Read Online Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman - Free Book Online Page A

in the dark, standing on the sidewalk facing Jorie’s house, their conversation feels oddly intimate. “You’re absolutely right. He’ll have to fight those crazy charges.”
    The Williams girl has left her jar of fireflies on the porch steps. Yellow orbs of light whirl against the glass.
    â€œWill you look at that,” Barney says. He’s talking too much and he knows it, but he may never get another chance to have Charlotte Kite listen to him. He might as well take advantage of the moment, for it will surely never come again. “So bright you could read by the light of those bugs.”
    â€œWell, they’ll be dead by morning.”
    Charlotte turns and looks him over. Barney lives two blocks away from her, in one of the brand-new pseudo-Victorians on Evergreen Drive, built a good century after the Monroe family went bankrupt and sold off parcels of land, but frankly. she doesn’t know much about him. She does take note of his Lexus, however. It’s a rather surprising choice for a large, plain man such as Barney, but perhaps he needs to show off his success. It’s all coming back to Charlotte; he was one of the kids people used to make fun of in high school. He was heavy and plodding and far too shy to ask out any of the girls. Now he’s rich and has three beautiful daughters, and Charlotte has nothing. “I’ll bet you’re one of those expensive lawyers, ”
    â€œWell, I am,” Barney admits. “But I’m good.”
    â€œI’m happy to put up some money for Ethan and Jorie, If it comes down to it.”
    Charlotte tosses her cigarette onto the sidewalk and red sparks rise upward. She may seem a little hard, but she’s anything but, and Barney isn’t the least bit surprised by her offer.
    â€œI’m sure they’d appreciate that.” Barney thinks of his daughters, safe in their beds, and he knows he won’t be able to sleep tonight. He’s something of an insomniac, and he often spends nights in an easy chair pulled up to the window in the living room. From the heights of his house on Evergreen Drive, beyond a hill where there used to be nothing but orchards, the very spot where Ella Monroe herself was married so long ago, he is always surprised to see a few lights blinking in Monroe after midnight. On street after street, there are sleepless, unhappy people, much like himself, trapped like fireflies inside their own houses.
    â€œI think I see Jorie.” Barney has spotted a shadow in an upstairs window. The curtain moves in the breeze. A few faded cherry blossoms dip through the sweet, dark, honeyed air, and Barney inhales deeply. He thinks of the first time he saw Charlotte Kite, when she wasn’t more than fourteen. He thinks of the way her red hair gleams in the sunlight in the mornings, as she stands behind the counter in the bakery. He realizes that Charlotte smells delicious, her aroma much sweeter than the honeysuckle in the night air, as if she could never wash the scent of chocolate or the granules of sugar from her skin. Oh, how he wishes he could tell her what he’s thinking. He knows he has a foolish look on his face, the stupid expression of bliss.
    â€œI’ve got an extra key,” Charlotte declares. “I’m going on in.”
    When she starts up the walkway, Barney keeps pace with her, but Charlotte quickly sets him right. “I don’t need any help, if that’s what you were thinking.”
    â€œOh, no, of course not.” Barney recalls that she’d said something like this to him once before, ages ago, when they were in school. Charlotte had dropped her books in a rush to get to class, and he’d knelt to help gather some of the fallen papers. She’d looked him straight in the eye and told him not to touch anything. He’d felt as though she’d burned him with a single remark. His fingertips had puckered and blistered afterward, and he’d had to