Hazel shrugs. “I have great balance.” She makes a graceful, unattainable movement with her arms. “I used to be a gymnast.” She smiles even more broadly at Claire—there are elastics too, in the very back of her mouth, bright green—and says, “I like your Hogwarts T-shirt.”
Matty watches Claire pull the word out of herself carefully, like a shard of glass from skin: “Thanks.”
“I love Harry Potter,” says Hazel.
“No you don’t,” says Claire. “There’s no way. You’re—how old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
“Older than you,” Claire tells Matty pointedly, unnecessarily. Then, turning back to Hazel: “So you’re too old for Harry Potter.”
“I haven’t always been thirteen,” says Hazel. “Once I was your age, and I loved Harry Potter. All the way until sixth grade I loved Harry Potter. In fact I still do. I just don’t tell everyone, that’s all. I only tell people who will understand.”
Claire presses her lips together and looks closely at Hazel. “Are you wearing makeup?” she demands.
Hazel laughs and says, “A little. Are you?”
Claire looks shocked. “No,” she says. “I’m seven. I’m not allowed.”
“Maybe someday you can use some of mine,” says Hazel. “When nobody is looking.”
Claire shrugs and tries not to feel tempted.
Hazel sits on one of the wide flat rocks and puts a hand in the water. “I might go for a swim,” she says. “Anyone want to join?”
“No thank you,” says Claire virtuously, not saying that she’s not allowed to swim without permission from a grown-up, and that she isn’t about to go ask Pauline.
“I’ll go with you!” says Matty, scrambling to his feet. His face feels warm under Hazel’s cool and appraising glance.
“We haveplans,Matty,” says Claire. “Remember?” They’re supposed to play Egyptian Rat Screw, and they’re supposed to spy on Pauline, and they’re supposed to work on the jigsaw puzzle with the three sailboats that they have dumped out on the puzzle table in the living room. (They’ve found only three out of the four corners so far!)
“We can do our plans later,” says Matty. “We have all day. They won’t be back for hours.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” asks Hazel.
“Our mom and our granny and our sister,” says Matty.
“She’s ten,” says Claire. “And shelikesmuseums.”
“I like museums,” says Hazel.
“Me too,” says Matty.
Claire rolls her eyes so hard they feel like they might pop out of her head. “I have things to do inside,” says Claire, kicking angrily at a rock.
She stomps across the rocks, slipping once then righting herself, and marches all the way up to the house. Matty watches her tiny angry body cross the porch and go in through the sliding door. He should go after her, but he can’t. Hazel is a Nashville sun, and he’s a planet, caught in her orbit.
15.
Louisa
A day after the visit to the Farnsworth Louisa gets home from picking up the mail at the post office and sees an unfamiliar car in the driveway. She plonks her keys on the table in the front hallway and says, “Hello?” Her father’s study door is closed. Otis comes galloping in from somewhere, tail wagging. “Mom?” says Louisa.
“In here.” Annie’s voice is coming from the dining room. She’s sitting on her cross-stitch bench.
“Where is everyone? Who’s here?”
Annie tips her head toward the water. “Kids, out there.” She peers closely at her cross-stitch and frowns. “Pauline, grocery shopping. Danny is working on the retaining wall around back, you know that one that’s been falling down for ages? Barbara is finishing up some of your father’s laundry. And Nina Dawson is here, visiting your father. They’re in his study.” Annie is like Keith Lockhart minus the sweat; she’s got no instrument to play herself,and yet without the flow of her batons the entire orchestra would come to a halt.
