Chapter Six
Present: Day One at Sea
“Did you notice Gigi ogling the chef on our way down?” Beth asks in a lowered voice, closing the cabin door behind her.
I stiffen at hearing her say ogling, the same word she used the other night to describe Matt’s inappropriate behavior toward the waitress.
“How could I not?” I unzip my bag and search for my sweatshirt, trying to force away the mental image of my soon-to-be ex-husband ogling a beautiful young woman’s ass.
“You would never know she’s married from the way she’s throwing herself at him,” Beth adds.
There’s an extra edge to Beth’s voice. Sometimes I wonder if Beth is lonely, living with just her cat.
No husband, no kids. Beth stays busy with her career, but I know my best friend would like to be married, have a family.
Even though she acts like it doesn’t bother her to be single. That it’s her choice.
I used to wonder if Beth’s coolness to Matt over the years was due to jealousy, but now that I’ve seen Matt’s true asshole self, I feel bad for thinking that. I look at Beth, the scowl on her face about Gigi’s flirtations nearly making me laugh.
“Did you see her in the kitchen? I thought she was a vegetarian,” Beth says.
Earlier, on our way to our stateroom, we spotted Gigi in the galley, her hand on Adam’s shoulder as she leaned over him, asking to have a bite of the meatballs he was sautéing.
“And what was she wearing?” Beth shakes her head.
I picture what Gigi had changed into when I last saw her—a long-sleeved skintight black-spandex onesie with cutouts across the chest and midriff. I shrug. “I think it’s called a catsuit.”
I check my phone. Seeing that I’ve lost service, I make a mental note to get the Starlink password from Gigi so I can WhatsApp my sister. Beth slips a sweater over her T-shirt as a knock sounds on our door. Beth opens it while I pull my sweatshirt over my head.
I expect to see Gigi, but it’s Emma.
“You guys coming to watch the sunset?” She adjusts a monogrammed shawl around her shoulders.
“Yep,” Beth says. “We were just throwing on something warm.”
Adam is alone in the kitchen when we follow Emma up the stairs to the deck. I regard his profile as he chops mushrooms. He catches my stare and smiles. A dimple appears on one side of his face. I look away, feeling a flush of warmth on my cheeks.
Gigi is seated on the padded cockpit bench, in the same spot that Beth and I sat in earlier. She’s already opened the wine. At the stern, Nojan is stationed at one of the wheels. The wind died down when we reached Port Townsend, forcing Nojan to lower the sails and start the motor.
“Being on this boat reminds me of my grandparents’ sailboat.” The wind catches one of Emma’s blond curls, and she tucks it behind her ear. “Except it was way older. I practically lived on that thing in the summers as a kid while my mom worked.”
“I remember that,” Gigi says. “The Fancy Free, right?”
“Yep.” Emma smiles, nodding.
When she hands Emma a glass, Gigi’s gaze is unfocused, as if she’s had too much to drink already. Emma sinks next to her and throws a tanned leg over Gigi’s lap, giving her a close-lipped smile. In return, Gigi taps her champagne glass against Emma’s.
“Oh, look. It’s Sequim,” Beth says as she and I take a seat on the bench across from Gigi and Emma.
I recognize the Dungeness Spit in the distance and the lighthouse perched on the end of it. The sea around it is smooth as glass.
“Remember when Courtney convinced us all to take the trek out there to stay fit in the offseason?” Emma says.
Gigi smiles. “I showed up in flip-flops, not realizing how long of a hike it is. My feet were killing me.”
“Wasn’t it something like eleven miles?” Emma peers over her shoulder at the lighthouse in the distance.
Beth grimaces behind her glasses. “It was brutal, I remember that.”
Emma extends a toned arm toward Gigi. “And I gave you a piggyback ride part of the way back just so we wouldn’t have to hear you complain about your feet hurting.”
Gigi’s mouth drops open. “I didn’t complain.”
“Yes, you did,” Beth and I exclaim in unison.
