SUMMERS & CO: An early twentieth-century sign curves around the Art Deco entrance of one of the last thriving independent American department stores. Open since the 1920s, the multifloor store is known for its custom tailoring and elaborate holiday window displays. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
“Well, well, well,” a gravelly voice says.
I jump, startled, and peer into the darkness. Someone’s sitting, legs kicked out casually, on a loveseat-style piece of patio furniture tucked behind a tall, trellised shrub. When he leans forward to rest his forearms on his knees, the angular planes of his scarred face shift from shadow into light.
Lucky Karras.
Why is he everywhere I go in this godforsaken town?
“Josie Saint-Martin, as I live and breathe,” he says.
“I didn’t see you there,” I quickly say. “I wasn’t …” Following you? Stalking you? Always managing to bump into you whenever I step outside my door? “I didn’t realize you were out here. Or here. At this party. Here at all.” Good God, I sound like a moron.
“Oh, I’m here, all right,” he announces sarcastically, lightly lifting both hands and then dropping them. His gaze trails over the long, single braid of my hair that falls over one shoulder. “Question is, why are you here? Didn’t peg you for a partyer. Especially surprised to see you popping up at a Golden event.”
“Evie brought me along,” I say, gesturing toward the lights and sounds of the pool that seep between the dense branches of the shrubbery behind me. I try to remember the names of her friends. “Vanessa? From Barcelona? I think she’s taking a class at community college with Evie? I guess they’re friends or classmates or whatever.”
Lucky chuckles. Black lashes cast shadows over high cheekbones as he looks down.
“What?” I say, feeling defensive.
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Look,” I tell him matter-of-factly. “I’m just waiting on my cousin, okay?” I intend for this to be a signal. Like, hey, move along and join the party; give me some privacy. Why is he sitting in the dark, away from everyone else? He’s usurping my loner throne, and I don’t like it.
Lucky and I had one class together this semester at Beauty High: AP English. Because our teacher would do anything to avoid teaching, we watched a lot of old movies in that class—adaptations of the books we studied—and Lucky slept on his desk when the lights went out. I let him borrow my notes once; he returned them to me at the bookshop with a couple of smartass corrections in red pen. That was most intimate interaction we’ve had in the few months I’ve been in town. Unless you count all the silent staring. Staring from Across the Street. Staring from Across the Bookshop. Staring from Across the School Cafeteria.
If you count staring, then we interact on a regular freaking basis.
Like now, for instance. His gaze sweeps over me as if he’s playing a memory game and cataloging every detail of my outfit for points: loose, brown hair braid down my shoulder; striped top; tight jeans with a tiny hole in the left knee; red low-top sneakers.
No one looks at me like Lucky does.
It’s disarming. Way too intimate. And it makes my pulse speed like I’m running a marathon. Especially since this is the first time we’ve been alone together since I’ve been back.
I don’t want to be here, alone with him. I want to be at home, trying to figure out how I can talk my way into that magazine internship. Looking for local galleries that might let me exhibit my work. Developing a roll of film. Doing anything but enduring the never-ending thump of electronic dance music and Lucky’s honey-slow gaze.
It’s been a bad day. A bad four months. Something inside me just … snaps.
“Do you have something to say to me?” I blurt, exasperated.
“Excuse me?”
“You glare at me all day long, and you’ve barely said two words to me since I’ve gotten back into town.”
“Don’t have anything to say to you, I guess. Don’t really know you anymore, do I?”
“We used to be best friends.” You used to be my boy.
“When we were twelve,” he says, eyes narrowing. “I was on math team and building robots on the weekend. I hadn’t figured out how to disable the parental controls on my phone so I could access free porn on the internet. It was a different time.” He shrugs with one shoulder.
Wow. Okay …
“If you’re trying to shock me, you’ll have to do better than that,” I say, a little miffed.
“Thought we were besties who could say anything to each other. Can’t have it both ways, Saint-Martin.”
“My former best friend wasn’t a dick.”
“Your former best friend has been through some dark shit,” he says, face tightening into sharp planes that make the ragged scars on his forehead stand out, white against olive. “So you may want to slow down before you get all high and mighty, pointing the finger of judgment in my direction.”
