The first time Nona meets Nate, he's wearing a pink sequin dress. His father calls him "Natalie," but Nona has never seen him as anything but a very cute boy who's forced to wear dresses.
Life is about change. It's about adaptation and courage and...
"She makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble making myself love them"
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
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Nate's yard was crowded with people, most of them grown ups. There were a smattering of kids from school, though, Brigid and all her brothers and sisters, the soccer team (because Nate proved to be their star player), and a few other kids from their class who'd figured out what Nona had always known, that he was cool.
The yard was strung up with streamers and balloons. There were three tables of food and drinks, two clowns making balloon animals, painting faces, and doing tricks, and a petting zoo set up under the trees in the corner of the yard.
Nona's eyes had gone wide when they got there. Birthday parties at McDonald's seemed fancy to her; this was like something out of a movie. Suddenly the GI Joe she'd saved to buy him, wrapped in last Sunday's funny papers, seemed too cheap.
"Nona!" he called, jumping up and pulling a woman behind him. "Nona, this is my mom. Mom, this is my best friend, Nona," he said proudly.
His mom was a beautiful woman with tanned skin and a mass of brown curls. Her feet were bare and she was wearing a white cotton sundress that rested about four inches above her knees. There were probably twenty bangle bracelets on her wrists. Leaning down, she cupped her hand on the side of her mouth and whispered, "Julie."
"It's nice to meet you, Ms. Julie."
She chuckled. "Just plain Julie is fine."
Nona had never met an adult like her. "Happy birthday. I got you something," she said sheepishly holding out the box to Nate. I should have bought a bow for the box, she chided herself.
"Well, look who it is!" Mr. Shannon said as he walked up behind Nate and Julie. "How are you, Nona?"
"Very well, thank you, sir," Nona said with a strained smile.
"I see you've met Natalie's mother," he said with a rather tense smile of his own as he nodded at Julie.
Julie dug in the purse that was slung on her shoulder, drawing out a pack of Marlboro Reds. Turning the box upside down she struck it on the heel of her hand a couple of times before she flicked the lid open and drew a cigarette out, tucking it in her lips. She dropped the pack in her purse and dug for a lighter.
"I wish you wouldn't do that around our daughter," Mr. Shannon said with a sneer as he watched her light up and take a long drag.
Julie turned her head away from them and blew a long stream of smoke before she turned back to him and said, "There's an awful lot I wish you wouldn't do around our kid, too, but those are the breaks." There was a challenge glinting in her eyes, which were fixed on him, but then she turned towards Nate, her face friendly and sweet again as she took his hand and said, "Hey, why don't you go show me and Nona this new tree house you were telling me about before she got here. I can't remember the last time I was in a tree house."
