Beach Girls Read Online Free PDF Page A

to her lips. She stood right there in Stevie's kitchen door, looking as pleased with herself as a small brown wren.
    “You've forgotten that you need to go to the beach more,” Nell said. “Not just before the sun comes up! My goodness, it's dark then! You need sun and waves and hot sand under your feet!”
    “I do, do I?”
    Nell nodded vigorously, earnestly, with such heart that Stevie was more reminded of a small brown wren than ever, and Nell said, “You do! Hot sand!”
    Then Nell thanked her, and they said goodbye, shook hands, and Nell started down the hill. Watching her go, Stevie felt a series of pangs that could not immediately be identified. All she knew was that “goodbye” felt like a very precarious word to end on.
    “And just why do I need hot sand?” she called.
    “Because you're a beach girl!” Nell called, shooting Stevie a wicked, wonderful grin that instantly put Stevie in mind of Emma—the image sent a shiver through her body, down to her knees. Stevie watched the girl make her way down the hill. Tilly came to stand with her by the open door.
    Nell waved once. And then she was gone.
     
    “WHERE WERE YOU?”
Jack asked the minute Nell walked into the cottage. It was small and functional, set up for rentals. Standard-issue duck-covered sofa, two armchairs facing a big TV, Formica table and four chairs, framed generic seascapes.
    “We were about to call out the National Guard,” Francesca said.
    “That would be a big waste of the taxpayers' money,” Nell said.
    “Nell . . .” Jack said warningly. “Be polite.”
    “I'm sorry. ‘Ma'am,' I should've said.”
    Francesca, to her credit, looked amused. “I just adore being called ‘ma'am,'” she said. “How did you know?”
    Nell shrugged. Jack noticed that her knees were all skinned, with two small Band-Aids trying to cover them up. “What happened?” he asked.
    “I took a spill,” Nell said.
    “Who gave you the Band-Aids?”
    “A nice lady.”
    Jack stared at his daughter. When she was mad, she could seethe with the best of them. The news that Francesca was driving down from Boston for tennis and a swim had set something off, and it was still in motion. Jack saw the darkness in his daughter's eyes and wished he could chase it away.
    “Nell. You told Francesca you were going to the beach. We went down to look for you, and you weren't there. Francesca was only half kidding when she said we were going to call out the forces. I was going to give you five more minutes, and then I was dialing 911. You could have drowned, you could have been kidnapped—that's what goes through your old man's mind. So—take it from the top. What nice lady?”
    “A friend of Mom's.”
    Jack stared. He thought he heard Francesca clear her throat: a very polite, quiet “ahem.”
    “How did you happen to run into a friend of Mom's? Mom's family stopped coming here a long time ago.”
    “Some things don't change over time,” Nell said, casting a sidelong glance at Francesca. “
Some
friendships last forever. The
important
ones.”
    “What's the friend's name?”
    “Stevie Moore.”
    “Oh my God!” Francesca said. “The one who writes children's books?”
    Nell nodded. “She was my mother's best friend when they were young.”
    Jack tried to remember Emma's beach friends, but they all blurred together. He had only had eyes for Emma. But Stevie Moore was a familiar name; Emma had had some issue with her books, hadn't wanted Nell to read them.
    “That is just so, so cool,” Francesca said. “I used to
love
her books when I was little. In fact, the one she wrote about birds' nests inspired me to become an engineer, I swear. All those amazing drawings—she made them look like blueprints! Sticks, twigs, scraps of paper, ribbon—when you clean your hairbrush and put the hair on your windowsill, birds take it and weave it into their nests.”
    Jack watched Nell for her reaction, and it came.
    “My mother used to do that,” Nell said. “Brushed