“Well, it does involve you, so…”
“Oh, wait.” Tessa held up her hand, stopping as she bent over to roll up her sleep pants. “If this is about my dad, then no, I don’t?—”
“It’s not, no, I promise,” Crista said quickly. “It’s about…Nolie.”
“What about her?” Even in the dim light, she could see true concern in Tessa’s topaz-colored eyes, and that touched her.
“You really like her, don’t you?”
“Figsworth?” Tessa snorted. “I love that kid.”
“You’re very good with her,” Crista said. “No one’s ever been that…easy-breezy, you know. You would have been a good mother.”
Tessa’s eyes shuttered and she looked away. “Well, I wasn’t. What’s going on with her?”
“Anthony wants us to come home,” she said on a sigh. “Tomorrow.”
“What?” She froze mid-step. “You can’t leave! Tell him to…” She kicked the sand with her bare foot. “Pound some of that. We got a fashion show to run.”
“But that’s?—”
“And a third-grade test to pass.”
Crista looked at her. “Do you think she can?” she asked softly.
“Not today, but soon. I know she can.”
“She did read beautifully to me tonight,” Crista said. “She fell asleep by page four though?—”
“Exhausted from being the Junior Joy Coordinator.”
Crista smiled. “Exhausted from having fun and coming out of her shell and not thinking about reading, writing, or math. That’s what Anthony can’t see, you know.”
“Exactly.” Tessa pointed to her. “The less she worries about it, the more she learns. I think she can read just about anything that’s age and level appropriate. Slowly, yeah. But she can read and comprehend. She can write pretty well, too. I mean, I don’t expect essays from a seven-year-old, but the kid does a mean to-do list.”
Crista gave a dry laugh. “And really, what else matters to the child of a control freak?”
“You’re not a control freak,” Tessa said. “You’re…a mom. And a darn good one. A little hot-headed, but that makes you passionate.”
Crista put a hand on her chest, surprised that the compliment eased her heartburn. “Thank you.”
“But about the math…” Tessa said.
“Yeah?”
“We’re not quite there,” she admitted. “It’s funny because math wasn’t really my challenge. Lists of numbers, yes—I still get a little queasy at the sight of a spreadsheet, not gonna lie. I just don’t know if she can do…I don’t know what you call it. Number grouping? Like when you look at a group of things and instinctively know how many there are.”
“The teachers call it ‘quick-look counting’ in school, and, yes, it’s a struggle for her,” Crista said. “I don’t know why but she hasn’t quite unlocked that yet. The learning specialist at school called it ‘subitizing.’”
“Eesh, there’s a word for you.”
“Really,” Crista agreed. “By third grade, she needs that skill. She needs to look at a circle and know there are seven stars inside it.”
Tessa nodded slowly, thinking. “Let me work on that. Unless…you leave in the morning.”
Crista closed her eyes at the thought. “Oh, there will be tears.”
“Yeah, mine,” Tessa said.
