Finding Colin Firth: A Novel by Mia March Page B

womanly way that Bea, who an ex liked to describe as looking like a farm girl, even though she’d grown up in Boston and Cape Cod, would never be. Still, there was something in the woman’s expression that was like Bea’s, something subtle.
    She wore all white, a sparkly white tank top and white pants. And beaded sandals. Done with her shift, Bea figured.
    You’re a complete stranger, and yet my entire history comes from you, Bea wanted to shout. What is your story? What was your story?
    Bea glanced at Veronica’s hands as she added a packet of sugar to her coffee. No rings at all. So she wasn’t married.
    “Hey, darling,” a man said, and Bea glanced over to see a tall, skinny, half-balding redheaded guy wobbling in the doorway as though he was drunk, his foot stuck in the screen door. He was staring at Veronica. “Is today my lucky day? Gonna go out with me?”
    Veronica cut him a sharp look. “Please stop asking me out. My answer is never going to change.”
    “She’s breaking my heart!” he shouted, and mock stabbed himself in the chest, and those sitting around the front of the diner burst into laughter.
    Bea watched Veronica shake her head good-naturedly and stir her coffee as the guy staggered away.
    “Colin Firth’s signing autographs at Harbor View Coffee!” a nasal voice called out from in front of the diner.
    Colin Firth? The actor?
    Veronica was out the door in a shot. Along with half of everyone in the diner.
    Bea had the strongest urge to get up and follow her, but her body wouldn’t listen to a single command. Except for her hand, shaking around her fork, she was frozen. She set down the fork, sucked in a breath, and thought about calling her good friend Caroline to tell her she’d seen her birth mother in the flesh, that she was beautiful, but Caroline was in Berlin for the summer.
    Bea looked down at her untouched slice of pie, the gooey fudge, the flaky crust. Her biological mother had made this pie. She took a slow bite, letting herself savor it.
    Bea wanted to chase after Veronica and throw some time-stop pixie dust on her so that she could surreptitiously study her every feature—the shape of her eyes, the line of her nose, the structure of her jawline—and look for herself in Veronica’s face, her body, her mannerisms. Something to force her brain to accept that this was all true, that this woman, not Cora Crane, had given birth to her. That someone, a man whose name she didn’t know, had fathered her. Who was he? Had they been in love? Was it a one-night stand? Something awful? Where did I come from, Bea wanted to know. Suddenly, she was itchy to learn Veronica’s life story, Bea’s own history. Who were her grandparents?
    Who was Bea?
    Bea put a ten-dollar bill on the table and raced out after Veronica.

    Main Street was so crowded with tourists and bicyclists, a dog walker with the leashes of at least ten dogs, and a bunch of day campers walking toward her two by two, in neon yellow Happy Kids Day Camp T-shirts, that Bea couldn’t see Veronica in any direction she looked. Harbor View Coffee was five shops down. Bea went in and looked around, but there was no sign of Veronica, let alone a British actor.
    “If you’ve come looking for Colin Firth, he’s not here,” the barista called over, rolling her eyes. “Someone obviously thought it would be funny to send every woman in town rushing in here.”
    Bea saw a couple leave through the back door with their iced coffees, and she headed out to the small patio. No Veronica. A cobblestone path led to the street running perpendicular to Main, right along the harbor. Veronica must have gone out this way.
    Okay, now what? She could come back tomorrow—and this time, perhaps she’d sit in Veronica’s section. Bea headed toward the harbor and tried to think. She’d come to Boothbay to see the town, this place where she’d been born, where she’d begun as someone else’s story. The plan was that when and if the time was right,