"So what's it like?" I looked up from the frayed arm of my chair, my thoughts settling back on Dr Grant.
"What's what like?"
"Having Billy here," he smiled, settling back against his desk, his chair leaning drunkenly on its spindly legs. "How does that make you feel?"
I blinked at him once, twice. Smirked.
"Stupid question?" He was watching my face in something akin to amusement.
"Kind of. He's my best friend." I fiddled with my new necklace, trying to imagine how I would even start to describe what Billy being here was like for me.
"I thought Ned was your best friend." He was watching me differently now.
The question brought me up short, and I groped for words for a moment. Just as Dr Grant turned to grab the notebook I had left, forgotten, on his desk, I got my mouth around the words. "He is. But Billy's different. He's family. He's known me forever. He knows things about me that Ned doesn't. He doesn't even have to ask."
"What kinds of things?"
A silent chasm opened up between us for a moment. I trusted this man. Truly, I did. I trusted, too, that he was solidly in my corner, and that any information I gave him would stay in this room. Stay between us. But talking about my family with him felt too personal. It felt like a betrayal.
I shook my head.
He grinned ruefully, looking down at the notebook on his own lap, spread open, the pages empty. He never wrote during our sessions. "Not so much, huh?"
"Not so much. Not yet."
He let the silence sit for a second. It was only when my fingers started fiddling through the strings of the old upholstery that he nodded at my neck. "Birthday present?"
We were on the grass, Billy and I. Him on his back, me on my stomach. He had one hand on his stomach, rising and falling with his breath. His other arm was thrown across his eyes, blocking the sun from his face.
I had my chin on my hands, flat against the ground. I watched industrious ants trail past, marveling at their industry even in this heat.
"Is this what it's like all the time? Just hanging out here? Chillin' out max and relaxin' all cool?"
I debated telling him that I hadn't really had anything to do since Nola stopped my lessons four years ago. I decided against it. I didn't want to tell him how things had been for me, not yet. I wanted him to be happy to be there, at least until my party.
"Getting bored?" I let my voice drip with sarcasm; I knew he'd appreciate it. "Want to go shoot a couple things to while away the hours?"
"You think you're funny. You're not funny." Unseeing, he sent out his leg to nudge me. It took him a couple of tries before I tapped him on the leg to guide him. His grin poked out from around his arm.
"So. Flan. Ned. Tell me about him." The question was so abrupt, I watched what I could see of his face to determine if he was joking. It was only when he took his arm off his eyes that I saw he was serious.
"Oh. Well. He's-I don't know, Billy, he's Ned." I tried to make it sound like that didn't mean much. "He's my friend."
"He definitely cares about you. You two pretty close?" He tried to make it sound like he wasn't curious.
"Pretty. Why?"
"Huh. And he got you a birthday present? For your actual birthday, not whatever this is," he waved his hand dismissively in the direction of the house.
"Well, yeah, but that's not news. You knew that."
He pursed his lips, then lay back down. "I did know that."
"Billy?" I asked, after a moment. "Why does this matter?"
I watched the hand on his stomach rise and fall three times before he answered. "That Nola is a piece of work. You never told me she was like that." With his face hidden from me, I couldn't resort to my normal shrug. I stayed silent, watching him. "And Dr Bertram's never here. And his wife...well, I guess she's nice."
He took his arm off his eyes, and sat up again, his eyes grave on my face. "Julia is self-absorbed, and Mireille hates both of us." I winced, thinking about the look on Mireille's face when etiquette forced her to shake hands with Billy. "So that leaves the boys. What's the older guy's name? Tom? Nobody talked about him. And then there's Ned." He pointed a finger at the house that was either accusatory or for emphasis.
"Right."
"Right," he echoed, leaning back on his hands.
"So?" I tried to sound defiant. I ended up sounding defensive.
"So, in this whole round of characters, I'm trying to figure out who's been looking out for you this whole time. 'Cause it sure as hell wasn't any of the adults in there, and a couple of the younger ones looked ready to murder you, you so much as look at 'em. So if Ned is the only person you can count on in this place, then at least you have something. As long as it's the right kind of something." I looked up into Billy's soldier eyes, suddenly harsh and no-nonsense, at first not certain what he meant. When I did realize it, I thanked every ancestor I could remember that I couldn't blush. That didn't stop me from hanging my head in embarrassment.
