Chapter Seven

I found Fiona Locke’s phone number easily enough online that night. The hard part was actually dialing the numbers. That and not hanging up.

I stood in my bedroom, trying to psych myself up. I knew I was being stupid—I was a grown woman, this was a phone call. I told myself to pretend that I was a real journalist. In college, we did assignments where one of us would pretend to be a journalist and the other a victim of a high-profile crime or natural disaster. It was the kind of story you’d see on CNN: some poor woman’s kid had just been murdered and they’re trying to get a statement from her. I’d been pretty good at it. This was nothing compared to that. But still.

I could do this. I forced myself. I punched in the numbers, dialed, and held my breath.

She sounded surprised, but not necessarily shocked, to hear from me. I asked if there was any way that we could meet up in person. She lived in Rhode Island now, and I’d go to her. I almost wished she’d said she had no interest in seeing me. But what she said was, “I’m free on Saturday.”

At least I had an excuse to miss out on Saturday coffee and shopping this week. I told Sarah I had a work appointment, and I wasn’t sure she believed me. She was in the final throes of moving out and I hadn’t seen much of her. Lately, when I found myself wanting to talk, I called Gillian.

On Saturday, I drove to Newport. Fiona had given me the address of a bookstore on Bellevue Ave and told me she’d be sitting in the back by the window with her laptop. The streets were already packed at eleven, the way they always were around here in the summer. The mansion tour along Newport’s rocky bluffs had been one of my other favorite summertime activities. I’d always liked the architecture and cobblestone streets of downtown. This place had charm, where Stonebury had only plastic.

I passed all the galleries and art supply stores, wishing I’d come here for fun. But I had a mission, and this was the first stop on my list.

I spotted her easily. She was where she’d said she’d be, typing away on her computer, no idea I was frozen beside the World History section. Her hair was short now, cut to her chin with bangs that swept to one side, and the beigey-brown color was now a pretty, soft blonde. She actually looked younger now than she did then.

I took a deep breath and approached the table. When she looked up, I smiled. “Hi.”

She smiled back, a bit hesitantly. “Oh, hi.” She moved a stylish black bag from the seat beside her and put it on the floor. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

I sat, placing my purse on the floor, too, even though I’d read once that there were more germs on a floor in a public place like this than on a toilet. I wondered if I could wash my bag when I got home. Focusing on details like this was way easier than the fact that the girl I tortured endlessly in high school was sitting beside me, waiting for me to say something.

“I really like this place. Newport, I mean.”

Fiona pushed her hair behind her ear and blinked big blue eyes—had they always been that big, that blue? “I love it. Came here for an internship after college and never left.”

I remembered that she’d gotten into Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. We’d lived in the same city for all of college. “What do you do?”

“Assistant curator at the Newport Art Museum.”

Well, that was a tiny bit more impressive than copy editor at the Stonebury Gazette. “That’s really fantastic. I’m trying to start my own photography business. I mean, it’s really just an idea right now, but…I’m trying to do some freelance, build up a portfolio. I mean, I’m trying…” I let my voice trail off. I didn’t come here to talk to her about my failed career, even though she was being polite and nodding as I rambled. I cleared my throat, trying again.

“I wanted to apologize.”

Fiona sat back a little, turning toward me. I’d practiced a whole monologue the night before, but now that I was speaking to her, words came out in no particular order. “I’ve been thinking a lot about high school and how I acted. I was so mean. To you. Well, to everyone, but especially to you.”

“Oh,” she said. She sounded surprised and looked surprised, too, her mouth forming a little pink circle. She folded her fingers together, brought them up to the knee of her crossed leg, and waited for me to continue.

“I’m really, really sorry. And I wanted you to know that there wasn’t anything wrong with you. It was…you were kind of an easy target. I just mean—it was easy because you…you were like…”

“Nerdy,” she finished for me.

“Well…yeah. And because you didn’t do anything. You didn’t say anything. Not that I’m blaming you, I’m not blaming you at all. It was our fault. My fault. But you never stood up for yourself. Why didn’t you?”

