Chapter 11
Present Day
“Dangerous people live in Bluebell Cove,” Sophie echoed to Lily, her eyes widening.
“It doesn’t get any more ominous than that.” Lily threw her head back, laughing.
It was late. They were sitting cross-legged on Sophie’s bed, their hair drying after their night swim in Bluebell Cove. Mysteriously, they’d seen Ruth Landers on shore, buzzing through the dark to warn them of dangerous people. But they couldn’t fathom what she was talking about.
Sophie reached for a chip in the bag between them and crunched the edge, thinking of Ruth, of how strange she’d been ever since Sophie had met her at the beginning of May—about a month ago, now that it was early June. Where had the time gone?
On her laptop, she’d pulled up the article that Ruth had written about the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge, which Lily now skimmed, nodding along.
“It’s a perfectly normal article,” Lily said. She sounded disappointed.
“Look at her website,” Sophie said.
Lily clicked through to Ruth’s writing website, through which you could find links to some of her more prominent articles.
There was also a description of her that read: Ruth Landers is a multi-award-winning writer and journalist. For more than a decade, she previously worked in New York City publishing.
She has a degree in literature and creative writing from Yale and grew up in Virginia.
“It’s so vague,” Lily muttered. “Where’s the specificity? Isn’t she supposed to be a writer?”
“I know what you mean. It’s like there’s a smokescreen,” Sophie said.
“A mystery!” Lily laughed again. This was all playful for her.
But Sophie was reminded of her time in Bluebell a few summers back, when she’d operated as a feisty journalist, digging through semi-secret files to get to the root of the city’s environmental problems. One thing about that era that stood out to her was that throwing herself into another story let her forget her own.
It had brought her mother and Sophie back together again. It had healed so much.
Maybe, in digging deeper into Ruth Landers, Sophie could forget the fire. Maybe she could forget about Ethan, if only for a while.
“When you google her, does anything else come up?” she asked Lily.
Lily searched for Ruth Landers, her fingers flying over the keys.
The first twenty posts were articles Ruth had written over the years.
All the images were of Ruth in recent years, accepting journalism awards or speaking at publishing functions.
It seemed, from here on Sophie’s bed in her mother and Landon’s house, that Ruth was exactly who she said she was. Sophie’s heart dropped.
“Boring.” Lily offered a funny smile. “Maybe that’s all she is? A boring, quiet recluse.”
But then, Sophie spotted the birth announcement. Tucked away at the bottom of the page of links, it read: SLOANE LANDERS, September 22, 2003. Curious, she pointed at the site and told Lily, “Click on that, will you?”
Lily did. It took them to a birth announcement website, which listed Ruth Landers as the nineteen-year-old mother of baby Sloane.
“She has a daughter,” Lily breathed, her lips parting with surprise. “And her daughter can’t be much older than we are.”
“And Ruth was younger than us at the time she was born. Nineteen. Wow.” Sophie crossed her arms. She was pretty sure her mother had said that Ruth had no children, that she was alone in the world and therefore “someone to watch out for, someone to protect.”
“No father listed here,” Lily said, her breath skipping.
“She must not have wanted him to know about the baby,” Sophie said.
“That, or he didn’t want anyone to know who he was,” Lily said.
Lily and Sophie sat with this new information, realizing that Ruth was even more complicated than they’d initially thought.
“Did she still graduate on time?” Sophie asked, imagining how difficult it must have been to raise a baby during Ruth’s tenure at Yale.
Lily discovered a Yale University website listing the graduation dates of its former students. According to the site, Ruth Landers had graduated in four and a half years, which suggested she’d had to take a semester off to care for her baby.
“Still, I can’t believe she was able to do it alone,” Sophie said.
“Maybe she wasn’t alone,” Lily suggested. “If she went to Yale, it means she came from money, right? Or had really good connections?”
“I don’t know. Does she strike you as a wealthy woman?” Sophie asked.
“Yes,” Lily said, laughing. “She lives in New York City. She worked in publishing. She’s a travel journalist. I think she does all right for herself.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” But something about it gave Sophie pause. “What did she do after she graduated?”
It was nearly one thirty in the morning, but Sophie found that her enthusiasm for discovering Ruth’s past woke her up more and more with each passing second.