Gigi grins. We all share a laugh before a silence falls over us as we regard our hometown from the water.
Gigi empties the bottle, filling two more plastic wineglasses with a surprisingly steady pour given all the champagne she’s consumed since getting on the boat.
She extends drinks to Beth and me, raising her own after we take them.
“To Courtney,” she says.
“To Courtney,” the three of us echo, clinking our glasses together.
On the beach, I spot Gigi’s three-story childhood home, where she threw countless parties while her mom worked nights as an ER doctor and her dad was away on business trips.
Her father, born in Armenia, did a lot of business overseas.
Gigi’s beauty, a striking blend of her father’s wide hazel eyes and her mother’s blond hair and full lips, gives her a unique, almost exotic appearance.
“Do your parents still live on the beach?” Emma asks Gigi.
She nods. “Yep. They’re retired now, so they spend a lot of the winter in Arizona.”
I think of my childhood home a few miles inland and closer to Sequim’s quaint downtown, much smaller than the expansive waterfront home Gigi grew up in. My mom still lives there, too, but I haven’t been back in years. I’ve spent too much of my life there already.
I remember those first few weeks after our rafting trip, coming home from school, the sickening feeling I’d get in the pit of my stomach when I turned on the road that wound along the Dungeness River to my house.
Knowing the news vans would already be lined up at my driveway, I’d hunker down in my seat and pull on the baseball hat and sunglasses I’d started keeping in my car.
We only had a carport, no garage, so there was no getting around the photographs and accusatory questioning from reporters for the few moments it took me to get inside the house.
My mom would stay up until midnight to run out and get the mail, after they’d all left for the day.
But sometimes a news van would camp out all night.
That summer after graduation, I hardly left the house, unable to face the scrutiny from reporters—and strangers—everywhere I went. My sister, Kate, decided to stay in Pullman for the summer, where she was going to college seven hours away, so it was just my mom and me.
I gaze in the direction of my childhood home and think of my mom and how hard that summer was for her too.
My lungs stiffen with dread at still having to tell her about Matt’s leaving.
I still recall the look of shock on my mom’s face the last time I told her something she didn’t want to hear—that I wasn’t going to college.
“What do you mean you’re not going?” Mom looked up from the kitchen table, surrounded by a stack of bills.
“I can’t.” I lowered my gaze to the table, unable to bear the look of bewilderment on her face.
“Not after everything that’s happened. I can’t even go to Safeway without strangers glaring at me—or asking what really happened to Courtney.
” I gestured to the closed living room blinds, shielding us from the news vans parked in our front lawn. “I can’t even get the mail!”
Mom pushed her checkbook aside. “You have to, honey. Between your academic and volleyball scholarships, you got a full ride. You can’t stay here.
” Her eyes darted toward the windows we kept covered at the front of our small house.
“You’re not guilty of anything. It’s a tragedy what happened to Courtney, but it was no one’s fault.
You can’t let those vultures keep you from living your life. ”
Tears blurred my vision as I stared back at her. If only she knew the truth.
I shook my head. “I’ve already decided. I’m not going.”
“Sweetheart.” She pursed her lips and set down her pen. “You’ve wanted to be a doctor since you were little. You were so passionate about becoming an oncologist after your Aunt Karen’s diagnosis. You can’t give up your dream. Throwing your life away won’t bring Courtney back.”
It crushed me to see the disappointment on my mom’s face. I could tell she was devastated by my decision. She’d worked so hard to provide for me and my sister after our dad had left. She’d implored us both to go to college, not wanting us to ever have to struggle like she did.
“I’m sorry, Mom. But I can’t go.” My voice broke. “Not when everyone thinks I’m a murderer.”
But that wasn’t the real reason, I think as my gaze shifts to a kayaker paddling along the shore of the spit. The truth was that I didn’t deserve to go, not while Courtney’s unfound body lay decomposing somewhere in the Olympic National Park. Not after what I’d done.