East Coast Girls (ARC)

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East Coast Girls (ARC) Page 12

by Kerry Kletter


  car piled to the roof with luggage. They’d hugged each other

  tightly, made all the right promises, though Hannah had seen

  in Renee’s eyes that she was already gone.

  For a few years after she would occasionally get a handwrit-

  ten card from Renee or a voice mail, always thoughtful, always concerned. But Hannah could feel a distance that lived beneath the words, and she understood that which went unsaid, that

  Renee was doing what Renee was best at—she was running.

  From that night. From the blood. From the taint of memory.

  From all of them. And both Hannah and Maya had let her

  run because what else could they do? And besides, Hannah

  understood it. Sometimes she wished she could do the same.

  Now she looked around for Blue while Maya dug into the

  grocery bag of snacks she’d brought and ordered Renee to sit.

  Hannah grabbed a plate to put cookies on and whispered to

  Maya as she passed, “Blue’s going to kill you.”

  “Blue’s going to kill us, ” Maya whispered back. “You’re abetting.”

  As if on cue, she heard the side door close and then Blue

  appeared stone-faced in the kitchen.

  “There you are!” Maya said with a big ingratiating grin.

  “You done hiding the body?”

  Blue ignored her, went over to the counter and leaned

  against it. She glanced quickly at Renee.

  “Hi, Blue,” Renee said, softly.

  Blue nodded, quick and gruff. “Hey.”

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  KERRY KLETTER

  Twin souls, best friends, all those years of love and res-

  cue before everything went wrong. Hannah held her breath,

  willing repair between them. If it was going to happen, this

  would be the place, in this house where they once bantered

  and gossiped as Nana quietly chuckled in a nearby room, en-

  joying their presence. Hannah had loved that—being quietly

  enjoyed. It made her feel so safe.

  “So,” Maya said. She smiled expectantly at Blue and Renee.

  “Here we all are.”

  “Cheers,” Hannah said. She held up her Oreo, the only

  available object, and then quickly put it down when no one

  else did.

  “Let’s crack open that delicious wine Renee brought, shall

  we?” Maya said. “Blue, point me to a corkscrew.”

  Blue nodded toward a drawer and Maya went and retrieved

  it. She handed it to Blue along with the wine. “If you would

  be so kind as to do the honors, madame…”

  Blue rolled her eyes, took the bottle, expertly uncorked it,

  handed it back.

  “Effortless,” Maya beamed. “You should’ve been a wait-

  ress.” She pulled out four glasses and began to pour.

  “I’m good, thanks,” Renee said.

  “Nonsense,” Maya said, filling up her glass.

  Hannah grabbed hers, took a big gulp, held it back out for

  a topping off.

  “So Renee, did I tell you that our brilliant friend here—”

  Maya pointed to Blue “—was recently profiled in the New

  York Times? The paper of record. Our little Blue! Isn’t that amazing?”

  “That is amazing,” Renee said, smiling tentatively at Blue.

  “Such an accomplishment.”

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  Blue responded with a tight, close-lipped smile.

  “She’s going to be the next George Soros! Tell Renee how

  they named you number one in Wall Street’s ‘Top Thirty

  under Thirty.’”

  Blue looked at her steadily. “You just did.”

  “Well, yes, but I thought you might want to elaborate.”

  “No thanks,” Blue said.

  “Okay, to be revisited,” Maya said cheerfully.

  Hannah and Blue exchanged looks, shook heads. Maya was

  undeterrable.

  “Renee has great news, too, don’t you Renee?” Maya said,

  plopping down in front of Renee.

  “Well, no one’s calling me George Soros,” Renee said.

  “Nor me,” Maya said. “Of that I can assure you.”

  “Who’s George Soros?” Hannah said.

  “Like I said, Hannah doesn’t get out much,” Maya said. “So

  Renee…spill the news.” Before Renee could answer, Maya

  said, “Renee’s getting married! Our very first wedding of the group! Isn’t that great?”

  Hannah smiled politely. Her face was beginning to hurt

  from all the polite smiling.

  Blue looked out the window.

  “Second, actually,” Renee said.

  Every head jerked in her direction. Even Blue’s.

  “I beg your pardon?” Maya said.

  Renee gave a nervous little laugh. “Yeah. Technically I’m a

  divorcée.” She paused, blushed. “It was…we were very young

  obviously. Just graduated—I had no clue what to do with my

  life. He was Italian and I was there studying art. We got married like a week after we met. Broke up in front of the Trevi Fountain, of all places.”

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  KERRY KLETTER

  “Wow,” Hannah said. She and Blue exchanged a stunned

  look. She didn’t want to criticize anyone’s life choices, but getting married within a week seemed like questionable judg-

  ment. She’d never known Renee to be so reckless.

  Renee must have sensed her concern because she squirmed

  in her chair and her cheeks turned red. She took a quick self-conscious glance around the room, those eyes reading every-

  one. Then she sat up straighter, smoothed her hair and smiled.

