The frenzied end-of-summer feeling had invaded Haley’s too, and the place was buzzing like a beehive. Alexa and the girls had to wait in line. Alexa left Katie and Morgan perusing the menu and turned to scan the crowd, looking for unfamiliar men, scary men. When she turned back, Morgan and Katie were digging in their pockets for quarters for the gumball machine. Alexa gave them all the quarters she could muster from her wallet and told them to stay in line for a minute while she took a stroll by the booths to keep an eye on the comings and goings in the parking lot. Haley’s was decorated like a 1950s diner with a floor made of black-and-white checkerboard tiles and retro chairs and booths. The booths were all full of regular, non-scary combinations of parents and kids or clots of preteens and younger teens.
She paid for the girls’ ice cream, forgetting to order something for herself, and wondered if they’d be safer in here, where the lights were bright and unforgiving, or outside at the picnic tables, where the light was fading but the mosquitos were unforgiving. Outside, she decided, and she stationed them at a table while she continued to patrol the parking lot. There was a lot of traffic going by on Route 1 and any minute a black SUV could pull in.
In fact, here was one now. Her pulse picked up.
Oh, never mind, it wasn’t a scary man; it wasn’t a member of a lesser-known crime family. It was someone her own age. It was Caitlin.
“Hey, Alexa,” Caitlin said, hopping out of the SUV.
“Hey,” said Alexa. Caitlin was coming toward her, blocking her view of the parking lot, so she moved to peer around her.
“I’m glad I ran into you, actually,” said Caitlin.
“You are?” Alexa couldn’t help it, her heart took a little optimistic, nostalgic skip. The light was seriously going now, and it occurred to Alexa that any old person could come off the rail trail and through the small section of parking lot, toward the picnic tables, before being discovered. You didn’t have to arrive by car to Haley’s; you could come by bike or on foot. You could even come by train and walk over from the station. Now that she’d realized that, she wasn’t sure which way to face. Behind her, Morgan and Katie were giggling about something or other. A mosquito landed on Alexa’s arm and she slapped at it.
“Alexa,” Caitlin said. “I’m super sorry about what happened in March, that night at Destiny’s. That’s really what I wanted to get across to you at Popovers that day, but I didn’t. I messed up. I told you that thing about Tyler instead . . .” She looked down at her feet. She was wearing her Jack Rogers Palm Beach leather thong sandals in white; Alexa mostly approved, although personally she preferred the bone white.
Here Alexa found herself facing two roads: the high and the low. It was a tough choice—each road looked attractive in its own way—but eventually high won out.
“You know what, Caitlin? I’m sorry if I’ve been prickly or hard to be with or whatever. I’m sorry if I overreacted.” She took a deep breath and tried to put her complicated feelings into words. “But you and Destiny, your families are whole and complete, and they always have been. Mine’s been broken not once but twice. I don’t expect you to understand what that feels like. Honestly, I hope you never find out, or not for a long, long time. But you could have given me time to figure it out, you know? To figure out my own way to deal with it.”
She thought she saw tears shining in Caitlin’s eyes.
“Yeah, okay,” said Caitlin finally. “I get that. I do. I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job with that. I really am.” She touched her artfully messy bun. Caitlin, Alexa had to admit, had always been really good at a messy bun, which, like most things, was harder than it looked.
“Thank you,” said Alexa.
“I wanted to talk to you about something else too. About Tyler.” She ducked her head. “We’ve sort of been—talking. Hanging out.” She squinted at Alexa. “Does that bother you? Does that make you mad?” Her voice rose a little bit, pleading.
“Well, it doesn’t surprise me,” said Alexa. “Let’s put it that way.” Caitlin had had her eye on Tyler since freshman year.
“I mean,” continued Caitlin, “if you have to know . . .”
“I don’t,” said Alexa. “I don’t have to know.”
“All he wants to do is talk about you,” Caitlin continued anyway. “He’s pretty broken up about how things ended with the two of you.”
