Текст книги "Luckiest Girl Alive"

Автор книги: Jessica Knoll

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

That was something Dan the lawyer had actually warned me about. That with the real villains dead, everyone was looking for a target, and I looked pretty right for it.

I reminded Dean, “But I’d never even met Ben.”

“I know,” Dean said. “I just, once I had some time to recover, and to think, I realized you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“So why didn’t you just come out and say that? Do you know the hate mail I still get? From your fans.” The last word came out trembling with rage.

“Because I was angry,” Dean said. “There’s nothing else to it but that. Anger. And resentment. That you came out okay.”

I laughed. All these people so sure I’d come out okay, and I only have myself to blame, for putting on the greatest show on earth. “Not really.”

Dean looked me up and down. It wasn’t a leer. He was simply making the most obvious observation. My casual, expensive clothes, my hair trimmed to $150 ends. “You look pretty okay.”

Dean’s legs slumped together in a V at the knees. I wondered if he set them like that every morning when he got out of bed. Another raindrop, more bulbous this time, docked at my forehead. “So why do we need privacy to say all this? Aaron said you wanted to set the record straight.”

“I do,” Dean said. “I’ll say all of this on camera. I’ll explain how I was confused and then too angry to rectify the situation. I’ll apologize and you’ll forgive me.”

I simmered. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Because you want to clear your name. And I can do that for you.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“Ani”—Dean steepled his fingers—“I’ve made a very good fortune out of my bad fortune.”

Not far behind him was the black Mercedes, the driver in a spiffy suit waiting to chauffeur Dean to his next engagement. “You’re a true inspiration, Dean.”

“Hey”—he chuckled—“can you blame me for making the best out of it?”

The sun surfaced again. Found something like understanding and blasted it bright.

“I guess I can’t,” I said.

“It’s a little serendipitous, actually.” Dean leaned forward, like he was excited to share this next part with me. “I was working on my latest book, which is all about the power of asking for forgiveness, and here, this project comes along.”

I went stiff. “Like it was meant to be.”

Dean laughed into his useless crotch. “You’re sharp, Ani. You always were. I hope your husband appreciates it.” He sighed. “My wife is so fucking dumb.”

“Fiancé,” I corrected him.

Dean shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “Fine. Fiancé.” He looked behind him again, checking to make sure no one could hear but me. “It will be very . . . impactful . . . for my fans”—a little smile, for my benefit—“to see us come to some sort of peace. But I also think people will understand why it took me so long to get to this point, and why I was confused at first. I didn’t set out to ruin your good name, I was traumatized. I’m man enough to admit that now. But . . . the, ah, other stuff. There’s not really much of an excuse for that, is there?” He paused for a moment, as if considering whether or not to tell me the next thing. “My wife is expecting, did you know that?”

I stared at him numbly.

“Biologically mine.” He looked up at me, squinting beneath the temperamental sky. “It’s amazing the things they can do these days.” His voice took on a tenor of amazement. “All it takes is a noninvasive surgery, a lab and a petri dish, and voilà, I’m a family man, exactly what my community wants for me. And they foot my bills, so I’m happy to oblige, even though kids . . .” He made a face I had made many times before. For a moment, he just studied the road, considering what his life would be like with a child he could never chase after, could never teach to play soccer. He cleared his throat and looked at me again. “But the other stuff, I don’t see them giving a pass on that.”

“No,” I agreed. “It’s pretty scummy.”

“That’s a private apology.” Dean tilted his head. Gauged my face and added, “And it is an apology. I am very sorry for that.”

I stared him down. “I want you to answer something though.”

Dean’s jaw ticked again.

“Did you guys plan it? That night at your house?”

Dean had the nerve to look offended. “We weren’t diabolical, Ani. No. It just—” He looked at the empty road again and thought about how to put it. “There was a little bit of competition. Who gets the new girl. But when we went to my room, I didn’t even know that what happened with Liam happened. I didn’t even know that until the next day.”

I took a step toward him, so shocked I wanted to shake the rest of his secrets loose. “You didn’t know about Liam?”

Dean winced at himself. “But listen, I knew about Peyton. But I . . . I didn’t know, I didn’t think that was bad. I don’t know”—he shrugged—“that wasn’t sex to me. I didn’t understand how what happened with Peyton and me could be bad.” Off my look, he added, quickly, “But I do now.”

The sun blasted us again, one quick lash before darting behind a moody cloud. “What do you know now?”

