“Oh, I see.” The woman sounded disappointed. “Okay, I’m sorry. It’s hard when you’re new to town, you know? To find all the stuff you had where you lived before. Especially as a single mom. Do you have any friends who might be interested?”

She could offer the babysitting job to Caitlin. Caitlin would probably take it, and she’d somehow make it look like she was doing Alexa a favor even as she got paid. Alexa thought about that and got mad. She thought about Tyler disembarking from his car in the parking lot of Blue Inn and got madder. She was even mad at the popover that came with her salad for being so good that without noticing she’d eaten the whole thing.

So she did two things in a row. First, she asked for details. Second, she told Sherri she would be more than happy to babysit her daughter the Monday evening after the holiday weekend. And then she did something else, brought on by—oh, who knew. Brought on by Caitlin’s vainglorious posture, by the fake apology, or maybe by the very simple fact of being in a different city, over the state line, with the rest of the day spread out in front of her, as unfilled as a blank notebook. She kept her body turned away from Caitlin and she texted Cam Hartwell to see what he was up to that night.

Immediately after she sent the text, three dots appeared, then the text itself.

Got plans. Against her will—she didn’t care, truly she didn’t, why should she care about someone she hardly knew, and anyway that kiss in his driveway was just a kiss, nothing more—she deflated.

Another text plopped onto the screen.

The plans are with you, it said. I’ll call you later with the details.

“What are you smiling about?” asked Caitlin.

“Nothing,” said Alexa bitchily. Now she wasn’t even mad about what had happened in March; she was much more irritated about the ruse Caitlin used to draw her closer before inserting the knife. She put her phone down and said, “You’re missing an earring.”

Caitlin’s panicked hand rose, found a hoop in each ear.

“Not that one. Third hole up. The little diamonds? The ones you got for your birthday? One of those is gone.”

Alexa rose from the table, deposited her dishes into the correct bin, and escorted herself out of the restaurant before Caitlin had a chance to find out if Alexa was lying.

22.

Sherri

Sherri climbed the stairs to Katie’s room carrying a basket of laundry that she’d just dried at, yes, the Laundromat.

The door to Katie’s room was closed, and Sherri put down the basket of laundry to open it. They weren’t a doors-closed sort of household, especially now that it was just the two of them. Sherri had always prided herself on her openness with Katie, on using the anatomically correct terms when referring to body parts, both male and female, and if Katie should ask her any questions about sex, Sherri was going to tell her everything she knew. Which, admittedly, was far less than you could find out online these days. But Sherri would do her best.

“What are you doing up here, sweetheart?” she asked, as she was opening the door.

“Mom!” cried Katie, and almost immediately after that, “Nothing!” She was lying on the bed, holding something, and whatever it was she was holding she shuttled swiftly under her bottom. She lay there stiffly, staring at the ceiling, like a corpse awaiting the attentions of an undertaker.

Out of nowhere Sherri was angry. The rage came upon her so quickly that it carried with it its own personal heat, like a sudden sunburn. She was angry at Bobby, and she was angry at the adjustment counselor, with her pantsuits and her work pumps and her gentle smile and her freaking advice. She was angry at the cheap cotton comforter on Katie’s twin bed, and she was angry at this town, where she and Katie, who had been somebodys where they came from, now had to prove themselves worthy, like college girls pledging a sorority. She was angry at her stupid ugly shirt and her sensible shoes and her hair color and her short, ugly nails. She pulled at the thing that was sticking out from under Katie, and Katie said, “Mom! Don’t!” Katie grabbed part of the comforter in each hand and pressed her back down, trying not to surrender her treasure. But Sherri was motivated, and she was stronger, and she pulled and pulled until she had it in her hands.

It was a notebook, one of those black-and-white composition books sometimes required for school.

Sherri hadn’t bought this notebook for her daughter.

She started to open it and Katie reared up, grabbing the notebook out of Sherri’s hands. “Don’t,” she hissed. (Katie never hissed. They were not hissing people, just as they were not closed-door people.) “It’s mine,” Katie said. “It’s private.” She held the book close to her chest, wrapping her arms around it.

“What is it?” Sherri demanded.

“It’s just a notebook.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Morgan gave it to me.”

“Morgan? Why was Morgan giving you a notebook?”

“No reason,” said Katie. “She has like ten of them. It was never even used.” Morgan had told Katie that her mom kept buying her the notebooks for her to write about her feelings after her dad died.

Katie stuck out her bottom lip in a way that reminded Sherri of what she’d been like as a little girl—breezy and self-possessed, until you crossed her—and Sherri’s rage left her as quickly as it had come. None of it was Katie’s fault, not Bobby or Madison or any of the rest of it, not the cheap bedding or Sherri’s ugly nails. She sat on the edge of the bed, nearly panting with the exertion of having been so angry and of trying to hide it. “I’m sorry, Katie-kins,” she said. “I overreacted.”