Elena sat on a log and shivered, her eyes to the stars. “The mayor’s in on it,” she said, although she supposed she wasn’t surprised at this point. “Who else is involved? Who else wants to rip open this beautiful beach and privatize it? All for money?” Elena shook her head.
Natalie sat down on the log beside her. For a long time, neither of them spoke. It was roughly a week and a half till Christmas, and Elena had been here fewer than three weeks. Already, she was up to her knees in a mess. She had a unique talent for that.
Suddenly, Elena remembered. “What did you take a photograph of?”
Natalie took a hesitant breath. Elena realized that Natalie had hardly spoken since then. She realized that whatever it was she’d photographed, she wasn’t sure she wanted to show.
“Natalie?” Elena pressed it. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” Natalie turned on her camera and looked again at the photograph she’d taken. Elena couldn’t see it from where she was. “I mean, I must be mistaken. I have to be mistaken.”
Finally, Natalie handed the camera over to Elena and threw her head forward, between her knees, as though she were about to be sick. The picture Natalie had taken at Henrietta’s house was, in fact, a picture of a picture —a picture that had been hanging on Henrietta’s wall. Based on the style and sepia tone, the photograph in question was taken in the seventies or early eighties. In it were Henrietta and Judge Baxter Drury, back when they’d been young and beautiful and slender and charming. They were wearing swimsuits and standing near a sailboat. Beside them were their parents—the iconic filmmaker,the old judge. Several other Cranberry Cove residents were peppered around them, smiling.
A woman off to the right of the photograph caught Elena’s eye.
It was like looking at a photograph of herself. It was like looking in the mirror.
Elena got to her feet. Her first thought was that the photograph was of her mother, Carmen. But the timeline wasn’t quite right. The woman in the picture was in her forties, as was Elena. But there was no mistaking it: the woman was related to Elena, to Carmen.
The woman was Rosa Tompkins.
It was Rosa Tompkins, long after her supposed death in a car accident back in 1960.
What on earth was going on?
Chapter Nineteen
James was seated at the quaint Italian restaurant four blocks from his place and five from Carmen and Elena’s, nursing a glass of wine and staring at his phone. That morning, he’d dared to ask Elena out on a date (finally, he’d thought,finally I feel brave enough to do it), and she’d agreed in a way that had made him think she was ready for this. Ready for him. But now, it was ten minutes after their agreed-upon date time, and he was beginning to think he was being stood up. His palms were sweaty.
James Murphy had never been stood up before. Then again, he’d hardly dated in his life. He’d had a girlfriend in high school, but they’d broken up when they’d gone to different colleges. Very soon after arriving at college, he’d met his college sweetheart, but they’d broken up when she’d moved to Paris after graduation. Shortly after that, he’d met Bethany at work, and they’d married about eighteen months after that. Everything, dating-wise, had come easily to James. But he got the sense that Elena was much more experienced than he was.I’m utterly monogamous, he thought. I wonder if that makes me a loser in today’s dating age.
Since Bethany left him, James had considered all manner of next steps. Being a bachelor forever, allowing himself more time to devote to his grief therapy sessions and his crisis management career, had seemed just fine to him until Elena entered his life. Now that Bethany had someone new (Sam Ellison!), he felt a fire in his belly that he hoped wasn’t competition. Shouldn’t he be glad that Bethany was happy?
Now, Elena was fifteen minutes late, and the server was giving him strange looks and asking him if he was ready to order. James wanted to melt to the ground. He wanted to disappear. But right when he was prepared to get up, to pay for his wine discreetly and run back home (to his streaming channels and his beer), Elena burst through the door, filled with apologies.
Her cheeks were bright red, as though she’d been sitting in the cold. She took his hands, still standing, and said, “I’m so sorry! I really am. I’ve been so distracted with work. I lost track of the time.”
James wanted to retain his anger. He tried to tell her how disrespected he felt. But within seconds of her coming into the restaurant, he was overcome with joy.
“You look freezing!” he said. He put both of her small hands between his massive ones and rubbed them gently till they were warm and pink. “Sit down. Here.” He poured her a glass of wine from the bottle he’d ordered and instructed her to drink. He knew it would warm her up from the inside.
Elena took a sip and let her shoulders relax. “You don’t know how glad I am that you’re still here.”
James laughed. “I would have waited forever.”
“That’s a lie, but it’s a sweet lie.” Elena drank again from her glass.
Suddenly, the server approached, clearly frustrated. “Can I get your order?”
James wanted to brush him aside, to tell him that they’d only just begun. But Elena was ready to go. “I’ll have the carbonara,” she said.
“I’ll have the same,” James said, passing his menu over.
The server left snootily, leaving Elena and James to burst into laughter.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Don’t say it again,” James ordered. “Just tell me what you were up to. You have a much more exciting life than I do.”