"It is. It is the right kind. He-I'm like a sister to him, Billy."
"Yeah?" He sounded unconvinced, even mocking. "I ever look at my sister like that, may God strike me down."
"Stop. No he does not." Something in my voice, or in the way I looked resolutely away from him, down at the industrious ants, softened Billy's bluster. I felt, rather than saw, Billy pull himself closer to me, so that he sat on a level with my shoulders, looking down at me.
"Flan. I'm sorry. I don't want to come in here and thrown my weight around, but you gotta understand. You told me they took care of you. You told me they were good to you. Come to find out they apparently only just realized they missed your birthday, and only a couple people are sad about it...You told me you were happy."
"I am happy." My voice trembled so much I bit down on the last word before it was finished.
"No, you're not. We know you're not." When I didn't answer, he held out his hand for mine. I turned over so I could give it to him. "Come back to Boston with me. I'll be home for another couple weeks. I can help you and Uncle Liam get used to each other. I can help Susie get to know you. You don't have to be here anymore. You can come back to your family." His voice dipped in volume. It mattered to him.
I wanted, for a moment, to say yes. I wanted to say yes so badly the breath threatened to rip apart my chest on its way out of my mouth. To be home, with my family. To meet Susie. To be in a place where I belonged. To never have to see Nola or Mireille again. To put Mansfield behind me.
But if I did leave, I would leave without really learning how to speak to strangers. I would leave without seeing Tom again. I would leave Ned alone.
I was quiet for a long time. Billy stroked the back of my hand to comfort me. Finally, I shook my head, not in refusal, but because I couldn't answer.
"Think about it," Billy said. "Just think about it. Uncle Liam wanted you to begin with. The state just had other opinions." I nodded, blinking hard against the tears that had come welling up in my eyes.
"But," he continued, in a brighter voice, "on the subject of birthdays, I have something for you." He reached around to his back pocket, from which he drew a little cloth pouch. "It doesn't have a chain," he told me sheepishly, holding the pouch out to me. "My buddy Trigger broke it on the way back here."
I pulled the strings open, and a small silver oval fell out onto my palm. It glinted in the sun, but right away I could see it was old, with some dark discoloration along the ornately etched surface. A pattern of-what? leaves? flowers?-surrounded a small, rose-colored stone on a flat oval roughly the size of the pad of my thumb. I smiled as I turned it this way and that, following the etchings as they ran around the pendant.
"I picked it up in a covered market in Baghdad. Some of the others were all over the stall all the time, looking for things to send back home. This woman, she and her son were selling old jewelry and silver and stuff. I thought of you when I saw this."
"It's beautiful," I said, still staring at the present in my hands.
"Yeah? You like it?" Now he sounded like a puppy getting ready to frisk. I smiled up at him, and his eyes softened. He smoothed down my hair. "Good. I want you to be happy."
I held out my hand for his, and we sat there, hands clasped, until the sun started to sink in the sky.
"It's pretty," Dr Grant said, smiling. I smiled back.
"Yeah. It was a birthday present."
"Does that make you happy? Getting presents?"
I shrugged. He raised his eyebrows; it was clear I was avoiding the question.
"I don't get them very often."
"You got that bracelet from Ned," he pointed out, nodding at my wrist, where Ned's birthday present dangled.
"I get presents from Ned," I amended.
"Just not often."
"Twice a year," I said, feeling a sudden urge to defend him. "That's normal for friends. And family." If he noticed my hesitation, Dr Grant didn't show it.
"But you don't get presents from the rest of the family?"
"Not normally," I shrugged again. Both Dr Grant and Billy paid a lot of attention to the rest of the family. They didn't realize how things worked here.
"How does that make you feel?"
"Do you think I should expect more from them?" My brow furrowed in confusion, my annoyance rising. He was gunning for something today.
"What do you think?"
"I think it's a little silly to expect them to give me more than what they've already given me. A little greedy, too."
"What have they given you?"
I opened my mouth in astonishment, then raised my arms, gesturing around us. "This. A place to live. Food to eat. They haven't kicked me out. They're giving me a place to live."
"That's not much."
"That's everything."