I know what he’s talking about. Of course I know. I glance at the black cat tattooed on his hand. “I’m sorry about the fire and everything you went through. I know when I left town, we didn’t, uh, end things on the best of notes.…” I feel ill at ease, talking about this now. Sweat blossoms across my brow, and I have a fierce yearning to bolt out of my chair and flee this party, to never look back.
He blinks for several moments and looks at his hands. “Yeah, well, I was a stupid kid, and I was already hurting, physically and mentally. It was easier to shut you out. I guess I thought I was punishing you, but I didn’t realize that it would punish me, too. Because when you left, I didn’t have anyone.”
I’m caught off guard by his confession. Some part of me wishes I had my Nikon with me to hide behind, because it would be easier … safer. I’m not used to anyone confessing anything to me. Ever. I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to speak to someone openly.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to communicate with a human being.
We stare at each other for a moment, then I say, “Thought maybe you hated me.”
“Don’t hate you,” he says, the tiniest of smiles lifting one corner of his mouth. “Anymore. Much. Unless you hate me, then I’d like to change my answer. Because you did avoid my mom when she came to the Nook to bring food when you guys came back to town.”
Oh, right. I totally did. She showed up with a ton of Greek food, and I hid upstairs. I used to eat Sunday dinner at her house every week for years. She was my second mother. Then she was gone. “Classic coward move,” I admit. “A lot of old feelings. I wasn’t sure what to say to her, and it was weird.”
“Guess we’re both fools.”
“Maybe,” I say, “but that was your mom, and this is us. You could have said, ‘Hey, Josie, let’s settle this mano a mano.’ And we could have had a fistfight back when I first came into town, or maybe a Mario Kart race, or a few hours of D&D at the North Star—”
He snorts a little laugh.
“—and then the air could’ve been cleared. But instead, I’ve been freaking out, because you barely talk to me, and I’ve been trying to figure out why, because you’re always staring—”
“Staring?”
“Look, I know it’s hard to resist the Saint-Martin beauty, and all.…” I’m joking, of course, but it’s weird how good it feels to joke with him again. Really good. Something icy in my chest is melting.
“You’re the one who’s been staring at me.”
My jaw drops. “Pardon me? I think you have that backwards. You’re the starer. I only look back at you because you instigate the staring. I’m the staree.”
He makes an amused noise in the back of his throat. “Hey, I stare at lots of things. Restored vintage motorcycles, sunsets on the beach … and trouble.”
“Oh, I’m trouble?” I say, pointing to myself. “Me?”
“Got ‘Siren’ right over your door, don’t you? Might as well add a red flashing light.”
“Oh, r-i-i-i-ight. Saint-Martins are temptresses. Never heard that one before.”
“Hey, you asked why I stare. I’m being honest. Just recognize temptation when I see it. Talented. Pretty face. Mysteriously keeps to herself. All my weaknesses.” Lucky holds out both hands loosely, palms up. “Know thine enemy.”
“Wait. Now we’re enemies instead of friends … because I have a pretty face? Pretty sure I should be insulted.”
“Why? It was a compliment.”
“Didn’t sound like a compliment.”
“Hey, I tried,” he says. “You’re probably just better at flirting than I am.”
I snort. “Oh, is that what we’re doing?”
“You tell me.…”
I don’t know. A sticky feeling forms in the middle of my breastbone. We’ve never flirted before. Ever. Ever-ever-ever. We played video games and read books. We painted backdrops for plays at school. When people kissed in movies, we both rolled our eyes.
Maybe I should think about … uh, whatever this is before I say or do anything I regret. It’s Lucky, after all. That’s first. And second, I’m not good at this. And third … the Saint-Martin love curse. And fourth, the utter pit-pattering-panic I’m feeling in my chest—something between excitement and fear.
I quietly clear my throat. “Um, I just remembered that I’m almost positive you’re not single, so I should probably … um, maybe … ,” I say in the most awkward way possible, trying to remember what I’ve heard about Lucky at school. “You have a girlfriend, I think, maybe?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
“Huh.” I waver at the edge of my seat. “Okay. Guess I got my gossip mixed up.”