Dean pierced his eyebrows together, like I was a teacher who had asked him a difficult question and he wanted to get the answer right. “That it was wrong.”

“No”—I pointed my finger at him, the line a downward diagonal—“I want you to say it. What it was. If I’m going to play along, I deserve to hear one of you finally call a spade a spade. Tell me what you did to me.”

Dean sighed and considered my request. After a moment, he admitted, “What we did to you . . . it was rape, okay?”

The word ripped my stomach apart like cancer. Terrorist attack. Plane crash. All the things I’m terrified will get me because I slipped out of Arthur’s fingers half a lifetime ago. But still I shook my head. “No. None of this distancing language. ‘It was rape’—I know those tricks. I want you to say what you did to me. What you all did to me.”

Dean examined the ground. The fold in his brow softened as all the fight went out of his face. “We raped you.”

I rubbed my lips together, tasted something deliciously metallic. The moment felt impossibly sweeter than when Luke proposed. “And that night at Olivia’s—”

Dean cut me off with a resigned nod. “I know. I hit you. There is no excuse for that. For any of it. All I know is I felt lied to. Led on by you. And it infuriated me. It was like I blacked out from the anger. I’m still so grateful that Olivia’s dad broke the whole thing up, or, I don’t know what . . .” He stopped, because the raindrops had roused the crew from their waiting place.

“Hey! Guys?” Aaron called. “If we want to do this, we have to do it now.”

We got the shot moments before the sky found its release. Did I sell out? I don’t see it that way. But only because there is still something else I’ve kept to myself all of these years, a reason to cut Dean a little slack. I may wonder what I would have said if Arthur came to me and asked me to be a part of his plan, but I don’t wonder as much about what would have happened had Arthur actually turned the gun over to me. Because if I’d gotten my hands on it, I think I just might have blown that motherfucking cocksucker’s cock right off. Arthur would have gone second.

CHAPTER 16

There are two keys on my key chain plus a New York Sports Club pass even though I haven’t been a member since 2009. That means I have a fifty-fifty shot of getting the right key in the door. I can’t remember a time I’ve ever gotten the right key in the door.

Luke thinks it’s cute. He says it gives him the heads-up that I’m home. “So I can ex out of the porn windows,” he teases. I’ve seen the porn Luke watches—girl with huge fake tits shouting yes, yes, yes, right there, some muscled moron plowing her, looks about as much fun as doing your taxes. Luke thinks I don’t like porn, but I just don’t like his porn. I need to see someone in pain. Pain is good. Pain can’t be faked.

I pushed the door open with my foot. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Luke said from the couch, watching me struggle with a smile on his face. “I missed you.”

The door slammed behind me and I dropped my bags. Luke opened up his arms. “Can I have a hug?”

The words “Can I have some help?” sat snippy on the tip of my tongue. The decision not to say them required some strength.

I walked toward Luke and curled up in his lap. “Aw,” he said. “You okay, babe?”

I tucked my face into his neck. He smelled like he needed a shower, but I’d always liked him a little dirty. Some people have a good natural scent, and Luke was one of them. Of course he was. “I’m exhausted,” I said.

“What can I do for you?” Luke asked. “How can I help?”

“I’m hungry,” I said. “But I don’t want to eat.”

“Babe, you look amazing.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Hey.” Luke forced his fingers underneath my chin, tilted my head up so I was looking at him. “You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen and you are going to be the most beautiful bride. One more cheeseburger isn’t going to change that. A million cheeseburgers couldn’t change that.”

Now was the time to ask. I’d caught him in a moment of Ani-infatuation, a rarity these days. But before I could, Luke’s expression became serious. “So,” he said, “I have to talk to you about something.”

It was like I was riding a roller coaster at the exact moment the car inched over the summit and plunged to the ground below. The change in force jumbled all my organs, my lower abdomen throbbing as though my heart had tumbled there. Had Mom been right?

“The London offer came through,” Luke said.

I repeated what he’d said in my head, trying to adjust, trying to identify the emotion ricocheting from my free-falling kidneys and liver and heart. Was it disappointment? Relief? Resignation? “Oh,” I said. “Oh,” I said again, stumbling into something like curiosity. “When?”

“They want us to move over the holidays. So I’m there for the start of the new year.”

I leaned away from him, transferring my weight in a way that made Luke grimace. He shifted beneath me, trying to get comfortable again. “Did you already tell them yes?”

“No,” Luke said. “Of course not. I said I had to talk to you first.”

“When do you have to give them an answer by?”

