Lightning

Thelma scowled. "You'll be back in no time. These Dockweilers will be horrid people. They'll make you sleep in the garage."

"I hope so," Laura said.

"They'll beat you with rubber hoses—"

"That would be good."

This time the lightning that struck her life was good lightning, or at least that was how it seemed at first.

The Dockweilers lived in a huge house in an expensive section of Newport Beach. Laura had her own bedroom with an ocean view. It was decorated in earth tones, mostly beige.

Showing her the room for the first time, Carl Dockweiler said, "We didn't know what your favorite colors were, so we left it like this, but we can repaint the whole thing, however you want it." He was fortyish, big as a bear, barrel-chested, with a broad, rubbery face that reminded her of John Wayne if John Wayne had been a bit amusing looking. "Maybe a girl your age wants a pink room."

"Oh, no, I like it just the way it is!" Laura said. Still in a state of shock over the sudden opulence into which she had been plunged, she moved to the window and looked out at the splendid view of Newport Harbor, where yachts bobbed on sun-spangled water.

Nina Dockweiler joined Laura and put one hand on her shoulder. She was lovely, with smoky coloring, dark hair, and violet eyes, a china doll of a woman. "Laura, the child-welfare file said you loved books, but we didn't know what kind of books, so we're going straight to the bookstore and buy whatever you'd like."

At Waldenbooks Laura chose five paperbacks, and the Dockweilers urged her to buy more, but she felt guilty about

— pending their money. Carl and Nina scouted the shelves, plucking off volumes and reading cover copy to her, adding them to her pile if she showed the slightest interest. At one point Carl was crawling on his hands and knees in the young-adult section, scanning titles on the bottom shelf—"Hey, here's one about a dog. You like animal stories? Here's a spy story!" — and he was such a comical sight that Laura giggled. By the time they left the store, they'd bought one hundred books, bagsful of books.

Their first dinner together was at a pizza parlor, where Nina exhibited a surprising talent for magic by plucking a pepperoni ring from behind Laura's ear, then making it vanish.

"That's amazing," Laura said. "Where'd you learn that?"

"I owned an interior design firm, but I had to give it up eight years ago. Health reasons. Too stressful. I wasn't used to sitting at home like a lump, so I did all the things I'd dreamed of when I was a businesswoman with no spare time. Like learning magic."

"Health reasons?" Laura said.

Security was a treacherous rug that people kept pulling out from under her, and now someone was getting ready to jerk the rug again.

Her fear must have been evident, for Carl Dockweiler said, "Don't worry. Nina was born with a bum heart, a structural defect, but she'll live as long as you or me if she avoids stress."

"Can't they operate?" Laura asked, putting down the slice of pizza she had just picked up, her appetite having suddenly fled.

"Cardiovascular surgery's advancing rapidly," Nina said. "In a couple years maybe. But, honey, it's nothing to worry about. I'll take care of myself, especially now I've got a daughter to spoil!"

"More than anything," Carl said, "we wanted kids, but couldn't have them. By the time we decided to adopt, we discovered Nina's heart condition, so then the adoption agencies wouldn't approve us."

"But we qualify as foster parents," Nina said, "so if you like living with us, you can stay forever, just as if you were adopted." That night in her big bedroom with its view of the sea — now an almost scary, vast expanse of darkness — Laura told herself that she must not like the Dockweilers too much, that Nina's heart condition foreclosed any possibility of real security.

The following day, Sunday, they took her shopping for clothes and would have spent fortunes if she had not finally begged them to stop. With their Mercedes crammed full of her new clothes, they went to a Peter Sellers comedy, and after the movie they had dinner at a hamburger restaurant where the milkshakes were humongous.

Pouring catsup on her french fries, Laura said, "You guys are lucky that child-welfare sent me to you instead of some other kid."

Carl raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Well, you're nice, too nice — and a lot more vulnerable than you realize. Any kid would see how vulnerable you really are, and a lot would take advantage of you. Mercilessly. But you can relax with me. I'll never take advantage of you or make you sorry you took me in."

They stared at her in amazement.

At last Carl looked at Nina. "They've tricked us. She's not twelve. They've palmed off a dwarf on us."

That night in bed, as she waited for sleep, Laura repeated her litany of self-protection: "Don't like them too much, don't like them too much…" But already she liked them enormously.