EASTON
Iwasn’t the daughter my mom wanted—she hated my love of science and my tendency to spit out odd facts. She gave up on me completely around the time I became more interested in Punnett squares than pageants. But the Cabots liked it. They likedme. Or at least I thought they did.
Until they moved here when I was in second grade, I was simply the last in a line of useless Walsh children at school, intransigent and incapable of learning. Judy Cabot was the only person who saw something in me other than prettiness, who could picture a future in which I did not turn into my mom. Hearing her say I wasa very bright little girlchanged the trajectory of my life. I’ve been scrambling to hear some version of those words ever since, but I can never hear them enough. I’ve got a medical degree and a PhD, but at heart, I’ll always feel like that third useless Walsh child, hoping to pass in a world where she doesn’t belong.
I spent most of yesterday and this morning cleaning up my dad’s shit. He’s pissed that I didn’t buy him beer and not speaking to me, but silence is a pretty mild punishment fromBud Walsh—piss him off at the wrong moment and you get pushed down a flight of stairs instead.
The hardest part is that he clearly can’t wait for me to leave. So I’ve just been dumped, I’ve got one parent who doesn’t want me around, and another parent who abandoned me over a decade ago, and I’m about to spend five days in New Orleans with adifferentguy who dumped me. A guy whose mother once seemed to care about me but no longer does.
Thomas is going to come around, but there is currently a lot of evidence that the problem is me.
I carry out the empty beer cases—I dealt with six months’ worth of newspaper yesterday—but they won’t all fit in the recycling bin. Back in the day I’d have made more of an effort to hide the stack outside, and even now I have to remind myself that hiding them is the work of an enabler, not a friend or daughter.
Once I’m done, I begin the long process of making myself presentable. A shower, followed by blowing out my hair and doing my makeup. It’s been second nature since I began dating someone famous. People expected Thomas to date someonehot—a model or an influencer or a blonde athlete with massive jugs and an untroubled smile. By the second or third time someone commented on Instagram saying, “Who’s the librarian?”or“Has she never heard of a flat iron?” I knew changes had to be made. My clothes. My hair. My tendency to wash my face with hand soap. It was a slippery slope—I started off with mascara and now I’m using two shades of contour to take out the trash, but the comments on Instagram stopped. Or at least changed to “She’s hot, but I bet she’s dumb,” which is somehow an improvement.
I was hoping Elijah would see it and realize what he’d missed out on, but obviously that did not happen.
I walk down to the Cabots’ house once I’m done. As a kid I’d have made this journey in bare feet and cut-offs, and it’s not as if the linen skirt and polo I’m wearing now are covering a lot more, but I feel like a retiree on her way to the golf course.
It’s really just a sign that I’ve grown up and have grown into the person I was meant to be. It all comes so naturally at school. I’m not sure why I feel like I’m in costume here.
I’m still a block away when the Cabots’ home comes into view. Only Kelsey’s Range Rover sits in the driveway, and my shoulders sag in relief. Am I vengeful enough to let Elijah’s fuckup ruin decades of friendship? Absolutely. But for Kelsey’s sake, I’m going to be the bigger person. I made things worse yesterday, but I’ll fix it the next time Elijah is around. We always had a playful bickering thing going on, so no one will be the wiser if I can stick to bickering and not lapse into “also, go fuck yourself.”
I climb the tall stairs to the main floor. When I knock, Kelsey flings the door open and throws her arms around me in an exuberant hug. “You’re here! And since when do you knock?”
I shrug. “It’s been a while. I wasn’t sure I was still on a walk-right-in basis.”
She rolls her lovely hazel eyes, eyes that are pretty much the only thing tiny blonde Kelsey shares with her strapping brunette brother. “You’ll always be on that basis here. Anyway, come in! I’m just getting all the stuff together for the attendee bags. You can help me unpackage everything.”
The Cabots’ home has been upgraded and expanded significantly since the last time I was here. The old shag carpet has been replaced by hardwood, the rooms are enlarged, and there’s even an elevator—Kelsey says they got tired of hauling groceries up the long flight of stairs.
There are a bunch of designer pillows on the white sofa and matching white chairs. The artwork is a mix of signed Rothkolithographs that must be worth tens of thousands or more, and artwork Kelsey and Elijah made as kids. They had family money anyway—one grandmother is loaded—but now that Kelsey’s marrying a billionaire, their overall comfort has clearly skyrocketed.
“I can’t believe you’re making gift bags for the attendees,” I say, peering in a box of disposable cameras. “Can’t your rich future husband just, I don’t know, hire Gwyneth Paltrow to do it?”
“Sure,” she says. “But I kind of like doing it myself. Elijah will drive everything down there.”
“He’s driving...to New Orleans? Jesus, how long is that going to take?”
“Even longer than you’re imagining because he’s stopping to pick up our grandma down in Key West first.”
Fondness for him rises up in me like a wave on a flat sea. I’d have fought it off better if I’d known to expect it. But it’s just soElijah, driving a million hours out of his way instead of taking a two-hour flight and probably making it seem like it’s no big deal. He’s been playing man of the house since he was a kid and playing it far better than my entirely grown father ever has.
“Why can’t she just fly there?” I ask.
Kelsey winces. “You know...the stuff with my dad, and my brother.”
Elijah and Kelsey’s dad had a single-engine plane he used to take them up in on weekends. It crashed over the Gulf—with their brother, Campbell, on board. It was too painful for Judy to see all the reminders in their small Florida town, which is what brought the Cabots here, to Oak Bluff. She used to say God had brought me into their lives because He’d given her just enough love for three kids. I will always wonder what I did to lose it.
“Is your mom around?” I ask, watching a little girl chase a ball down the beach from a back window.
Kelsey shakes her head. “Off getting her hair highlighted. Honest to God, you’d think she was the bride, not me. She’ll be home soon though. So will Elijah.”
My head jerks from the view to her. “Home? He still liveshere?”
She shrugs. “It doesn’t get better than oceanfront, and he didn’t want to waste his money.”
It makes no sense. Elijah is thirty-five now. And that night, with me, he had all these plans. For himself. For us. He was going to build us a house. Was every goddamned word out of his mouth a lie?
