On Celia’s profile, there was no mention of a husband or a boyfriend.He wondered if Sophie’s father had been a passing fling, or a husband she didn’t like to mention, or a husband who’d passed away.Now that they were in their forties, life’s many sorrows and miseries had caught up to them.
Landon’s cell rang from the kitchen, yanking him out of his reverie.He hurried back, but not before Mallory answered it for him, yelping into the screen, “Grandma!”
Isaac stood at the counter with a big bowl of sugary cereal, the kind that Landon struggled to keep in the house because everyone ate bowl after bowl of it (including himself, usually sometime near midnight, when he couldn’t sleep).
“I’m doing well,” Mallory said sweetly, her eyes flashing.Since she still wasn’t allowed to have her own, she loved stealing Landon’s phone.Sometimes she stole Isaac’s, but that often ended in teenage-on-teenage violence and got everyone in trouble.
Mallory recounted to her grandmother what she’d done that day, how hard she was working on algebra with her friend, and how Isaac had just gotten back from his girlfriend’s house.“Yes, Dad’s here,” Mallory said finally, her tone dimming.“You want to talk to him?”
Landon took the phone back to his office and shut the door behind him.“Hi, Mom,” he said.“How are you feeling?”His mother had had cancer a couple of years back.She’d recovered well and now resented that Landon always asked how she felt, but he couldn’t help it.
“I’m fine,” she said, exasperated.“It’s you I’m worried about.I don’t know why you don’t ask me to help you with the kids more often.The last time I saw you, you looked ghastly.”
“That’s nice, Mom,” Landon said, echoing a sarcasm that Isaac had mastered.
“You’re in the thick of it,” his mother continued.“Fifteen and thirteen?When you and your sister were that age, I could barely catch my breath.And you’re a man, Landon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”Landon asked.
His mother sighed.“I want to make sure everyone’s cared for.That’s all.Including you.”
Landon felt a tug on his heartstrings.He hated it when people from other generations suggested he was some kind of superhero for raising his children alone.They said it like single mothers could handle it so much better.He knew that any single parent, regardless of their gender, struggled.
“But that isn’t why I’m calling,” his mother continued, saving them both from a potential fight.“I wanted to ask your opinion about this new development on the cove.”
Landon’s ears began to ring.“I haven’t heard a thing about it.”
His mother’s tone deepened, as though she was terribly pleased that she’d been the one to bring the news to her environmentally conscious son.Like everyone in this small town, she adored gossip.“They’re saying it’s going to be a luxury resort with their own cruise lines, if you can believe it,” she said.“Some bigshot developer purchased all of Bluebell Cove Beach, the surrounding forests, and Brigade Cliffside.They’re saying the luxury resort will be built directly into the rock and go all the way down to the water.Can you envision that?I mean, architecturally?I can’t visualize that!And they’re saying it’s going to bring hundreds of thousands of tourists to Bluebell Cove.”
Landon’s mouth went dry.Already, he could picture it: tourists, milling around Bluebell Cove, taking thousands of photographs, scattering their trash.He pictured sea turtles, suffocating while trapped in plastic rings, just as they suffered in countless oceans across the world.He imagined the delicate ecosystem of the cove destroyed, beckoning in decades of havoc.He imagined felled trees and crumbling rocks and the scream of machinery, digging into the earth.
“Landon?What do you think about it?”his mother asked, drawing him back into her orbit.“Do you think it’ll really happen?Will they go through with it?Oh, imagine if we couldn’t use the beach anymore!What about your life’s work?”
Landon listened to his mother rattle off her worries and work herself into a tizzy.All the while, he dug the tip of his pen into a pad of paper, wondering what the name of his newfound enemy was and the lengths he would have to go to save Bluebell Cove—for his children and for his children’s children.Who is this bigshot developer?How can I destroy him?
And a small voice in the back of Landon’s mind wondered what Celia, a renowned environmental journalist, would have to say about this.He wondered if the two teenage best friends who’d previously told one another everything could ever come together to save Bluebell Cove.But then again, Celia had told him long ago that Bluebell Cove was the last thing she cared about.She planned to kick off the dust of this glorious and beautiful coastal town and build herself a better and prosperous life.Perhaps that meant she wouldn’t care at all.
ChapterFour
September 2000
In the autumn of Celia Harper’s senior year of high school, she was finally named editor of the newspaper, a title she’d had her eye on since elementary school, when she shadowed the then-editor, who, at seventeen, had seemed to Celia a full-grade adult.On the afternoon of the announcement, Celia sat at the head of the table in the makeshift newspaper offices, careful not to smile as her rival and fair-weather friend Bethany eyed her from the opposite end of the room.Bethany had wanted the title almost as much as Celia.
The teacher in charge of overseeing theBluebell Cove High School Gazettewas Hamilton Rice.At thirty-one, he was one of the younger teachers at their school and the most “hip” in terms of knowing what was going on in the world and what high schoolers should prepare for in college.“I expect you’ll all look to Celia for guidance as you move through the next school year.”He adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses, beaming out at them.“Remember that it’s our job as journalists to be witnesses to history as it transforms before us.It’s an enormous privilege that comes with a massive responsibility.”
Celia wondered why Hamilton hadn’t pursued journalism in a bigger place, why he’d decided to settle on writing for theBluebell Cove Gazetteand monitoring the high school newspaper.She imagined he was too frightened to leave.
I won’t be like that,she promised herself.
At three, the bell rang to indicate the end of the school day, and the newspaper staff members got to their feet and burst into conversation.Only Celia was quiet, stacking her things as her cheeks burned with a mix of excitement and anxiety.If this editor title was what she’d been after all her life, she had no interest in wasting it.More than that, she knew that being editor of the high school paper would set her up for college admissions.It would help her land a spot at the university she most coveted: Georgetown University in Washington, DC.But she had to be strategic.She couldn’t let her home responsibilities get in the way of what she really wanted.But what would be the theme of her first issue?What were the essential truths that she needed to reveal to the students at Bluebell Cove High?
Celia’s thoughts were jumbled, so much so that she trounced out of the newspaper offices without saying goodbye to anyone.This was probably not an auspicious start, especially if she planned to be their editor and their leader as they charged into the new year.When she spun around, eager to return and say goodbye, she trampled headfirst into her dear friend Landon Brooks, who gave her a goofy grin.
“Head in the clouds, Harper?”he teased.“Congrats, by the way.You’re going to kill it, if Bethany doesn’t kill you for getting the gig first.”
Celia laughed appreciatively, feeling her anxiety drift out of her ears.Most of the newspaper staff members swept past them, giving her waves of encouragement and saying, “See you tomorrow,” which put her at even greater ease.She considered telling Landon how nervous she was about the upcoming weeks and months of her tenure but decided she didn’t want anyone to know how raucous her inner mind really was.
“Milkshakes?”Landon asked.
