“Exactly,” he replied.
I felt my face warm. It seemed impossible to feel both loss and potential at once. Another surprise. “I think the thing with Colin is… I just got swept up and lost myself. Like a tornado. It was dizzying.”
“Well, at the risk of yet again putting it all out there,” he said as the Egg came up ahead, “it sounds more like a hurricane than a relationship. And around here we try to avoid those.”
I thought of the water creeping up to the porch of the Woods, strong enough to take even a piano. And then Colin, drumming his pencil on his temple, turning to look at me.
“And if you can’t?” I asked.
“Ride it out,” he replied. “Survey the damage. And then rebuild.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
So we’re ready for the sale?”
I walked in with the pizzas to find my aunts at the table, a phone on speaker between them.
“Yep,” Kasey said. “I just checked in with Angela. She said they were good to go.”
I’d just seen Angela, in fact, as well as her partner, Janine, when Ben and I passed by the Egg. They’d been leaving the vacant space next door, where the sale was happening.
“And I’ve got the updated contract paperwork,” the phone said. It was only then I realized it was my mom’s voice. Which was not surprising, considering that her talking business was one of our few constants. “I’ll be there by dark.”
Just then, Liz caught sight of me. “Oh, Cat, here’s Finley. Let me give you to her.”
With that, she picked up the phone, holding it out. I took it.
“Hi. Did your appointments go okay?”
“Just fine. I’m on my way back now.” She sounded assured and confident, but then she always had whenever she called me, which was about every month or so, usually on a Saturday morning. Like the well-organized trips, it always felt like she was checking an item off a list morethan really wanting to catch up. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her now, as much as wonder what might be behind her words, unseen. “How are you?”
“Good,” I replied. “I worked at the Egg this morning.”
A beat. It wasn’t like I expected more in terms of checking in about this, so I wasn’t sure why the silence was any surprise. “Well, I guess it’s good to keep busy. And there’s not that much to do at the Woods. At least in my experience.”
Hearing this, I stepped down the hallway a bit, lowering my voice. “Speaking of which, I met someone who knew you. In high school.”
I realized what had come before was merely a pause: This time, she got truly quiet. Finally, she said, “Oh?”
“Kate. Liz said she was your principal.”
“Kate?” she repeated. “I don’t know a… oh my God. Was it Mrs.Bigby?”
“Maybe?” I stepped into my room, shutting the door. “Liz said she knew you from detention.”
“Of course.” She groaned. “I can only imagine what she had to say, after all these years.”
“That I look just like you when you were in high school.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well. That’s actually kind of true.”
“Also,” I added, “that my grandfather was an angry man with a lot of failings.”
Another silence. But I could hear her breathing. “Also true,” she said finally.
Just then, the bedroom door swung open and Lana came in. With a grunt, she hoisted a very large barrel of CheesePuffs, bright orange, onto my bed. “I feel so sick,” she told me, flopping down beside it. Her fingers were also orange. “That’s the problem with these bulk containers. Even what seems like a little bit totally isn’t. You want some?”
Despite the hard sell, I declined with a shake of my head.
