but I thought of the easiest trick I knew using her. I straightened her up on the seat, or at least, that was what it looked like I was doing.

"Do you have a quarter on you?" I asked Tyler.

He dug into his pocket and produced one.

"Okay," I said. "My uncle would ask Destiny for a quarter and she would shake her head. no. He would then ask someone in the audience and..."

"Don't tell us about it. Do it just as your uncle did it," Tyler said.

Echo's eyes were wide, looking from him to me to the Destiny doll.

"Okay. Destiny, would you have a quarter I can borrow?"

Tyler signed what I said so Echo would understand. Using the transmitter in my pocket. I triggered her head to shake a no and as rusty as I was, threw my voice through her to say it as well.

Echo jumped in her seat when Destiny opened her mouth. Tyler took her hand and a.s.sured her it was just a trick. She sat back, but she didn't relax. Her eyes were glued to Destiny.

"That's pretty good." Tyler said. "You made her voice so different. even I was thrown for a moment."

"Uncle Palaver was so good at that, sometimes he drank a gla.s.s of water while throwing his voice.

Don't ask me how."

I took his quarter and then placed it in my palm and showed it to Echo. This part of the trick was easy for me. I had practiced it and practiced it so many times while Uncle Palaver and I rode for hours from one destination to another. I told Echo to put out her hand and open it. Then I put the quarter into her palm and closed her fingers around it.

"Don't open your hand." I said. I signed "'don't open" to be sure she understood, otherwise the trick would be ruined.

Then I turned to Destiny. "Are you sure you have no quarter for me?" I asked her, with Tyler signing to Echo. Destiny shook her head again and I triggered her right arm to come up slowly and then opened her hand. Echo held on to Tyler, but he was just as mesmerized as she was by Destiny's lifelike movements. They both leaned to see that there was a quarter in her hand. The next part was simple. I opened Echo's hand and there was no quarter in hers.

"Holy smokes, how did you do that?" Tyler asked, very much impressed.

"A real magician never tells," I said.

The truth was when I had straightened up Destiny in the chair. I had placed the quarter in her hand and closed it. When I had put it in Echo's hand. I had plucked it out as I closed her fingers. I had that quarter hidden in my own hand.

"Uncle Palaver would have a finny dialogue with her now, accusing her of h.o.a.rding money. She'd deny it and then he would reach under her chin and lo and behold," I said, opening my hand to reveal the other quarter. "he'd find another,'

Echo laughed and clapped her hands in delight.

Tyler nodded, looking very impressed. "You're fast," he said. "I'm not going to play cards with you.

That's for sure." He looked sincerely impressed with me, which encouraged me to continue.

"This is a magic quarter," I announced, holding up one of the quarters. Tyler told Echo.

I was ready to perform the simple straight pin and quarter trick. I had already placed the straight pin in my hand, hidden between my first two fingers. I showed him his quarter again and he turned it over and studied it a moment before handing it back. "Just an ordinary quarter?" I asked, "So?"

I placed the coin over the straight pin and after I pretended to run my other hand magically over the coin. I then raised the coin to a standing position, raising the straight pin along with it. It looked perfectly balanced on its edge. It was simply leaning against the straight pin. Keeping the pressure on the pin balanced the coin and made it seem as if it stood in midair.

Echo clapped her hands in delight. I told her to wave her hand over the quarter the way I did. She did so hesitantly and, when I released the pressure on the pin, the coin began a slow falling back onto my fingers. I then handed the quarter back to Tyler.

"Thanks for use of your magical coin. Mr.

Monahan." Destiny said, nodding her head. He looked from me to her and laughed.

"You're terrific."

"It's all very basic stuff," I said. "My uncle was something to watch. People would swear he performed miracles. He really was on television, too.

you know."

"I bet." He looked around the motor home and then at Destiny. He turned to Echo and signed. "See. I told you it would be fun. April is a very good magician, isn't she?"

She nodded and smiled at me.

"I guess now we can tell Mrs. Westington everything." Tyler said. "She'll understand and she won't be upset, especially after she hears from Echo about the doll and your magic show."

"Yes, you're right," I said. He was clever to have us do all this first. I was angry, at myself for suspecting him of any other motives.

He looked at Destiny. "Are you going to sell her, too, when the attorney says it's all right to do so?"

"Oh, no, I can't do that." I replied quickly.

"It might be hard explaining that doll to everyone when you cart her about in your car," he said. "Especially when they see how realistically created she is."

"I don't care. I can't give her away or sell her to anyone," I said, surprised myself at how much panic was in my voice when I said it.

"It's just a doll. April."

"I know, but it was my uncle Palaver's most cherished possession. It has meaning no one else can appreciate."

He thought a moment and nodded. "Okay. Let's see if Mrs. Westington will let you bring her into the house."

"It's not that important yet," I said. "When I have to sell off the motor home. I'll think about her.

As silly as it might sound to you," I added, looking at Destiny, "this is the only home she has ever known."

He looked at me with a slight smile on his face and then he nodded. I was sure my reactions amused him.

Afterward, we walked back to the house to continue our lessons.

"Where have you been?" Mrs. Westington asked. When we entered, it woke her.

"We'll let Echo tell you," Tyler said, and told her to do so.

She began excitedly. Most of it Mrs.

Westington didn't understand or follow, but she did get the main idea.

"You put on a show for them?" she asked inc.

"Using that doll?"

"As best I could." I said.

"When I heard April's story. I thought it would be the best way to explain that doll to Echo," Tyler added. "She saw it in action and understood its real purpose."

"Hmm," Mrs. Westington said. "Well. I guess it all worked out for the best then. You can bring it into the house whenever you want." she told me.

