Now I wasn’t sure.
Like so many of the island’s residences, 58 Shoal was imposing—a starchy Victorian with bay windows, protected by a stately gathering of beeches and silver lindens. I wanted to turn back. But I kept on going, hands balled in my shorts pockets, force-marching myself right up to the front door.
It had been nearly a week since I’d found Pete’s Facebook. I’d tried to forget about it. I’d focused on Isa. Yesterday, I’d broken the routine of the beach and pool by taking her out shopping in Little Bly’s tiny, arty center of town. Isa always blossomed under my full attention, which made me happy—especially since it also meant I’d hardly had to interact with Milo at all.
But then last night, I found myself wide awake and restless and, eventually, floating online again. Mulling over that last direct message from Jessie. So many secrets seemed to be encoded inside—like the references to Peter’s not showing up at the beach, her halfhearted defense against Isa’s story, and Pendleton and that maddeningly mysterious She. Plus there were other thistly details: Jessie’s using the word luv instead of love, the offhand assurance that she and Pete were “great together” when he wasn’t “an insecure paranoid” and the casual command that he should roll with her choices.
What choices? What was Jessie really saying here?
Also, the message wasn’t signed with Jessie’s usual x’s and o’s.
Finally, while she was clearly irritated with Pete for bailing on their plan to meet up at Green Hill, Jessie made no references to plans for the next day. Almost as if she couldn’t care less what he was up to. All in all, not very girlfriendy.
Or maybe I’d overanalyzed it. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d read too much into something.
A uniformed housekeeper answered on my first press of the bell.
“Hi.” I cleared the shyness from my throat. “I’m looking for Emory? I work over at Skylark. For the McRae family?” My own name seemed irrelevant.
“Emory’s here, but she’s napping,” said the housekeeper, with a very Connie-ish lilt of disdain in her voice.
“Oh.” I raised my eyebrows and drew up my lips in a reaction of mild astonishment, an expression Connie herself would have used—napping? how lazy—and the housekeeper’s face shifted with agreement.
“She really should be awake by now,” she said. “Why don’t you go on up and tap? Last door on the left.”
“Thanks.” I moved past her, into what seemed a particularly female kind of quiet, probably because of all the pastel fabrics and delicate furniture. Up the stairs and down the hall to her door, where I knocked softly.
“Noooo …” Emory groaned. “Go away, Mom. Thought you were at a flower show.”
“It’s Jamie Atkinson.”
Silence. Rustling. Then the door cracked open. Had she been crying? The skin beneath her tear-bright eyes was pink, but her face was tight with suspicion.
“Jamie. Nobody sent you here, did they?”
“Me? No.”
“Like Sebastian? To cheer me up? Because I don’t want any cheering up right now.”
“I promise, I wasn’t sent. But I can come back another time, if you want.”
Whatever flimsy excuse I’d planned for why I’d dropped in on her, Emory didn’t seem to need a reason. In fact, it struck me, as she opened the door wider for me to step through, that maybe she’d been hoping for company—anyone’s, even mine. “My room’s a pit these days,” she semi-apologized, with a sniffle.
“Don’t worry about it—mine always is.” I stepped in. Her room looked like it had been decorated by a messy mermaid. Lots of shiny purple and white wicker, conch shells and open fans. I picked up a desk photo of her and Jessie, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, both with tangled hair and smiles, caught in a moment of uncomplicated summertime radiance.
“Our last picture,” said Emory. “For months, it was too hard to look at. I only put it up again last week.”
Suddenly I was tremendously envious of that picture. Its beachy innocence needled at me. When was the last time I’d felt so carefree? When had Mags and I last enjoyed a laugh? I’d been sulking and depressed all spring, without the nerve to tell her—I’d made up a hundred different reasons (the twins graduating, my back injury, my C in European history) to disguise the secret, shameful one—and we’d been apart most of this summer. Would things go back to normal with us come fall? I hated to think that they wouldn’t.
I stuck the picture back on the desk, maybe too hard.
“Hey.” She swept it up against her chest and stared at me, her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Sorry. Really.”
“Why’re you rubbing your back?”
“Oh. It’s this old injury. I didn’t think biking would make it worse. I was wrong, I guess.”
Emory placed the photo faceup deep in the corner of her windowsill, as if to guard me from attacking it. But then, studying me, she seemed to relent. “I’ve got OxyContin.”
“Yeah? I could use some.”
She disappeared into her bathroom and returned with the pill and a glass of water.
“Why do you have OxyContin?” I asked. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Left over from my wisdom teeth. But I just took one twenty minutes ago. Wisdom teeth are a joke, compared with this.”
“With what?”
“Aidan broke up with me. I thought everyone knew. I know Sebastian knows.” Emory shook back her hair, her cool-girl confidence hanging by a thread as she dropped back into her bed and buried most of herself in the duvet. “Sunrise Dry Cleaners is like the gossip nucleus of Bly.”
“He came by for a swim yesterday, and he didn’t tell me anything,” I answered honestly. “But he was only around for a little while to cool off.” Sebastian’s after-work visits, though they ended all too soon, were the highlight of my day. And he never gossiped. He’d spent most of yesterday’s visit helping Isa perfect her half gainer. “What happened?”
“You’ll have to ask Aidan. He says it’s for every reason in the world except Lizbeth Paley. But then why would he do it on the phone? Before the weekend? I’ll tell you why—because he wants to be single this weekend,” she answered her own question with a short, unhappy laugh. “Because guess who just broke up with her high school boyfriend?”