Lucy
The drive to the town hall is only seven minutes long, and on the way, I pass every important landmark on the island. I cruise by my high school and its expansive grounds, the recently renovated triplex, and the entrance to the golf course before careening toward the Tennis and Beach Club.
As I pass over the train tracks, I notice there are nearly twice as many cars as usual in the parking lot, nearly a dozen people gathering, huddled up near news trucks.
An unsettling feeling takes hold of my stomach as I get to the end of the block and pull into the municipal lot behind town hall, which is bursting with reporters.
When I get out of the car, I grip my tote bag close to my chest and flick my eyes to the entrance, now flanked by policemen. “They’re everywhere.” Olivia steps out of a black sedan next to me, pushing her sunglasses up onto the crown of her head.
“The police or rubberneckers?” I ask.
“Both.” She grimaces. “It’s all because of that one story in the Times’ Metro section. People hear ‘rich white boy murdered in a beach town’ and come running.”
“Ick.” I scrunch up my face and hold the straps of my bag tighter.
“Did you see news crews trying to get B-roll of the Beach Club on your way in? It’s nuts.” Olivia shudders. “It’s like we’re living in a documentary.” She holds up a loyalty card to Sweet Pete’s, the café on the corner. “I am most certainly not caffeinated enough for that. Want a coffee?”
We still have another fifteen minutes before our workday starts, and the answer is obvious. “Yes.”
Together we walk into the café, and I get a whiff of her perfume, sweet and floral as it lodges in my brain. Inside, the shop is packed full of people wearing ill-fitting button-downs working on their laptops. “Do any of these people even live here?” Olivia asks.
“Definitely not,” I say, and Olivia snorts as we get behind a family of four fighting over which pastries are the best.
“Luce?” I look up and see Ethan turning around with a cold brew in his hand. He’s wearing lifeguarding trunks and a thin white T-shirt, his sunglasses perched on top of his head. “What’re you doing?”
“Oh!” I say, my cheeks flushing. “Coffee.” Duh.
His eyes drift to Olivia by my side. The corners of his mouth tug into a smile, but it’s a fake one, not the kind that lights up his whole face. “Hey, Olivia.”
“Hi,” she says.
The tension’s palpable, thick and heavy between us, and I fight for something to say. “Weird weather, huh?”
Ethan cocks his head at me and laughs softly. “This is bizarre. Right? Sorry. I don’t mean for it to be.”
Instantly I relax, grateful that Ethan’s got the social graces of a born networker, and I can feel Olivia ease up, too.
“Very much so.” Olivia shrugs. “But, hey. Just about everything else this summer is bizarre, so…”
“Very good point.” Ethan sips his cold brew.
“Anyway, I gotta get to my shift.” For a second, I think he’s going to brush past me, maybe lightly touch my hand as a goodbye, but instead he steps forward and wraps his hand around the back of my neck.
His lips meet mine, and he kisses me hard, his tongue pushing forward, grazing my teeth.
Ethan’s never been big on PDA, and I’m so shocked that it takes me a moment before I step away, out of his grasp.
“Bye, Luce,” he says, leaving before I can say anything.
Heat rushes to my cheeks, and a prickle of shame fills my chest. Olivia doesn’t say a thing as we move up in line, which almost makes it worse.
“Separate or together?” the barista asks.
“Separate,” I say at the same time Olivia says, “Together.”
She turns to me. “Don’t worry, I got it.” I start to protest, but Olivia’s already focused on her order. “Iced mocha for me,” she says. “With oat milk.”
“I’ll have a small latte. Regular milk.”
The barista taps a few buttons on the screen, then looks up. “That’ll be twelve fifty.”
I fight all of the urges telling me to reach for my wallet.
I’ve always been allergic to anyone spotting me.
When Ethan and I go out, I insist we split, even down to the nickel.
He once asked me what the deal was, why he couldn’t grab sandwiches for us or why I insisted on paying him back.
I’d never thought too deeply about it, but once he asked, the answer was obvious: I never wanted to feel like I owed someone something, even if it was only Ethan, who did nice things for me all the time.
Even now, six months later, I still think about what he said next.
“It makes me feel good to take you out,” he said.
“Sometimes I feel like you don’t need me for anything.
Like if I disappeared for a few days, you’d be fine.