Luke frowned, considering. “I think I should let them know in a week or so.”

The ligaments in Luke’s legs tensed beneath me, bracing for my meltdown. I suddenly realized the leverage I had if I could keep my cool. It meant accepting a decision that made me sad, but the other option made me afraid, and I was so tired of being afraid. “I need to talk to LoLo,” I said, imagining the meeting in her office, her chemically calm face incapable of expressing what a massive mistake she thought I was making. “Maybe she’ll hook me up with a job at the UK brand.”

Luke smiled, surprised. “I’m sure she would.” He added, generously, “She loves you.”

I nodded, all agreeable Ani. Fiddling with a button on his shirt I said, “I actually have to talk to you about something too.”

Luke’s golden eyebrows twitched.

“The production company wants to film the wedding.” I rushed the next part before Luke could butt in and object. “They just felt really moved by my story, and it’s kind of cool because they also offered to basically be the videographer and put together a wedding video for us. For free.” WASPs love the occasional freebie.

Aaron had approached me after Dean wheeled up the ramp and into the handicap cave of his private car. I’d been so brave. So fearless. I slunk in on myself as he piled on the praise. “You really are emerging as this sort of tragic hero,” Aaron said. “I think it could be so powerful to end the movie on your wedding. Your happily ever after. So long deserved.”

I didn’t disagree. This ending was the easy one.

I realized that I must have told Aaron I’d discuss his idea with Luke at the same time Luke was telling the partners he’d discuss London with me, both of us having something we wanted that only the other could make possible. I wondered if Luke exited his meeting, pep in his step, picturing the sleek modern flat the company would put us up in, dismissing the possible killjoy in the whole scenario, me. She’ll be no problem to convince, he probably thought, as only a person whose life has been one endless loop of pass-go-and-collect-two-hundred-dollars thinks.

My meeting with Aaron had ended much differently. I waited to react until I was alone in the Jeep. Our Jeep, I reminded myself, grimly. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my teeth chattered, and then I was slumped over the center console, wailing my resignation into the leather that smelled faintly of skunk, like one of Luke’s friends spilled a beer a very long time ago and never bothered to clean it up.

Luke scratched an ingrown hair on his neck. “For free?”

There was a give in his voice, and, for a moment, buyer’s remorse crept in. Why not just let him say no? Why not just fight and cry and say, “I can’t do this,” and really mean it this time? I spoke loudly, over that possibility. “For free. And you know they’ll do a good job. A really good job.”

Luke stared at the naked white wall above the TV, thinking. I’d been meaning to get to Brooklyn Flea, find something “eccentric” to hang there. “I just really hate the idea of our wedding being in that documentary though.”

“It really will be just a few minutes at the end,” I said, the lie ready and waiting. “We’ll get a say in the final cut.”

Luke bobbed his head around, considering. “And you trust them?”

I nodded, meaning that at least. Aaron had surprised me after I decided to stop despising him. “I do. I really do.”

Luke tilted his head back, the brown leather couch puckering beneath the full weight of his skull. His parents had bought us these couches. I’d gone from sharing a Diet Coke–and-pizza-grease-stained futon with Nell to these couches, the leather like butter, Mom said the first time she visited us, running her French tips along their creamy skin. Sometimes the transition seemed too much, too quick. There had to be an in-between, and it seemed unfair that I had skipped it. Like something I could be punished for later.

“Luke.” Now I released the tears that had been building since I nosed the Jeep onto the West Side Highway, the sudden, disorienting panic that where I was headed was no longer home snowballing as the West Village became Tribeca. “This weekend was so good in so many ways. I really feel like, for the first time, everyone is on my side. Dean is on my side. I saw Dean. I think they want to—”

“You saw Dean?” Luke’s head snapped upright. I stared at the couch, at the way it held his skull’s imprint tight. “I thought you weren’t planning on talking about what happened with him.” Luke brought his thumb to his mouth and chewed on it angrily. “I knew those producers were going to manipulate you.” He wiped saliva on his shirt and pounded his thigh with a tight fist. “I knew I should have gone with you.”

A tingle, electric and wild, sparked all along my spine. Never in my life did I think I would feel the need to defend Dean Barton. “I saw Dean because I wanted to see Dean,” I snapped. “And relax. We didn’t talk about the rape.”

That word stopped Luke cold. I’d never said it out loud. Not to anyone.

