Finding Colin Firth: A Novel (33 page)

“You sure I can’t convince you to stay?” he asked, running a hand down her back.

“I should go,” she said. “See you soon?”

“Can’t be soon enough,” he said, and gave her a kiss good-bye to remember.

Maddy Echols was ten minutes late for her first tutoring session. Bea would give her twenty minutes, then leave. She sat at a square table in the Quiet Room of the Boothbay Harbor library,
trying not to think about what she’d learned about Tyler—and possibly Maddy. Shaking down Maddy’s biological mother for money? Could it be true? Tyler did seem to care about Maddy, but he’d also shown himself to be a jerk who couldn’t bother to be civil.

A minute later, Maddy poked her head in, and Bea could see she was annoyed that Bea was there.

“You were hoping I’d given up on you, huh?” Bea asked.

Maddy smiled. “Kinda.”

“Well, I need the money. And you need to pass this class. So sit your tush down and let’s talk
To Kill a Mockingbird.
”

Maddy noisily sighed, dropped her backpack on the table, and sat down.

“You have to write an essay?” Bea asked.

Maddy nodded. “I have to pick one of four quotations from the book that supposedly means something to me and write a five-page typed essay on what the quote means, using more quotes from the book, at least five.” She started writing her name in pen on her palm.

Bea halted the pen. “Let’s see the four quotes.”

“I already picked one, actually. That was the easy part.”

“That’s great. Read it to me.” If she’d chosen a quote, Bea’s job wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d feared. Often the students she tutored at the Writing Center didn’t look at the assignment until they were forced to by her.

Maddy pulled a sheet of paper from her binder. “This is from Atticus Finch. I think he’s the father of the kid who narrates the book? Okay, here it is. ‘I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but
you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.’ It’s the longest quote of the four and I totally get it.”

Bea was encouraged. “Tell me what it means to you, since that’s part of the assignment—to choose a quote that means something to you.”

“Well, when I first read all the quotes, I was, like, boring, boring,
bor-ing
. And then I got to this one, and it reminded me of something that happened last year.”

“Can you tell me about it?” Bea asked.

Maddy bit her lip and looked away, glancing at Bea every now and then. “I’m adopted, and my brother—Tyler—helped me look up my birth mother, but she wrote back that she didn’t want contact and that it was her right and please not to contact her again. But I wrote her another letter anyway, telling her I just wanted to maybe see her once and see if I looked like her.” Maddy’s eyes started getting watery. “So when I read that quote, that’s what I thought of. I was totally licked before I began, but I wrote her again anyway because I had to.”

It took everything in Bea not to reach out and hug this girl.

“She wrote back again to say sorry, she didn’t want contact and that was final,” Maddy said, “but she enclosed a picture of herself. Want to see it?”

“Sure,” Bea said, trying to imagine herself—at fifteen, no less—getting that kind of response from Veronica. How disappointing—crushing—that must have been for Maddy.

Maddy handed her the picture. The woman looked rough around the edges.

“I was adopted too,” Bea said. “In fact, the whole reason I’m in Boothbay Harbor is because I came to meet my own biological mother.”

Maddy’s jaw almost dropped open. “Seriously? What happened?”

“Well, she seems like a wonderful person, but I just don’t know who she’s supposed to be in my life. We got together twice, she answered all my burning questions—and then some—and now I just don’t know where we go from here. I’ve backed away, I guess.”

“I can’t relate at all. I can’t imagine not wanting my birth mother in my life, especially if she’s nice. You’re so lucky.”

Bea reached over and squeezed Maddy’s hand.

“Since you’re still here, though,” Maddy said, “maybe the quote applies to you too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re the one who kind of got licked by your own self—being unsure, I mean. But you’re still here. It’s not like you went back home.”

Bea smiled. “I think you might be onto something there. I give you an A plus,” she added, and Maddy beamed at her. “Have you read more of the book? What that quote—which you understand very well—means in the book is really, really interesting. Heartbreaking, but interesting.”

“I can’t get past the second page. Like I care about the details of the town? It’s so boring.”

“Well, those details help explain what life was like then, when the book takes place. It would be like you explaining your life here in Maine to someone a hundred years from now.”

“What was it like then?”

Bea gave Maddy a quick lesson on the 1930s and the Depression,
on what race relations were like in the South. “Then comes Atticus Finch, a very honest, honorable lawyer, a widow with two young kids, whose job it is to defend an African-American man accused of raping a white woman. No one thinks the black man deserves a trial to begin with. They just think he’s guilty and should hang. Atticus knows a jury won’t believe his word over hers.”

