BEAUTY COURTHOUSE 1857: Chiseled into locally quarried marble, this sign graces the entrance of a historic municipal building on the town common. A disgruntled farmer once dragged the body of a dead sheep inside the lobby and a ship captain shot up the ceiling in protest of taxes. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
It’s after one in the morning when we get back to the Nook and park in a designated spot tucked into a narrow side alley between us and the Revolutionary War–themed Freedom Art Gallery next door. As soon as we climb the rickety stairs to the above-shop apartment, Evie slides up to me in socks and attacks me with questions and apologies. Why did I leave the party? What was I thinking? Am I okay?
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“She wasn’t arrested,” Mom reports. “They just took her in with Lucky. He’s the one who broke the window, not Josie.”
“Lucky broke the window?” Evie says, brow furrowing.
Ugh. I ignore the tightness of my stomach and whisper to Evie, “Don’t tell her about the photo. I’m sorry for making everything worse.” Then I nearly start crying again.
“Don’t be stupid. You didn’t do anything,” she says, wrapping long arms around me. Then she murmurs in my ear: “I was wrong about everything. We shouldn’t have gone to that party. It’s the curse. It works in weird ways. I’m sorry you got hurt in the blowback.”
While Evie and I lean on each other, clinging, Mom relays the story to Evie about the window, asking me for details occasionally. Like Mom, Evie seems to buy the lie. And I let her. Because I don’t know what else to do.
Well. That’s not exactly true.
I know I could confess. There are, in fact, several moments in the conversation when I think Right now! Do it now! Just tell them! But I hesitate, and the moments fall through my fingers like sand. The longer I stay silent, the harder it is to speak up, and the sicker and sicker I feel about it.
So I finally just tell them I’m tired, that I need to sleep. And because they are both better people than me, they don’t suspect anything is amiss.
If they only knew.
I’m so confused about the whole thing, and all I can do is go back over what Lucky said in the police station. What we talked about there … what we discussed behind the pool house at the party. Our old friendship before I left town. How much had changed.
And the flirting.
I consider what my mom said, the Bonnie and Clyde comment.
And the pit-pattering-panic I felt behind the pool house fills up my chest again. Dear God. I have to stop thinking about that. There’s no way he’s suddenly filled with amorous longing for his former best friend and because of these feelings, decided to take the fall for her crime.
Correction: accidental crime.
Anyway, now we’re back to square one.
Why in the world did he do it?
I think before this goes any further, it’s best I find out.
Because it’s officially summer break now, I’m working extra shifts at the Nook along with Evie and a couple of other part-time employees Mom has on staff. Summer season is serious business for the entire town—definitely for our bookshop. Yesterday, I was happy about putting in more time at the Nook. It’s Step Two of my three-step plan: Save up enough money for a plane ticket to Los Angeles.
Today, however, I want to bail on my shift and run across the street to Nick’s Boatyard, because I can plainly see through our front window that Lucky’s red Superhawk motorcycle is parked out there, which means he’s working for his dad today.
And I really, really want to talk to him.
But I’ve already been warned against doing that just this morning.
“I seriously don’t want you hanging around Lucky Karras anymore,” Mom told me at breakfast. “I’m not going to ask for details about the seriousness of your relationship with him, but all I know is that he’s in deep shit, and rumors will be spreading around town like wildfire.”
She doesn’t know the half of it. “I can handle it.”
“Don’t care. I don’t need our name tangled up in it,” she says, getting agitated. “So stay away. Period. Putting my foot down.”
That’s pretty much Mom’s harshest commandment. Putting her proverbial foot down means she’s serious and it’s final. No arguments. She’s assuming parental privileges, a rare event, and that’s that.
Only it’s not that, because I can’t just never see him again. Hello! He works across the street, so it’s a physical impossibility. And on top of that, I need to find out what’s going on with him. Is he going to jail? Juvie? What’s going to happen to him?
It’s my crime, after all. I have a right to know.
And he’s my friend, not hers.
I put it out of my mind for a while and instead concentrate on my morning shift at the Nook, where I try to guess which of our regular customers have seen “my” naked photo or heard the That’s the Girl Who Sells Nudes Online rumor—only, it’s hard to tell from their darting glances which ones may have also heard the That’s the Girl Who Was Hauled to the Police Station Last Night rumor.
