She did seem to want an answer. “Lizbeth Paley,” I ventured.
“Exactamundo.” She nodded toward the pill in my hand. “You better go for it. It’s gonna melt.” As I downed it, Emory watched, leaning back over her purple satin mermaid pillows, while I stayed perched upright like a sea horse at the end of her bed.
“I never liked Aidan,” I said, braving it. “He was always coming on to me, if you want to know the truth. And only because I look like Jessie. He was way too fascinated by the similarity; he made it uncomfortable for me every time.”
Emory flicked her fingers. “Those aren’t Pentagon secrets. Everyone knew about Aidan’s being hot for Jessie.”
“Oh.” I faltered. “But you and Aidan stayed together anyway.”
“Sort of. He goes to boarding school up in New Hampshire, I’m in Boston—maybe the distance made us closer. Especially when you just want someone to talk to late at night. By the time we saw each other this summer, it was like we just fell back in the habit of dating.” Emory had the apologetic-defiance thing down cold. I felt like she was ready to jump me with an answer no matter what question I asked.
“And you were still able to be friends with Jessie?”
Except that one. Emory seemed to droop a little. “With Jessie, it was more complicated. She was such a free spirit. It’s like getting mad at the wind for blowing down your sand castle. And she loved Pete most of all—he was her soul mate. She liked to have fun, but Aidan was just a diversion. He wasn’t anything to her.”
“So, since it wasn’t serious, that made it easier?”
“What can I say? Love makes you stupid.”
“True.” And while I couldn’t tell if Emory was referring to Aidan or Jessie, it didn’t seem too important to get her to clarify. Love makes you stupid. Yeah, I got that.
Emory’s wooziness level had seemed to up a notch as she now regarded me. “Not that you need to worry. Sebastian Brooks is hot and smart, with the added benefit that he’s actually a decent guy,” she said. “You could do way worse. He was off the market all last year. Fact is, none of the Little Bly couples from last year have stayed together. Well, except for Peter and Jess. I’m not sure that they count, though.”
“I’d heard Peter and Jessie had problems, those last days.” I went slow, feeling my way through this new opportunity window. This was, after all, why I’d come out here. To find out more. To learn the truth, or as close to the truth as Jessie’s best friend might know. “That they’d been fighting.”
“Really? Where’d you hear that, from Mother Hubbard? ’Cause that’s news to me.” Emory frowned skeptically. “According to Isa, they were planning to get married that weekend.”
It was like a brick drop straight to the foot. “Come on. That sounds like a joke.”
“Who knows? Jessie’d never clued me in, and she was pretty impulsive. Anyway, it’s the story Isa liked to tell, and she was so wrecked those first weeks after, we all figured she needed to believe in something nice—a happy ending in heaven.” Emory yawned. She was turning boneless. She stretched her hands languorously over her head and slipped deeper under the covers. “It’s not that incredible, if you knew Jess. She didn’t want to go to college, she hated academic stuff. Last summer, she told me she never wanted to leave Bly. Didn’t want to deal with senior year, period.” Emory’s bleary eyes suddenly met mine. “Oh my God. I’d never thought of it like this before, but Jess got her wish, right? In an ironic, tragic sort of way.”
“Married …” I unfolded the word, which felt opaque, like a heavy, itchy lace. I couldn’t believe it.
“That’s why they were taking the Cessna to North Carolina. They’d planned to fly into Raleigh and drive to Georgia. You can get a marriage license in Georgia without your parents’ permission. Or that’s what Isa said Peter had told her. Eloping is always like one of those dare-ya’s that kids talk about.”
Married. No, that didn’t make sense. Not according to Jessie’s last note, or anything that Isa had ever said to me. “Did Peter ever really want to? I mean, for the … right reasons?” I asked.
“You mean, did he just want to marry her money?” Emory yawned. “Maybe. Pete always acted like money meant nothing to him, but what a joke, we all knew better. And he sure didn’t say no when Jess picked up his tabs at Green Hill. He used to dress in Mr. McRae’s clothes. Watches, belts, blazers, all of it. And he sped around in McRae’s Porsche so much it seemed like his.”
“Was it obnoxious?”
“It could be grating. Pete loved to lord it over people. I’ll never forget his face when he told me about Aidan and Jess. The triumph in it.”
I cringed. “That sounds pretty low.”
“Oh, that kid could be the king of low. The quickest path to making himself feel superior was to make other people feel bad.” But Emory’s speech had slowed to a crawl, and her eyes had given up trying to stay open. Ha, those were the days, when one OxyContin could do that to me.
“Jessie didn’t care what other people thought. And Peter cared too much,” I said.
Emory nodded. “Yrmm … ’Swut brought them together, I guess.”
More than that, I thought. It was what had destroyed them.
TWENTY
The ringing wouldn’t stop.
It had begun on the bike ride home. Droning yet quiet, a fly hovering outside swatting range. Not quite enough to be a full-on menace, but bothersome just the same. I went right downstairs, joining Isa for some TV to filter out the sound, then fell asleep watching a ballroom-dance marathon. Rousing only after Connie stomped down and shook me awake.
Later that night after dinner, as Isa and I played one of her favorite games she’d taught me, called M.A.S.H. (Mansion-Apartment-Shack-House), the sound had accelerated from fly to worse. And while I knew that nobody else could hear it, that it was all mine, somehow it sounded as if the noise were filtering in from elsewhere; through the water pipes, the radiator vents, the chimney flue. While it was subtle as a squirrel chewing through paneled wood for a way out she shall have music wherever she goes, its persistence was killing me.
I screwed my pinkies deep into my ears. Isa was talking to me.
“Come on, Jamie!” With a snap in my face. “You’re not listening. Write it down: Veterinarian! Actress! Photographer! Doctor!”