“Hampton Beach?” said Alexa when Cam called her later to solidify the plans. She thought she might have heard wrong. Hampton Beach was not a place she typically hung out. North of Salisbury, south of Rye, there was a certain . . . well, for lack of a better word, a certain element there. The beaches themselves were beautiful, and there was supposed to be phenomenal surfing by the Wall, but. It was a little biker-y, a little weed-and-Miller-Lite-ish, and when the sun went down the freaks came out. When Alexa thought of Hampton Beach, she thought of tattoos. And not tasteful little hip tattoos (Alexa herself sported one of a starfish that she got when she turned sixteen) but dark, heavy, sleeve tattoos.
Alexa could practically hear Cam grinning over the phone. “Yup,” he said. “I scored two tickets to see a Dave Matthews cover band at the casino. And tonight is your lucky night, because one of those tickets has your name on it.”
“Dave Matthews?” said Alexa. “The Hampton Beach Casino?” The casino, though storied, was where the has-beens played, and where the old people went to get drunk and reminisce. What she was supposed to be doing tonight was saying good-bye to Tyler before he left for Silver Lake, but she had conveniently left his texts unanswered. When she thought of what Caitlin told her, she didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about this.
“The one and only,” said Cam. “Well, not the one and only because that would be the real Dave Matthews. But close enough!” Dave Matthews was one of Alexa’s mother’s favorite artists. When she had more than one glass of Cabernet, she’d been known to play “Crash Into Me” on repeat at an excessively loud volume. Since Peter’s death she did that a little more often than she used to. Rebecca and Peter had seen Dave Matthews together live three times. Even Morgan liked Dave Matthews! Somehow the gene for that had skipped Alexa. Maybe the Dave Matthews gene was recessive and her biological father hadn’t passed it on to her: another reason to feel left out. Maybe it was the same as the nice gene.
“Um,” she said. “I don’t know . . .” She scoured her mind for an excuse but came up empty. The truth was, Caitlin’s tidbit about Tyler had put her in a tailspin. Her mother was going out “with the ladies,” which probably meant early cocktails and fish tacos at the Deck. Even Morgan had plans—she was sleeping over at Katie’s house.
“I will brook no refusal,” Cam said. “And I’ll have you home before you turn into a pumpkin. I’m the lector at the seven am mass tomorrow at the IC. I need to get my beauty sleep.”
Was. This. Guy. For. Real. A church lector at Immaculate Conception? “Okay,” she said. “I guess if you’re not brooking refusal I can’t refuse.”
“It’s a date!” he said. “Where should I pick you up? Home, or work?”
“Home,” she said. “I’m off today.” She would wear her new Ramy Brook tank top in bright blue, which brought out the color of her eyes. She’d bought it for two hundred and eighty-five dollars at Neiman Marcus online. When her mother complimented her on it, she claimed that she got it at Marshalls, marked down 75 percent, even though anybody who knew anything knew that you would never find Ramy Brook at Marshalls.
She would have only one drink. Maybe two drinks. She would behave herself even though her mind was full of chaotic, unsettling thoughts.
When they were in the minivan, driving up 1A (Cam had chosen the coastal route, which Alexa appreciated even though the highway would have been faster), Alexa broached the subject of Shelby McIntyre. As it turned out, Shelby had left two days earlier on a service trip to Kenya with Newburyport Youth Services. “This will be the fourth year in a row she’s done it,” said Cam. He shook his head and smiled, as if he could not believe the marvel that was Shelby.
“Oh,” said Alexa. “Wow. That’s really amazing. Good for Shelby. Those service trips are supposed to be incredible.” Alexa had zero interest in a service trip, where you went like six days without showering and had to eat things like goat meat and gruel. Clearly Shelby McIntyre was on the fast track to Heaven. “Will she mind?” she asked. “That you’re doing this, with me?”
Was it Alexa’s imagination, or did Cam’s hold on the steering wheel tighten?
“We’re not exclusive anymore,” he said. “That’s over.”
“I see,” said Alexa. “I’m sorry?”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” said Cam. He pressed his lips together and kept his eyes on the road. Alexa looked off to the right, where the sun was just beginning to lower over the Atlantic. The strips of beach that whizzed by them were nearly empty.
Alexa couldn’t resist her next question. “Whose idea was it? Not to be exclusive?”
“Both,” said Cam. He stopped at a crosswalk and they watched a sandy family—two parents, a stroller, and a kid on a scooter—make their way across. It’s never both, thought Alexa, it’s never both, but she let it slide. Then Cam said, “We agreed it was better for her to go back to UVM unencumbered.” Alexa took that to mean that Shelby decided it was better for Shelby to go back to UVM unencumbered.
“What about you?” Cam asked.
Tyler was on a 7:35 a.m. flight the next day, which meant he would leave for the airport at 4:30. If Alexa wasn’t seeing him right now, she wasn’t going to see him until he returned from Silver Lake in three weeks. She thought again about Tyler and Zoe Butler-Gray getting out of Tyler’s car at Blue Inn, and her blood boiled.
Alexa said, “Unencumbered.”