He sat back, watching me. I felt my skin crawl in discomfort. I hated being watched like that. Why was he attacking me like this, now that things were finally going better for me?
He waited until I spoke again. "It may not seem like much to you. To someone like you. But I was ten, and I didn't have a place to stay. They took me in."
"Nola took you in." He corrected, gently.
I huffed to a stop, not willing to say how I felt about Nola.
He waited. "I would feel wrong taking more things from them. I would feel greedy expecting more presents."
"What about the dance they threw for you? How did that make you feel?"
I looked back up into his eyes, which were watching my face with an almost obnoxious patience.
"Expensive."
"How do you feel?" Mary called over her shoulder. I turned around to look at myself in the mirror, then shrugged. Clocking my silence, Mary turned around to take me in.
"Perfect!" She breathed, stepping forward to put her hands on my shoulders, turning me full on to face my reflection. "You are so beautiful, Fawn. Look at yourself."
I did. The dress, a pale shade of pink, hugged my chest and waist before flaring out in an A-line. Several layers of fabric supported a skirt with a wandering embroidered pattern up the left side. Small, discrete crystals twinkled at us. It did look good, I supposed. But I felt more exposed than I had done when I'd tried it on in the dressing room.
"Their jaws are going to hit the floor," Mary said, tightening the little belt that cinched in my waist, then brushing some imaginary lint off my shoulder. "They're not going to know what hit 'em. Least of all that brother of mine." She rolled her eyes at me, as if we were sharing some kind of joke. I watched her work on making the dress lie perfectly, but she didn't catch my eye. Instead, she went on.
"You impressed him, you know, when you stood your ground against Guy Fearsome." I bit my lip and looked down. He'd told her about that night in the kitchen. "And everyone else," she went on. "It's not easy to stand up to that kind of peer pressure. And for what it's worth," she said, straightening up and catching my gaze in the mirror, "I'm sorry for my part in it. You were right to stand up for yourself. There," she said, sighing in satisfaction. "You're an angel. You're a goddess. Look at you. Like a princess in a fairytale."
I did look like a princess, I decided. At least, the bottom part of me fit the part. My face was still bewildered, my eyes still a little lost. So fucking beautiful. I didn't think I'd ever get his voice out of my head. But, pretty as the dress was, it still looked like a little girl in costume next to Mary, who wore her regal, body-hugging ballgown with such confidence. Would I ever be able to be like her?
"I forgot," she said, reaching behind her neck to unclasp the simple chain that hung there. "He sent this over for you." She spiraled the chain into the palm of my hand, where it lay coiled like a snake. I stared at her, and then at the chain, confused.
"What-?" She smiled brightly as I spoke the word, as if I had just cured cancer or saved the world.
"It's for the gift Billy gave you. He was talking to Henry, Ned, and me about it. About how you didn't have a way to wear it. Henry thought he'd lend a hand. That chain," she said, closing my hand around it, "has been in my family for generations, apparently. And God knows I don't want it. But I guess I shouldn't take the Big Man's name in vain, not where Ned might hear." She was turned around, so I couldn't see if she was joking or not. I didn't think she was joking.
Uncharitable.
"Now, why don't you throw on that old shirt," she said, gesturing to one of Tom's old button-down shirts she'd appropriated for the night, " and I'll take care of that hair and makeup?"
Billy, dressed in his military formals, had led me into the party without a falter in his step. It was surprisingly easy, on his arm, to fake a sense of poise. Everything was so much easier with him here.
As we walked into the room, fashionably late to my own party, the room turned to look at us. Out of the three hundred faces in the room, I knew only about fifteen. My eyes fixed first on Ned, who came up to hug me and shake Billy's hand.
"The woman of the hour! You look beautiful." He kissed me on my temple, and I was glad of Billy's arm stabilizing me. "Billy," he said, "glad you could be here." There was a note of caution in Ned's tone, and I shot Billy a warning look, one that was remarkably similar to the gaze Billy had fixed on Ned's face.
"Wouldn't miss it," said Billy, rolling his eyes at me in defeat. "It's not every day someone celebrates one of my baby sisters." He pinched my cheek hard enough to make me swat at him.
"Do you mind if I steal her for a dance?" Ned said, winking at me. "I promise I'll have her back to you in one piece soon."
