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7

Present Day

In June, Kate moved back to Belle River after twenty-two years away.

It was unseasonably hot for early summer, and the afternoon was as oppressive as her mood, with airless streets, black skies, and wilted flowers under dusty maple trees. The clouds opened just as Kate pulled up in front of the ugly brown house on Faculty Row. She sat in the BMW with music blasting and rain battering the windshield, her head on the steering wheel. It was all around her again. Carlisle, the past, her so-called friends. All the things she’d been running from for years now. Throw a rock from the front porch of this dump and you’d hit Briggs Gate. After a minute, Kate took her sandals off and tossed them onto the floor in the back, and lowered her seat into a reclining position. She’d take a nap. Who gave a crap what the neighbors thought? She didn’t know them, and didn’t care to. She refused to get out of her air-conditioned car and venture into this deluge in order to enter a place she was distraught to live in. She’d rather stay in her car all afternoon, or at least until the rain stopped, enjoying the plush leather seats. She had no job to go to, no prospects, and she couldn’t stand her husband. If she had more gumption – or more money – she would drive away and never come back.

Jenny pulled up beside the BMW in her minivan, leaned over, and lowered the passenger window. Kate saw Jenny’s lips moving. Sighing with exasperation, she turned down the music and lowered her window.

“What?”

“I said, what are you doing in there?” Jenny shouted over the pounding rain.

“What does it look like? Thinking about blowing my brains out.”

“Come on, enough of that. I brought you some cupcakes from that new place in Riverside.”

Riverside was a formerly industrial neighborhood in Belle River, full of warehouses and factories that were being redeveloped into lofts and restaurants. Belle River trying pathetically to be chic was what it was.

“I don’t eat sugar,” Kate said.

“I brought wine, too. You can’t tell me you don’t drink.”

Jenny held up a bottle, which got Kate’s attention. Damn, she could stand an ice-cold vodka right about now, but chardonnay would do in a pinch.

“Is Aubrey coming?” she asked. Jenny without Aubrey was too much to take.

“Of course. She’ll be here any minute.”

“All right, but do me a favor. Don’t act like this is some kind of party and you’re happy to see me, okay?” Kate said.

“I’m trying to make the best of this, Kate. You could at least help a little.”

Ugh, nothing ever changes, Kate thought. Jenny was still the priggish know-it-all of their youth; she was just more powerful and successful now, which made it worse. Jenny was the mayor of this one-horse town, with her finger in every plot. Jenny’s husband’s construction company had the winning bid on every Carlisle building project. How did that happen, you might ask? Kate could tell a few hair-raising secrets if she had a mind to, most of them involving her own father and his influence, and yet Jenny acted like Kate was the corrupt one. Jenny and Aubrey must know how Kate felt about them, about this place. Hadn’t they noticed that she never visited? That the three of them saw each other only rarely, and only when Jenny or Aubrey came to New York and tracked her down? Kate hadn’t even been in New York much over the last decade or so. Well, unfortunately the days when she went where she pleased were over, probably for good, and now here she was stuck with these two again, back in this shitty town.

Kate turned the engine off and collected her sandals from the back. Jenny pulled into the parking space in front of Kate. She had those annoying stickers on her rear windshield – the cartoon family complete with the mommy and daddy, the two boys with their sports equipment, and the dog for good measure. Gag me. As Kate watched Jenny get out and struggle with her packages, though, pulling boxes and bottles and finally a bouquet of Mylar balloons from the backseat in the middle of a downpour, she couldn’t help but crack a smile. Jenny always had a plan, you had to give her that. She forced the world to conform to her expectations, where Kate wallowed in her disappointments, and Aubrey, let’s face it, never dared to expect anything at all.

Kate got out and went to help with the packages. Together they ran up onto the covered porch. They were soaked by the time they got there, although Jenny looked none the worse for it. She had a sleek power haircut now that framed her face and made her look in control at all times. Which, of course, she was. The Great Manipulator, as Kate thought of her. On the days Kate didn’t want to take responsibility for her own life – which was most days, lately – her favorite people to blame were Jenny and her father. Well, and her suffocating whiner of a husband; she couldn’t stand him either. She was half tempted to do something crazy, just to show them, to get them off her back once and for all.

“Great location,” Jenny said cheerily as Kate fumbled for her keys.

“What are you, a real estate agent? The only reason we’re living here is, Keniston owns the place. He’s my slumlord now. I’m warning you, it smells like cat piss in here.”

She opened the door and they stepped into the front hall. It was dark inside, but Kate saw Jenny wrinkle her nose.

“And you thought I was exaggerating,” Kate said.

She flipped a switch and the lights came on. Boxes clogged the front hall. Dark walls loomed over them. The house was a sad muddle of Victorian and Arts and Crafts styling, squat and dim and charmless.

“This way,” Kate said.

In the kitchen, the table was piled high with more boxes. Kate started moving them to the floor, rummaging through them at random hunting for a corkscrew.

“You can put that stuff on the counter. I’ll find us glasses for the wine,” Kate said.

Aubrey called out from the front hall.

“Back here,” Kate yelled.

Aubrey glided in, carrying a casserole dish, with multiple green bags from the food co-op looped over her wrists. Of the three of them, Aubrey had improved the most with age. (Of course, she had the farthest to come.) The lithe figure, the sharp cheekbones, the clear blue eyes with no makeup, belonged on the cover of a yoga magazine. Kate privately thought Aubrey’s newfound serenity was just as likely to come from a prescription bottle as from chanting ommm, but hey, whatever worked.

“C’mere, you,” Aubrey said, depositing her bounty on the counter and holding out her arms to Kate. “I’m so glad to see you. Welcome home.”

Aubrey and Kate hugged. Tears stung Kate’s eyes. As if Belle River could ever be home. As if her friends were true, and actually happy to see her. As if any of this was how it looked from the outside. She longed for those days when they were young, and loved each other like best friends should. Nothing had been right since they lost that. Correction, nothing had been right since the night they lost that – and lost so much else, too.

Kate extricated herself from Aubrey’s grasp and set about opening the wine.

“Drinking in the afternoon,” Aubrey said, shooting Jenny a glance. So Aubrey was judgmental now, too? Used to be, it was only Jenny who looked askance.

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Kate mumbled, coloring. Was she really letting these losers make her feel bad?

“Just a splash for me, I have to pick up the kids,” Jenny said.

“Me, too,” Aubrey said.

Kate poured an inch of wine for each of them and made a show of filling her own glass to the brim. If she needed the entire bottle to get through this conversation, she’d chug the damn thing, and they couldn’t stop her.

“So,” Jenny began. “We wanted to talk about how we can best help you settle in here.”

“Thank you, but I don’t want help.”

“You need it, trust me,” Jenny said. “This town has a long memory. People remember what happened, and they still care.”

“I knew you’d throw that in my face. I didn’t think you’d have the gall to do it the second I walked in the door.”

“I’m trying to help. That’s all,” Jenny said.

“Did you not hear me the first time? I don’t want your help.”

Jenny sighed and looked at Aubrey. Of course the two of them were in cahoots on this. Kate was the one whose life had been ruined, and the two of them got to act like the victims.

“Kate,” Aubrey said, “it may not make sense that people would still care, but Jenny’s right. We want to help you—”

“You don’t give a shit about me,” Kate said. “You’re covering your own asses, both of you. I get it. So let me set your mind at ease. Nobody’s more upset than me that I’m back here. I hate this town. I hate this house. I hate the college. I hate my loser of a husband. And after everything that’s happened, frankly, I hate the two of you. So no worries. I don’t plan to stick around long.”