Alexa rolled her eyes so hard she thought one might roll right out of her head. Bullshit, she thought. “I’m sure he is,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky. Another car rolled into the parking lot and she craned her neck to get a good view of it. She looked around for Morgan and Katie. They had finished their ice cream and were practicing cartwheels on the patch of grass.
Caitlin had always been so transparent about what she was thinking: she had no poker face, only tells. For a slice of an instant, Alexa missed their friendship with an intensity that gripped at her core. She felt herself softening further.
“Hey, listen. If you do start hanging out with Tyler, or whatever you want to call it—”
“Yes? What?” For a split second Caitlin looked like the old Caitlin, the anxious middle school Caitlin, who was the same Caitlin who’d once laughed so hard at Alexa’s imitation of their algebra teacher during lunch in eighth grade that milk shot out of her nose.
Alexa paused. Her heart was still hammering and her insides were jumbled but this felt important enough to force all of those parts to be quiet for a moment.
“If you do hang out with Tyler, just be really careful, okay? He wasn’t always that nice to me. Just—just watch yourself. Take care of yourself.”
Caitlin nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Alexa. I’ll talk to you soon?”
“Yeah. Okay. Soon.”
Caitlin went through the side door into Haley’s, and as soon as she was gone the drumbeat started up in Alexa’s brain again.
The bad men are coming. The bad men are looking for you. The bad men have found you. The bad men are coming. Are coming. Are coming. “Let’s go!” she called to Katie and Morgan, trying to delete the panic from her voice. “Time to go, girls. Now. Right now. Morgan? Katie? Right now.”
Back in the Acura Alexa said, “Change of plans. We’re going back to our house, Morgs.” They had to be safer at their house than at the Griffins’. Right? Right? Especially with the Jeep gone.
“But we had the movie paused at Katie’s house!” protested Morgan.
The lie slid out. “Sorry. Katie’s mom texted to see if I could take you both back to our house. I guess the party might go later than they thought.”
“I’m not surprised by that,” said Morgan philosophically. To Katie she said, “Brooke’s parties always go really late. Brooke’s parties are crazy.”
“Why do you know that?” asked Alexa.
Morgan shrugged. “People talk.”
Understatement of the century, thought Alexa.
“Katie, you’re spending the night,” said Alexa. She pulled out onto Route 1 and then took the traffic circle back toward town, looking in the rearview mirror every two seconds.
“I am?” said Katie. “I didn’t bring my stuff. Can we go back to my house to get my stuff?”
Before too long they were almost at Alexa and Morgan’s house. The traffic on High Street was moving normally, no black SUVs were stopped in front of the house, but all of Alexa’s organs felt like they were jumping. She said, “You can borrow some of Morgan’s things to sleep in. It’ll be more fun here, I promise. And maybe you guys can swim later.” Two truths, one lie. No way was she letting them outside, and certainly not in the pool.
Katie looked dubious. Morgan was about three sizes smaller than Katie.
“Or mine,” said Alexa, and in the rearview mirror she saw Katie brighten. Why the hell not? She pulled into the driveway, and said, “Everybody out.”
Once the girls were inside Alexa locked the door, installed Morgan and Katie in front of the television and told them they could re-rent the movie and fast-forward until they got to the part where they’d left off. She said she’d make popcorn, and she was rummaging through the pantry for the jar when the doorbell rang.
Never until that moment had she truly understood the meaning of the phrase “jumping out of your skin.”
Shouldn’t she let someone know what was going on, in case something bad actually did happen? Shouldn’t she let Sherri know? Alexa was responsible for two young girls, and they were in danger.
She typed out a text. She didn’t hit send, but she got it ready. Just in case. I think you should come back. After a second she added, I’m scared. I’m really sorry but I found out who you are.
(Three truths, no lie.)
“Alexa!” called Morgan. “Door!”
The doorbell went another time. Whoever was ringing it was pressing down really hard, again and again, and the sounds were reverberating through Alexa’s whole body.
“I know,” whispered Alexa, too quietly for Morgan to hear her. The bad man is coming, she thought. The bad man is coming. The doorbell rang again, again.
The bad man is here.
She sent the text.