The bedroom door opened and Maggy came in and flopped down on her bed.
“Chantelle wants to know if you can bring me over for my sleepover tonight, and then stay and have sushi with us. Micki is going to be there, too. She said it would be cool to meet you, since me and Annabelle are so tight.”
“I agree, and I enjoyed talking to her this week, but I’m just going to ask Chantelle for a rain check,” Riley said, putting on a pair of beaded tassel earrings.
“What’s a rain check?”
“It means I’ll ask her if we can have sushi another night, because I already have plans for this evening,” Riley said.
“Oh.” Maggy’s face twisted into her all-too-familiar scowl. “I guess you’re getting all fixed up for your boyfriend.”
“I’m seeing Nate tonight,” Riley said carefully. She sat down at the dressing table and smoothed moisturizer over her cheeks and forehead. “Parrish and I are riding to the ferry together, but I’m sure we can drop you off at Annabelle’s first.”
“Never mind,” Maggy said. “I’ll just ride my bike over there, since you’re way too busy worrying about your love life.”
“I said I’d take you,” Riley said.
“Don’t even bother pretending that you care about me, Mom. I know you only care about yourself. And you know what? I wish Dad was alive and you were the dead person.”
Riley jumped up from the stool. Maggy had been surly all week, even more so since Wendell’s service, but it dawned on her that this kind of unusually outrageous behavior could be a symptom that her blood sugar was out of whack.
She touched the back of her hand to her daughter’s cheek.
“Maggy, when did you last eat? Did you take your insulin?”
“Did you take your birth control?” Maggy asked in a singsongy voice.
Riley sat down on the bed. “This isn’t funny,” she said sternly, grabbing her daughter’s wrist. “Tell me what time you ate, what you had, and when you last tested your blood sugar. Or else you won’t be spending the night at Annabelle’s. Tonight or ever.”
“I had a sandwich and some carrots at two. And I took my insulin. And I had my snack and some apple juice a little while ago and checked my blood sugar.” She yanked away from her mother. “As if you care.”
Riley stared down at this strange creature who’d taken over her sweet, fun-loving daughter’s body. “When did you turn into such a mean, hateful girl?”
“Right around the same time you turned into a bitchy, slutty mom,” Maggy countered, hopping off the bed and heading for the bedroom door.
“Nothing you can say to me is going to change the way I feel about Nate,” Riley said. “Where’s your backpack? Before you go to Annabelle’s, I want to make sure you’ve packed your kit and your juice boxes and cheese crackers.”
She followed Maggy into her bedroom and her daughter flung the bag directly at her face. “Here!”
She opened the backpack. Riley saw the purple nylon case holding Maggy’s supplies. She unzipped it and checked the cold pack, the insulin, the blood-testing supplies and syringes. She closed the case and replaced it in the bag, noting that along with her daughter’s clothes and iPod, there was a plastic bag packed with juice boxes and packages of cheese crackers.
“Satisfied?” Maggy asked, snatching the bag out of Riley’s hands.
“Margaret, don’t push your luck with me,” Riley said. “Or you might never leave this house for the rest of the summer.”
“Whatever.”
* * *
She found Evelyn in the kitchen, warming up a plate of leftovers in the microwave. “Maggy just left to spend the night at Annabelle’s,” she reported. “I did talk to the mother this week. She sounds very nice. She knows all about Maggy’s diabetes. I checked Maggy’s bag, and she has her kit and everything she needs. I’m having dinner with Nate, and I don’t know what time I’ll be home.”
Evelyn shrugged and turned back to the microwave.
“Good night, Mama,” she said. She was standing on the porch waiting when Parrish pulled around on the golf cart.
“You look cute,” her friend said.
“I don’t feel cute,” Riley reported. “I’m exhausted from fighting with Maggy and getting the silent treatment from Mama. Earlier, I was so excited about the prospect of seeing Nate, I felt like a teenager getting ready for the prom but, right now, I honestly don’t know if I have the energy for all this drama.”
“Hang in there, Riles,” Parrish said. “You can’t let those two wear you down. That’s what they want.”
“I know, but…”
“Stop right there,” Parrish commanded. “No more buts. And here’s a word of parenting advice. I know everybody thinks David was a saint, but I still remember what he was like as a middle-schooler. Let me tell you, as a mother, it was the worst time of my life. People think two-year-olds are bad? And teenagers are toxic? No. Tweens are absolutely the worst. And girl tweens are the worst of the worst. All you can do is try to stay sane and wait ’em out. In another year or so, we’ll have our dear sweet Maggy back again.”
“God, I hope so,” Riley said. “But all this angsting has me wondering if I’m cut out for this single-mom dating thing.”
“Don’t think of it as dating,” Parrish advised. “Think of it as sampling.”
* * *
She stood just outside the arrivals area trying not to look as nervous and apprehensive as she felt. Parrish squeezed her hand. “Butterflies?”
“Huge butterflies,” Riley said. “My pulse is racing. I feel like I might throw up.”
“Must be love,” Parrish said.
“It’s so strange to be standing here, waiting for somebody who isn’t Wendell to get off the ferry,” Riley confided. “I must have stood right in this spot a couple hundred times, waiting for him to get here on Friday nights or Saturday mornings, and I can’t ever remember feeling this jumpy. Do you ever feel this way, waiting for Ed to arrive?”
“Not in a while,” Parrish admitted. “But maybe it’s because I’ve been with Ed for so long, I know what to expect. I know he’ll kiss me, and no matter how I look, he’ll tell me I’m gorgeous.”
“Wendell hadn’t told me anything like that in a long time,” Riley said sadly.
“Then he’ll ask me how my week was, and tell me he missed me,” Parrish said.
“Wendell just wanted to know what was for dinner and if I’d remembered to make his tee time at the club,” Riley said.
Parrish pointed toward the horizon. The Carolina Queen was chugging toward them. “Don’t look now, but here comes your date.” She gave Riley a gentle shove. “Go on up and meet him at the gate. Give him a thrill.”
* * *
Nate was one of the first ones off the ferry. Maybe that was a perk of ownership, Riley told herself. But then she saw the broad smile on his face as he adjusted the strap of his carry-on bag and walked directly toward where she was standing, a few yards apart from the rest of the islanders waiting for their arrivals.