As he led me to the dance floor, I leaned in to him, "Ned, I don't know how to dance." I flicked my eyes to all the people around the room, people who would be watching me all night.
"Neither do I, not in practice, anyway. In principle, I should, since I've had a few lessons. But knowing me, they probably all failed."
"I'm going to look stupid, Ned." I whispered as he turned me into his arms.
He smiled gently, giving my waist a small pat. "No you won't. I'm going to look stupid, and you have to follow my lead. No one will blame you. Also, we're going to be turning in the easiest of all of God's shapes-the circle." He turned me slowly on the spot. "No fancy stuff. No tricks. You got this."
I breathed. Then breathed again. "They won't laugh at me?" I hadn't told Billy this worry. Maybe I hadn't needed to, but I would never have offered it, either. He deserved a normal sister.
"If they do, I'll throw them out," said Ned, in a voice that could either be joking or serious. Standing this close to him, I couldn't see his face. He chuckled, making the hand that clasped his shoulder shake a little. "That would give them something to talk about. The pacifist throwing people out of an eighteen-year-old's birthday party."
The gap between our ages yawned open. Twenty-two was much older than me.
"Or they could do a series of challenges to prove their worth to stay," I offered. "We don't have to get physical with them."
"Nope. Laugh, and they're out. No mercy." He pulled back to smile at me, turning me on the spot. "Nervous?"
I laughed a little. "Always."
His face sobered, then pulled me back to him. "We got you."
I didn't know who "we" was. I didn't want to ask.
When the dance was done, I fully expected to return to Billy and never leave his side, but Henry caught us before New could deposit me with my brother. He sketched a little half bow and held out his hand to me.
"Might I have this dance, madam?"
I glanced a Ned, who still held my hand clasped in his, then at Billy, who was watching us with his eyebrows raised. Henry chuckled. "I don't bite, you know."
I didn't know, then, how to turn a man down without hurting his feelings. I didn't know that hurting his feelings wasn't a problem, in certain situations. I knew that if I hesitated longer, Billy would step in, or Ned would, and then everyone would be watching us.
I took his hand, and let go of Ned's, and we stepped back onto the dance floor.
This time it was different. Henry was a more practiced dancer than Ned, and he held me with more confidence, though I hadn't noticed that Ned was lacking in confidence before. Henry also held me tighter, when he wasn't spinning me.
"You've probably gotten this a lot tonight, but you look beautiful. Not that you're not normally beautiful," he said, with a boyish grin, "but tonight even the most self-absorbed person can see it. Look at Nola," he said, gesturing with his head every so slightly to my left. He spun me so I could see Nola watching us, her arms crossed, her lips pursed. She was beautifully turned out, as always, but the ice that came off her was imposing. Most people stood a few feet away.
I blinked, and looked away. She would probably know we'd been talking about her. She always knew.
"And our mutual friend," Henry chuckled, unaware of my fear. He spun us again, and this time I caught a glimpse of Mireille over his right shoulder. Unlike Nola, who had been cloaked in anger, Mireille looked naked for a moment. Henry dancing with me was doing something to her, something Henry may have known about. Maybe he was doing this deliberately.
Mireille caught my gaze, and her contempt was easy to read. She straightened up, tossing her head, and put her arm around Rush, who was standing next to her.
She hates me, I thought. I didn't think I'd realized that quite so vehemently before. She hates me and she'll never stop.
Henry was still smiling. I sent him a look that put a stop to that .
"What?"
"Do you like doing this? Do you like hurting her?"
His eyebrows ticked up. "You only talk to me when you're angry, you know that?"
I watched him, trying to match Billy's no-nonsense face.
"Listen, Fawn. No one but no one hurts Mireille. She's got skin a mile thick. She'll be fine. Besides," he said, pulling me a little closer, "we're just dancing. Maybe you shouldn't read too much into it."
I had never been that close to a man before. Not like this, with his hands on my waist and his breath in my ear and his smiling face so close. I had never had my arms around a man like this before, even if I couldn't help it. I hated that I enjoyed it a little bit.
How old was Henry, again? Was he too old to be holding an eighteen-year-old like this?
"Did Mary give you that chain?" His question came out of the blue, and I paused for a second to re-situate myself. "The one I gave her to give you?"
