Chapter Twenty-Nine
Margot greeted me with a nod from the bar as I entered the Morning Bell. Deep in a whispered phone call, her face was red as she pinched her nose and rolled her eyes at whoever spoke on the other end.
“Has she been like that long?” I asked Rachel, who met me at the register.
She flicked a wavy chunk of fire red hair from her shoulder with no small amount of annoyance. “Just a few minutes. I think I need one of those Luke Danes ‘no phones’ signs.”
I snorted and patted the counter. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Margot held up a finger to me as I approached, to which I lifted both eyebrows and crossed my arms.
“You know what? I don’t care,” she hissed into the speaker, ending the call and nearly slamming it face-down on the bar. I watched as she drew a long breath in and out before settling back on the bar stool and swinging one leg over the other.
“Well, now you have to tell me,” I joked weakly, sidling into the stool beside her.
Margot’s eyes darted to mine. Of the three espresso cups before her, she plucked up the half-full one and brought it to her maroon lips. “About what?” she replied coolly, setting it down with the others.
“I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that the phone call was related to the texts you were getting yesterday,” I responded.
She turned to me with a squint. “That’s awfully forward of you.”
“And is that bad?” I cut back, pulse thundering at the base of my throat. Margot was one of those force-of-nature women. Going up against her was something I’d always avoided.
“No,” she replied, tapping her nails against the counter with a succession of clacks.
“Here ya go,” Rachel interrupted, sliding a ceramic latte cup toward me on its saucer. The dark foam had some sort of ornate, bird-like design in it. “Figured you’d want it hot. It’s so cold out today for the time of year.”
“I don’t know how you do this,” I murmured as I stared at her latte art.
She wiped her hands on the rag in her apron and shrugged. “Practice.”
“Will you teach Cameron to do that?” Margot added and rested her chin in her palm, studying my latte’s foam. “Mine weren’t very pretty.”
Rachel’s shoulders slumped forward a fraction. “I wish. The bosses think it’s a waste of time and resources.”
Margot wrinkled her nose in response. I took a miniscule sip, careful not to disturb the bird.
“Well, they must not be very smart,” she told Rachel, not even bothering to lower her voice.
“Margot!” I chastised, cheeks flaming as I glanced around the cafe.
She blinked. “What?”
Rachel snorted. “I know what you mean. More people taking photos of their drinks means more business.” Sighing, her eyes took on a far-off look as she wiped the already clean bar. “What can you do?”
Margot opened her mouth, and I sent her a glare. She pretended to throw up her hands, opting to finish her espresso.
After a stretch of silence, I spoke. “Speaking of the cold weather—I was just informed by Dot that the storm on Sunday is supposed to be heavy enough to flood Main Street.” I didn’t bother with smiling. It was terrible news.
Rachel groaned. “I’m sorry. But at least the festival is up the hill at the high school?”
“Yeah,” I replied, taking another swig in hopes it would help with the lump forming in my throat. “The festival might be fine, but I don’t know if all of our businesses will be. Or our homes, for that matter.”
Not long ago, I thought that was all we cared about: festivals, tourists, and the traditions that we all loved. But truthfully, all of that didn’t matter without the people who made up Bluebell Cove.
“Where’s the gala again?” Margot asked.
“That fancy country club at the edge of town.”
She hummed thoughtfully and continued drumming her nails against the tile counter.
“No burning things down,” I half-joked.
“Arson’s not really my style,” Margot retorted.
As Rachel greeted a guest coming in with a gust of cold air, Margot’s phone buzzed again.
I watched from behind the rim of my latte cup as she eyed it for a second, reached for it, then seemed to think better and simply turned it off.
My pulse quickened again as I drained my coffee and placed it in its saucer with a quiet ceramic tinkle.
I had to ask her. I couldn’t keep going along with her ruse, pretending as if I didn’t know something was wrong.
The Margot I knew—the one that had spent four years avoiding her mother at all costs—wouldn’t come live at home for a couple weeks for the town festival that recurred annually.