” At the time, I didn’t respond with what I really wanted to say, which was Of course I would be fine.
I don’t need you. I want you, and isn’t that better?
But I said none of those things and instead let him cover our tab at the diner.
I fiddle with the strap on my tote bag to stop myself from making this whole thing weirder when Olivia sucks in a breath of air.
“Shoot,” she says, rummaging around in her tote. “I must have forgotten my wallet. Oh my god, I’m mortified.”
I reach into my bag. “Don’t worry.” I slip out a twenty and slide it across the counter. “You can get next time.”
“Sure.” Red splotches form on Olivia’s neck, and her jaw tenses.
When we collect our coffees and walk outside, she says, “I’m really sorry. I’ve been so absent-minded since Billy died.”
I wave my hand in front of me. “It’s coffee.
Don’t worry.” Besides, I’m just grateful to talk about anything that’s not Ethan so clearly claiming me as his in the coffee shop.
Olivia looks like she wants to melt onto the concrete.
I rest my hand on her forearm and stop walking. “Seriously. Forget about it.”
She stops, too, and her eyes search mine like she wants to say something else, but instead she nods once, and says, “Okay.” Her mouth forms a smile.
“You know, I always thought that people change so much from year to year, but you’re the same.
Very ‘no bullshit.’ It’s what I always liked about you. ”
The skin on the back of my neck tingles but I ignore the sensation.
“We can’t really change who we are,” I say.
“At least you put in a nice way. Ethan says I need to let other people do things for me sometimes. Make other people feel needed.” As soon as I say the words, I want to take them back.
There’s no reason in the world I should let her in on that aspect of our relationship.
Olivia laughs, leaning her head back and exposing the soft, long part of her neck to the sun. “I don’t think that’s a very good reason to let people do things for you.”
“What’s a good one, then?”
“Because you trust them.”
A spring pulls apart inside my chest, and I take a sip of my latte to keep my teeth from grinding together.
Olivia tilts her head. “Do you think I’ve changed much since you last saw me?”
“I don’t know. We’ve barely spoken.” Which is by design. It’s not like I’ve spent my out-of-work hours trying to track her down to hang out. In fact, it’s probably best if we spend as little time together as possible.
“Fair,” she says. “I have, though. Changed.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’m not interested in playing pretend anymore,” she says. I want to ask her what she means, but Olivia skips ahead, pulling the door open to Mayor Cho’s office. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go inside.”
The first half of the workday goes by in a blur of press releases and meetings with Anjali, who dumped a dozen files on our desks for our property records project.
As I pore over document after document, I barely have time to think about what Olivia said.
Well, that’s not true. I’m choosing not to think about it, not to let the words sink deep, deep into my brain.
Because you trust them.
I’m only interrupted by incoming texts from Erica, who has been sending the strangest messages, checking in constantly.
Have you heard anything new? What do you know? Are your sisters saying anything?
They’re cryptic and desperate, as if knowing what people are saying might change what’s happened. I keep telling her the same thing: I haven’t heard anything, but I’ll let you know if I do.
I turn back to the folder on my desk and get ready to file it quickly, just like the others. But then I realize it’s not just a simple property record but a whole stack of papers clipped together. The front page says VREELAND V. GODWIN.
A lawsuit.
I duck down and flip through the sheets of paper as quickly as I can. It doesn’t take me long to find out the Vreeland family sued the Godwin family a few years ago over a property line dispute when the Godwins began cutting down the Vreelands’ trees.
I’m about to ask Olivia if she knew about this, but as I turn the page, I see a deposition taken from Billy, then a freshman in high school.
Justin had a tree house in the big elm we cut down, and after it was demolished he threatened to kill me. That’s why I punched him after school.
I read the sentence twice and try to remember ever hearing about Justin and Billy getting into a fight. It’s not like they hung out together, but I never noticed bad blood, only a mutual understanding that their circles would only overlap in certain instances.
I want to keep reading, but Anjali pops her head above our side-by-side cubicles and assigns us a project. “Can you two head over to the police station?” she asks. “Detective Hampton has some paperwork she wants hand-delivered to the mayor.”
Olivia raises her eyebrows at me with a conspiratorial look, and within a few minutes, we’re on the street, rushing over to the station. The air outside is thick and humid, and the sky is gray, clouds rolling through fast.