I nodded, using our closeness as an excuse not to look at him. I was tall enough to look over his shoulder without having to try. Not as tall as Mary, though, who could look Ned in the eye. He liked that. I knew he liked that.
"Good. Will-will you wear it? Will you use it?" The pause was so uncharacteristic that I looked at him, but he had his charming face on, and I couldn't read the reason for the hesitation.
I didn't know how to avoid the question while giving an answer. New territory for me. I had never been able to speak to someone whose questions I didn't want to answer. I settled on a shrug.
"I hope you will. It was a little old for Mary. She likes the shiny. The new things. That's how we're different, her and me. She's always after the new."
"What are you after?" I had wanted to know for a long time now.
He grinned again, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I'm after the mysterious."
The song ended. I spent the rest of the night at Billy's side, flanked by Ned. The place on my waist where two men had touched me burned warm, my right hand tingled. People's eyes were on me through a champagne toast, the song, the speeches Dr Bertram and Ned made in my honor. I felt beautiful. I felt like I was on display. A necklace in a museum.
With a chain.
"Mireille didn't look happy," Dr Grant noted. "But you were beautiful," he continued. I smiled at the sincerity of his compliment, even if the repetition of the same words were starting to grate on me.
"Thank you."
He sat back again, surprise flicking across his face. "Well, that's interesting."
"What is?"
"You know, I've had a lot of patients in my time. Most of them have had trouble seeing themselves in the right light. Most people I've ever known, actually. Not just people who pay me to talk to them. And the majority of people I know, if you compliment their looks, will turn down that compliment out of hand. Not you, though."
"Is that wrong?" Was I abnormal? Was I so different from everyone else?
"No, no, that's not wrong. It's just that it wasn't what I was expecting, that's all. You said, 'thank you,' not, 'no, I'm not pretty,' and it was a nice surprise. It's a good thing, Fawn," he said, reading my fear on my face. "It's a really good thing."
"I've never really thought about how I looked. Not, like, physically. I know I'm not put together or well-dressed like Mireille. Her clothes are always so beautiful. I don't have anything like that."
"Do you watch much TV, Fawn?"
I laughed, surprised. "No. Why?"
"Watch a lot of movies?"
"Sometimes, with Ned. We mainly watch oldies. Singin' in the Rain. Things like that."
"Read magazines?"
"No. Why is this important?" I didn't like having my cultural ignorance thrown back in my face. I hadn't forgotten about Freud. Whoever he was.
"Its just-you see yourself in this light, as always compared to Mireille. Always lacking, always scruffy. Am I right?"
"Yeah." Did he think I was scruffy?
"It's interesting, because while you're looking at Mireille as this example of how you should dress, I think there are things about your life that Mireille would kill to have. That there are things she's been inundated with since she was younger that you've managed to avoid."
"I was homeschooled. I didn't have many friends."
"I know, and there are things about your life that weren't fair, weren't equal. There still are. But you seem to put an emphasis on how you look only in comparison to the other women you see around you. The rest of it seems to be about what you can do. I think Mireille, and, yes, Mary, have been trained to focus more on how they present themselves than on what they can do. I think there are things about you that the two of them would be jealous of. I know Mireille definitely is."
"Mireille's jealous of me. That's what you think?"
"Is it really so ridiculous to think that there are things you have that she wants?"
Four in the morning, and the party-goers had been gone for three hours. When I had retreated to my room, exhausted, I had slipped off my heels for the utter bliss of wearing cushy slippers. My pajamas caressed me, forgave my bad posture, but I had to admit to myself that I had loved wearing the dress. Maybe I would wear it again, someday.
I had thought, at first, that I would be able to fall asleep immediately. But Ned's hand still caressed my waist. I could smell his soap and his shaving cream. Then it was Henry's closeness, his smile. His cologne.
I felt electric-exhausted but charged. I didn't know what to do with myself. Lying down, and thinking these things felt off, felt too intimate. I got up, tried to sit by my window to calm my thoughts.
But my thoughts were too big to be contained in my room. Everyone was asleep. No one would catch me out there in the hallways.
My hair was still in the big bun Mary had created. Traces of mascara clung to my lashes. Even in my pajamas, I felt the echoes of my former glamor. It warmed me. It shamed me, but it warmed me, too.