If we were going to act like best friends again, I needed to know what was happening in her life.
It wasn’t fair that she only knew what happened in mine.
“Why are you here, Margot?” I blurted out once my mind was made up.
She looked at me as if I’d spontaneously grown a second head. “You know why I’m here.”
“No.” Squeezing my eyes shut for a moment, I drew my shoulders back and twisted toward her.
“I know what you told me. But I’m not stupid.
Why come home now? What makes this festival more special than all the others you’ve missed?
” Even though I felt stronger, my voice wavered at the end and threatened to crack.
Margot set her jaw and traced her nail around a tile. “Don’t take it out on me just because you decided to fall for a guy that’s leaving.”
There it was. The classic Margot Wade defense that cut like an obsidian blade.
I stuttered as if she’d punched me in the gut, involuntary tears pricking at my eyes. “That wasn’t nice,” I managed, but it came out hoarse.
“Well, it’s not nice to pry,” she snapped in a frigid whisper.
Hiding was my instinct. To weather the storm beneath a smile and pretend like her words hadn’t beaten me to a pulp. If I couldn’t stand up to Margot, though, how was I going to stand up to anyone else?
Surreptitiously wiping my eyes, I peered down my nose at her. “We’re supposed to be friends, Margot.”
Her lips parted, but she said nothing.
“And I didn’t appreciate the way you talked to me,” I continued, “Especially not when I’m just worried about you.”
That seemed to snap her out of her stupor. “You’re not really worried, Georgie. You’re nosy. You always have been.”
Her heels clicked against the floor as she dropped down and strode outside.
Whatever I felt before was gone. Replaced by a sourness that I’d buried for weeks—that hot indignation I’d felt when she sauntered back into my life without so much as a conversation about the missing gap of time.
My mouth twisted into a scowl as I flew from my seat and followed her out the door.
“Hey!” I shouted at her back, curls whipping in the wind behind me.
“Leave me alone, Georgie!” she barked over her shoulder.
Margot tried to walk faster, but those infernal heels kept her at a hobbling pace on the cobblestone. I caught up to her in no time, angry tears already gathered at the corners of my eyes.
“You can’t just walk away,” I said to her profile, “Not this time. You’re back in Bluebell Cove. Act like it.”
She stalked past the door to Captain’s, features pinching together. “Oh please, what does that even mean?”
“It means you can’t just pretend to be my friend and then fly back to New York whenever it suits you!”
We crossed toward Harbor Street, sand and a darkening horizon in sight. She wouldn’t even look at me, stare trained on something inscrutable in the distance. I wanted to scream.
“Either you are my friend, or you aren’t, Margot,” I added.
“Fine! Then I’m not!” she finally yelled back, nearly stumbling as she tried to traverse the thick sand in her heels. Letting out a shriek of frustration, she ripped her shoes off and threw them as far as they’d go. “So leave me alone!” she finished, stalking toward the ocean.
“What are you going to do? Swim to New York?”
I reluctantly followed her, some part of me still struggling with a pesky amount of concern.
“I told you to leave me alone, Georgie,” Margot tossed over her shoulder in a warning tone.
“I can’t!” I shouted back just before her feet touched the shore. “I can’t, okay? No matter what you do or say, I’m always going to be here for you!”
The cool wind swept straight through my sweater, sending a chill down my spine. Waves crashed behind her, roiling and violent, the storm in the distance flashing with lightning.
“You’re pitiful!” Margot screamed, a sea gust sending her hair in twelve different directions. “Everything is about you! All the time! When will you stop being so needy?”
I laughed then, loud and sardonic and wheezing. “It’s about me—” I gathered a breath. “Because you don’t talk! You refuse to tell me anything!”
Something flickered across her features, but she shook her head and desperately tried to calm her hair.
“You know what, Margot? You don’t just get to waltz back into my life and act as if there isn’t a giant, seven-year-wide black hole between us!” My fingers curled into my palms until my nails bit flesh. “If anyone’s selfish here, it’s you,” I practically spat.