She looked at me, and I wondered if she was remembering one of the many encounters I had running through my head. The day we invited her to the diner and never showed up or the time that Adam lodged so many spitballs in her hair that the nurse had to cut a section out. Or maybe she wasn’t thinking of one instance in particular but of a general atmosphere we created around her, where anything she did—answered a question correctly in class, struck out during a game of softball in gym, or simply walked by one of us in the hall—was met with teases and ridicule.

Her silence went on for what felt like forever but was probably about ten seconds. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really care.”

“You didn’t care?”

She shrugged. “About being popular. Not that it didn’t bother me. Sometimes I’d go home and cry.”

Fantastic.

She shrugged again. “But I had friends. I had really great friends.”

I remembered some of the girls Fiona had hung out with—Lacey, the girl with unfortunately large ears that Amber called Dumbo; Kerry, who lived out by the cemetery and was one of the very few kids at Stonebury High who qualified for the free lunch program; and Melissa, who, in four years, I’d never heard speak one word. It had never dawned on me that they were actually friends. In my mind they were nothing more than outcasts, a group of girls who stuck together because they had to. I realized now that I’d just been projecting.

“I’m glad,” I told her. I took another deep breath. I’d gotten the apology out, and I was relieved about that, but it didn’t really feel like it was enough.

Fiona surprised me by changing the subject as if there was nothing left to say. “So where are you planning on starting your business?”

“In my fantasy, Boston. But that didn’t happen. So I’m back in Stonebury.”

She raised her eyebrows and her expression changed from curious to almost pitying. As if she was thinking, sucks to be you.

“I know. I keep telling myself that this is just one stop. Not forever.”

Fiona turned away to pick up her bag, and I assumed she was getting ready to leave. But then she pulled a card out of her wallet and handed it to me. justin hanscomb, mba. 50 Boylston Street, Boston MA. “He’s a friend, a financial planner. Specializes in small business. You could go in for a consult. If you tell him I sent you, he might even do it for free.”

I held the little card in my hands. So far, I’d talked only to Lori, who had surprised us all by not only maintaining her parents’ salon and spa but by growing the business. The whole time she spoke, though, I kept thinking I can’t believe I’m taking business advice from a girl who couldn’t even pass trig. “Seriously? You’d do this for me?”

She laughed. “It’s not like I’m giving you the loan.”

“Yeah, I know, but…thank you.”

She nodded like it was no big deal. But why did it always surprise me when someone was nice?

Fiona slipped her computer into her bag and zipped it up. “I’m really sorry, but I have to go. My boyfriend’s mom is in town for a visit and wants to go sightseeing. So I should really thank you for calling. It got me out of the house for a little while. I’m not good if I don’t get some alone time. But I appreciate you coming all the way down here to tell me that.”

Then she did the last thing I ever expected Fiona Locke to do. She hugged me.

“It was really nice of you.” She pulled back, looked me in the eyes. “Try not to be so hard on yourself.”

As she spoke, I could barely register what was happening. I’d been kept up nights, reliving every prank my friends and I had played on Fiona, every mean thing I’d ever said to her about her hair or her glasses or her gangly limbs, certain I’d scarred her for life, and yet she seemed…fine. Better than fine. Better than me. As if the things I’d done and said to her hadn’t really mattered at all.

Fiona wasn’t done. “I can tell you’ve changed,” she said. The very words I’d hoped to hear from Jack, coming from Fiona’s mouth, still felt like a revelation. “It’s not like you’re still hanging out with Amber Howell or something.”

When she said Amber’s name, Fiona’s lip curled the slightest bit, a tiny fracture in her shellacked exterior. She blinked her lovely eyes at me, and I smiled and said, “Right, no. God no.”

Fiona smiled, too, and then she said good-bye, clearly not wanting to be late. I waved, still standing in the same place. It wasn’t until I started walking to my car that my shoulders started to hurt and I realized how tense I’d been the entire conversation.

It had all been going surprisingly well, up until the lie. But I couldn’t have told her the truth. Not only was I still friends with someone I thought was an awful person, but I was going to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. What would Fiona have thought of me then? Would it have changed her acceptance of my apology?

I was pissed at myself for the lie, but another part of me was oddly uplifted. Fiona had accepted my apology. She hadn’t yelled at me or called me names or done any of the things I probably deserved. The truth was Fiona was okay, and I had done what I’d come to do. Maybe these apologies wouldn’t be so hard after all.