"Francie? Vieni qui, per favore!"

Francie heard her brother calling her and smiled. "Coming!" she responded. She quickly dried her face and went to her brother's room, where, as she'd known he'd be, Finn was perched on his bed, Della at his feet, holding his guitar, face screwed up with concentration, trying to play a chord on his tiny, Finn-sized guitar.

"I've been trying and trying, but my fingers aren't listening to me," he said, and his two missing front teeth made his words into something delicious, something Francie wanted to remember forever. She decided that everyone should have the joy of living with an eight year old brother at least once in their lives.

She saw the problem right away and hurried to help. "Look, fratello mio, even with the guitar being small enough for you, there's no way your little hands can reach the strings."

Finn ran his too small hand through his dark hair, in a gesture so reminiscent of his father Francie had to laugh. "So what do I do, then? Just wait and learn this chord when I'm bigger? I don't wanna do that."

"No, I can show you a trick," Francie told him with a smile. "You can use your thumb and reach around from the top to make the chord, like this." And she put his fingers, already long and graceful, again like Pete's, in the right position to play the chord. "It's not a good way to play, and you should play it the right way as soon as your hand gets big enough, but for now you can do it to get the right sound, okay?"

Finn tried it, and managed to play the chord after a couple of tries. His face blossomed into a beautiful smile, dimples popping, as he turned his face up to his sister's like a flower. "It sounds really good, finally, Francie, thanks!" And he laid his guitar aside to throw his arms around his sister and give her a noisy kiss. "Grazie tanto!"

"You're very welcome, baby bro," Francie answered, ruffling his hair as he let her go.

"It was making me crazy, veramente," Finn told her, shaking his head as he picked up his guitar again. "I really wanted to learn this song before Daddy came home, you know?"

"Well, it sounds pretty good, I think," Francie offered.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, Francie?"

She turned from the door.

"You're really pretty."

"Aww, thanks, Finn." She scrunched her nose at her brother. "You are too."

He laughed, already looking back at his guitar.

As she walked down the hall, she heard laughter from the bathroom, and poked her head inside. Her younger sisters were practicing applying makeup, on themselves and each other. Their new cat, Fuma, adopted after the loss of Cina, sat and supervised from her place on the counter.

"Hey guys, looking good," she offered as she looked from one face to the other.

"Francie, Francie, does this go above our eyes or below?" Brina asked, waving a tube of purple eyeliner in her sister's face.

"Um, I don't know, I've never used it," Francie answered. "What does it say on the thingie?"

"It just says 'apply in a straight line,'" Lottie replied with a shrug. "Why don't you wear makeup, Francie?"

"I don't like how it feels on my face," Francie answered. And it always makes a mess when I swim."

"She doesn't have to," Brina said, looking back at the mirror. "She's naturally beautiful without it."

"Hey, hold on!" Francie said sharply, entering the bathroom and standing between her twelve year old sisters. "You know that's not true. Who's ever said any of us is more or less beautiful than the other?"

"No one--" Brina's blue eyes blinked uncertainly at her older sister's. "But you get called it all the time."

"Do you think Clio's not pretty?" Francie demanded. "Or Charlotte here?" She gestured to Brina's "twin"sister. "Or Finn?"

"No," Brina said again, shaking her red curls. "You're all beautiful," she said stoutly. "But I have all these freckles--"

"Hey, wait a minute," Lottie interrupted, shaking her black pom pom pigtails vigorously. "You have the best hair of all of us, though, Brina! It's just like Mom's, all red and curly and pretty. And your eyes are like blue glass, they're so so gorgeous--"

Francie smiled at her redheaded sister, dropping a kiss on her temple.

"'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' as Margaret Wolfe Hungerford said," Francie told her with a smile.

"I guess so," Lottie answered with a smile of her own.

"And the person you should ask for help with makeup is mom, you guys," Francie advised them. "She's really good at it, she's been wearing it all her life, and I bet she'd love to play with you."

"Yeah, you're right! Let's ask Mom!" Brina agreed.

"But let's get a snack first, I'm hungry," Lottie suggested.

"Okay!" And the girls left the bathroom, still chattering, off to find a snack, then their mom, in that order, leaving Fuma sitting on the counter.

Fuma gave Francie an inscrutable feline look, and began to wash.

Francie went to the living room, passing her sisters, who were talking and laughing in the pantry, and found her mother sitting with some knitting and a glass of wine while she enjoyed the quiet strains of Chopin.

"Hello, mother." Francie sat next to her mom and sampled the wine.

"Mmm, yummy," she declared.

"Yes, it's from Colibrí," Daisy offered, ruffling Francie's curly blonde head.