“His story changed,” I said, rushing to fill in the uncomfortable silence, confirming what I’ve always suspected about Luke: He doesn’t think it was rape. He thinks it was an unfortunate incident, something that happens when hornball kids get together and drink too much. “He doesn’t think I had something to do with it anymore.” Remembering the picture I had promised to return to Mrs. Finnerman, I swung my legs over the arm of the couch and stood, making my way to the bookcase in the corner. I crouched in front of the bottom shelf for the folder where I store all things Bradley—news clips, memorial service cards, the image of Arthur and his father, laughing at the drab Jersey ocean, pastel seashells lining the memory.

“He said that?” Luke asked behind me.

I shook the folder, trying to locate the picture. “He told me that. He apologized for ever saying so. On camera.”

Luke peered over the surface of the coffee table to see what I was doing. “What are you looking for?”

“That picture,” I said. “Of Arthur and his dad. I promised Mrs. Finnerman I’d give it back to her.” I dumped all the contents onto the floor. “It’s not here.” I pushed through it all, one more time. “What the fuck?”

“You probably moved it and forgot,” Luke said, suddenly helpful. “It’ll turn up.”

“No. I would never have moved it.” I eased one leg across the other on the hardwood floor and sat.

“Hey.” Luke got up off the couch, and there was that sound, like peeling a sticker off a piece of paper. I felt his hand on my back, and then he was next to me on the floor, collecting the file’s contents. “It will turn up. Stuff like that always does when you’re not looking.”

I watched him neatly file away my tragedy. The care on his face gave me the courage to try one more time. “Aaron understands how invasive it could be to have the cameras there. He really is going to just look like the videographer.”

Luke sealed the folder shut. “I just don’t want, like, an entire camera crew at our wedding.”

I shook my head and held out two fingers. “That’s it, that’s all they need.”

“Two guys?”

“I told them the same thing.” See, Luke, we’re on the same page. “They promised me, two. No one will be able to tell the difference between them and a regular videographer.” I didn’t mention the part about everyone having to sign releases. I just needed to get him to a yes.

Luke balanced the bulk of evidence in his lap. “This is going to make you happy, isn’t it?”

I needed tears again, but just enough to make my eyes gleam. No track marks on my cheeks—that would be overkill. “This will make me really happy,” I croaked.

Luke dropped his head to his chest and sighed. “Then we have to do it.”

I flung my arms around his neck. “I want a cheeseburger now.”

It was just the right cute, quirky Ani thing to say because Luke laughed.

“You are ridiculous,” Nell said when I walked into Sally Hershberger Downtown. “Fucking eat something already.”

I chose to take it as a joke and went to do a little spin for her, but Nell seized a crumpled magazine from the pile on the coffee table and glared at Blake Lively on the cover. I sat down next to her in reception, stung. The prepubescent model behind the front desk asked if we wanted coffee. “A latte,” I said.

“Skim?” she asked.

“Whole milk.”

“Still doesn’t count as food,” Nell muttered.

My hairstylist appeared before us. “Oh my Godddd.” Ruben pressed his hands to his face like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. “You have cheekbones.”

“Don’t encourage it.” Nell flipped a page in W with so much force she tore it half out of the magazine. Nell and I just weren’t talking about it. Any of it.

“Oh, please.” Ruben shooed her away. “It’s her wedding. We can’t have fucking Shamu walking down the aisle.” He offered me his hand. “Come on back, gorgeous.”

Ruben said I should do big Brigitte Bardot hair now that my face was so slender. “You can’t do that on porkers.” He twisted my hair into wet knots all over my head. “Just makes them look bigger.” Ruben had never suggested Brigitte Bardot hair for me before I’d gotten down to 104 pounds.

Mom said she didn’t even know why I was bothering to get my hair done in New York when the second I got to Nantucket the humidity would undo it all. I told Ruben that, and he pshawed. “Your mama doesn’t know anything about anything.”

Luke had left for Nantucket earlier in the week, but I didn’t have the same liberty at The Women’s Magazine. When I requested Friday off in addition to the two weeks I needed for my honeymoon, the managing editor balked. But LoLo stepped in and made it happen. She approved of my honeymoon choice—eight days in the Maldives and three in Paris. I still hadn’t talked to her about London, even though Luke had given his answer to the partners, and it was a go.

“Fabulous,” she said. “And the Maldives are sinking, you know. So run, run, before it’s too late.”