“Come on, Saint-Martin. I’d think you’d know better than most folks that you shouldn’t listen to gossip,” he says. “But if there’s anything I can clear up for you, ask away.”
He’s right, of course. I shouldn’t listen to gossip. But most of what I’ve learned about Lucky 2.0 has been gleaned from hallway whispers at Beauty High, which shockingly isn’t the most reliable source of information. There are rumors he spent time in juvie. And that he once had his stomach pumped after OD’ing on drugs.
That he got Bunny Perera pregnant earlier this year.
Is any of that true? I don’t know. But Beauty is an insanely finger-wagging, gossipy town that has made an art of shunning outcasts since it was a colonial village, and people are publicly judged, facts or no facts. More dirty laundry is aired here before nine a.m. than most towns manage all day.
I do know that more than half the things people whisper about me and my mom aren’t remotely true, so I’d imagine this general percentage of truthiness could apply to Lucky as well. I just don’t know which parts of his gossiped history are made up and which parts might be based in fact.
Here’s what I do know about Lucky Karras: (1) His family has owned a boat-repair business in various locations around town for a few generations. (2) They live in a house west of the harbor in a small residential area called Greektown. (3) Lucky works part-time as a mechanic after school in the boatyard. (4) He reads a lot in the Nook, but he almost never buys anything. (5) He’s a loner, like me. (6) He likes the same grape gum that he used to chew when we were kids, which I only know because he folds up the waxy wrappers into tiny, neat shapes that he leaves on his desk at school, like gum-wrapper origami.
Splashing and laughter float from the pool behind us during a break in the dance music. No way am I brave enough to ask Lucky to confirm or deny the nasty rumors about him. I try for a safer subject and ask, “What are you doing out here alone in the bushes, anyway?”
“Meditating on the meaning of life and how to live it.”
“What is that? Some kind of code for smoking up?”
“You offering?”
“I have a peppermint candy in my pocket.”
He whistles softly. “Now it’s a party.”
I smile. Just a little.
He smiles. Just a little …
“Seriously,” I say. “What are you doing back here?”
“Antony invited me.” When I make a face he elaborates, “Adrian’s cousin.”
Huh. Hopefully that’s not the same guy Evie is trying to avoid. “Which Adrian?”
He looks at me as if I’m a big-eyed space alien who just walked out of a flying saucer. “Adrian Summers? As in descended from the founder of Beauty? Father is Levi Summers? This is his cousin’s house.”
I stare at Lucky, blinking.
“You know Evie just broke up with Adrian Summers, right?” Lucky says. “I thought you and Evie were close, or whatever. You live in the same house and work together.”
Oh.
Now I feel completely blindsided. Why didn’t Evie tell me this? I pretend like my cheeks aren’t suddenly ten degrees warmer and try to cover it up with more sarcasm—a tried-and-true Saint-Martin technique for avoiding humiliation. “And you got a personal invite to a Golden party, huh? Didn’t realize you were part of the crème de la crème of Beauty.”
“Yeah, no. My pops made me come,” Lucky admits. “We take care of all the Summers family’s boats. Gotta flaunt my handsome mug around all these future yacht owners, so one day, when he thinks I’m taking over the family business, which I’m not”—he holds up a finger to his lips—“I can charge them ridiculous prices for oil changes and repairs.” He shrugs.
“Circle of life, and all that?”
“All that,” he agrees. “And what about you, shutterbug?”
I frown at him. “Don’t call me that.”
“Your mom still does.”
Sure. It’s been my nickname since I was old enough to steal her phone and take pictures of my own feet. He knows that. What surprises me is that he’s heard my mom calling me this recently.
“Just how much do you hear, brooding in the back of our shop?”
He threads his fingers together. “I hear some things, figure others out. I have some theories about you.”
“Is that so?” I say. “Enlighten me, then. What are your theories?”
“I think you know that Beauty isn’t your mom’s forever home. So when your grandmother comes back and your mom inevitably hits the road, I think you plan on going out West to crash with your father.”
Every muscle in my body tenses.
His smile is slow and smug. “Knew it.”
“What the hell?” Has he learned some new hacking skills over the past few years? Paranoia skitters down my spine.
