The Gazebo. Kimberly Cates

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СКАЧАТЬ you’ll never guess what Miss Wittich picked for the senior play.”

      The drama teacher had kept her selection under wraps for weeks, leaving her students on tenterhooks—perfect leverage to keep restless seniors from going bonkers in class. Of course, it had also put Emma through the tortures of the damned. The girl couldn’t help but hope the fact she was the best actress Whitewater High had ever seen would win her the lead. But the rest of the students made no secret that homecoming queen, cheerleader and Emma’s longtime nemesis Brandi Bates was a shoo-in for top billing. Considering small-town politics, Deirdre was sure they were right.

      “Don’t tell me. Sound of Music? Oklahoma?”

      Emma had been dreading some lightweight musical ever since last year’s performance of Bye Bye Birdie. “Nope. Not a singing nun in sight.”

      “If it were up to me I’d have your class do The Crucible,” Deirdre said, still stinging from the jabs Brandi and her crowd had dealt Emma over the years. “Explore the dangers of a pack of nasty girls gossiping in a small town. It might make some of those little bi—uh, witches stop and think.”

      Emma gave her a quick hug. “I quit caring what they thought about me years ago.”

      If only Deirdre could believe it. She could remember all too well how it felt to be different, an outsider looking in. “You know, not one of those girls is even half as wonderful as you.”

      “Yeah, well, you’re not exactly an impartial judge. But Miss Wittich is and—You’re getting me all off track! I’m trying to tell you about the play. We’re doing the most brilliant, most wonderful, most amazing play ever written.” Emma paused for dramatic effect. “Romeo and Juliet!”

      “Romeo and Juliet?” Deirdre gave a snort of disgust. “Is your teacher out of her mind? Stuffing hormone-crazed kids’ heads with romantic nonsense—glorifying sex, defying one’s parents and committing suicide. Teenagers generally screwing up their lives. That play should come with a warning from the surgeon general.”

      “My mother, the last of the great romantics.” Emma rolled her eyes. “When was the last time you went on a date?”

      “When was the last time Mel Gibson was in town? Oops, he’s married. Guess I’m out of luck. Besides, one die-hard romantic in the family is enough. You got your uncle Cade married off. Be happy with that.”

      Happy? She’d never believed it possible for a McDaniel to be that happy. With his adoring wife, five-year-old twins and another baby on the way, Cade’s life was damned near perfect. At least until the patient from hell had moved into the spare bedroom. Their seventy-six-year-old father who’d broken his hip tackling some kid who’d snatched a teenage girl’s purse.

      Damned embarrassing, the Captain had grumbled, to find out the kids involved were brother and sister, just horsing around. Deirdre almost managed to smile at the memory of the crotchety old buzzard blushing to the roots of his thick, iron-gray hair. And yet she couldn’t stop the ache in her chest. His injury had changed everything.

      “Mom, don’t you ever get lonely?” Emma asked.

      “With you around? Never.”

      “But I won’t be around forever. After Christmas—”

      Emma had been hovering over the mailbox for weeks now, waiting to see if she’d won early admission to the drama school she’d dreamed of since she’d gone to theater camp there last year. Truth was, Deirdre dreaded Emma leaving, yet was anxious to get her out of this dead-end town. High school and its dangers had terrified Deirdre, but Emma had a good head on her shoulders. She was way too smart to get trapped the way her mother had.

      That said, maybe it still wasn’t such a bad thing that Brandi would be the one to do the whole balcony gig. “The nurse is a great character part,” Deirdre said, trying to sound sympathetic. “You’ll be brilliant.”

      “I’ll be brilliant all right. But not as the nurse.” Emma shone and Deirdre’s heart tripped. “Miss Wittich says I’m the most perfect Juliet she’s seen in thirty years of teaching!”

      Oh, God. A perfect Juliet? That’s exactly what Deirdre was afraid of. Emma glowed with innocent passion, stubbornly determined to race into the world with open arms, not knowing how badly life could hurt her.

      “Aren’t you going to say something? Like congratulations?”

      “I’m just…I thought Brandi…everyone was so sure she was going to get the lead.”

      Emma grinned with pardonable triumph, considering all the times Brandi had lorded it over the less popular kids. “Man, is she ticked. Her boyfriend, Drew Lawson, is Romeo. And I get to kiss him on stage!”

      Deirdre’s nerves tightened. “A little less enthusiasm, please.”

      “Oh, Mom, it’s just acting. But he is gorgeous in a soulful, Orlando Bloom kind of way.”

      “That’s just great.” Couldn’t Wittich have done something revolutionary? Like cast some shy, pimpled computer geek who wouldn’t make Emma’s cheeks turn pink with anticipation?

      “Uncle Cade said it’s too bad Grandma isn’t around to hear my news. He says Romeo and Juliet was her very favorite play in the whole world. Is that true?”

      Deirdre stifled a frown. “That sounds about right.”

      Their mother had loved all that star-crossed lover junk, sobbing her way through movies like West Side Story time after time as if the tragic endings sneaked up on her totally unexpectedly to bite her in the butt.

      “Mom, what was Grandma like?”

      “Perfect.” The word slipped out before she could stop it. Emma shot her a puzzled frown. “I mean, she was one of those women who gardened in a house dress long after other moms had changed to jeans. She liked more…old-fashioned things. Like floppy straw hats and china teacups and frilly dresses on little girls.”

      Deirdre remembered the look of horror on her mother’s face when Deirdre mutinied against Emmaline’s dress code. Deirdre had taken her mother’s sewing shears and dragged out a pair of Cade’s old jeans. Hacking the legs off so the frayed hem hit below her knee, Deirdre had threaded one of the Captain’s neckties through the belt loops, then tied it tight around her far-narrower waist. After all, she couldn’t climb up to the tree house in a stupid dress.

      “Do you think Grandma Emmaline would like me?” Emma asked, a wistful light in her eyes.

      “Absolutely.” Deirdre tried to ignore the twist of pain in her chest. “She would have adored having someone to share teacups and poetry with.” Maybe the fact that Deirdre had produced such a granddaughter would have redeemed her a little in her mother’s eyes.

      Deirdre felt a jab of envy, reluctant to share any of Emma’s love, even in her imagination.

      “Am I like her?”

      “No,” Deirdre said flatly. Then more softly, “Yes. In some ways. But you’re stronger than my mother was. She always seemed as if she were waiting for something bad to happen.”

      “I wish I’d gotten a chance to know her. I asked the Captain about her. His face got all stiff and sad when I mentioned her, just СКАЧАТЬ