We were not expecting to watch a video on cryptocurrency.
Serious walking is one of the best ways to lose weight, you know. We try to walk five miles at a stretch. The New England summer humidity sweats everything right off you. Some of us were eating Keto that summer too. Keto is very effective.
It was on one of these early morning walks a couple of weeksafter Esther’s birthday dinner at Plum Island Grille that Michelle posited that there was something “off” about Sherri Griffin.
“What do you mean, ‘off’?” we said. Most of us knew that Michelle was at work writing some sort of psychological domestic thriller set in our town. She called it “Girl on the Train-esque” but honestly we didn’t think it would amount to much. She wasn’t even a writer. But that was Michelle for you, always taking up something new, throwing pasta at the wall to see if it would stick. There was the scented candle business, a few years ago. The shares she bought in an ice hotel up in Montreal, then sold again after the warm winter. The alternative preschool that she thought up to compete with the Montessori school on Inn Street. Nothing came from any of those endeavors.
“She seems like someone who’s got some grit in her oyster,” said Michelle. She told us this was a phrase she’d picked up from one of the writing blogs she was always reading. She explained that it meant that somebody had something dark in their past. Something they were trying to escape, or something they were trying to figure out. Obviously we already knew what the phrase meant, but we let Michelle have her moment. “Definite grit,” she repeated.
Our route took us from Cashman Park down the boardwalk along the river, past the new harbormaster’s hut, and onto the new section of the rail trail, which is really something. We had to break into smaller groups when we hit the rail trail, so that we weren’t taking up the whole thing. In the past we have been accused by some of the town’s old-timers of “traveling in a horde.”
Michelle was still on the oyster and the grit. Those of us who were walking with her suspected that she preferred talking about the elements of a psychological thriller to actually writing a psychological thriller. “Mark my words,” she said ominously.
Some of us went back to talking about Alexa Thornhill’sYouTube videos, and whether or not Rebecca knew that Alexa had decided not to go to college to focus on her “career.” We can’t tell you where we heard that—it was told to us in confidence. But we can say that the information came from more than one source, and that the sources were reliable.
Rebecca didn’t join us on the walks anymore. We didn’t blame her! She was still adjusting to the new normal. But without the walking and without the barre class, we weren’t sure how she was staying so thin.
Of course we were there for her, when it happened. It was a shock to the community too. Peter had been so healthy, so vibrant. He ran in the Yankee Homecoming ten-mile race every summer. He was on the school committee and the board of Our Neighbors’ Table. He was not yet fifty! There one day, and then gone. We set up a Meal Train for an entire month after the funeral. We took Morgan whenever we could, to give Rebecca a break. Believe us, we were there.
“I don’t think we mention it to Rebecca,” Dawn said finally. “It’s not our business.”
“Agreed,” said Gina. “Let’s keep our noses out of Rebecca’s business. She’s still mad at me about that thing with the sleeping bag, and I didn’t even tell a soul.”
We refrained from mentioning that if we all knew what Gina was talking about, it wasliterally impossiblethat she hadn’t told a soul. We just kept walking.
“Sherri came here from out of nowhere, right? Isn’t that sort of strange? I mean, why Newburyport? Does she even have any ties here? It seems random, that’s all. Kind of funny,” said Michelle.
We were certain Michelle was creating a mountain out of a molehill. But sometimes we can all be prone to that tendency. In a town like ours, not a lot happens, and sometimes we look for the excitement where we can get it.
21.
Alexa
Caitlin, who had a summer job peddling jewelry at Bobbles and Lace in Portsmouth, had suggested they meet at Popovers on Congress Street. Alexa, cautiously optimistic, arrived first and saved them a table. When Caitlin slid in across from her she said, “Hey,” breathlessly, followed by, “I’ve only got twenty minutes. It’s crazy at the store today. I’m super stressed.” She was wearing a simple pink sundress and a beaded knot necklace—a bobble, no doubt bought with her employee discount.
Alexa wanted to tell Caitlin she was selling earrings and sandals, not performing open-heart surgery on premature babies, but she bit her tongue. It was the first time she’d hung out with Caitlin since March, and Alexa wanted to see where this might go.
They took turns holding the table and going up to the counter to order their salads. (Alexa had the Wedge and Caitlin the Caesar; each came with a popover, hence the name of the restaurant.)
“Hey, so listen. I’ve been feeling so bad about what happened. That night at Destiny’s, that stupid game, the whole thing. We really didn’t mean to upset you. We feel terrible about it. We talk about it all the time. We never thought we’d go this long without hanging out with you.”
Alexa felt herself softening. “I know I overreacted,” she acknowledged. She’d been just as angry at—felt just as excludedfrom—her mother and Morgan as she did from Destiny and Caitlin that night, to be fair. “There were a bunch of things bugging me that night, I don’t know, I didn’t mean to take it all out on you guys.”
You can be a little prickly sometimes, Alexa.
One thing she remembered learning about porcupines for a school project in seventh grade was that their quills lay flat until they were threatened. And then,bing,they came out, and victim beware.
Caitlin was looking at her beseechingly. “We wanted to hang out with you so many times, Dest and I. Around graduation and everything? It wasn’t the same without you? But we still felt like you were mad at us. And you were always—busy. With Tyler, I guess? Or whatever. You just weren’t around.”
“Yeah,” said Alexa. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I’ve been pretty busy with a whole bunch of stuff.”
Caitlin glanced at her phone, probably checking the time; she wanted to get back to her hugely taxing job at Bobbles and Lace.
“There’s one more thing,” she said. “To be honest, though? I’m only telling you this to be a good friend? You know that’s the only reason I would ever tell you something like this.”
“What?” Alexa felt her quills rise.
“I’m not mentioning any names but someone I know says they saw Zoe Butler-Gray getting out of Tyler’s car in the parking lot of Blue Inn on Plum Island. Recently.”
