“Why doesn’t Spencer have a first day too?” Hazel pushed her glasses up, leaving a smudge of powdered sugar on the lens.
“Give me those,” I said, and wiped them on my running shorts. It was the first day of school for the girls. Annabelle and Scott had arrived with Dunkin’ Donuts for the twins and a monstrous gluten-free muffin for Spencer. “Since Spencer has school all summer, it’s just different.” I held the glasses to the light before handing them back to Hazel.
“He doesn’t have a first day because he doesn’t go to a ‘real’ school.” Phoebe, eight going on eighteen, put air quotes around real. “He doesn’t even get summers off!” All four adults exchanged exasperated looks. Phoebe had on her new hiking boots with a sundress—Annabelle had stopped over the previous night to pick out the girls’ clothes. After she left, Phoebe begged me to braid her damp hair so that it would be wavy. “But I thought you wanted me to do French braids,” Annabelle had commented first thing that morning. “It would look so pretty, Phoebs!”
Now she said, “Spencer’s school is more real than yours, missy. And I don’t want to hear that from you again.”
“Yeah. How would I even walk into my school if it wasn’t real?” Spencer scoffed. “It has a real door and real floors and a real ceiling and real desks and—”
“How about getting into the real van?” Scott set down his coffee mug and pulled out his keys. He was dressed in his painter’s whites.
“You want a to-go cup?” I asked.
“Nope. All set.”
He was driving Spencer to his bus stop in the work van, which Spencer loved because he sat up so high. As they pulled away, Spencer was grinning, waving like a homecoming queen.
Erik, Annabelle, and I walked the girls to their bus stop. A little boy with an entourage of parents and grandparents was there, along with an older girl (fourth grade? fifth?) who stood apart from her mother, ignoring her. I leaned over to Annabelle. “That’s us in two years.”
“Ha!” She nodded toward Phoebe. “That’s us right now.” She sighed. “She already looks like a teenager with that hair.”
“She’s fine, Annabelle.” I gave her shoulder a little nudge. “Really.”
And then the bus was turning into our development, and Annabelle was straightening the girls’ backpacks on their shoulders, tightening Hazel’s ponytail. “I can’t wait to hear all about your day!” she said. “I already miss you guys so much!” She was waving and blowing kisses until the bus was out of sight. As it turned the corner, she started weeping.
“You realize they’re only going to third grade,” Erik said as we walked back to the house. “It’s not the Orphan Train.”
“But they’re growing up so fast,” she cried.
I gave her a ride home and promised I’d stop by with coffee when I finished running.
It was our last normal conversation.
I saw the missed call from Eva while I was waiting for Annabelle’s peanut butter mochaccino, extra shot, extra whip. “You know that’s dessert, not coffee,” I always teased her. I figured Eva was already in rehearsal by then and I’d call her later—they had only four days until the play—so I was surprised to see her Jeep at Annabelle’s. Shoot, I thought, wishing I’d known to get her a coffee too.
Through Annabelle’s kitchen windows, I saw them sitting at the picnic table Scott had painted that glossy periwinkle at the beginning of the summer. I couldn’t see Annabelle’s face, but Eva looked pensive.
“I thought you had rehearsal,” I said as I stepped outside and slid onto the bench next to Annabelle. I plunked her coffee down in front of her.
“I do. I just…I needed to talk to you.” She was playing with her straw, methodically lifting it in and out of her iced tea.
My heart rate accelerated. “What’s wrong?”
“I tried to weasel it out of her,” Annabelle said. “But she wanted you here.”
“Eves,” I said. “You okay?”
She still wouldn’t look at us, but everything about her felt diminished. She knows, I thought. She knows about Annabelle and Gabe. The words started a drumbeat in my head. She knows.
But then she was saying something about Christine and Ten Chimneys.
“Wait,” I said. “You were there already? Did you see Erik?” I have no idea why I asked. Please please please don’t let her know, I remember thinking.
She looked confused by my question. “I tried to talk to him,” she said, “but he’d already left for Madison.”
Of course she’d wanted to talk to Erik. He was Gabe’s best friend; he’d been cheated on too. I babbled something about Erik’s meeting. It was with a small theater company, or maybe it was people from the university, I couldn’t remember.
“Christine and I were talking about your show in Chicago,” Eva said quietly, “and I guess one of us mentioned the name Lucy Claire.” She glanced up. “Kelly overheard us.”
Oh, I thought, and felt the morning tilt sideways.