by Jenn Bennett
“Grandma?” I say, emotions suddenly rising into my throat. “I’ve missed you.”
“Missed you, too,” she says, looking surprised. “Welcome home.”
She steps into the lobby, and I watch her leave, a woman with too much pep in her step, especially for someone who just flew across the world and managed to meddle in her family’s business before breakfast.
Maybe that’s what bombs feel like when they explode.
I think I’ve had her all wrong too.
Right now, I’m too muddled to know for sure. Muddled, a little shaky inside, and a lot numb. I guess I’m not sure how I feel about everything she just dropped on me. My phone is buzzing madly in my pocket, the screen filled with texts from my mother, who’s upstairs, worrying about what Grandma has said and wanting updates.
I’m okay, but we need to talk.
That’s all I text back.
I don’t know how else to explain what just happened. I walk around Marblecliff’s porch in a daze, trying to sort through it all, looking down at my grandmother’s white condo building.
Another text buzzes my phone. For the love of Pete. Give me a minute to catch my breath, Mom. But when I glance at the screen, it’s not her. In fact, it’s not any number I have in my contacts. Unknown. And all the text says is: Low move, even for a Saint-Martin.
I stare at the screen, confused. Then I type a quick response: Who is this?
The reply comes almost immediately: Just the person who is now being hung out to dry by my father because you hid behind your grandmother. Low fucking move.
Oh my God.
Adrian.
Adrian is texting me. How he got my number, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to. I try to decide if I want to engage with him or not, and curiosity gets the better of me.…
Me: What do you want?
Adrian: Nothing from you. Evie’s blocked my number, so I want you to tell her I’m backing off for now, but I still love her.
Adrian: Tell her I love her, and that I’m sorry.
Adrian: And that when she’s ready to talk, I’ll be waiting.
Me: I’m not telling her that. You plastered that photo on our shop door, you maniac.
Several seconds tick by, and I start to think that could be it. But just when I’m about to do what Evie did and block his number, he sends one last text.
Adrian: Just FYI, the person who first sent me that photo was your little grease monkey.
LUCKY 13: Black cat decal on sides of motorcycle helmet and matching compartment on back of Superhawk parked in alley near Nick’s Boatyard. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Chapter 23
Adrian’s lying.
He has to be. He’s a liar and a scumbag, and I have no reason to believe the person who plastered my mother’s naked photo over our shop door for revenge. Who threw a crowbar through the Karrases’ window. Who said all those horrible things about my family in front of a room of people at that party. Who’s basically stalked my cousin since she broke up with him.
Adrian Summers is not a nice person.
So why am I sick to my stomach right now?
Why would I even entertain any single thing he told me about Lucky?
He must be lying.
I just don’t know why.
And that’s what’s eating away at me while Mom and I leave the Marblecliff with Evie. The three of us are heading back to the above-shop apartment while Aunt Franny keeps the resort suite for a few days, until she can catch up on her jet-lagged sleep and figure out what to do about her rented-out house.
I should be happier to be going back to the apartment. And I am. Relieved, utterly and completely. But I’m also stressed by Grandma’s meddling and trying to figure out a counter plan for what she did about the window.
And.
I can’t get Adrian’s stupid text unstuck from my brain.
A horse-drawn carriage carting two tourists clops past the Pink Panther as we idle by a brick building covered in vines of blooming flowers. Early August heat is making me crankier, and even with all the windows rolled down, we still can’t catch a breeze.
“Victory Day is next week,” Mom says, ducking her head to see the vertical banners on the gas streetlamps. That means one big last influx of tourists before the end of summer. “Guess they didn’t have flotilla celebrations in Nepal.”
Bet they didn’t have copy shops to print giant nude photos, either. Ugh. I’m just sick with worry and having a low-level panic attack because I just can’t stop thinking about why Adrian would say that Lucky gave him my mother’s photo.
Why?
Because my grandmother talked to his father and told him to back off the Karrases and rein in his boy. That’s the logical reason, right? One last act of revenge against me.
But the thing is, he didn’t sound mad. He wasn’t threatening me or angry. I look back over the texts to be sure, and yeah. He sounds sad about Evie. And he said he’s sorry. I can’t tell if that’s genuine regret or one of those warning signs from an abusive partner the day after they did something terrible. It’s a text, so I can’t read his body language or pick up on some of the clues he might leave if I talked to him in person. When it’s a text, it’s hard to tell … I think. I’m not sure. I wish I was more certain.
And here’s what else is bothering me: I’ve been wrong about everything. What makes me so sure I haven’t been wrong about this, too?
Because now that I’m thinking about it … Lucky was really curious about my father. He mentioned that he’d read things about him. He knew things from articles online. Gossip about child support—he definitely had kept up with my father.
If he was poking around online, looking up things about my father, it’s not outrageous to think that perhaps, just maybe, he might have come across one of my mom’s photos in some kind of photography forum somewhere.
Maybe it started innocently enough, poking around online. How it got to Adrian, I don’t know. Macho stupid drunken boys’ night? He was at the Golden party that night, after all.