“Travel books about Los Angeles,” he explains. “Seen you flipping through them at the Nook when you think no one’s watching and hiding the notes you make from your mom. Your dad’s an LA fashion photographer who has a multimillion-dollar beachfront mansion in Malibu, and you always wanted to go out there. One plus one plus one equals you’re planning a secret trip to California.…”
My stomach twists. “You’re spying on me in the bookshop?”
“I’ve got two eyes, Josie. That’s not spying.”
“It’s exactly spying!”
“If you don’t want people to see, stop doing it in public. You’ve always been terrible at hiding things, so that hasn’t changed, just for the record. You left a printout of Los Angeles airfare comparisons next to the register two weeks ago. I swiped it and dumped it in the trash before your mom found it. You’re welcome.”
I’m stunned—stunned. And furious. “I didn’t ask for your help.”
“Sorry?”
I lower my voice and point at him. “You cannot say anything, okay? This isn’t a joke. This is … I’m just looking at airfare. It’s not a crime to look!”
“Whoa,” he says, dark brows knitting together. “Not accusing you of murder. Jesus.”
“I don’t have firm plans or anything,” I insist. “But you know my parents aren’t friends, right?”
“I remember.”
“Well, my mom would be really upset if she knew I was even thinking about it. Please.”
He straightens his posture and holds up both hands in surrender. “Hey. No judgment. And I won’t say anything. It’s just something I noticed, is all. I wasn’t snooping. I just happened to see it. Okay?”
I nod and scratch my arm, feeling exposed and uncomfortable.
We don’t say anything. Behind the shrubbery, the dance music thumps on.
“Have you gotten to know him better?” Lucky finally asks.
“What? Who?”
Lucky lifts his chin. “Henry Zabka—your dad. He’s gotten a shit-ton of big projects over the last few years. His work is gorgeous.”
“Uh, yeah. He’s amazing. He’s still … tough.”
“Tough,” Lucky repeats.
I’m not sure how else to describe a man I barely know. He’s candid in both his photos and his manner. Interviewers call him rude. “I still don’t get to see him much. Every year or so he visits or we’ll meet up somewhere for the weekend. He took me to see a bunch of photography galleries in New York the year after I left Beauty. I was thirteen. I shook Annie Leibovitz’s hand.”
“Yeah?” He seems impressed.
“It was pretty great,” I say. Truth be told, I was so nervous that it’s hard to remember anything about it other than I felt overwhelmed, and that her hand was cold.
Lucky studies me. It’s hard to read his expression.
I sniffle and scratch my nose. “But, anyway … yeah. Henry—my dad. He’s, still, um … very much a tough-love kind of guy. Nothing for free. He takes on apprentices every year, but you have to earn it. Aspiring photographers fight for those slots.”
“At his home in Malibu?”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s where you plan on going after your grandmother comes back?”
“You do remember what happened the last time my mom and grandma spent more than a few hours together, right?” Ticking time bomb.
Something clicks behind his eyes. “So, that’s why you’re bailing and going to Malibu?”
“I’m not bailing. It’s not a sure thing, but yeah. After I graduate, maybe. I don’t know.”
“You plan to move in with your dad.”
God, he’s nosy. “Maybe. If he’ll have me as his apprentice.”
Lucky makes a funny face. “If? Jesus, Josie. You’re his daughter.”
“So? Just because we share blood doesn’t mean I should get special treatment.”
“Suppose not,” Lucky says, but he doesn’t look convinced.
“I don’t want a handout,” I say, feeling like I have to explain myself. “I want to earn it and prove to him that I’m worth taking on after I finish high school next summer.”
“Like, how?”
“Like, by building up my portfolio. And … I was … hoping to get a photography internship at a magazine.”
“Magazine?” His brow lowers. “You mean … Coast Life?”
“You know it?”
“Only magazine in town. Started up a few years ago.”
Oh.
“Had no idea they offered an internship,” he says.
“Shadowing the photographer who’s shooting Regatta Week at the end of summer,” I confirm. “I think it’s the only photography internship in the area, so getting it would be a huge deal for me. My dad would really respect it,” I tell him, feeling a little despondent but unable to admit that I lost the internship already. Because I’m too young.