"The girls are coming to find you in a bit to get help putting makeup on," Francie offered. "Prepare yourself."

"Makeup? Where'd they get it?"

Francie shrugged. "Looked like mostly Clio's. I'm assuming she gave them permission to play with it before she went out."

"Wonderful." Daisy sighed. "I guess I should count myself lucky they haven't asked to wear it to school yet, right?"

Francie told her mother what Brina had said about beauty.

Daisy smiled at her second-born. "Well, Francie, not everyone's lucky enough to look like you, you know?"

"It's so weird. I've been told that my whole life, but I honestly don't care, and I think all my sisters are beautiful, my brother, too."

"They are, they are," Daisy agreed. "But you're exceptional looking, Francie, you must know that by now. And it's easy to say you don't care when you have it, you know that as well, right? It's like saying you don't care that you're healthy when you are. You'd care a great deal if you'd been unlucky enough to be born with a congenital heart defect or a physical deformity or something."

Francie considered. "I guess so. You're right. It's easy for me to say 'I don't care,' when everyone likes the way I look."

The mother and daughter sat in silence for a few minutes.

"So if my looks are what people see first, how will I ever know that someone loves me for me, and not how I look?" Francie finally asked, laying her curly head on her mother's shoulder. "How did you know that Dad loved you for you and not just because you were a hot redhead with a smokin' body?"

Daisy snarfed her wine and held the glass away from her knitting.

"Francie!"

Francie laughed, too. "You know what they call me at school?"

Daisy's laughter tapered off. "I do," she said in a serious voice. "As far as me, well, when I met your father, I was already pregnant with Clio, so I don't think he was attracted to me for my body," she said. She didn't tell Francie that in actuality, Pete was actually very enamored of her pregnant body, and could hardly keep his hands off her. "Let's just say that Dad took care of me when no one else did, and he said and did many things that showed me that he was a good man, a good person."

Francie nodded. "I guess you could always tell that about Dad, huh? He just radiates goodness, always."

"Always," Daisy repeated, taking another sip of her wine.

"When does he get back from Los Angeles?"

"Tuesday."

"Great. I always miss him when he's gone."

"Me too, Francie-pants, me too."

They sat in silence for a few more minutes before Daisy asked, "You don't have any homework to do?"

Francie shook her head. "It takes them a while to ramp up after Christmas break. And school's not that hard. I know our school's supposed to have much higher standards than other schools, but it's still pretty easy. I can't imagine what public school's like. I'm really glad you and Dad could afford to send us kids there. Thanks for that." She turned her head and kissed her mother's cheek.

"Our pleasure, honestly." Daisy smiled at her daughter. "Anything exciting happening at school?"

"We're getting a new exchange student from Brazil," Francie offered. "Antonio Ribeiro. Doesn't he sound romantic? He's a swimmer, too, so that's nice for us. Usually the South American students are soccer players. Coach was nearly orgasmic from excitement."

Daisy nearly snarfed her wine again.

"Francie, you have to warn me when you say stuff like that, please!"

Francie laughed as she rose.

"I'm going to bed, I think. I'm going to get up early and meet Veronica for shopping and brunch tomorrow."

"Okay, good night, love."

"Night, Mom."

She passed her sisters, who had presumably found sustenance, and were now going to recruit their mother for assistance in the art of applying makeup. She kissed them good night, then found her little brother to kiss him good night as well.

"Look, Francie, I can almost play the whole thing! Dad's going to be so surprised!" Finn insisted on playing the entire song for her, and he did sound pretty good.

"Sounds great, Finn!" Francie praised.

She crawled into bed to text with her friends and trawl social media for a while before going to sleep. She considered her mother's words as she drifted off.

What was beauty, anyway? She'd always considered Clio to be the pinnacle of beauty. Tall, dark, slender as a reed, serious and quiet, her big sister had always been everything she, Francie, aspired to be.

She knew she was considered beautiful, but she herself saw nothing in the mirror to convince herself of that. Curly blonde hair, blue eyes, round body, all of it just looked too obvious to her. Who cared what anyone looked like? Though she could see handsomeness in men. Her father was certainly good-looking, she knew. And the boys she swam with had nice bodies, she could definitely tell that. But she'd never felt that zing, that flutter, that Clio had described to her, that feeling when Archie put his hands on her or when he kissed her. Clio said she'd even felt that way when Zeke had brushed his hand against hers when they were kids.

She, Francie, had never felt that way in her life. Was something wrong with her?

Maybe she was gay? Maybe she needed to brush up against some girls?

Francie didn't know. She wished Clio were home, so they could slumber party, and maybe talk about this some more.

With all these thoughts swirling around in her head, Francie fell asleep.