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her, but she was absolutely definite about what she was doing. And her father had given her that luxury. He had left a small trust in her name, to pay for her education, which meant that her mother couldn’t threaten not to pay for college if she didn’t go where she was told to. She had the freedom of choice, and she had exercised that freedom when she accepted Berkeley.
    “Your father would be very disappointed in you,” her mother said coldly, which was a low blow, and Paxton felt it.
    “I tried to get into Harvard, Mother,” she said as calmly as she could. “I just didn’t make it. I think maybe he’d understand that.” She remembered his stories of trying to get into Princeton and Yale and being turned down, and having to “settle” for Harvard. So she had “settled” for UC Berkeley.
    “I mean I think he’d be disappointed by your leaving home so abruptly, and going so far away from us.”
    “I’ll be back,” she said softly, but even as she said the words, she wondered if she really meant them. Would she be back? Would she want to? Would she be dying to come home once she got away, or would she fall in love with California and want to stay forever? In some ways, she was desperately anxious to leave, in others she was sorry to go. She was sad to leave her friends, and in some ways, she was relieved to be leaving home. She had always felt she didn’t quite fit there. She never really did what her mother wanted. But she couldn’t do what they wanted her to do. It was too much to ask. She couldn’t stay in the South, couldn’t stay with them, couldn’t go on pretending to have something in common with them, when she didn’t. She couldn’t pretend to be one of them anymore. And suddenly she was ready to admit how different she was, and to start her own life, in Berkeley.
    “And just how often do you think you’ll come home?” her mother asked accusingly as Queenie watched from over her shoulder.
    “I’ll come home for Christmas, I guess, and in the summer, of course.” It was all she had to offer them, all she could give, and all she wanted from them was her freedom. “I’ll come home as often as I can.” She smiled tentatively at them, wanting them to be happy for her, but they weren’t. “And you can come visit me, if you like, in California.”
    “Your father and I went to Los Angeles once,” her mother said with a look of stern disapproval. “It’s an awful place. I’d never go back there.”
    “Berkeley is just outside San Francisco.” But she might as well have said “just outside hell” from the look on her mother’s face, and for the rest of the meal, they ate in silence.

C HAPTER 3

    P axton stood in the cozy kitchen the morning she left, looking around her as though she were being forced to leave home, with tears bulging in her eyes, and her head resting on Queenie’s soft, comfortable shoulder.
    “How am I going to live without seeing you every day?” she whispered, feeling like a child again. Suddenly she had the same feeling of sadness and loss she had had when she’d lost her father. She knew she wouldn’t be seeing her anymore, and although Queenie would still be there, she couldn’t just reach out and touch her.
    “You’ll be fine,” Queenie said, bravely fighting back her own tears. She was determined not to let Paxxie see what she was feeling. “You be a good girl in California now. Remember to eat yo’ greens, get lots of sleep, and once a week rinse that pretty hair of yours with lemon.” She had been doing that for her almost since she was a baby, and took full credit for the fact that Paxton was still as blond as she was eighteen years later. “Wear a hat in the sun, don’t get burned …” There were a thousand things she wanted to say, but all she really wanted to tell her was how much she loved her. She pressed Paxton close to her then, and the warmth of heart and her body said it all, as Paxton hugged her back just as fiercely.
    “I