  “It was dumb, I know. But fortunately it all worked out in the end. And now I’m with my dream guy. Darrin is… I’m very

  lucky. You guys would love him.”

  Hannah’s mind was filling with questions. Would they be

  invited to the wedding? If they were, would they go? She knew Blue wouldn’t. And then she and Maya couldn’t, could they? It seemed like another no-win situation, and her stress levels rose just thinking about it. The others must’ve been having similar thoughts, because the sudden return to quiet felt loaded.

  “We actually met at a wedding,” Renee said, as if rushing

  to fill the void. “I was the wedding photographer. We joke

  that now having a wedding is like coming full circle. Unfor-

  tunately the couple whose wedding it was are now divorced.”

  Hannah was reminded of how uncomfortable Renee used

  to be with silences, how she would scramble to fill them, how much it seemed like another form of running.

  “Anyway,” Renee said, seeming to run out of steam. She

  peeked at Blue and sighed. “George Soros, huh? That’s amaz-

  ing. Really, so cool.”

  Blue nodded, but her face was hard and inscrutable.

  The refrigerator hummed. Renee drummed her long, per-

  fectly manicured nails on the table.

  “Oh, here, let me show you a picture of Darrin!” Renee

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  said. She took out her phone, pulled up a photo, passed it to Hannah. “That’s us on my birthday. The night he proposed.”

  “Oh, wow,” Hannah said. She didn’t
want to sound too en-

  thusiastic for fear it might piss off Blue. “He looks nice.” He had thick black hair and shiny eyes and the kind of seductive smile that she distrusted but knew lots of other women liked.

  She held the phone up to Blue behind her. She noticed Renee

  watching for Blue’s reaction, seeming eager for her approval.

  Blue nodded at the photo and looked away.

  Maya leaned over to have a look, as well. “Well, hello there, handsome!”

  Renee laughed, more nervous than mirthful, and held out

  her hand to show them her ring. Something about the way she

  displayed it reminded Hannah of that stuffed animal fortress.

  “We live in this cute little cul-de-sac in Connecticut. Lots of trees and kids running around. I just love it. Maybe you guys can visit.” Her eyes darted again to Blue.

  “I like cul-de-sacs and trees,” Maya said. “Just lock up the

  kids and that sounds great. Doesn’t it, guys?”

  Blue pulled out her phone, began scrolling the news.

  Renee’s face fell.

  Maya frowned. “Something interesting happening in the

  world, Blue?”

  “Just people being awful as usual,” Blue said, without look-

  ing up.

  Hannah slunk lower in her seat.

  “People suck,” Maya agreed. She turned back to Renee. “I

  gotta tell you…every Darrin I’ve ever slept with was a total

  maniac in bed. I mean that in a good way. And there’ve been

  like four of them.”

  “Ew,” Hannah said.

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  KERRY KLETTER

  “Seconded,” Blue muttered.

  Renee smiled and shook her head. “Oh my God, Maya,” she

  said, “I’ve missed you.” Then after a pause, quietly, sadly, almost inaudibly into her lap, she added, “I’ve missed all of you.”

  Hannah made a sort of cooing noise. She wanted to tell

  Renee how much she missed her, too, but then she caught the

  hardened look in Blue’s eyes, her lips pressed thin with anger.

  Whatever went on between the two of them must have been

  worse than Hannah could imagine. Blue had always been as

  loyal as a rescue dog, only bit when provoked. But what could possibly be that bad? To give up a sisterhood? To still be this furious after so many years?

  As Hannah wondered this, the room went suddenly blurry.

  It was as if she were floating away from it, above it, seeing it at a distance from her body. There was a bright flash of light behind her eyes. Then a clicking noise in her brain like a camera going off. She knew that light and clicking sound well. The

  warning signs. She squeezed her fists, trying to stay present, but the images came anyway.

  The girls at the party. Blue and Renee playing beer pong

  while Maya danced. Henry’s arms wrapped tightly around

  her, his lips grazing her ear as he sang to her the words of the love song playing on the stereo. Someone shouting over the

  music. Then Blue in a torn sweatshirt, bloody at the neck. A

  piercing scream—her own. Fear so loud in her ears it sounded

  like a waterfall. Henry! Henry!

  She blinked, resurfaced with a silent gasp. A shiver of adrenaline went through her. Then the nausea hit. Keep blinking, she thought, fast as you can. It was what Dr. Maloney had taught her to do whenever she had flashbacks, because the mind can’t East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 124

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  see images in the midst of a blink. Her stomach listed. She

  stood and went to the window, opened it wide.

  “You all right over there?” Maya said.

  “What?” Hannah said, stalling. The last thing she wanted

  to do amid all the tension was mention anything about that

  night. “Oh yeah… I just… I think I might be getting sick.”

  Maya laughed. “You always think that.”