More than that, she didn’t want to go to bed yet.
She didn’t want Lily to leave her with her anxious thoughts.
It had been so difficult to sleep lately.
Eventually, Lily discovered a website listing many of Ruth’s occupations over the years.
It was sort of like LinkedIn, but only for writers and journalists.
From the site, it was clear that Ruth had been hired by one of the most prestigious publishing houses in New York City immediately after graduating from Yale.
“She didn’t let her baby get in the way of her career,” Sophie breathed, impressed.
Lily scowled, clearly heavy with thought.
“What if…” Fingers flying, she put together a better search, one that tried to capture what Ruth’s life had been like during the mid-00s.
After nearly ten minutes of searching, they stumbled upon an interview with Ruth Landers from that time period.
Midway through the conversation with the journalist, Ruth mentioned her daughter, Sloane.
“Of course, I get to come home every day to a toddler,” Ruth had said all those years ago.
“She’s so creative and kindhearted and optimistic.
Maybe she’s everything that the publishing world hates!
Am I not allowed to say that? Ha. Well, the publishing world is difficult.
Sometimes it seems that the powers that be are not entirely happy with fresh ideas.
They want the old stuff, regurgitated. It gives me pause.
Oh, maybe I should tell you to take that off the record. What am I doing to my own career?”
In the article, the interviewer expressed surprise that Ruth had a toddler. “That must be difficult, juggling all that at once. Especially in a city as expensive as this one.”
“Everything is difficult,” Ruth said. “But nothing is as difficult as it was for my mother. There were so many of us at home growing up, and we didn’t have much of anything.
Sometimes no money came in for a month or two, and we had to make do.
You should have seen our garden. We grew everything.
And during the seasons when nothing came out of that soil, our hearts broke.
We knew we’d have to find a better way.”
Soon after, in the article, the interviewer switched to a more professional topic, one more closely related to the publishing world.
“She was poor,” Lily whispered, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Who is this woman?” Sophie demanded.
Lily and Sophie eyed one another, their brows furrowed.
But their captivation with Ruth Landers couldn’t whisk them away for the rest of the night and into the morning.
Sophie had to wake up early to work the front desk at the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge, and Lily had plans with her mother at the flower shop.
They made a pact to meet in a few days at The Dockside, Juliet and Theo’s restaurant, where, they said, they could share a burger and a milkshake and speculate more.
As Sophie watched Lily get ready to go, she felt a swell of sadness mixed with hope.
Now, Lily was the only person in the world who knew the extent of Sophie’s sorrows.
She knew that Sophie and Ethan were done.
She knew that Sophie was in legal trouble for a fire she hadn’t caused. She knew Sophie was reeling.
But she’s decided to let me fixate on Ruth Landers instead, Sophie thought, praying she didn’t seem too pathetic to her younger cousin.
Before she left, Lily hugged Sophie close and whispered in her ear, “It’s going to be okay.”
Sophie bit her tongue to keep from asking her cousin, "How do you know?"
But in the silence of herself after Lily had gone, Sophie thought about Ruth Landers, about how frightened she must have been to have a baby during her sophomore year at Yale. Somehow, some way, she’d triumphed. But what had happened to her daughter?
Over the next few days, Sophie tried and failed to discover more secrets of Ruth’s past. She read nearly all of Ruth’s articles.
She read part of one of Ruth’s novels and interviews Ruth had given over the years.
But Ruth never offered more details about her private life or Sloane's.
When Sophie eventually searched for more information about Sloane Landers, nothing came up—not even any school records.
Sophie wondered whether Ruth had decided to homeschool her daughter or if something was wrong with Sloane that had kept her at home.
Later that week, during lunchtime, a few hours before Sophie was set to meet Lily at The Dockside, Ruth herself walked past the front desk. She wore a white button-up blouse and slacks. She looked almost French, Sophie thought, without really knowing why.
It was surprising to see her after researching her so much. Sophie wondered why Ruth was so difficult to track, and whether she spent most of her time in her room, hiding.
“Good afternoon, Ruth!” Sophie said. She hoped there was nothing in her voice that showed how much she now knew about the mysterious woman.
Ruth frowned, then tried to smile back. “Hi. How are you?” She clutched her purse and looked eager to run for the door and slam it behind her.