Did he feel bad about it?
Guilty.
Guilty enough to take the fall for me about the window.
No.
That’s impossible. I’m mad at myself for even thinking it. And yet …
Mom and Evie are talking about the upcoming Victory Day flotilla across the front seat of the Pink Panther as we head into the South Harbor, passing a line of people waiting to get inside a Revolutionary War–themed wax museum. But I can barely hear them over the rapid thump of my heart. I clutch my purse in my lap so hard, I feel the contents shift inside and have to force my fingers to unclench.
Guilty enough to take the fall.
We turn on our street. Pass Manny’s clam shack and the doughnut shop. Evie is talking about Grandma’s surprise condo.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
“Stop the car!” I shout.
Mom slams on the brakes. A truck behind us honks, and my mother steers toward the curb, narrowly avoiding being rear-ended. “Josie—what the hell?”
“I have to take care of something,” I say, jumping out of the car and looking for a break in the traffic to cross over to the boatyard. “I’ll meet you at home later. I’m sorry. It’s important. Life-or-death relationship important.”
Ignoring my mom’s complaints, I race across the bumpy street when I get the chance and stride down the sidewalk. The boatyard office is empty, so I head through the side alley. His Superhawk is parked. My pulse goes jangly. I try not to have a complete breakdown and continue on until the back concrete of the boatyard spreads out before me.
I spy his father working with two other men on a large docked boat that’s being hauled up on a crane. But it’s not until I follow a loud noise and peer into the warehouse bays that I see literal sparks flying—arc welding … and Lucky’s back bent over an engine block.
He’s alone. I wait until the bright light stops, and then I approach the work bay as Lucky lifts a metal we
lder’s mask from his face and turns a dial on an orange machine. The thunderous noise it was making goes quiet.
He looks up with wide eyes, startled to see me. But that’s quickly ousted by relief.
Nothing but peace on his face. Shoulders dropping, brow easing.
“Thank God,” he mumbles, head lolling backward for a moment. Then he yanks thick gloves off his hands and starts to come toward me as a machine cools near his knees. “Is everything okay? What’s going on? Why didn’t you text me? I’ve been dying over here.”
“I’m okay,” I say quickly.
He stops and holds both gloves in one hand. His eyes crinkle as he squints at me. “Are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday? Where did you stay last night?”
I don’t answer him. I can’t get any words out. Because for a moment, it feels as if I’m not one whole person but a fractured being. There’s Wary Josie who’s trying to decide if Adrian could have been telling the truth, and there’s also a childlike Josie who would never in a million years even consider that Lucky could betray us. Trusting Josie melts at the sight of him. Trusting Josie feels joy seeing his grease-smudged face—my face … my boy —and wants to run to him and fling her arms around his neck.
Trusting Josie is remembering all the things he whispered in the dark when we were tangled together in the dock house back on the island.
Before everything in my life fell apart.
He knows something’s amiss. I see the change ripple through him as if he’s a dog whose hackles are raising in defense. “Josie? What’s wrong?” he asks in a low, measured voice.
Glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one’s listening, I scan both the boatyard and the blue harbor for a moment, gathering my courage, and then turn back to him and ask, “Did you send the photo?”
He wasn’t expecting that. “Did I … what now?”
“The photo,” I say, feeling impatient. “Did you send it to Adrian?”
“Huh?” His face squinches up, and he shakes his head tightly. “Feels like I’m missing something. Gonna need more information … ?”
I can’t tell if he’s been intentionally obtuse or if he’s confused; either way, it’s frustrating. All this time, I just assumed he’d never lie to me, because it was Lucky. It’s so strange to stand here and try to judge whether he’s telling the truth—as if we’re on some kind of game show, and my ability to pick up on tiny clues is the key to my winning a million dollars or losing my sanity and happiness. It’s too much pressure, and I’m not good at it.
“Please don’t play dumb,” I tell him. “I think I’ve earned that much, at least. Some respect?”
His brows knit together. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Talking about the nude photo of my mother. You know, the one my father took of my mom in college?”
“Hard to forget it,” he says impatiently.
“All this time, I’ve never been able to figure out where Adrian got it. He finally enlightened me.”
Lucky goes very still. “He told you where he got the photo from?”
“Adrian said he got the photo from you.”
His face puckers. Jaw clicks to one side. He pushes the welding helmet off the back of his head and tosses it across the work bay where it lands on the concrete floor with a loud bang. “Adrian Summers … the drunken dirtbag who threw a crowbar into my family’s offices, who could have killed my cat—” he says, pointing toward a black shape that lounges in the rafters of the bay, tail hanging low. “Who harassed your cousin and injured her in a car accident, and who told everyone your Photo Funder site was a secret trove of softcore pictures. That Adrian.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What do you have to say to that?”
He squints at me as if I’ve asked him what’s at the bottom of the ocean or why the sky doesn’t fall down.
Then I realize something I’d forgotten since the night I threw the rock at the Summers & Co department store window. “You thought that photo was of me.”