  “Right,” Hannah said. She tried to smile but couldn’t quite

  get there. Sometimes it was funny that she was the designated neurotic but other times it bothered her. There were reasons she was the way she was. It wasn’t because she was weaker or less than or ridiculous—which is how they made her feel sometimes.

  Unintentionally, of course, but still. And yet they’d all seemed to survive so much better than she—Renee so in love, Blue

  and her success, Maya breezing through life like she was given the answers to the test while Hannah had studied and studied

  and still failed. Maybe this was why she didn’t like being in the world. It forced her to realize just how messed up she was.

  Breathe. Blink. Stay present.

  She drank some water. Waited for the shakes to stop. Her

  body felt weak and drained. Her mind activated. A lingering

  sense of disorientation, like she was a time traveler stuck between worlds. Couldn’t get her bearings in either.

  She was used to the f lashbacks by now. Not that they

  weren’t always upsetting. Trauma brain, it will pass, she told herself. Whatever happened has already happened.

  But this time something new had unsettled her—the image

  of Blue in the ripped and bloody sweatshirt. Usually the flashbacks were the same. But this was a piece she hadn’t remem-

  bered before, couldn’t place in her recall of that night. Why was Blue bloody? Why was her sweatshirt ripped?

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  MAYA

  “Well,” Renee said, standing. “I should hit the road.”

  “No, wait!” Maya said, jumping up. “We have to take a

  picture first.”

  She made them gather for a tense selfie and pretended not

  to notice Blue deliberately stepping on her foot. “Man, you

  guys need a tan,” she said, shaking her head as she looked at the results.

  “And you need an off switch,” Blue said.

  “I have one! It’s right—” Maya dug into her pocket, pulled

  out her middle finger “—here!” She laughed at her own joke.

  Blue did not join her. Fleetingly Maya considered that she really might have been wrong to have invited Renee. Up until

  that point she’d figured the ends justified the means, but now she was starting to think she wasn’t going to get the end she hoped for. It gave her an uncomfortable constriction in her

  belly, like her pants were too tight, so she discarded it quickly.

  Any minute now Blue would get over it. It was easy to main-

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  tain disconnection when you didn’t have to look someone in

  the eye. That’s why the internet was such a hellhole. But once Blue and Renee had some real face-to-face time together,

  Blue would be forced to see Renee’s humanity, to remem-

  ber the whole of her, their friendship. And that’s what Blue

  needed—to remember Renee. In the end Blue would thank

  Maya. They all would. Maya just had to stall Renee.

  “Okay, well—” Renee said.

  “Oh! Speaking of photos,” Maya said quickly, “look what

  I have.” She ran to her bag, dug into it. Brought out the picture she kept taped to her locker at work, the one of the four of them at the fair the last time they were here twelve years ago. “Look how cute we were.”

  The other three moved in closer to get a look. The air

  changed, charged with wonder and wistfulness that they could

  eve
r have been that young, that carefree.

  “Ah, the pre-cellulite days,” Renee said.

  “I miss my high alcohol tolerance,” Blue said.

  Hannah said nothing. They all knew what, or who, she

  missed.

  “That reminds me!” Maya said, pulling out the list she’d

  made of all the fun things they’d ever done at the house so

  they could do them again. “Is there anything you can remem-

  ber that I need to add to this list? I know we need to get wine coolers and cheap beer.”

  “We’re thirty. How about vodka?” Blue said. “I’m sure

  there’s plenty in the house.”

  “Nope. We’re doing it old-school. Exactly like before. Also,

  we need stuff for a bonfire on the beach. Hey, Renee, remem-

  ber that summer you accidentally set the beach grass on fire

  and almost lit up a multimillion-dollar mansion? Good times.

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  KERRY KLETTER

  I guess we can skip that part. And we need to go whale watch-

  ing for sure, since we missed the boat last time…”

  “Wasn’t that because you got pulled over?” Renee said.

  “She mooned a cop,” Blue said, looking at Maya.

  “You dared me!”

  “To moon someone. Not a cop.”

  “You should’ve been more specific.”

  “Hey,” Renee interrupted, “does your list include those

  cute boys we met?”

  “Ooh, almost forgot about them,” Maya said. “Remember

  that dark-haired guy who loved Blue?” She wiggled her eye-

  brows and Blue turned a stunning lobster red. “You introduced them, right, Renee? He was hot. What was his name again?”

  “Jack,” Renee said. She glanced at Blue as if hoping to see

  she’d scored a point. “Jack was his name. He was adorable.”

  “A local, right?” Maya said. “They were all townies.”

  Maya remembered how hard they’d been rooting for Blue

  the night she’d met him, eighteen, and never kissed. They

  knew it bothered her—not that she’d ever admit it. Even

  back then Blue never showed vulnerability. Which was part

  of the problem. You had to let yourself be vulnerable in order to be kissed.

  And then to see her face after her night with him. The

  change in her. For days after she glowed like she’d swallowed the sun.

  “I wonder where he is now,” Renee said.

  Blue shrugged, but Maya caught a glint in her eyes and, she

 

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