“Hey, Regatta Week is a big deal for everyone with status in Beauty. More money is blown in one pointless weekend than on entire wars, and nearly no one gets killed, so hey. Good luck with snagging that, if that’s the kind of thing your dad will respect.”
I think he’s looking down on the internship. Pretty sure. Al-l-lmost positive.
“And I guess it confirms what I suspected,” he adds.
“What’s that?” I say.
“It’s just how it was before,” he says, eyes darkening. “Don’t get too attached to Josie Saint-Martin because she’s just passing through.”
Okay, fair …
But it also feels a little bit like a punch to the gut.
A shout snaps our attention to the French doors of the pool house. Someone’s fighting. Not the kind with fists and punching. The kind with name-calling and crying. Normally, that would be exactly the sort of drama I would try to avoid, but I recognize the tenor of one of the muffled voices beyond the paned doors, and my pulse goes wild.
“Oh no,” I whisper.
I push out of my seat, rush to the pool house, and swing open the doors. A crowd of gawkers cranes their necks away from a big-screen TV to see what’s transpiring across the open room. A couple is arguing near the kitchenette area. Half of that couple is my cousin.
“Just leave me alone!” Evie’s shouting across a granite kitchen counter littered with plastic party cups and half-eaten plates of catered food. Tear tracks stain her cheeks. She’s not crying now, but she has been recently. Now she’s just angry.
And the object of her anger is a very tall, very muscular guy with cropped blond hair and intense eyes. His crimson Harvard Crew T-shirt stretches over shoulders broad enough to hold up the world. “You’re the one who showed up at my cousin’s house after breaking up with me,” he shouts back, aggressively pointing at her over the counter. “You’re sending me a lot of mixed signals, Evie.”
Jesus. This is Adrian Summers?
“Here’s a signal for you,” she says, holding up her middle finger. “Leave me alone.”
As she stomps around the counter, he drunkenly calls to her, “So typical. You Saint-Martins are a three-ring circus, you know that? Diedre’s the world’s greatest hypocrite. Your mom’s a sociopath. You’re an emotional seesaw. And now Wild Winona, the Whore of Babylon, is back in town, along with her little mistake, the amateur photographer.”
I make a noise, and his attention slides from Evie to me.
“There she is. And who doesn’t love a good amateur, am I right? Word on the street is that all your best pics are behind a paid subscription wall online. Twenty bucks and you get access to all your nudes.”
“What?” I say, but it comes out as a whisper.
“Isn’t that how your mom met your famous photographer dad, posing in the buff for him? Like mother, like daughter, huh?” Adrian whips out his phone. “We were just enjoying one tonight, weren’t we boys? Where was that? Oh, here we go.”
He turns his phone around to show me the screen. It’s a nude, all right. One I’ve seen before by accident, when I was younger. It’s my mother, photographed by my father when she was nineteen. It’s in black and white, and the top of her head is cropped off, so it’s hard to identify that it’s her. In fact, it would be easy to mistake the girl in the picture for me.
Except that I know for a fact it’s not. But that doesn’t matter to anyone here.
Adrian puckers his lips and makes a kissy face at me.
Dark laughter swirls around the pool house.
An earthquake starts in my belly and spreads up into my chest. I feel sick. Humiliated. And completely unable to do a damn thing about it. So I just stand there, staring at a naked picture of my mother. Hating her a little for ruining my life once again. Hating all of these people for objectifying her. Wanting to rip the phone away from Adrian and beat his smug face with it.
Adrian just clicks off the screen, turns away from me, and finishes his grand speech to Evie, saying, “Your family’s cursed, all right. You’re all a blight on Beauty!”
“And you’re an asshole,” a smoky voice says over my shoulder.
I glance behind me to see Lucky glaring at Adrian.
“Stay out of this, grease monkey,” Adrian says. “This is above your pay grade.”
One of Adrian’s friends pulls on his shoulder. “Come on, man. You’re wasted. You’ll regret this tomorrow.”
Adrian shoves his buddy away. “The only thing I regret is coming back home this summer. I should have stayed in Cambridge. All of you are losers. All of you!” And with that, he stumbles around the counter and out the door, heading toward the lights and music of the pool outside, where the main party is oblivious to what’s happened in here.
