Chapter 252

“Was that just right, Uncle Andy?” Billie beamed, all brilliant smiles. “You can be Aladdin.” She wormed her way under Andy’s arm until she was sitting in his lap, arms around his neck. “And Uncle Scooter can be the sultan, and…he can be Jafar, except he needs a beard to be all twisted.”

Scooter and Simon exchanged a look, disturbingly identical. “I’m gonna go with having no clue what she’s talking about. You?”

“I confess to general ignorance in this matter as well,” Simon responded. He stood up, lean and graceful. “Come along, princess. Let us go out of doors before your Aladdin gets us forcibly removed from the library premises. And we will discuss what has been decided if you would like?”

Billie nodded, hopped down. “C’n we get a Slurpee?” She looked down at her clothes, then said, “Huh. I’m wearing red today. Guess that means I like you best.” And she grabbed Simon’s hand, batting her eyelashes at him like she was flirting. “Tall, dark…and handsome…”

“Oh God that’s terribly disturbing,” Andy said, shuddering. He followed them toward the doors. “Don’t worry, princess, I’m coming to rescue you.”

“Well, he’s obviously not the Genie, Uncle Andy,” she said, grabbing his hand as well.

Scooter came up on Andy’s far side, resting his arm around Andy’s waist and hooking a thumb through Andy’s belt loop. They had to shift just a little to get through the door, the four of them walking together, but there was a noticeable reluctance on everyone’s part to let go. 23

Aunt Dani looked pretty in her dress. Billie didn’t think she’d ever seen Aunt Dani in anything but her jeans, boots, and black leather jacket. She was busy talking to Uncle Andy about the horrible traffic around North Carolina because of an accident, but Billie didn’t much care. She was holding onto her aunt’s wrist, trying to drag her up the stairs to show off her new bedroom.

Uncle Andy and Uncle Scooter had spent about a week redecorating it just the way Billie wanted, while she slept in the guest room across the hall. It had finally been finished just two days ago, and she was eager to show it off.

Uncle Andy had built a whole bunk bed like a spaceship, complete with control panels. Uncle Jason had come in and painted several pretend-windows that looked over planets and starscapes. Her stuffed animals and toys were packed away neatly in their cryo-pods and her closet was now the airlock.

“Howard,” Aunt Dani said, her arms crossed, eyebrow lifted. “Overboard much?”

“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing,” Uncle Andy said. “Besides, it was fun.”

“Look, look, loooook, Aunt Dani,” Billie insisted, dragging her over to show off the control panel under her bed where she could steer her space ship to Mars. The bay window had been totally redone until it was her escape pod.

She pulled out her Build-a-Bear in his scrubs, facemask around his neck. “And this is Dr. Bear. He comes with me to Mars.”

“Mars, huh?” Aunt Dani said. “What do you do on Mars? Are there Martians to play with?”

“Sometimes,” Billie said. She tucked Dr. Bear under her arm. “An’ sometimes, sometimes they’re bad, and they shoot people. It’s very bad to get a hole in your space suit.” She dragged Dr. Bear’s kit out from under the bed. “But it’s okay. Dr. Bear carries the best space stuff ever.”

“Yeah, a hole in the space suit sounds bad,” Aunt Dani agreed, crouching down beside her. “What kind of space stuff does he have?”

Triumphant, Billie yanked the spool of silver tape out of the bag. “Duct tape!It’s like the Force; light side, dark side. Holds the universe together.”

“That is definitely Andy’s fault,” Uncle Scooter said. He was laughing, though. Uncle Andy made a face at him.

“Sonic Screwdriver.” Billie pulled it out of Dr. Bear’s bag. “Tricorder. And…moon ice cream!”

“I think Uncle Andy is mixing his TV shows,” Aunt Dani observed. “But that is some pretty cool stuff.”

“Her dad tried to talk her into having a princess room instead, with ice-castles and whatnot,” Uncle Scooter said. “But, no, she’s decided she’s going to be an astronaut.”

“Or a vet’rinarian,” Billie said. “Haven’t made up my mind. Both of ‘em take a lot of school, Uncle Andy said. Lots. Like years an’ years.” Billie wasn’t sure why she needed another ten years of school, much less college and grad…gradju? Whatever. More school. She already knew all the math stuff.