I thanked her and we all returned to our work until it was Tyler's time to go home. Echo was always very disappointed when the clock struck that hour. To get her off her sadness, he gave her one more thing to do, asking her to have it ready for him when next he returned and making it sound like it was very important to him. That was enough to get her started immediately. He could ask her to dig a ditch all night and she would do it for him. I thought. He kept talking to me about my own a.s.signments and preparation for the high school equivalency exam. so I walked out with him.

"I'm glad this is turning out better than I had expected," he said. There was almost nothing else he could have said that would have made me feel as good. "I only hope I can be here long enough to help you."

After we left the house. I walked with him to his car. The late afternoon sun was threading its rays through the tops of the trees that surrounded the pond.

A light, golden laver like the icing on a cake made the water glimmer, "It looks like a pond of Chardonnay," I said, nodding at the water.

Tyler laughed. "I guess Trevor Washington and his winery are having an influence on you."

"It is interesting. I imagine this was once a very beautiful vineyard."

"Probably. My mother remembers it in its heyday. I don't." He got into his sports car and looked up at me before starting the engine. "Aren't you bored here? There's not much for you to do except prepare for your exam and help Trevor. They don't even have cable television. Their set is still attached to an old- fashioned antenna."

"I haven't had time to think about it," I said.

"with my uncle's death and all that followed."

"Yes. I guess that's true." He started the engine.

"'Well, maybe one night. I'll show you around the area.."

"Really?"

He shrugged. "See you. Spend some more time on those algebraic equations."

I watched him drive off. He waved just before turning at the bottom of the driveway, the sound of his car engine reverberating over the street and dying away like thunder in the distance. It was then that I realized my heart was thumping, and it was then that I vowed to myself I would go on a serious diet and begin to once again do the exercises Brenda had once designed for me.

It was as if thinking about her brought her back.

As soon as I entered the house. Mrs. Westington told me Brenda was on the telephone, calling me from Europe. I hurried to take, the receiver.

"Why are you still there?' she demanded as soon as I said h.e.l.lo. "Why didn't you go to Cousin Pete's? I called him and he said he knew nothing about you or Uncle Palaver's death. You never even called him. I felt so stupid."

"Mrs. Westington invited me to stay here and help her with her granddaughter, who's deaf and lives here alone. She's nearly fifteen, but she's very immature. She's hired her granddaughter's tutor to coach me for the high school equivalency exam as well and I'm helping with the small vineyard and wine-making," I said, all in one breath. Brenda was so quiet, I thought we had lost the connection. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes, but if you had gone to live with Cousin Pete, you could be in a regular school. April. I don't understand how you could simply take up with strangers like that."

"Once you meet Mrs. Westington, you'll understand. This is a big house. It was once a famous thriving vineyard and winery "I've got another few weeks in Europe and then I'm coming back to live in Seattle," she said over my words, as if they had no importance.

"Seattle?"

"Yes. I was calling to tell you I've been offered a position on a professional basketball team in Seattle and I've taken it. Now that I know you're still there.

I'll keep in touch. I'm going to stopover in San Francisco for a few hours. and I don't think you're far from there. right?"

"No. I'm not."

"Then we'll meet and talk about all this then.

April. let you know my exact schedule. Afterward. I'll be on the road with the team a treat deal, but you can come to live with me once I'm set up in Seattle."

"Just you?" I asked.

"For now" she replied honestly.

"Well talk when you're in San Francisco," I said, "Are you really all right?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll call you." she promised. "Take care of yourself."

"You, too."

I couldn't help crying softly. Just hearing her voice brought back so much so quickly it took my breath away. Mrs. Westington saw me wiping away the tears.

"Why don't you go up and take a little rest.

Take a warm bath and relax. I know that boy overworked you."

"No, he didn't." I said.

She raised her eyebrows at how quickly I had come to Tyler's defense. It embarra.s.sed me. too.

"I mean, he's just trying to get me to make up for all this time lost. I didn't do any schoolwork when I was on the road with my uncle."

"Uh-huh," she said. She tried to hide a smile from me and went to busy herself with dinner preparations. I hurried out and up to my room. My head was swirling with confusion. Yes. I would like to be with Brenda again. I thought. She was my only family, despite what had occurred, but the life she proposed for me sounded so tentative and so lonely, and not so much different from the way it had been in Memphis. Surely it wouldn't be long before she'd find someone, a new companion. and I would be shoved to the back of the bus again. I longed to be independent, despite my age. I didn't want her to be my legal guardian. If someone like Tyler Monahan proposed to me, I'd accept in a heartbeat.

Was that even a remote possibility or was I just as immature as Echo when it came to my fantasies?

I gazed at myself in the mirror. Was I such a lost cause? Couldn't I lose weight, make myself attractive, have a young man seriously consider me, fall in love with me? Wasn't I capable of loving a man? In a true sense, I suppose if I wanted to be honest. I would admit that I wasn't much more sophisticated about it all than Echo was. If Tyler Monahan only knew the truth about me when it came to my experiences with boys. I thought, he'd be quite surprised.

I returned to the closet, where Rhona's pretty and s.e.xy clothing hung like a tantalizing promise, daring me to turn it into a reality. I vowed then and there to get up earlier every morning and jog just as Brenda used to do. I had to develop an att.i.tude. I had to hate the body I was in and swear to myself I would get out of it. Brenda once told me to conjure up a vision of myself as I would like to see myself and whenever I looked into a mirror. I should be unsatisfied until I saw that vision reflected back.

"Focus," she urged, "Become a monomaniac.

Think only of that goal and twist and turn everything to service it. Focus, focus, focus," she chanted at me.

I know it annoyed and even disgusted her that I could never do it. I would try to do it for a while and then drift back to my self-destructive ways.