Her head flew back with an outrageous bark of laughter. “Oh, that’s just rich! This is about that pact, isn’t it?”
I didn’t notice the tears streaming down my cheeks until my eyes began to burn.
“What’s so wrong with that?”
It was all I could manage without my voice wobbling.
“We’re not nine anymore, Georgie!” Margot threw her hands in the air. “What did you expect?!”
“I expected my best friend—” I hiccupped— “To at least have a conversation with me before announcing she was leaving to the entire town!”
It felt like my chest cracked open as the next words burst from my lips: “And you know what? I tried to support you! I really did! But that gets a little hard when all four of your closest friends suddenly stop returning your calls.”
I clawed at the woven fabric above my heart, a wretched sob wracking through me. Margot began to reply, but I cut her off. The dam broke open, and neither of us could stop it.
“And when you all dropped back into my life, it was for my grandmother’s funeral!
Guess what? Not one of you looked me in the eye that day,” I all but snarled, ignoring the curls that whipped across my face and got stuck in trails of tears.
“None of you stayed. The closest thing I had to a mother died, and you all walked away—without a word!” A dry, bitter laugh tore out of me before devolving into another whimper.
I felt Margot’s arms wrap around me before I saw her. She didn’t say a word for a moment as I crumpled into her and openly bawled on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she began to mumble into the side of my head over and over.
It hadn’t been long before my weeping ceased. Beneath the roar of waves steadily stretching closer, I heard the shake of her voice. I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away from me to take a look at her.
Margot, perfect, always-together Margot, had thick streams of black down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, watching as she shimmied away and tried to fix her face.
“It’s New York. It’s—” Her body wracked with a silent sob. She looked up at the sky and fanned herself. “I got fired, Georgie. I’m a failure.” Margot landed knee-first in the sand, her voice having cracked over the last words.
I crouched beside her, sniffling, and made an attempt to fix her hair. “What happened?”
Her dark brown eyes shone as she looked up at me, lipstick cracked and faded as her mouth twisted downward. “I— it’s so embarrassing.”
“As if you haven’t seen my most embarrassing moments.” I let my haunches sink into the sand and tucked my knees to my chest, disregarding the water steadily encroaching on our spot.
Margot twisted to sit next to me. “I submitted my own novel. It got rejected.”
“And then they fired you?”
“I—” She dropped her head into her hands. “No, I… kind of freaked out and flew to Bluebell Cove without letting anyone know. Then they fired me. Today.”
My eyebrows flew to my hairline. “Oh, so you…”
Margot groaned. “Yeah. I majorly self-destructed.”
We both watched the water as it reached our ankles, colder than usual and cruel coupled with the stormy gusts. The thunder sounded closer now, although muffled by the waves slamming against the sand.
“Can’t you get another job in publishing?” I said, trying to stay positive. “I mean, aren’t you some sort of big shot?”
“Maybe,” she mumbled through her fingers. “But I—”
The sky tore open with a torrential downpour, cutting Margot off.
We started laughing, hands clutching our stomachs as we doubled over.
By the time our sides hurt, we were both thoroughly drenched, hair plastered to our heads in whatever direction the wind had left it.
A crack of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a bone-rattling roll of thunder only a handful of moments later.
“We need to get inside!” I shouted, jumping to my feet.
Margot followed, her makeup having completely melted from her eyes. “Wait!” she yelled, tendrils of hair slapping as she whipped her head back and forth. “My shoes!”
Another flash of lightning and a clap of thunder followed immediately after.
“Forget the shoes!” I shrieked with another laugh, tugging her along as we struggled through the sand and sprinted to Captain’s.
When we fell inside, chests heaving and puddles already forming beneath us, we burst into another round of giggles. It didn’t matter that the diner was full to the brim with everyone I knew, and we looked like a couple of wet lunatics half-dipped in sand.
It had been seven years since I laughed like this with my best friend. I didn’t care what anyone thought.