“You all seem to think I’m falling-down drunk,” she snapped. “I’m fine.” And she showed them just how fine she was by walking very slowly, very carefully out of the pub.
The evening’s rain had dropped to a misting drizzle and the cool, damp air brought some clarity—not sobriety, since she wasn’t actually drunk. Lucy and Peter walked on either side of her, and Juliet wondered if they were afraid she was going to fall down.Honestly.This was what happened when she tried to relax and enjoy herself.
“You areet, then?” Peter asked as they came up to Tarn House, and Juliet whirled around to face him.
“I’m very muchareet, Peter,” she snapped. “I’m fine. I had a paltry couple of glasses of wine and everyone’s acting as if I’m three sheets to the wind!”
Her voice, Juliet realized distantly, was ringing out so loudly it was echoing through the empty street.
Peter gave her a small smile. “I was just saying good-bye,” he said mildly, and belatedly Juliet recalled how Cumbrians greeted one another—“you areet” was “hello,” “good-bye,” and “how are you?” all rolled into one. She knew that. Of course she knew that. She’d been living here fordickyears, after all.
“Well, good-bye, then,” she said, rather ungraciously, and turned to go into Tarn House. Lucy followed her, closing the door behind her, and Juliet sank onto the bottom stair, her stomach lurching.
“Juliet?” Lucy dropped the keys on the hall table. “I’ll ask it for real, this time. Are you all right?”
“No,” Juliet half moaned, her face buried in her hands. “I think, to use the Cumbrian word, I might bowk.”
“I think I can guess what that means,” Lucy said. “Do you want me to get a bowl, or can you make it to the toilet?”
Juliet took a deep, shuddering breath. She could feel cold sweat prickling on the nape of her neck and between her shoulder blades, and her stomach lurched again, and then thankfully settled. A little. “No,” she said. “I’m all right.”
Lucy sat down next to her on the stairs. “I think you mean areet.”
“Oh, hell.” Juliet shuddered again. “I was terribly rude to him, wasn’t I?”
“Honestly? No more than you usually are.”
She let out a laugh then that subsided into a groan. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment, knowing she would never say this if she weren’t drunk. “I’m sorry I’m such a bitch.”
“Oh, Juliet.” Lucy’s voice was soft with sadness and Juliet felt her sister put her arm, rather awkwardly, around her shoulders. “You’re not a bitch.”
“I’m not a very nice person.”
“Not averynice person, no,” Lucy agreed after a moment, and Juliet couldn’t tell if she was teasing. “But reasonably nice, yes.”
Juliet dropped her hands from her face and pressed her forehead to her knees. “I’ve been living in Hartley-by-the-Sea for ten years,” she said, “and I’ve never gone to a pub quiz.”
Lucy was silent for a moment. “Why do you think that is?” she asked eventually.
“Isn’t it obvious? Because I don’t have friends. I can’t make friends.”
“You have friends, Juliet. Rachel and Peter—”
“I’d barely call them friends—”
“Well, what would you call them, then?” Lucy asked in exasperation. “They certainly seem like friends to me. And maybe Peter could be even more than a friend—”
“Don’t,” Juliet said sharply. “Don’t.There’s nothing between us, and there never will be.”
“And why is that?”
“Just because you’re having some little thing with Alex doesn’t mean—”
Lucy’s jaw dropped. “I’m not having some littlethingwith Alex!”
Juliet narrowed her eyes, although that made her vision even blurrier. “Just where were you last night, then, not coming home until nine o’clock?”
“Oh, nine o’clock,” Lucy retorted, throwing up her hands. “Such a shocking hour.”
