Evvie at Sixteen (19 page)

“Did Sam give anything up?” Sybil asked.

“He gave up part of his defenses,” Evvie replied.

“I wish he'd given up part of his inheritance instead,” Claire said. “But I wouldn't mind giving up part of being in this family. For the right price, that is.”

“It's like Megs,” Thea said. “Giving up being a Winslow to be with Nicky.”

“Sort of,” Evvie said. “A little less dramatic, though. A little less romantic.”

“When I fall in love, it's going to be really romantic,” Thea declared. “There's going to be passion and heartbreak. Like Romeo and Juliet, only nobody's going to die. And there are going to be love letters, too. Lots of them.”

“Sam wrote me a love letter,” Evvie admitted. “He gave it to me before I got on the train this morning.”

“He did?” Thea said. “Let me see it.”

“Come on, Evvie,” Claire said. “Read it out loud.”

Evvie shook her head. “It's private,” she said.

“That's not fair,” Claire said. “Telling us, but not letting us see it.”

“Love isn't fair,” Evvie said. “Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll say hello to our parents.”

“I'll find it, anyway,” Claire shouted after her. “There are no safe secrets in this house.”

Evvie smiled. Even if Claire did find it, she probably wouldn't recognize it as a love letter. Evvie knew it was one, the minute she read it. And it took less than a minute to read.

She dug into her pocket, and found the note Sam had scribbled. It was short, just two complete sentences.

“Dear Evvie,

On our wedding day, I'll call you Eve.

Love,

Sammy Sam Steinmetz Greene

P.S. And you can call me anything you want, except late for dinner.”

Evvie stared at the piece of paper and wished once again that Sam was with her. They had agreed they would see each other over Thanksgiving. Neither one knew how, but they both knew they would. Until then, there would be phone calls and letters, and constant yearning to bind them together.

Evvie found her mother in the kitchen, kneading bread dough. Megs was wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans, with a ratty apron to cover herself. She had a flour smudge on her forehead, and her hair was flying in a hundred different directions. In spite of it, she was the most beautiful woman Evvie had ever seen. And when she smiled, Evvie found she was even more beautiful.

“I felt your homecoming deserved fresh bread,” Meg declared, putting the dough down. “We're having a feast tonight, in your honor.”

“Prodigal daughter returns,” Evvie said, perching on a stool.

“I don't know about the prodigal part,” Meg said. “I missed you so much, Evvie. This summer was the longest I've ever been parted from one of my girls. I know I'm going to have to get used to it, but it really bothered me.”

“I missed you, too,” Evvie said. “Especially staying in your old room, meeting people you used to know. I wanted to share things with you.”

“Eastgate seems like a hundred years ago to me,” Meg said. “It was a lovely town, and I was always glad to be there, but now it hardly has any meaning for me. Nicky and my daughters are what count, not long-ago summers of beach parties and cotillions.”

“Do you ever think about what you gave up?” Evvie asked. “Marrying Nicky instead of someone like Clark?”

Meg shook her head. “There was never a choice,” she said. “I knew as soon as I met Nicky that he was my life. I gather you feel the same way about Sam.”

“It took me a few days more,” Evvie said. She watched as her mother kneaded the dough for another half minute, then put it in a bowl, which she covered with a towel.

“So tell me how Aunt Grace is,” Meg said. “Did the two of you get along all right?”

Evvie laughed. “As well as we could,” she said. “I respect her more than I used to. But I'll never really like her.”

“She's difficult,” Meg said. “Rigid at times. But you always know where you stand with her. She never lies.”

“Do you miss that?” Evvie asked. “Living with someone that honest.”

Meg smiled at her oldest daughter. “How can I miss anything if I have Nicky?” she replied. “Except you, this summer. I could have used your help around the house.”

“You know I'm terrible at that sort of thing,” Evvie said. “And it looks to me like you did a fine job without me.”

“This house will never be what I want it to be,” Meg said. “If we owned it, then I could tear things down, and that would help. But as long as we're stuck with a rental, I can only do so much.”

“It looks a lot nicer than it did before I left,” Evvie said.

“The garden helps enormously,” Meg said. “Just having vases full of flowers brightens things. Nicky's office turned out the best. Have you seen it yet?”

Evvie shook her head. “I went straight to my bedroom,” she said.

“I hate that room,” Meg said. “It's the worst room in the house, and everything I've tried in there has failed.”

“It won't be forever,” Evvie said.

“That's true,” Meg said. “The ski resort deal looks very promising. If it works out, we could be out of here before New Year's.”

Evvie looked at her mother and marveled at her faith in Nicky. Grace's detectives' report hadn't stood a chance. But then, there was nothing she could hear about Sam's life that could stop her from loving him.

“I love you, Megs,” she said. “And I'm glad to be home.”

“I love you, too,” her mother said. “Now go admire Nicky's office. Admire him, too, while you're there.”

“I'll do my best,” Evvie said. She hopped off the stool and gave her mother a kiss. As she walked to Nicky's office, she clutched Sam's note and wished he were there with her. Sam would know what to say to Nicky. He would know what not to say as well.

Megs was right about the office, Evvie found. The room looked great. The shelves were lined with books, all of Nicky's awards were hung or displayed, the windows shone, and through them you could see a garden in full bloom with zinnias and marigolds. Somewhere Megs had found an old desk, which she had stripped and restained until it looked like an heirloom and not a garage-sale find. It reminded Evvie of the desk in Grace's library. She wondered if her mother had thought of that desk as well.

