Six. To being a favorite daughter, but also under a knife. (Are you the man?)
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Today is scorching, which isn't unusual for an island like Outer Banks. Today though, it seems a bit unbearable for almost everyone.
Theo's antsy, sweaty, and at the Country Club. She doesn't like to come here much like she use to—her mother's dead, incase you forgot, and their fish and chips do not taste as good as they did when she was a kid. She's older. Things have changed. Obviously.
A virgin Pina Colada sits just at her finger tips on their round table by the pool. There's an opened baby yellow umbrella above them. It hides the killer sun beam, but the air hugging them is still humid and sticky. It sticks to them, a human flesh eating bacteria.
Tyler slouches back in his chair, his head leaned back with shades covering his baby blues. His arms are folded over his chest. The blond baby hairs around his hairline are glued to his skin. He's as silent as the dead. If Theo weren't Theo, she'd think he's sleeping—but she is Theo and knows her brother. He would never be so careless in a public setting with all his little sisters around his ribs. Behind those shades, his eyes are open—watching, waiting.
He's like that. Big brother.
Abigail is sitting next to him. She's picking at a cherry, pecan salad. She ever only seems to eat leaves. She has sun glasses pushed into her hair above her head. Her blond hair is up thrown into a bun, baby hairs also sticking to the back of her neck from the heat. She's talking, when is she not. Theo is barely paying attention. Her sister's voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard right now—it's the heat, it makes Theodora unbearable. She's not usually this harsh, I think. "I mean, do you think they'll ask anyone to go on the trip with them?"
"They ask Stevie each year," Talia peeps in. It's not malicious, she's never been mean a day in her life. She's simply stating a fact.
Theo glares at their chips, her skin tacky. The fans by the bar are working over time, and it's not enough still. There's children splashing in the pool to their side. Teenage girls laying in small kini's on pool loungers, killing their skin with sun for a good tan. Theo wonders, for a second, if Tyler's looking at any of those loungers from under his shades. He's still a boy.
Abigail's talking about their father and his wife. Each time around this year they do a trip away from the island for a little—somewhere cooler, away from the heat. When the kids had been younger, Rich use to call it a work trip, and everyone would be stuck with Becca across the street. Stevie doesn't remember those days much, but if you were to ask Sandra (and Mace) they would remember those days crystal clear. There was something good about Becca Verona, her mother's baby yellow house, her stepfather, the colors she wore, the muffins she made, the songs she'd sing, the baths she'd throw, the pool days she let happen at the most inconvenient times, and everyone knew it—that was the problem. She also had no use watching kids that weren't hers—but she did it. Because she was good. She loved children.
