The Yellow Braid by Karen Coccioli Read Free Book Online

doing ?”
    Nina lowered the camera. “Thought you might
like to have a souvenir.”
    Caro flicked the dripping liquid from her
fingers. “Don’t do that again.”
    Nina handed her a rumpled wad of tissues.
“Sorry.”
    Caro blotted the wet spots. “I don’t like
having my picture taken.”
    A few awkward moments passed. “Can I buy you
another?” Nina offered.
    Caro unclenched her jaw. “This one’s
fine.”
    It was only when they sat that Caro saw
Livia on the other side of the street in front of the
confectionary. A boy came out carrying two ice cream cones and
handed one to her.
    “Tommy’s nephew, Alex,” Nina explained.
“He’s like her big brother.”
    Caro crossed her legs in an attempt at a
casual posture even though her stomach twittered with delight at
Livia’s presence. “Is he from around here?”
    “About thirty minutes west, near
Bayport.”
    Livia reared her head back in laughter as
Alex jerked on her braid. She punched him playfully on the arm when
he pulled her hair a second time.
    “It worries me how immature she is,” Nina
confided. “She’s going into high school in September and the kids
are going to tear her apart. Almost fourteen and she acts like
someone half her age.”
    Caro kept quiet. To her, Livia’s naiveté
elevated her beauty and made her worthy of deeper introspection,
and Caro would resent any alterations that would modify her
behavior or appearance.
    “Not too long ago I tried saying something,
but the idea of makeup, hard rock, and boys has absolutely no
attraction for her.” Nina’s words came out like a lament. And then
out of frustration she uttered, “Sometimes I feel like yelling at
her to wake up!”
    “On the contrary, I sympathize with her
because I was the same way,” Caro said. “I never felt that I fit in
as a teenager.”
    “When did you start becoming interested in
boys?”
    “I wouldn’t dare tell you that, you’d laugh.
But I was…older.”
    Nina grimaced and shook her head.
    Caro pondered how Livia shouldn’t have to be
made to grow up before she was ready. Nina was an artist. Why
couldn’t she recognize the rarity of Livia’s innocence and her
potential to develop intellectually and creatively?
    Livia propped her feet against the base of a
parking meter, and with one hand secured on the coin deposit and
her body tilted outward, swung around the pole. Her madras blouse
and pony tail held high in a bright red scrunchie reflected her
youthful character.
    “Was Abby a late bloomer?” Nina asked.
    Caro shook her head emphatically. “She
matured very early and liked all the supposedly normal teen things…” Caro noticed Nina scowl as
she turned her camera over in her hands.
    Nina gave a small sigh and gazed across the
street at Livia. “Do you think Abby would have liked posing for
me?”
    “Audiences of any kind or number exhilarate
her. And she inherited her father’s magnetic presence, the kind
that prompted people to look around when he walked into a room even
though he was quite ordinary looking.”
    “Wouldn’t it have been nice then if Abby was
my niece and Livia your daughter?”
    Caro’s immediate reaction was to say, Very
nice indeed. She didn’t know Livia well enough to know for sure,
but so far Livia was easy to be with, expected little in the way of
entertainment, and wanted nothing more than an attentive ear to her
verse, unlike Caro’s daughter, who navigated life blinkered and
unbending. Nevertheless, wasn’t it wrong for a mother to want to
trade off her daughter for another more genial model? To Nina she
said, “I think Abby would like you a lot.”
    “Do you get over to London often to see
her?” Nina asked.
    “Time has a way of flying by,” Caro said.
She was embarrassed to admit that in the year and a half Abby had
lived in London, she had yet to visit. She kept telling herself she
loved her daughter—it was just such hard work being with her. Abby
was her daddy’s girl, and it seemed that the only