Evie pushes through the crowd and grabs my arm. “I’m so sorry,” she says near my ear. “Are you okay?”
No. I’m not. How did Adrian, some rich fool I’ve never even met, get a nude photograph of my mom? And how did he know about my Photo Funder subscription service and get the two things mixed up together? That’s a complete and utter lie. I’ve never taken a nude selfie in my life. I don’t even take clothed selfies. It’s rare that I even take photos of people at all.
I suddenly remember Big Dave at school, asking about private photo sessions … blowing me a kiss in the hallway like Adrian just did. Now I realize that’s truly what people think I do. Not just the dimwits in my school like Big Dave, but the Goldens. I wonder how far this photo has spread. Does everyone in town believe they’ve seen me in the buff?
I don’t know whether I want to punch something or cry.
“I’m fine,” I tell Evie, even though I’m not. “Are you?”
“Just typical drama.” She glances around at everyone staring at us and calls out to the pool house: “Nothing to see here. That photo is a fake. Adrian’s just drunk and spouting off because his feelings are hurt. What else is new? Enjoy your evening, folks.”
Um, this is not typical for me, thankyouverymuch. I want to ask her more. I want to tell her that I’m ready to leave and get away from these people. She can tell me everything on the walk home and, and—
“I’m so sorry I dragged you into this shit. Don’t listen to what he said or worry about the photo.”
“Evie,” I whisper. “You know that wasn’t me, right?”
“Hush. I know. I’m going to see if I can find out where he got it.” She looks toward her friends who are saying something to her. “Can you hang on for a while? It’s just, I need to … I’ll be right back, I promise.”
Before I can protest, she’s striding away, being comforted by Vanessa from Barcelona.
And now I’m alone. Stunned. Confused. Enduring stares and whispers.
And very angry.
I see Lucky though the crowd, but I can’t handle him right now. I can’t handle any of this. I’m completely overwhelmed, and I can’t “hang on.” I just need to get out of here. Away from all of it. I could call Mom to come pick me up, but honestly, she’s the last person I want to see right now. So I don’t call her. I just stride out of the pool house, around the pool, and across the perfectly manicured lawn, listening to the sounds of the party fade as I trudge around a curving gravel driveway filled with parked cars. In a few minutes, I’m out of the gate and walking down the dark sidewalk into town.
It’s not midnight yet, and Beauty prides itself on being safe, so I’m not all that worried about walking home alone—it’s not far. Still, I try to stay aware and stick to the gas streetlamps, following the main road through the historic district.
Adrian Summers. Who the hell does he think he is? God only knows who heard him say all that stuff tonight and saw that photo. Probably a bunch of sons and daughters of other rich families around town … people who will gossip about this tomorrow over brunch at the Lighthouse Café and cocktails at the Yacht Club. I suppose this means I can now look forward to customers coming into the shop and snickering behind the bookshelves.
The more I think about it, the madder I get. The madder I get, the faster I walk. Moonlight shines on Georgian-style roofs as I stride down the block, past a marble statue of one of the town elders—probably someone who drowned the so-called witch buried in our graveyard. Every white fence is perfectly painted. Every shop window gleams. But when I turn the corner and head toward the grassy quad in our historic town common, I slow my pace in front of a multistory brick building.
Summers & Co Department Store.
Angry aftershocks rumble through me. I ball up my hands into fists to keep them from shaking as I stare up at the art deco letters that curve around the side of the old building. I mean, why does this even exist? It looks like a movie set through which Cary Grant might stroll. A dinosaur that should have died out decades ago. But no. Here in Beauty, it’s still going strong. Enormous pane glass window displays from the 1920s, mannequins wearing pastel boating shorts and bright yellow sundresses. And all of it lining the Summers family’s pockets.
For a moment, the rumble in my chest seems to have a real-life echo somewhere around me that I can’t find. Then I see a single headlight and hear the insect-like buzz of a vintage motorcycle engine. A red Superhawk glides up to the curb.
“Are you following me?” I shout at Lucky over the vibration of his bike.
He shuts off the engine. “It’s late, and we’re going in the same direction. You shouldn’t be walking alone. I can drop you off on my way home.”
“No, thank you.”