Occasionally, someone walks by our shops and makes it clear by puckering up their lips and making a kissy face at me. Lovely. Just lovely …
Around noon, tourists begin heading to pubs and clam shacks for lunch, and things finally quiet down enough for Evie to read a book at the counter on the Nook’s squeaky stool. I prop myself up on my elbows next to her and stare out the window, trying not to stress while watching Nick’s Boatyard. Below me is a string of gold-and-green postcards from Nepal: Kathmandu, temples, monkeys, and mountains. Grandma sends one a week with general updates. Regular customers ooh and aah over her descriptions of yak milk.
“We should get one of the coin-operated telescopes on the Harborwalk moved in here so you can get a better look at the boatyard,” Evie says in a bored voice, squeaking the stool.
“I’m just curious.”
“Yep. I’m curious too. Curious why a notoriously hardboiled lone wolf like Phantom would suddenly destroy a very public piece of town history in a fit of Hulk-like rage.”
Ruh-oh.
“So strange,” she says, not looking up from her book. Her eyeliner is extra dark today, and she’s rearranged the enamel pins and buttons that line the lanyard of her Siren’s Book Nook ID badge—we wear them hanging around our necks—so that the topmost one says When Doves Cry and the one beneath it says Heathcliff, it’s me.
“Lots of things are strange,” I say, trying to mimic her cooler-than-cool unbothered tone. “Like how you have been dating the prince of Beauty. I mean, it would have been nice to know we were at a Summers house last night, as in Levi Summers, the king of town?”
“Hey, cuz? We were at Levi Summer’s brothers’ house last night,” she says saucily.
“Oh, were we?”
“Surprise.”
“It’s just …” I sigh. “You know … I felt really stupid when Lucky told me that.”
Her eyes flick to mine at the mention of Lucky’s name. “First of all, I didn’t realize it mattered. And second, I had a life here before you showed up and probably will after you’re gone.”
Lucky said the same thing. I guess everyone thinks I’m just a blip, a twenty-four-hour-long disappearing story, not a permanent part of the town’s feed. She’s not really being mean about it, just honest, so it’s hard to argue.
“You wouldn’t happen to have his phone number, would you?” I ask, super casual.
“Levi Summers?”
I give her a faux-catty look. “Lucky’s.”
“Ah, your old pal Lucky,” she says, pretending to catch on. “Nope, can’t say that I do. No need to call him. He’s in here every afternoon after school.”
Only, school is out now. And then there’s the tiny matter of him taking the fall for me.
Across the street, the boatyard office door opens, and several people exit onto the sidewalk: Lucky’s parents, Nick and Kat. An older couple—his grandparents. A few more dark-haired people with the same chiseled builds and smiling faces. Aunts and uncles, I think. Three kids. And a perky Latina in a professional-looking pantsuit, carrying a briefcase.
Then there’s Lucky. I almost didn’t recognize him. He’s wearing black dress pants and a tie with a button-up shirt.
“Whoa,” Evie says, leaning over the counter to peer out the window with me. “Got to admit. Phantom cleans up real nice. No wonder he’s knocking up girls left and right. He’s the male Medusa. Don’t look into his eyes. Might get you pregnant.”
“Gross, Evie,” I mumble. But now I’m curious. “I heard about Bunny Perera. Just how many girls are there?”
“Who really knows? Several? None? Everyone was surprised about Bunny. Certain blond rowers I know that shall not be named ever, ever again because they are dicks, and I can’t believe I ever allowed myself to trust them—”
Yikes. Honestly, I’d rather not discuss Adrian Summers ever again either. Ever-ever.
“—these certain people said the whole Bunny and Lucky thing must’ve been a one-time hookup situation, because they definitely weren’t an ongoing item. Maybe it’s just a rumor. Or maybe he’s a serial dater.”
I don’t like that. At all. It reminds me of my mom’s dating habits, all wrapped up in lies and sneaking around, and kids at school whispering “Wild Winona.” It makes me a little sick to my stomach, to be honest.
I don’t know why I care. Lucky can do what he wants.
“Why is he dressed up like that?” I ask. Irritated that he might be a serial dater. Irritated that it bothers me. That I don’t know anything about a boy I used to know, who stuck his neck out for me. “Looks like he’s going to church or a funeral.”
“Or an arraignment,” Evie says. “They’re going to the courthouse.”
Stomach in knots. Guilt. Shame. Worry.
“Entire Karras family en force,” Evie notes. “Aunts, uncles, grandparents. I think that’s Kat Karras’s sister and two of her kids. Damn. They aren’t screwing around.”
