Page 108 of Just One Look

Piper said, “I’m staying with Mum for a bit. Just until I’m back on my feet again,” she hurried to add, like Elizabeth would judge her. “So you’d see both of us. All of us.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth said, trying to ignore the cowardly sinking of her heart. She’d wanted to ease into this. “Well … that’s good, then, right? Just tell me what to get for dinner, and we can be spontaneous.”

Piper hesitated again. “Mum’ll have dinner made. It’s a ferry ride. About forty minutes.”

“You know,” Elizabeth said, “if you don’t want me to come, you can say so. We can … get a coffee another time, maybe. I have days off here.”

Piper looked at her oddly, and Elizabeth said, “Or not. I’m not nearly as much of a jerk anymore, though. I promise. But I’ve come to realize that I often do things I don’t want to, because I don’t think I have the right to say no. I don’t want to make you feel that way. So—you can say no.”

Except for sleeping with your ex-boyfriend, anyway, I’m not a jerk.How was that going to go over?

“No,” Piper said, and Elizabeth jerked back, thought,Oh. OK,and tried to ignore the heat behind her eyes and the hole in her stomach. Piper went on, “I didn’t mean that.Not ‘No, I don’t want to see you.’ Just … don’t you normally have days off?”

“Not so much. Not in the States.”

“Oh,” Piper said. “I thought that was just your dad, being, being, uh …”

“Unavailable?” Elizabeth said. “Probably that, too. How do you think I learned it?”

Piper looked at her watch, which was, of course, a pretty, dainty little rose-gold item. “I need to hurry if I’m going to catch the ferry. Are you good to go?”

Elizabeth thought about her parking meter and consigned the inevitable ticket to the Family-Restitution Fund. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”

* * *

It wasn’t exactlya fun-catch-up ferry ride. Piper said, when they were on board, “If you go to the bow on the upper deck, you may see dolphins. I remember you liked that when you were here before.”

It took a moment to recognize that this was Piper being socially skilled again, and that what she wasreallysaying was, “I don’t want to make stilted small talk for forty minutes, and I want to call my mum and warn her, and possibly talk about you.”

Right, then. Elizabeth went upstairs and out to the bow, pulled her inadequate jacket around her against the wind until she was a frozen icicle, and, finally,didsee dolphins, in the fading light of dusk. First one gray, streamlined shape, flying just under the surface of the dark water like a shadow, and then more. Six of them, finally, and when they began leaping through the bow wake, looking so joyful, her heart lifted.

It couldn’t be that bad, if there were dolphins. Dolphins said,Do it now. Take the chance. Live like it’s the only day you have.She thought about her patient this afternoon and how he might stand here in a year or so and hold his daughter up to see the dolphins. She’d bet that would be enough for him on that day, even if he didn’t have many more.

She hoped he got to do it. Shehadliked him. Why couldn’t she say that she liked him?

Her phone rang. Nyree. She answered, but couldn’t hear her over the engines and shouted, “Hang on. Ferry. Going inside,” and then, “I’m here,” as she found a seat on the upper deck, cravenly grateful that Piper wasn’t up here. “And absolutely frozen. I was watching dolphins.”

“Where are you off to?” Nyree asked. “Marko said you were working today.”

“I am. I was. Someplace called Wai-something. Can’t remember.”

“Waiheke?” Nyree asked.

“That was the one.”

“Oh,” Nyree said. “Marko said you were with Luka, so I thought …”

“Oh. I was. I am. Maybe. I mean, I was, uh …” What was she, seventeen? “I was, last night,” she said. “But who knows.”

“Lastnight?”Nyree said. “Thought his neck was buggered.”

“Well, yes, it was.” Medical. She could be medical. “We took precautions to keep his neck stable.”

“Oh. Betthatwas interesting. But you’re not with him tonight.”

“Well, no. I’m not.”

“Sex no good, then?” Nyree asked. “Huh. I assumed he’d be more like Marko, and there’s nobody better. Your advice was excellent, by the way, so cheers for that. Marko’d say cheers as well, but he can be surprisingly gentlemanly at times, so probably not.”