Chapter Seventeen
My hatchback looked out of place beneath the gnarled trees dripping Spanish moss and wedged between glossy BMWs and Mercedes in the nail salon’s parking lot.
Through the warped window glass, I studied its faded paint as the nail tech swept on a top coat before putting my hand under a buzzing purple lamp that cast flickering shadows over the white-washed walls.
“That’s new,” Lindsey murmured from the seat beside me, craning her neck to study my freshly lacquered nails. Her curls brushed my armrest as I felt the weight of her gaze land on my fingers.
“Are you and Andy fighting?” Emily asked from her other side.
I forced a slow smile. “No, I just felt like doing something different.” My throat tickled with the smell of methacrylate. “What do you want to do after this?” I asked the two of them.
A wince of delight rippled over Emily’s pale cheeks. “There’s a new thrift store in town I want to check out.”
Lindsey’s lips curved into something conspiratorial. “Sure, Em.”
I drew my hands back beneath the lamp’s violet glow, inspecting them.
Emily had been off ever since she started her job at the record shop downtown.
Or maybe even since she returned from camp that summer.
But at least she had cash now. Lindsey’s father had finally gifted her a credit card to curb her habit of filching his.
I, meanwhile, had been nicking handfuls of coins from my father’s collection of change jars—less theft, I reckoned, than the therapy he’d owe me for all he’d caused.
“Are you coming to Paul’s tonight?” Lindsey asked, flexing her fingers.
“Andy mentioned something about a party,” I said. Sweat cooled on the back of my neck. I wasn’t aware the party was planned at August’s neighbors house, but then again, Paul’s was typically the place where we wasted our weekends.
When the polish had cured and the buzzy lamp clicked off, we huddled together to brave the frigid air of downtown Salisbury. We left my car behind and trekked down the unkempt sidewalk toward the row of shuttered storefronts.
“I want to see your shop,” I told Emily as we turned a corner, where the smell of a well seasoned grill wafted out of Hap’s—a hole in the wall that sold the world’s best hot dogs and hamburgers.
My stomach growled, but I knew better than to ask Emily or Lindsey if they wanted to stop at a place like that.
Nor could I spring for lunch at a place they would approve of, and didn’t want to risk Emily not being able to do so either. I would eat later, at the party.
“It’s boring.” She sped up, shoulders hunched warding off the chill.
“How boring can it be? It’s a store that sells music.” Lindsey snorted, flicking a wisp of hair from her forehead.
The orange door of The Record Exchange came into view then. The blonde hesitated but Lindsey reached over, plucked her by the collar of her jacket, and shepherded her inside. I followed, laughing until Emily’s mortified glare made me bite the sound off.
Lindsey took a deep inhale of the vinyl-sour air the way I had of Hap’s. “I love the smell of LPs. Maybe I’ll work here too. Y’all hiring?” she asked.
“No.” Emily snapped, adjusting her pink coat back into its proper place.
We walked through the aisles a bit, flipping through the stacks of used records. Lindsey found a handful, while Emily followed behind her, pretending to look through the bins, but her eyes kept flickering around the store like she was waiting on something to jump out and scare her.
I found a vintage copy of Rumors on vinyl, and debated on buying it. I didn’t own a record player, but I had seen one at August’s house when I had dinner with his family, and the seven dollar price tag seemed too good to pass up.
Lindsey called from the aisle’s end. “You ready?” She heaved her finds to her chest. I nodded, and joined her at the ancient oak counter, Emily next to me. Lindsey rapped the tarnished bell a few times in quick succession.
“Do you really need all those?” Emily muttered, voice low.
“Why’re you acting strange? Have you shacked up with your manager or something?” Lindsey shot back.
“No.” Emily adjusted her top. She pulled the door to the beverage cooler open, and retrieved a bottle of water, holding it up in question to Lindsey.
She shook her head. “Get the grape soda.” Emily swapped out the drinks and placed the purple bottle on the counter next to Lindsey’s stack of records.
