The Secret of Everything by Barbara O'Neal Page B

Tessa.
    “No, I just play around with my camera for fun mostly.” She zoomed in on the little-girl palm curling up around the salt, shot a series,
click click click
. “But I do work for a travel company, and they might like these pictures for a brochure, if you don’t mind.”
    “Will she get money for being a model?” the next younger sister asked. She had a smear of peanut butter on her cheek, and her hair was mussed from the water.
    “Probably not. My boss is pretty cheap.”
    Jade laughed. Tessa snapped her picture, too, the long braid and peanut butter and great bones. She was pretty and she knew it.
    “Get out of here!” Natalie said. “She’s taking pictures of my salt!”
    “Nat, settle down,” Vince said. “It’s not a contest.”
    “
Everything
is a contest,” she said, and huffed away, her hand closed tighter around her salt.
    Tessa took her picture anyway, shot the rigid heat in her spine, the fingers clenched on the salt. “Hey, Natalie, if you keep your fist tight, the salt will dissolve,” she called.
    Natalie opened her hand right away, stared down at her palm, and burst into tears. “I ruined it!”
    Vince leapt to his feet and went to her. And Tessa, sap that she was, took pictures of that, too. Elk dad and elk daughter and the little dragonfly princess calmly watching.
    Tessa said to Jade the dragonfly, “Did you know she would do that?”
    The girl hunched her shoulders, giggling, and covered her mouth. “Yes. Mean, huh?”
    Tessa nodded. “Pretty mean. If I had a sister, I’d want to be really nice to her.”
    “You only think that because you don’t have a sister,” Jade said with full superior knowledge.
    Vince calmed Natalie down and led her back to the group. “Look,” he said, “there’s plenty of salt left.”
    Over the top of the girl’s head, Vince met Tessa’s eyes, and she caught an expression of weariness and sadness and hopelessness. Then he smiled ruefully and it was gone.
    He sat back down. “All right, everybody, let’s eat lunch without a war, all right? Can we do that?”
    After lunch, the girls sat by the lapping water in the shade, digging with plastic shovels. The dogs sprawled by the blanket, snoring. Tessa suddenly felt panic over the way she was tucked into the scene almost without noticing. “I guess maybe I should go,” she said.
    “Why? What else are you doing on a Sunday afternoon?”
    “I’m supposed to be working, checking out the town.”
    “So, nothing?”
    She smiled. “Right.”
    Hannah squatted next to Vince and reached out to touch Tessa’s foot, the blot that looked as if she had been burned. “What’d you do?”
    Tessa nearly answered truthfully, then realized how terrifying “spider bite” would sound to a trio of little girls. “I hurt it on a hiking trip.”
    “How?” the little one persisted. She tucked her hands close to her chest. Her eyes were serious, searching Tessa’s face.
    “That’s a personal question, Hannah,” Vince said. “Don’t be rude.”
    “I bet it’s something really gross,” Jade said, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “And you don’t want to tell us.”
    Tessa inclined her head. “Well, if it was something like that, I would be trying to protect you, right?”
    “We’re not afraid of things,” Natalie said fiercely. “Why don’t you just tell us what happened?”
    “Natalie, watch your tone.”
    Tessa met her eyes. “No, I don’t think so.”
    “Why not?”
    “Nat!” Vince said sharply.
    “Because,” Tessa said, not breaking eye contact, “it is personal and I’d rather not.”
    Natalie opened her mouth, prepared to battle, but her father cut her off. “Go play,” Vince said. “Mind your own business and do something constructive.”
    They obeyed. Vince watched them go with a faint flush on his cheekbones. “Sorry.”
    Tessa shrugged. “No big deal. I just couldn’t come up with a good lie so fast.”
    He laughed. “It must have—never mind. Now I’m being