“He may yet commission a princess room at his place,” Uncle Andy put in. “I’m trying to get him to approach his dad about setting off some of the hotel suites and re-doing them as themes, but he’s stalling.” Uncle Andy shrugged. “I think it’d be awesome. I’d totally pay extra for a hotel room that feels like it’s underwater, or on a cruise ship.”

“Grampa would do it,” Billie said. “He’s like Santa Claus. I mean, this is his summer home, an’ all. But just like him, Aunt Dani.” Billie had been scared about meeting more family, but her Uncle Mark was fun. Nana Johannson was as different from Grandmama as anyone could be, baking cookies and playing dolls with her, and building sandcastles. So Billie had decided more family was okay.

Uncle Andy made a funny snorting noise. “Yeah, okay. You done showing your Aunt Dani your spaceship? Ready to go downstairs and see if your party guests have started to show up yet?”

Billie huffed. If Kendra was here, she’d just come up. She rolled her eyes at Uncle Andy, then very carefully put Dr. Bear back into the escape pod, in case he needed to get away really fast. “Okay. C’n I have a cupcake early? It’s my birthday.”

Uncle Scooter shook his head. “We’ve gone over this more than once now. Cupcakes after lunch. Otherwise you’ll just fill up on frosting, and I want to sleep eventually.”

Billie thought about demanding, but Uncle Scooter was pretty strict about dessert was after food. And Aunt Kat wasn’t here to take her side. Besides, she heard a car pulling into the lot, which meant someone elsewas here.

One thing Mom had forgotten to tell her about Sandbridge was that she would see her friends during the summer. Everyone lived so close. She saw Kendra and Chandra an’ even Michael, almost every day.

Kendra was already on the steps when Billie opened the door. She had a pretty orange princess dress on and a present in a bag.

“Billieeeee!” Kendra yelled, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Lookit lookit lookit my new dress!”

“Very pretty,” Billie said. She touched the ruffles; they were pretty, too. She glanced at the present, trying to be sly. “Is that for me?”

“No opening presents until everyone is here!” Uncle Scooter called down from the balcony.

Billie rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out, making Kendra laugh. “C’mon, there’s a place t’ put them inside.” She grabbed Kendra’s hand and they ran into Dockside. Aunt Kat was already in there.

She gave them a startled look when the door opened and stuffed the cupcake she was biting into her mouth to hide it. It didn’t work very well. She made shhhhhh faces and gestures, then tore another cupcake in two and gave half to each of them, chewing rapidly. “Go, go, go out the front, girls, I won’t tell,” she said, stashing the cupcake wrapper in her pocket.

Aunt Kat was the best. Kendra dropped the present on the table and the two of them ran out the front door to the porch to eat their stolen cupcake.

Kendra licked the icing off the top of hers. “Who’s that lady with your dads? Is that your mom?”

Billie sighed. “No. My mom’s gone. She died,” Billie reminded Kendra. She climbed up onto the barstool and looked out at the ocean. “That’s Mom’s best friend, my Aunt Dani. She’s a p’leeceman. She does ‘vestigating an’ sometimes she gets thrown out windows. My mom used to stitch up her cuts. Mom was a nurse.”

“Oh, yeah. I ‘member you told me about your mom.” Kendra licked some more frosting off her thumb. “She kinda looks like you, though. Her hair’s long an’ dark, too.”

“Mom says—said. Mom said, when I’s born, Aunt Dani was th’ first person who held me, ‘cause she was there, an’ no one else.” The ocean was pretty today, all frothy waves, like bubble bath. Her Grampa had told her a story about the ocean an’ how the first horses had come out of the waves. Grampa knew a lot of stories, an’ his big voice was good for telling them.

“You have lotsof fam’ly now, tho,” Kendra said. “That’s kinda cool.”

“Yeah,” Billie said. “I have my dads. And then there’s my dad. An’ Aunt Kat and Uncle Jason, an’ Jeff, who’s not my uncle, he says not. He can be th’ black sheeps. And Grandmama, and Grampa and Nana and Uncle Mark an’…yeah.” She put her arm around Kendra, who leaned into her. She’d finally figured out the touching rule. Friends who said it was okay were for touching. And family. She had a lot of family.

Billie could hear other guests arriving; her Uncle Mark’s booming laughter was a dead giveaway. She stole one last look at the ocean. “Let’s go inside an’ see ever’one.”

Sandbridge…Sandbridge wasn’t so bad after all.