A beaded curtain at the counter’s back rustled, and Angelica, her hair like sun-faded copper, stepped out. “Sorry, I didn’t hear anyone come in,” she said, sliding behind the register. My throat went dry instantly, I had not been prepared to run into any of August’s friends while out with my own.
As she rang up Lindsey’s stack, her eyes flicked to me. “Oh—hey, you!” she said, bright and unsuspecting.
My heart thudded as I shook my head, praying she’d let it lie.
Emily glared at me. “Do you know her?”
I swallowed, tasting acetone. “Not really. We met last night at the charity thing.” My lie curled from my lips too easily.
Angelica smiled with all of her teeth, exposing the gap in the center. “Yeah, sorry I didn’t catch your name last night.”
“Lola,” I said, forcing a friendly tilt to my mouth.
“Angelica,” she replied, and I made a note to ask God to bless her for silent compliance on Sunday.
Lindsey made a show of grabbing one of the neon orange “now hiring” flyers from the counter with a huff, as I paid for my own record with a few crumbled bills and quarters.
The door shut behind us with a hollow thud. Lindsey looked Emily over cautiously. “Do you not like your coworker?”
Her nostrils flared. “She’s friends with Penelope.”
“Oh.” Lindsey’s laugh tinkled like wind chimes.
I feigned sudden curiosity. “Did you two find her last night?”
“No.” Emily’s answer was flat as a tombstone.
“What’s plan B?” I prodded.
Lindsey tugged at a glass door painted with looping white letters: City Thrift. “We’ll see.”
Emily stormed in ahead of us. Inside, the fluorescent glow revealed stone walls peeling in shades of olive and ochre. Lindsey grabbed my hand and steered me toward a rack of dresses in the back of the store.
Emily darted to a display by the front window, shaking the bottle of soda like it had a genie inside she was attempting to evict.
“Help me find something for tonight,” Lindsey whispered, tossing hangers aside. I’d never seen Lindsey wear the same thing twice, so watching her flip through a rack of dresses previously worn by somebody else was other worldly.
I studied her, glancing back at Emily’s stiff shoulders. “Does she seem okay to you? She’s been…really tense lately.”
Lindsey held up a flimsy black number. “She told Jack.”
I shake my head in disapproval of the garment. “Told Jack what?”
Lindsey gave me a pointed look, and waited for the realization to be evident in my features. “No!” I hissed, and she nodded in confirmation.
“Why didn’t she tell me they’d broken up?
” I kept my voice low. Emily had always been closed off with her emotions.
If I were a master of pretending, then Emily had been legendary.
But I thought, at least, she would express some sort of remorse over the ending of a four year relationship—even if it wasn’t a conventional one.
“They didn’t,” Lindsey said, grinning darkly.
“What do you mean they didn’t break up? She told him she’s—” I cut myself off, mouthing the word gay before going on, “and they didn’t break up?”
“He said it was fine. It’s not like they’re sleeping together anyway.” Lindsey rolled her eyes.
Emily had told us the previous year that her boyfriend wanted to wait until marriage to have sex, which was really convenient for her because she had no interest in sleeping with him at all.
But it had always puzzled me why Jack didn’t want to.
He was sculpted like a God, and his family wasn’t religious in a way that controlled their whole lives like Andy’s or Emily’s parents were.
I thought about asking her, but she was incredibly private—not just with her own secrets, but anyone else’s too.
If you told something to Emily, you could put money on the fact that she would take it to her grave before she ever sold you out.
“Why would he agree to that?” My brows pinched. I’d always felt bad for Jack, though I’d never say it to Emily, cause I felt worse for her. But now that he knew, his complicity only solidified how much better he deserved.
“They figured they’d just pretend to break up for college,” Lindsey said, pulling a deeper plum dress from the rack.
“How sweet,” I murmured—just as a shrill scream split the air from the front of the store.
“Shit.” Lindsey dropped the hanger and yanked me toward the exit.
The store’s bell clanged aggressively as I was shoved onto the sidewalk. Through the haze of motion and the store’s glass front I caught sight of a girl behind the counter—her hair dyed purple, dripping wet, eyes huge with panic.