Page 7 of The Starfish Sisters

“No, I think she has a flight in the morning from Portland.” I slice the sandwiches in half and put each one on a plate, thinking I have plenty of time to go over and say hi to Suze before they arrive. Anxiety sparks along my neck. We have left things in such disarray.

The kettle clicks off. I watch as he measures the loose tea, his hands large and competent, tanned from being outside all the time. For the first time I notice that his ring finger is bare. It’s been long enough that the stripe has disappeared. “I didn’t realize you’d taken off your ring.”

He spreads his fingers, looks at the empty spot. “It was time. She’s been gone three years.”

“Be careful,” I tease. “Once the grapevine gets hold of that, you’ll be inundated with casseroles and brownies.”

He looks at me. “Is that what this is?” He points to the plates and bowls and pickles. “Seduction?”

“No!” A hot, hard blush rises up my neck. “We’re friends.”

A flicker of something dims the light in his eyes. “I know.” He claps my arm, right above the elbow. “Sorry, I was teasing. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“It’s okay.” I bow my head, willing the heat to leave my ears. “I’ve always hated this blush.”

“It’s charming.”

“When you’re twelve.”

Thankfully, he lets it go and we carry everything to the table, covered by an ancient oilcloth left by my grandmother. As we sit down, he says, “For the record, I had a pretty bad crush on you back in the day.”

I give him a skeptical glance. “No one had a crush onme. It was always Suze.”

“Not me. I liked you.”

“Really?” That soft, rustling awareness moves through me again. Maybe he’s not completely out of my league, then?

“Really.” He takes a hearty bite of his sandwich and chases it with tea. “You were stuck on Joel, that guy who burned the church down.”

“I can’t believe you remember that.” My cheeks flame.

He nods.

“Pathetic.” I shake my head. “God, I was so smitten! What happens to girls, I wonder? Up until I was about twelve, I was such a tomboy, and I didn’t care what anybody thought of me. And then”—I sigh—“puberty turned me into a needy mess.”

“It wasn’t just you.” His eyes are warm, resting on my face with something that looks like appreciation. “We all felt that way. For about five years, I thought about breasts pretty consistently every two or three seconds.”

I burst out laughing. “That’s a lot.”

He nods. “Tell me about it.”

“Kissing,” I say. “That’s what I thought about, a hundred times a day. I would sit in classes and imagine all kinds of ways I could kisssomebody.” I take a bite, relishing the salt of bacon with tangy mayo, remembering.

“Hormones,” he says with a sigh.

“Amen.” I look up and there’s something hot in the air that makes me think about how it would feel tokisshim, feel that beard against my chin. Would it be soft or springy? It looks soft.

“Are you thinking about kissing, Phoebe?” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “Because you’ve never been able to hide that blush.”

I lift my chin. “I was remembering.”

“Me too,” he says. “You had a little blue halter top, with sparkly things on it.”

It pops into my mind, a beautiful thing made of green and blue fabric with sequins laced on it in little patterns. Suze, with her clever fingers, made it for me, and I loved how I felt in it. “It wasn’t that little.”

He grins. “I wanted it to be littler.”

“Tsk, tsk.” A silence falls and I’m thinking about being fifteen and kissing and that top. “That was a hard summer.” Especially for Suze, who was sent away to an unwed mothers’ home, her head shaved, her life in tatters. I glance toward the window, up the hill. “I guess I should go see her.”