I tiptoed out into the hallway, then down the stairs. I would try and read in the living room, or I'd sit outside and look at some stars. The dew would collect on the grass soon. Maybe I'd be there for that, too.
Nearing the library, I heard voices. At this hour they were lowered, but from the tone I knew they were shouting at each other. Feeling guilty, but desperately curious, I padded my way to the door.
"...expect me to believe that?" Mireille snapped.
"I don't care what you believe, honestly," Henry replied. I pulled my head back, ashamed. I didn't move away from the door, though.
"Her? Really? You realize what that makes you?"
"Someone who recognizes quality when he sees it?"
"It makes you a predator, is what it makes you."
"If that's how you see it."
"Damn right that's how I see it! And it's how my dad's going to see it, too, and when that happens, you'd damn well better hope that you have good head start. He loves that little retard."
"Shut the fuck up, Mireille," his voice was like a whip, quick and vicious.
"You're awfully galant."
"Call me a changed man." His toned had cooled considerably.
"What about us? What about what we talked about? What about Madrid?" I had never heard Mireille cry before. I sincerely hoped I never would again.
"Sorry if I made you think I meant something other than what I meant. Sorry if you misunderstood."
"It isn't fair," she ground out.
"Life's not fair," he returned, so coolly he could have talking about the weather.
I turned on my heel and ran away, praying my feet didn't make a sound on the floor, not caring if they did.
The next morning, bleary-eyed, I came down to breakfast to find Ned and Billy, deep in conversation. As I approached, Ned straightened up and smiled. "Hey there, sleepy-head."
Billy poured me a cup of orange juice. "Here you, go. Breathe some life into that face."
"Where's everyone else?" From the looks on their faces, they were not going to tell me what they'd been talking about.
"Fast asleep, Fawn. They don't have our internal clocks," Ned loaded my plate with waffles. "Syrup?"
I flicked my eyes between Ned and Billy and back again. They watched me with perfectly identical blank expressions. They were up to something. I accepted the syrup, picking up my knife and fork.
"What's with the nickname?" Billy asked, taking a sip of coffee.
Ned and I looked at each other. "Well, when she got here, she didn't speak at all, and she was really small, and had those big eyes of hers. The name stuck. I don't remember-"
"Mireille," I said, clamping down my memory of the night before.
"Mireille. Back in her creative days, I guess," Ned shrugged. "It just became her name."
"Doesn't suit her," Billy said. I flicked my eyes between the two of them. When I'd first arrived, the mood had been jovial, even conspiratorial. Now, however, there was a little tension in the room.
Ned shrugged, apologetic. "Old habits."
"It's okay," I told Billy. "Eat your waffles."
"I've had about five of these things," Billy said, sitting back, rubbing his distended stomach. "You don't know how long I've dreamed about waffles." I turned in my chair to put my feet on the struts underneath his seat. "Almost as much as I dreamed being back here with you." He tweaked my nose, hard, and I gave him the childish squeal he was looking for. They both smiled at me.
"I'm going to run some errands in town today. Want to take a bike ride with Ned and meet up with me?"
The thought of spending the whole day with my two favorite men perked me up. "Really?"
"Really really," Billy checked his watch. "I gotta go if I'm going to pick up my dry cleaning before the line starts. You take your time, though, yeah? I wanna pick up some new books. I'll take forever trying to decide which ones."
After he left, Ned and I cleared off our places, bringing the dishes into the kitchen.
"How long is it since you've ridden a bike?" I asked Ned over my shoulder.
"A couple years now. You're gonna have to mercy me."
"No mercy."
He laughed, then his eyes lit on something behind me, and faltered a little. I turned to see Mary standing at the doorway, taking us in, her mouth turned up just ever so slightly.
"Going for a ride?" She said, her voice jovial. Ned and I looked from her to each other and back.
"Yeah," Ned said, leaning back against the counter. "We were going to meet Billy in town and help him pick out some new reading material." His face was bland, but he seemed uncomfortable.
"Mind if I join?" Mary asked, smiling now. "Sounds like fun."
"We'd love to have you," said Ned, and my heart sank just a little, "but we're biking, and you don't have bike."