“Is that their lawyer?” I whisper.
“Yeah. Think that’s Gina Garcia. She’s not cheap. But if anyone’s going to fight the Summers family, she’s a good choice.”
Guilt. Shame. Sickness.
I watch the entire Karras family piling into several cars, patting Lucky on the back for support, looking serious yet positive, ready to fight for him, the boy who didn’t even do this thing, and, and—
“It was me,” I whisper into Evie’s hair.
The stool squeaks as she stiffens. Doesn’t say anything.
“I did it,” I whisper again. “I threw the rock. I broke the window.”
“What?” she mouths back at me, eyes big as moons as she quickly glances around the store to check where my mother is. And then again: “What?”
“I didn’t mean to break the window!” I whisper into my hands, watching Lucky’s head ducking inside his father’s truck. “I meant to hit the metal letters above the glass, but I guess my arm isn’t all that strong, and I missed. And Lucky had followed me there from the party on his bike. I guess he was worried that I was walking home alone, because we’d talked at the party. We barely even talked! Only for a few minutes. He said he was a bad flirter, and I didn’t even know we were flirting, and seriously, why does he have to be so hot now?”
“Oh, cuz.”
“We barely talked. I swear.”
Long enough for me to spill my guts to him about my Los Angeles plans.
But I don’t say this, of course.
“And then he followed me, and I was so angry about the photo … I threw the rock, and the alarm went off,” I tell her. “The security guard caught us, but the cop didn’t care who did it—he took us both in. Said they could sort it out at the station. So we got hauled off together. I told Lucky I’d clear things up and make sure they knew I did it. But I guess he told the police he did it, and they let me go free.”
“Son of a bitch,” Evie murmurs, blinking at me in surprise.
“Mom believed it,” I say. “And she said it would be a felony, and I got scared, and I didn’t know what to do. But I don’t want him to go to jail for me. I don’t even know him anymore! Now everything’s way out of control, and there he goes, and I can’t even talk to him before he gets sent off to death row—”
“He’s not going to death row.”
“I don’t know what to do, Evie. We used to be best friends, but we barely know each other now. I can’t let him do this for me. It’s too weird, right?”
She looks rattled. She never looks rattled. Only two times in the months since we’ve moved here has she been anything but unflappable and even-keeled: last night when Adrian was fighting with her, and now. This time it’s my fault.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I just got so mad. The Harvard rower whose name we aren’t speaking made you cry at the party, and the photo—”
I can’t finish. I’m too upset now. Thankfully, I don’t have to, because Evie’s eyes are glossy with emotion, and in this moment right now, I know she understands.
“Shit,” she murmurs.
“Yeah,” I say.
We both stare out the window at the Karrases’ caravan of cars. Lucky’s dad flips over the CLOSED sign on the office door to the boatyard, locks the door, and heads to his truck, rubbing his hand through his hair as if he’s worried and nervous. Guess I would be too, if I were taking my child to an arraignment for a possible felony.
When I was a kid, sometimes I felt like the Karrases were more of a family to me than my own. I can’t make these nice people go through this. I just can’t.
Adrenaline pumping through my limbs, I race toward the bookshop door with the intention of stopping them.
“Josie?”
I stop in my tracks, hand reaching for the shop door, and turn to look at my mother.
“What’s the matter, shutterbug?” she asks, looking puzzled. “You okay?”
“Mom … ,” I say, unable to finish.
Evie’s voice calls out as she jogs up behind me, “Stop! Wait. I was only kidding, cuz. Come back—you don’t have to, uh, get my lunch. We can take a break together when Anna clocks in and takes over the register.”
Heart racing, I glance at her, then out the window, where the Karrases are driving away. Oh God. I wish Evie wouldn’t have stopped me … and I’m so thankful she did.
Coward. Liar. Wimp.
I’m a mess. I’m a great big ball of anxiety and anguish. This is all so screwed up.
Mom doesn’t seem to notice. Her face softens as she says, “Evie’s right. The town will be talking about the broken window, and even if you didn’t do it, you were there. Rumors are going to fly about you and Lucky, so maybe it’s best you stick around the shop and lay low. Just for a couple of days, until this whole thing dies down.”
“Will it die down?”
“Sure,” Evie says.
“Absolutely,” Mom agrees, nodding enthusiastically.
So why don’t I believe them?