“So . . . that’s what the quote means—the lawyer knows he is going to lose but he defends the guy anyway?”

Bea nodded. “And against a lot of ill will in town too. He ends up opening a lot of people’s eyes. But most of all, he teaches his children something very, very important.”

“What?”

“I want you to find out for yourself,” Bea said. “You know, since we’re alone in here, I’m gonna shut the door and read the first chapter to you. When you go home tonight, you read the next two chapters. Then the next two the following night. Keep doing that, two chapters a night, and we’ll discuss what you’re up to at our next session.”

“Okay,” Maddy said, and Bea knew she had her. The girl’s ears were open.

Tyler was right on time to pick up Maddy an hour later. He looked different without his clipboard and production company ID hanging around his neck. Less . . . jerkish.

“I’m going to ace this class,” she said to her brother, then put her earphones in and dropped down on a stately leather chair in the main room with
To Kill a Mockingbird.

“I can see this went well,” he said. “I’m surprised.” He pulled out two twenties and a ten and handed the bills to her. “Thanks.”

Well, at least he didn’t try to get out of paying, as Patrick had warned he might.

“We’re headed to Harbor Heaven, Maddy’s favorite restaurant, for dinner. You could come, if you’re free. She seems to like you.”

Bea wasn’t a cynical person in general, but she couldn’t help thinking that Tyler had only invited her so he could steer the conversation back to
To Kill a Mockingbird
and get Maddy an extra hour of free tutoring. “I have a date with Patrick, but thanks.”

He made his trademark move of rolling his eyes. “I hope you’re not pinning your hopes on him. I’m telling you, he’s a notorious womanizer.”

“He seems great to me.”

“Right. He probably promised your biological mother a speaking role, right?”

“He doesn’t even know which extra is my biological mother.”

“You know why? Because he doesn’t care. You’re just some pretty young thing to him. Just be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”

Now it was Bea’s turn to roll her eyes. Patrick had spent a lot of time showing Bea he did care, by listening. “Thanks for the unsolicited advice.” She walked over to Maddy and tapped on her shoulder. Maddy removed one earbud. “Remember, read two chapters every night this week. We’ll meet again next Wednesday. Promise you’ll do the reading?”

“I promise, I promise. The Trevi Fountain is waiting for me.”

Bea liked Maddy Echols and there was no way she’d let
her fail the class. She hoped like hell that Tyler’s bribe of Italy and the Trevi Fountain wasn’t all hot air and that he’d actually take her.

When she got back to her room at the inn, Bea slid the shell aside, picked up the piece of paper with Timothy Macintosh’s contact information, and stared at it.

Maddy’s words came back to her.
I can’t imagine not wanting my birth mother in my life, especially if she’s nice. You’re so lucky
.

Bea didn’t know how lucky she’d be when it came to her birth father. He’d denied being her father twenty-two years ago. He’d walked away from Veronica completely. Veronica had never heard from him the entire time she’d been at Hope Home.

Maybe he’d really believed what he’d told Veronica. That he wasn’t the father, that he couldn’t be. Maybe he wasn’t a bad guy.

Bea picked up the shell and put it to her ear. “Should I call him? Right now?”

The whoosh in her ear told her nothing. It was like a Magic 8 Ball saying Ask Again Later.

She could pick up the phone right now and call. Just as she’d done with Veronica. But she’d had the advantage of knowing Veronica wanted to be contacted. Timothy Macintosh truly was a stranger. And given the way he had walked away from Veronica, he likely would not be open to hearing from Bea at all.

She stared out the window, at the stars, at the treetops. This was something she had to do, had to finish.

She took a sheet of Three Captains’ Inn stationery and wrote:

Dear Mr. Macintosh,

I hope you won’t find this letter terribly intrusive. My name is Bea Crane, and I’m the biological daughter of Veronica Russo, who has named you as my biological father. I was born on October 12, 1991, in Boothbay Harbor. I understand from Veronica that you denied being the father of her baby, and I understand that you might not be my biological father. I am writing because I’m here in Boothbay Harbor, and have recently met Veronica for the first time, after having found out, also very recently, that I was adopted. I’m interested in meeting you, if you’re open to it, and would be open to taking a DNA test, if you’d like to go that route. I’d love to know about my biological father’s family background. That’s all I’m interested in, by the way—I just want to assure you of that.

Thank you,

Bea Crane

She addressed the envelope and headed out to the mailbox on the corner of Main Street, watching the letter disappear down the chute.