“The room looks better than it did the last time you saw it,” Nick said, walking up to his daughter.

“It does,” Evvie said. Nick had met her at the train station, and she had felt strained being in the car with him, but this was harder, this was worse. “Megs must have worked hard on it all summer.”

“We all did,” Nick replied. “Sybil stripped the desk down. She's very good with her hands. I admire that.”

“I guess she takes after Megs that way,” Evvie said. George Keefer, she thought.

Nick nodded. “Not like you or me,” he replied. “How was Eastgate?”

“It was fine,” Evvie replied. “Very educational.”

“In what way?” Nick asked.

Evvie looked at her father and thought about how little she really knew him. There were years and years of lies between them, and even the truths she'd learned about had gaps. Missing months, missing years. Possible criminal activities. Nicky asked a lot on faith.

She thought then, he knows I know. He's waiting for me to wound him. All I have to do is call him George, or mention that he graduated seventh in his class, and I'll cut him more deeply than he's been hurt in years.

But what difference would it make? Even if she forced him to admit to the truth, he'd only be lying. And there was nothing wrong with a lie, as long as the truth didn't come out.

Besides, she'd promised Nicky she'd love him no matter how her visit to Eastgate went. And he'd extracted that promise from her knowing the risk he was taking, knowing Grace would find some way of telling Evvie everything she thought would disillusion her the most.

“You said it was educational?” Nicky prompted.

“Very,” Evvie replied. “People still remember you in Eastgate. They remember that summer when you and Megs met.”

“What else is there for them to remember?” Nick asked, and Evvie could see the relief in his eyes and maybe even some gratitude. “It's just high and low tides, and the occasional hurricane. I was a phenomenon there, and Daisy was a miracle.”

Evvie smiled at her father. “I fell in love in Eastgate, too,” she said.

“So I've heard,” Nick said. “Care to share the details?”

Evvie gave Sam's note another squeeze. “Relax, Nicky,” she said. “And I'll tell you all about him. I'll tell you all I can.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Sebastian Sisters series

C
HAPTER
O
NE

“What a dump.”

“I wish you'd stop saying that,” Thea Sebastian said to her sister Claire. “You say that about every place we move into.”

“They're all dumps,” Claire replied.

“At least we own this dump,” Sybil Sebastian said. “Have we ever owned our dump before?”

Thea and her two younger sisters turned to their oldest sister, Evvie, aged eighteen and family expert, for the answer. “I think we may have owned one years ago,” she said. “Right before you were born, Claire. But we've rented ever since then.”

“And now we own,” Thea declared. “And Megs will get to really work on the house, turn it into a mansion. You wait and see, Claire.”

“This house will never be a mansion,” Claire replied. “Maybe less of a dump, but no mansion.”

“Think how much better it is than that awful place we had in Harrison,” Evvie said. “A couple of years ago, when we first moved there.”

“The house was awful, but I liked Harrison,” Sybil said. “I don't see why we had to leave there.”

“We left because Nicky thought he could do even better here in Briarton,” Thea said. “And the way Nicky's been going, he's bound to be right.”

“He's on a lucky streak,” Claire said. “It'll never last.”

Thea stared at her sisters. Evvie was two years older than she was; Claire, two years younger; and Sybil, four years younger. Except for Claire, Thea loved them all, almost as much as she loved her parents, Nicky and Megs. Except for Claire, they were the perfect family: close, caring, and full of fun. She wished she could believe Claire was a foundling, some unrelated baby Nicky and Megs had taken in as a misguided act of charity. But while she, Evvie, and Sybil all had Megs's blond coloring and blue eyes, Claire, with her black hair and blazing green eyes, was every inch Nicky's daughter. Not that Claire liked Nicky. Not that Thea liked her.

“I know this house feels like a comedown,” Evvie said. “That last place in Harrison was pretty spectacular.”

“We each had our own room,” Sybil said. “I never had my own room before.”

“But it was a rental,” Evvie continued. “And you know how much it means to Megs to have a real home, a place she can work on. So we share again.”

“That's easy enough for you to say,” Claire replied. “You're going off to college in a week. Then Thea gets the room all to herself. Meanwhile Sybil and I have to share for the rest of our lives. It's so unfair being younger.”

“Sometimes I think everything's unfair,” Sybil said, and Thea turned to pay attention to her. Sybil didn't waste much time complaining.

“We've already explained it to you. Opportunities were better here,” Thea said. “Don't you want Nicky to be real rich again?”

“If that would only happen,” Claire said. “Were we ever really rich, Evvie? Tell us about the richest we ever were.”

Evvie laughed. She curled up on the floor next to her bed, and rested her feet on an unpacked box. “I guess we never were as rich as Aunt Grace or Clark,” she said. “They own their mansions. But once, long ago, Nicky did have a major boom and for a year or so we were wonderfully rich. Then the boom busted. The mansion we lived in vanished, and the servants we had vanished, and the only things we had left were each other and our memories.”

“I don't even have the memories,” Claire complained. “All I ever remember is us being poor and pretending not to be.”

“That's better than being poor and acting like you're poor,” Thea declared. “Besides, we aren't poor now. So stop whining, Claire, and hand me that box.”

“Sometimes I feel like all I ever do is unpack,” Sybil said. “This is our third home in two years. My entire childhood has been spent in a suitcase.”

“Think how I feel,” Evvie said. “I don't know whether I'm packing or unpacking. When we left Harrison, I know I put everything in a deliberate order so I'd remember what I was leaving here, and what I was taking to Harvard. But now it's all a jumble, and I have to start all over again.”