but you gotta live, right?"
Julie Cutter crunched into the shiny green apple she'd plucked out of
the fruit bowl in Grace's kitchen. She felt every bit as much at home
there as she did next door. Comfortable, she hitched herself up to sit
on the counter while Grace folded laundry on the table.
"Plus," Julie went on, gesturing with her apple, "I met this incredibly
cute guy. He works at the computer store at the mall? He wears these
little metal-frame glasses and has the sweetest smile." She grinned,
lighting up her pretty heart-shaped face. "I asked him for his phone
number, and he blushed."
"You asked him for his phone number?" Grace was listening with only half
an ear. She loved it when Julie came over just to visit. She was always
so full of fun and talk and energy. But today it was hard to
concentrate. Her mind was so full of what had happened between her and
Ethan in those shady woods. What had leapt out of him to devour her--and
why it had left him so distant afterward?
"Sure." Julie cocked her head, her brown eyes full of humor. "Didn't you
ever ask a guy out? Come on, Grace, we're at the dawn of the next
millennium here. Most of them really like it when the woman takes the
initiative. Anywaya" She shook back her long fall of straight-as-a-pin
brown hair. "Jeff did--the sexy computer nerd? He got all flustered at
first, but then he gave it to me, and when I called him I could tell he
was happy about it. So we're going out Saturday, but I have to break up
with Don first."
"Poor Don," Grace murmured, and glanced over absently as Aubrey knocked
over the block tower she'd been building, then applauded its
destruction.
"Oh, he'll get over it." Julie shrugged. "It's not like he's in love
with me or anything. He's just used to having a chick."
Grace had to smile. A few months earlier, Julie had been wild about Don,
rushing over to tell Grace every detail of their dates. Or, Grace
suspected, at least an edited version of their dates. "You told me Don
was the one."
"He was." Julie laughed. "For a while. I'm not ready for the only one
yet."
Grace went to the refrigerator to pour the three of them a drink. At
Julie's age--nineteen--she'd been pregnant, married, and worried about
paying bills. She was only three years older than Julie, but it might as
well have been three hundred. "You're right to look around, to be sure."
She handed Julie a glass, held her gaze for a moment. "To be careful."
"I'm careful, Grace," Julie assured her, touched. "I'd like to be
married one day. Especially if it means having a baby as beautiful as
Aubrey. But I want to finish college, then see some of the world. Doa
things," she added, gesturing widely. "I don't want to find myself tied
down, changing diapers and working at some dead-end job because I let
some guy talk me intoa"
She trailed off, suddenly and sincerely appalled at herself. Eyes huge
and apologetic, she slid off the counter. "God, I'm sorry. I can be so
thick sometimes. I didn't mean that you--"
"It's all right." She gave Julie's arm a quick squeeze. "That's exactly