Ruben had a tan bald head and glasses that sloped on the end of his elegant nose. He never pushed them up, the way Arthur used to. Just squinted over their tortoiseshell ledge as he fed sections of my hair through a round brush, twisting and turning at the bottom until the ends coiled like peppy ribbons securing a Christmas present.

Nell glanced at her watch. She had wandered over with my latte twenty minutes ago, handing it off to me with a slight, apologetic smile. I guess she figured I was going through with it and there was no point in continuing to punish me. “It’s almost eleven,” she said. Our flight was out of JFK at 2:00, and we still had to get back down to my apartment to collect my luggage.

Ruben worked some product into my hair, whipped off the black robe, and planted a loud kiss on the top of my head. “I want pictures,” he said. “You are going to make the most gorgeous bride.” He held his hand over his heart, and I watched him tear up in the mirror. “Ugh!” he cried. “Just the most gorgeous bride.”

Nell and I tore into my apartment, shimmying the wet off our coats and umbrellas. It had started to rain on our way downtown, and getting a cab was going to be difficult now.

“Seriously,” Nell said. “We have to go.”

I was going through the fridge, tossing anything that would spoil over the next two weeks.

“I know,” I said. “I have to trash this stuff though. I can’t come back to a smelly apartment. Drives me crazy.”

“Where’s your trash room?” Nell grabbed the garbage bag out of my hands. “I got it. Just get everything together.”

The door slammed behind Nell, and then I was alone. I dropped to my knees, pushing through the cleaning supplies we keep in the cabinet beneath the sink. I found a box of clean garbage bags and wedged it loose. A row of bottles shifted, and something fell, rattling as it spun. The object was a seafoam green blur only until it sputtered, ran out of gas, and went silent on its side. I pinched it between my fingers and studied it, wondering how long I had before Nell returned to the apartment and caught me on the ground, shaking like a wet dog.

“The first time I ever heard of Ani was in an e-mail my brother sent me on November sixth, 2011.” The speech in Garret’s hand fluttered as he brought it closer to his face to make out the words.

“‘I’m bringing a girl home for Thanksgiving,’ he said. ‘Her name is Ani and it’s pronounced “Ah-nee.” Not “Annie.” If you screw it up, I’ll kill you.’”

The room vibrated with pleasant laughter. Oh, those Harrison boys.

Garret glanced up from the paper in his hands. “I think you know when two people are meant for each other when you see that they’re better people together than they are when they’re apart.”

A hum of agreement.

“Ani is one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met, but let’s just say it, she’s a little kooky.” There was robust laughter at that, which shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. Wasn’t that the personality I’d meticulously crafted for Luke? Adorably quirky? The razor-sharp spokes that sliced through every now and then, the thing that kept him on his toes, the extra little bonus? “And I know that’s what my brother loves about her. It’s what we all love about her.”

I looked at Nell. She mouthed “Sweetest girl he’s ever met?” and rolled her eyes. I looked back at my soon to be brother-in-law and hoped no one else had noticed.

“And my brother.” Garret laughed, and the crowd did too. They knew he was gearing up for something good. “Well, not many people can keep up with my brother. He’s the last one at the bar and the first one on the surfboard in the morning. You get out there, and he’s been riding the waves for an hour and he’ll want to stay out an hour longer than you do and you’re like, dude, you made me take a Jameson shot at three in the morning, I can’t.” Garret covered his forehead, like he had a headache. “God bless you for putting up with that, Ani (Annie), excuse me, Ani (Ah-nee).” The laugh track was at full volume now, and, with Herculean effort, I joined in.

Garret waited patiently for the room to quiet down. A smile ate up half his face as he continued. This was going well. “But that’s what’s so great about Luke and Ani. They don’t ‘put up’ with each other. They love each other unconditionally, inhuman amounts of energy and all.”

Luke’s hand found my own, gnarled into a claw, as though a paralysis had settled into the bones. My whole body creaked as he pulled my hand into his lap. With my other, I churned the discovery I’d made in our kitchen. I’d kept it close since I left New York, considering what to do with it, how to play it. Nell had badgered me the entire flight. “Jesus. What’s wrong?” “You know how much I hate flying,” I’d said to the window.

“My brother needed someone like Ani. Someone to show him what it’s really all about, this life. Family, kids, stability.” He smiled right at me. “She’s it.”

I rubbed my cheek on my shoulder, against a nonexistent itch.