His eyes narrow. “Um … ?”
“When Adrian was flashing the photo around at the party, you thought it was a picture of me like everyone else did. You called him an asshole for showing it around. And then in the hospital after Evie’s wreck, when you and Adrian were snapping at each other, and he brought up the fact that you called him an asshole, you cut him off and told us all to stop arguing or the nurse would come in and kick us out.”
“So?”
“So, maybe you were more concerned that Adrian was high on painkillers, and that he might spill the beans about where he got the photo from—so you were trying to cut him off before he could spit it out!”
“Josie, that’s …”
“That’s what?” I say, feeling delirious and a little unstable.
He shakes his head. “Ludicrous.”
“Is it?” I say, voice sounding funny. “Because I also got to thinking about other little white lies you’ve told me.”
“Like what?”
“Like that you knew that your Drew Sideris the blacksmith was my mom’s Drew Sideris from high school—the same Drew who later joined the navy because my grandmother wouldn’t let them be together. The same Drew that I asked you if you knew, and you claimed that you didn’t!”
Lucky points a finger at me and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Ah-ha!” I say. “You lied.”
“I never lied … exactly.”
“You knew.”
“What was I supposed to do, Josie?” he says, throwing up both hands. “I was caught in the middle. He specifically asked me not to say anything as a favor to him—said that the past was the past and asked me to stay out of it.”
I’m confused now, because that sounds sensible. But it also hurts, because this Drew person feels like someone he’s close to, and he’s someone my mom was going to elope with, and I barely know anything about this guy! Meanwhile, Lucky and I are supposed to be as close as two people can get—I mean, we definitely were on the island—and I feel like that should override whatever loyalty he has to some random blacksmith mentor. Shouldn’t it?
I don’t know, but I don’t like how frantic I feel. “I pushed the button! You told me to lift the invisible wall and be teeth-gratingly honest with you. That’s supposed to go both ways.”
He stares at me, silent, the lines of his face sharp as glass.
“When I asked you if you knew a retired navy guy named Drew, and you knew who I was talking about, you should have told me,” I insist, but I’m feeling less sure about it.
“It wasn’t my business, okay? Try to understand my point of view, here, Josie. I’m just trying to do right by everyone. And I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t have to keep anyone’s secrets for long, because I can’t see how Drew and your mom can live in the same town and avoid each other forever, frankly.” He shakes that thought away and then says, “But what does it even have to do with Adrian and the photo?”
“Because if you lied about that—”
“Again, I didn’t lie. I stayed out of someone’s business.”
“Did you or did you not send Adrian that photo of my mother?”
“The fact that you would even think I would do it … that you would even question it for one second is so goddamn hurtful,” he says. “I would never think that about you—I would never doubt you like that.”
“Then just say you didn’t do it. Swear it.”
“No, I won’t. You just have to trust me. Like I trusted you.”
My chest suddenly feels as if a mixing truck has backed up to it and is dumping ten tons of wet cement inside my ribcage. I press a fist into my breastbone to loosen the sickening tightness. Because the worst thing is, he’s right. I do have doubts. I’m ashamed that I do, and I’m confused that I do, and I just want him to assure me that he didn’t do it.
“You can’t do it, can you?” Lucky says in a dark, rough voice.
“It’s easie
r for you!” I say, feeling hot tears filling up my eyes. “Trust is simple for you because your life is stable in Beauty, and you’ve got a normal family who loves you and makes you feel safe and secure.”
“So do you!”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Oh, really? Your mom doesn’t count? Your grandmother doesn’t count? Evie doesn’t count? You’ve got just as much of a family here as me. You’ve got roots here, too—Jesus, Josie. You’re always going on about that stupid curse. Your family’s been here longer than mine has. This is your home as much as it is mine.”
“It may be my home, but my family isn’t like yours—it’s fractured and screwed up!”
“Right, okay,” he says, eyes glossy and dark … cheeks hollow, “is this where you’re going to tell me that you’re going to run off to California now? That what we did yesterday is all in the past, and you’re just going to head off into the sunset to your superstar father to be part of his perfect family?”
“No!”
“Find that hard to believe.”
“Well, believe it, because I found out last night that my father is basically a Humbert who likes to play the Lolita game with college girls!”
A little concern bends his brows. “What?”
“There were other Winonas and Josies in his life, and he got fired from the university over it. He’s a loser, okay? So I don’t have a father or an apprenticeship, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here. How’s that for irony? Huh? The man who took that stupid picture has ruined my mom’s life and mine. So thanks, Henry Zabka, for building a coffin for my dreams. And thanks, Adrian Summers, for digging the hole. And thank you, Lucky, for kicking dirt on top of it.”
“Hey! Don’t you dare lump me in with them,” he says, getting in my face, eyes flicking back and forth over mine. “Don’t—”
“Shut up! Just shut your mouth.” I shove at his chest, pushing him back as tears slide down my cheeks. “I didn’t put you anywhere. You put yourself there when you decided to share my mom’s photo.”