, set apart, unable to touch anyone around her.
Until yesterday, when she’d met Michael.
And last night …
An image rose up in her memory of the swamp, and the circle of children around the fire.
The circle that had opened to include her.
Her, and Michael, too.
When she’d awakened this morning, that was the first thing she remembered: the feeling that they had somehow belonged in that circle.
Michael.
She had to find him, had to talk to him.
She glanced around and saw a phone booth in front of the post office. Crossing the street, she found a thin directory sitting on a shelf below the instrument. She rifled through its pages quickly and found what she was looking for. From the address, it seemed that the Sheffields’ house couldn’t be more than a few blocks from her grandfather’s.
And it must face on one of the canals.
Leaving the booth, she started down Ponce Avenue, back the way she’d come this morning.
After turning down two wrong cul-de-sacs, she found the house. She was on the pathway that fronted the canal, less than half a mile from where she herself lived, and although she couldn’t see the street number, she recognized the boat Michael had been in last night, now tied up to a small dock at the canal’s edge. She gazed across the lawn at the house, a long, low, vaguely Mediterranean structure, with a tile roof. On a patio shaded by trellises twined with wisteria, a little girl was playing. Feeling eyes on her, the child looked up, then trotted across the lawn, coming to a stop a few yards from Kelly. Cocking her head, she stared quizzically at the older girl.
“I bet you’re looking for my brother, aren’t you?” she asked.
Kelly felt herself blushing. “Is your brother Michael Sheffield?”
Jenny nodded. “But he’s not here. He’s at work. My name’s Jenny.”
“My name’s Kelly.”
Jenny’s eyes widened. “Kelly Anderson? My daddy says—” But before she could finish, another voice called out from the house, and a woman stepped out onto the patio.
“Jenny? Where are you? Jenny …” Her words faded away as she saw her daughter, and then she, too, crossed the lawn. “Hello,” Barbara said, smiling at Kelly. “I hope Jenny isn’t bothering you. Sometimes she thinks the pathway belongs to us, too.”
“This is Kelly,” Jenny interrupted. “Michael’s girlfriend!”
“Jenny!” Barbara exclaimed. “She’s not Michael’s girlfriend. She’s just a friend of his, who happens to be a girl.” She smiled with embarrassment at Kelly. “I’m afraid she just blurts things out.”
“I do not!” Jenny protested. Turning back to Kelly, she started talking again. “Last night, Daddy said—”
“That’s enough, Jenny,” Barbara said sharply, and suddenly Kelly realized she had been correct; Michael’s parents had been fighting about her last night. She felt her blush deepen.
“I—I better be going,” she murmured, but Barbara shook her head, pulling Jenny close and clamping her hands firmly over the girl’s mouth.
“No, don’t. I just made some lemonade for Jenny, and there’s plenty for you, too. Come and visit with us for a while, and I promise I won’t let Jenny say anything terrible. Please?” she added, when Kelly still seemed on the verge of hurrying away.
Kelly hesitated. “I—I was just looking for Michael. If he’s not here—”
“Then we can get acquainted without him saying ‘Oh, Mom!’ every two seconds. Now come on. It’s hot and sticky, and I can’t think of anything better to do right now than sit in the shade and sip lemonade.” She looked down at Jenny. “And if I let go of you, you’ll keep your mouth closed, won’t you?” Jenny nodded vigorously, and as Barbara released her, Jenny clamped her own hands over her mouth, giggling happily. “See?” Barbara laughed. “She’s not really awful—she just seems like it when you first meet her.”
Chattering on, sensing that if she stopped talking Kelly might still dart away like a frightened rabbit, Barbara led her to the house, taking her inside while she poured the lemonade, then leading her back to the patio. “There,” she said as she sank into one of the cushioned chairs that sat around a glass-topped table, “isn’t this nice?”
Kelly gazed up at the wisteria that hung in bright blue clumps from the trellis. Around the patio’s edge a border of pink petunias were in full bloom, and the scent of honeysuckle wafted through the air from a vine growing up a wall a few feet away. “The flowers are nice,” she said shyly. “Especially the petunias. I like pink.”
“Is that why you dyed your hair