"I'll just use the one you used to help me learn," Mary shrugged. I snapped a glance at Ned. Had he never told her it was my bike, or had she forgotten?
"Fawn needs that one, love," said Ned. "And this is kind of a special thing for her and Billy and me," his eyes begged her to understand. I tried to ignore the endearment. Tried to focus on the fact that he was telling her it was just for us.
"Oh. Of course, I'm sorry," Mary shook her head, waving off the awkward moment as if it were a fly. "That was so rude of me! Your brother's here, of course you'd want to do something on your own, Fawn. Ned can just make it up to me later." She winked at Ned. I wanted to melt into a puddle and slip away. She turned, throwing a smile over her shoulder, then left the kitchen, leaving the mood cold behind her.
The silence between Dr Grant and me stretched out. I tapped my fingers on my chair's arm, feeling for the spots where the material gave away to flimsy lining.
"You're coming on a little strong today, you know that?" I said, planting my feet on the floor .
"Am I?" he shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "Sorry about that, Fawn. I'm just one of your many admirers. When I see opportunities for you to be happy, I want you to take them."
"Hold, up, hold up, hold up," Ned called behind me. I braked, then turned, watching him catch up to me.
"You're way better at this than I am," he panted. "I'm so out of shape, it's not even funny."
"I don't know," I said, squinting up at him. "I think it's pretty funny."
"Har de har har. You're hilarious." He watched me for a little longer than was comfortable.
"What?"
"Oh, sorry. I just-I just have something for you." He dug in his jeans, first in his right pocket, then his left. "Haha! Found it!" He pulled a long, silver chain out by its end, dangling it in the sun for a moment before catching it with both hands and presenting it to me.
"Happy birthday, Flannery Calhoun Price."
I took the chain from his hands with both of mine. "You already gave me a present."
"Well, this isn't really a present, per se. It's more of an addendum to Billy's present. He was telling me how bad he felt that you couldn't wear the necklace he gave you, and I thought this would help. I didn't spend any money on it, Scrooge McDuck, I just asked my mom. She was glad to help. She has enough necklaces. Not that she wears any of them."
This chain was small, and finely made. There were no decorative loops or large clasps, as there had been with Henry's gift. I dug Billy's pouch, the one with the pendant, out of my pocket, and looped the clasp through the hook on the first try.
"This one fits perfectly," I said, satisfied. I turned so Ned could clasp it around my neck.
"This one?" He settled the new chain on the back of my neck before taking a step back.
"Oh. Mary gave me a chain, too. From-" I swallowed Henry's name, "from her and the Grants. And it's nice, but it doesn't fit onto the necklace."
"Oh," Ned looked a little uncomfortable now. "That was really thoughtful. Is there a way to make it work? I don't want to usurp her present."
"This one is prettier. I like it better. And it's a better fit," I turned back to my handlebars, not interested in talking about it any more. "Thank you." I smiled at him, the way Mary had smiled at him. Surprised, he grinned in return.
I took off before he could say anything else.
"I am curious, though," said Dr Grant, tapping his pen on the blank paper in front of him.
"About what?"
"You do seem more confident than you did the first time we met with each other. I'm not arrogant enough to take credit for it at all, but it did get me wondering. If you think back to the beginning of the summer to now, do you feel more complete now than you did then? Are you more satisfied with how your life is going?"
I thought back to Billy, holding me while I cried. To Ned winking at me, telling Mary she couldn't come with us. I thought back to Mary calling me a princess and doing my hair. I thought, too of the argument between Henry and Mireille, and the cold look from Nola, and the fairytale dress, the toasts from the people I looked up to. I thought about the cake Ned and Billy had bought for me in town, the one with my name, my real name, written on it in frosting, and exactly eighteen candles. We had eaten it in the park, just the three of us.
And I thought of Susie, home alone with an uncle I had never met. I thought of Mireille, who would never stop hating me, and how she had just that day insisted she and Rush get married as soon as possible. She would blame me forever.
"I am more satisfied," I said, watching as Dr Grant nodded thoughtfully.
I didn't offer any more.
"But?"
A/N: There we go! Sorry it was so damn long in coming (hopefully the extra length makes up for it). My summer is long and empty, and my computer is back, so the next parts shouldn't be so slow. Famous last words?