“I’m not a creeper. Seriously. Someone was mugged out here last week.”
“I appreciate your concern,” I say. “But I can take care of myself. You know, seeing how I’m an entrepreneur who makes my own porn to sell online, apparently. Even though it wasn’t—goddammit!” Great. Now I’m crying.
“Hey—” He pops his kickstand, stands up from his bike.
I brush away angry tears—Temper Tears, Mom calls them, and they are the absolute worst—and turn away from him, walking in a circle.
“That wasn’t my picture,” I say. To him. To myself. To the empty, dark town common.
“It doesn’t matter if it was. He’s an asshole, and if you had a lawyer, you could sue him.”
“But it wasn’t! Lucky. Don’t you get it? It was my mom’s photos from college.”
He stills. “Oh shit.”
“Yes, shit!” I say, watching realization dawn over his face. He knows all about my origin story. At least he used to. I guess he remembers, or he’s heard gossip, because he looks mighty uncomfortable right now. “As far as the other thing Adrian said, I mean, I do have an online non-nude—I can’t stress that enough—subscription service. But I don’t even know how anyone here would know about it. We haven’t lived anywhere close to here in years. I know it’s not Evie spreading gossip about me.”
“It’s not Evie,” he confirms, taking off his helmet—the one with the Lucky 13 design.
“Can’t be Evie’s mom. Aunt Franny is kind of uptight, but she’s not mean. She’s more of a mind-my-own-business kind of person.”
“She makes good carrot cake,” he says.
She does. “Maybe my grandmother told people about my subscription service and it got distorted through gossip … ?” I make a frustrated sound at the night sky.
I’m so tired. I’m tired of gossip. And Beauty. And my mom. And defending my mom. And our terrible, broken communication. I’m tired of moving around. I’m tired of trying to prove myself to my father. I’m tired of feeling both too young to start my life and too old to cling to the way things were, and I’m tired of feeling so damn unstable and unsure about the future.
I’m tired of losing everything that’s important to me.
But most of all, right at this moment, I’m tired of looking at those polished steel letters of the Summers & Co sign, because why does this family get to be on top of the food chain?
His father cost me my internship.
And now Adrian’s blond, stupid I-row-at-Harvard head gets to humiliate me and hurt my cousin while I have to scurry into the shadows and hide.
The Summers family. I hate all of them.
And I hate Beauty.
Furious, I pick up a rock near my feet. It fills my palm with a delicious weight.
“Uh, Josie?”
I pull back my arm, use all my strength, and lob the rock at the shiny steel letters of the Summers & Co sign.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Lucky says, holding out his hands to stop me. But it’s too late.
Funny thing about rage. It makes you think you have more power than you do. My pipsqueak-size arm sends the rock sailing through the night air, sure enough, but it fails to reach the art deco sign. Instead, it lands smack in the middle of the giant display window.
It shatters violently. Glass tumbles like a waterfall. Everywhere, a horrendous sound that echoes around the town common. Mannequins fall. Stubborn shards stuck to the top of the casing fall a few seconds later like an afterthought, as if they’re melting icicles of death.
“Ho-ly shit … ,” Lucky mumbles.
What.
Have.
I.
Done?
My chest hardens like cooling lava as shock floods my limbs. This isn’t just any old window. It’s a local legend. People come from miles to see the live models who pose in it every fall and the lavish orchid displays at Easter. Every December for almost a hundred years, people have gathered around this sidewalk to see the unveiling of the annual holiday display.
OH MY GOD. I RUINED CHRISTMAS.
I don’t have time to wallow in this realization, because when the last big shard of glass falls, shattering on the concrete with a terrible crash, an even worse sound follows on its heels:
The store’s security alarm.
It roars to life, a sleeping bear that’s been poked, emitting a harpy-like screech that sounds as if it’s a civil defense siren warning the entire town that an atom bomb is incoming.
Panic roots me to the sidewalk. RUN! I tell my legs. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, RUN. But all I can do is stare in a stupor at the broken window.
“Josie!” Lucky shouts, pulling my arm. “Get out of here. Come on. On my bike.”
But it’s too late. A security guard appears from nowhere, beaming a flashlight over the broken glass … and then into our faces.
I’m toast.