“And to that point, Ani needed someone like my brother. Someone to be her rock. Someone to calm her down when she starts to spin”—there was a strong, almost hostile emphasis on that word, and a knowing wink at Luke—“out of control.” When she starts to spin. I felt like I was standing outside of my body as I understood, with piercing clarity, that Luke made fun of me, of my rabid terror, of my silly, hard-earned phobias, over beers with his brother and friends. “She’s ridiculous,” I realized I could hear him say, and everything in me ached with that raw, ruthless exposure.

“I’m so excited to see where these two go in life,” Garret said, the joy inflected in his voice jarring against my sudden decision, final and terrifying. “Well, and, to crash at their amazing London flat.” Everyone laughed. “And, Ani, when it’s time for a new little Harrison, at least we know Luke is no stranger to that three A.M. thirst”—more laughter and bile bubbled in my throat. I cleared it out and raised my glass with Garret and everyone else. “To being better together, than you are alone.”

“To being better together, than you are alone.” My voice was a part of this chorus too. Glasses clinked, the sound a delicate bell—no! no! no! I drained my champagne, all of it, even the angry curdles at the top.

Luke leaned in and kissed me. “You make me so happy, babe.” I held on to my smile with all my might.

Someone tapped Luke on the shoulder, and he turned, began to chat about the honeymoon. I put my hand on his knee—funny, that would be the last time I could ever touch him like that—said, “I’m just going to use the bathroom.”

I waded through the room, the perky pleasantries. “Hello, hello, hi.” “You look stunning!” “Thank you!” “Congratulations!” “Thank you!” “Hi, hello, hi.” “Lovely to see you.” Lovely. When did I start saying that terrible word?

The wedding coordinator had pointed out the one-stall bathroom in the back of Topper’s, the restaurant charging us thirty thousand dollars for the rehearsal dinner. “Usually just for staff,” she’d said. “But you and Luke should feel free to use it tonight if you need some privacy.” She’d winked, and I’d stared at her, horrified.

I locked the door behind me. There was no overhead light, just a white porcelain lamp on the counter, the light fuzzing through the shade golden and dreamy, like I was playing a part in an old movie. I lowered the toilet seat, carefully and quietly as a bench in church. I sat, the skirt of my size zero Milly dress collecting the DNA of all the brides who had sat here before me. I’d never be thin enough to wear it again.

My Bottega Veneta clutch made a smacky, kissy noise as I snapped it open. I dug around until I found the green seashell, ribbed and faded between my fingers.

It was some time before there was a knock on the door. I sighed and stood—Showtime, ready?—cracking it open just wide enough to reveal the eyes, nose, and lips of Nell. It was an entirely different light out there.

She smiled, and the corners of her mouth disappeared from the narrow frame. “Whatcha doing?”

I didn’t say anything. Nell reached through the door and thumbed away a black tear.

“What was that, anyway?” she said. “You’re the sweetest girl Garret’s ever met? Has anyone here ever met you?”

I laughed. One of those horrible cry-laughs that juggles all the phlegm in your chest.

“What do you want to do?” Nell asked.

She listened patiently while I told her, then whistled low. “What a shit show this is going to be.”

Nantucket suffers from a temperature inversion, which occurs when cold air is trapped under hot. This is what creates the ever-present fog, the Gray Lady, that cloaks the island, even on a clear day when there’s not a cloud in the sky.

Of course, you realize it’s a clear day only once the ferry barrels through the thick of it. You look forward and see the blue hanging over the land, crisp and bright as a screen saver on a projection screen, then glance over your shoulder and there’s only a wall of groggy mist. It was all behind me when Nell appeared at my side and pushed a cold beer into my hands.

“I think the car rental place is within walking distance from the ferry,” she said.

Beer gurgled in the bottle’s neck. “It is.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “It’s right there.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want to fly?”

“I couldn’t stand to be in an airplane right now,” I said.

Nell pressed her back against the ship’s rail. “So when are you going to ask?”

I shielded my eyes with my hand and studied her. “Ask what?”

“If you can move in, while you get back on your feet.” She smiled. Out of the gray, her teeth were so bright they seemed the closest thing to invisible. “It’s like 2007, redux. Only this time we won’t have rats.”

I warmed my shoulder against hers. “You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”

Nell had done what I asked her to do at the entrance to the bathroom, and, a few minutes later, Luke had nudged the door open with the toe of his Prada loafer. “Ani? You okay? I can’t find Kimberly and the music on the slide show isn’t—”

Everything on his face went dark and different when he saw the seashell pinched between my fingers. I didn’t even wait for him to lock us in before I asked, “What did you do with that picture of Arthur and his dad?”