about having to watch out for Will. All she'd do issqueak, in other words.
Sally, Jessie hardly ever whines, and she's very good about-
Oh, you don't see her! Sally Mahout cried, and the spite in her voice made Jessie cringe back in her chair. I swear to God, sometimesyou behave as if she were your girlfriend instead of your daughter!
This time the long pause belonged to her father, and when he spoke, his voice was soft and cold. That's a lousy, underhanded,unfair thing to say, he finally replied.
Jessie sat on the deck, looking at the evening star and feeling dismay deepening toward something like horror. She felt a sudden urge to cup her hand and catch the star again-this time to wish everything away, beginning with her request to her Daddy that he fix things so she could stay at Sunset Trails with him tomorrow.
Then the sound of her mother's chair being pushed back came. I apologize, Sally said, and although she still sounded angry, Jessie thought she now sounded a little afraid, as well. Keep her tomorrow,if that's what you want! Fine! Good! You're welcome to her!
Then the sound of her heels, tapping rapidly away, and a moment later the snick of her father's Zippo as he lit his own cigarette.
On the deck, Jessie felt warm tears spring to her eyes-tears of shame, hurt, and relief that the argument had ended before it could get any worse... for hadn't both she and Maddy noticed that their parents" arguments had gotten both louder and hotter just lately? That the coolness between them afterward was slower to warm up again? It wasn't possible, was it, that they-
No, she interrupted herself before the thought could be completed. No, it's not. It's not possible at all, so just shut up.
Perhaps a change of scene would induce a change of thought. Jessie got up, trotted down the deck steps, then walked down the path to the lakefront. There she sat, throwing pebbles into the water, until her father came out to find her, half an hour later.
"Eclipse Burgers for two on the deck tomorrow," he said, and kissed the side of her neck. He had shaved and his chin was smooth, but that small, delicious shiver went up her back again just the same. "It's all fixed."
"Was she mad?"
"Nope," her father said cheerfully. "Said it was fine by her either way, since you'd done all your chores this week and-"
She had forgotten her earlier intuition that he knew a lot more about the acoustics of the living room/dining room than he had ever let on, and the generosity of his lie moved her so deeply that she almost burst into tears. She turned to him, threw her arms around his neck, and covered his cheeks and lips with fierce little kisses. His initial reaction was surprise. His hands jerked backward, and for just a moment they were cupping the tiny nubs of her breasts. That shivery feeling passed through her again, but this time it was much stronger-almost strong enough to be painful, like a shock-and with it, like some weird deja vu, came that recurring sense of adulthood's strange contradictions: a world where you could order blackberry meatloaf or eggs fried in lemonjuice whenever you wanted to... and where some people actually did. Then his hands slipped all the way around her, they were pressed safely against her shoulder-blades, hugging her warmly against him, and if they had stayed where they shouldn't have been a moment longer than they should have done, she barely noticed.
I love you, Daddy.
Love you, too, Punkin. A hundred million hunches.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The day of the eclipse dawned hot and muggy but relatively clear-the weather forecasters" warnings that low-hanging clouds might obscure the phenomenon were going to prove groundless, it seemed, at least in western Maine.
Sally, Maddy, and Will left to catch The Dark Score Sun Worshippers" bus at around ten o'clock (Sally gave Jessie a stiff, silent peck on the cheek before leaving, and Jessie responded in kind), leaving Tom Mahout with the girl his wife had called "the squeaky wheel" the night before.
Jessie changed out of her shorts and Camp Ossippee tee-shirt and into her new sundress, the one which was pretty (if you weren't offended by red and yellow stripes almost bright enough to shout, that was) but too tight. She put on a dab of Maddy's My Sin perfume, a little of her mother's Yodora deodorant, and a fresh application of Peppermint Yum-Yum lipstick. And although she