“Come on, sweetie, you can tell me.” She wondered if she should take Morgan back to the grief counselor, get her on a regular schedule again. Her own therapist had told her that mourning was full of peaks and valleys, and that the up and down motion could last a long time. Perhaps Morgan had slipped into a valley and needed help getting out of it.
“It’s just—” Morgan kicked at the island again, and Rebecca tried really hard not to tell her to stop. “It’s just, why is Alexa always babysitting for Katie now? And never home with us.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say she’salwaysbabysitting for Katie. This is only her second time!”
“But when I want to do something with her, she’s always busy. When Sherri needs her, she’s not busy.”
Rebecca chewed her lip. This was a fair point. “Do you want me to talk to her about it?”
“No,” said Morgan. “I don’t want her to feel sorry for me. I just want her to be like she was.”
34.
Alexa
In her room, before she left to babysit Katie for the second time, Alexa checked Tyler’s Instagram feed. No new posts. Then she logged out and logged back in as Tyler—his password for literally everything waslaxattackertyler—and checked to see if he’d been tagged in any recent posts or had any DMs. And here was Tyler with his two brothers—one two years older, one a year younger—and some random Silver Lake hottie, a girl in short shorts and a completely unimaginative tank top from, like, Target or something, and she was completely ratchet. Cleavage all over the place, an arm around Tyler and another around his younger brother, Conor.Hanging with theboyzfrom back east,said the caption.
Oh please,thought Alexa. She looked more closely, and she saw that Tyler’s arm was around this girl’s waist. She looked for Conor’s hand. It was by his side, just as it should have been. She checked the time on the post. Twenty-three hours ago. So this was what Tyler had been doing when he wasn’t calling or texting Alexa. She considered making a snarky comment on the post in the guise of Tyler, but forget it. This girl (@silvergurl) wasn’t worthy of a comment. Alexa checked @silvergurl’s feed. Lots of selfies, lots of thirst traps. Typical.
Fine,she thought.Let him.
Then she checked her Silk Stockings Instagram account, which was different from her personal account, the one her mom had on her own feed. Alexa hardly ever posted on her personal account—an occasional sunset, a cute photo of Bernice, just to stay in the game. She posted on the Silk Stockings account any time she put up a new video, pointing her 21,000 Instagram followers to it. Nothing fancy, just a tasteful selfie (tasteful,@silvergurl!) where she displayed her outfit of the day and summarized the topic of the video. She thought she’d probably gotten a lot of new viewers that way, although there was no way to tell exactly where they’d come from.
Cam’s Instagram was mostly golf-related. Alexa didn’t spend much time there.
Her direct messages were as open as the day was long. To be a public figure you had to make yourself available. That was part of the game.
Direct message from @jt76 to @silkstockingsvia Instagram:Heading to L.A. soon, huh? You’ll love it out here!
She clicked on jt76’s profile. No photo. Followers: zero. Following: one. Silk Stockings.
Okay, possibly jt76 was creepy. Or he/she was a talent scout, setting up shell accounts to contact potential clients. She’d heard of that happening.
She typed back,Thanks! I’m sure I will!
At the Griffins’ house, after Sherri departed for work, Alexa made some small talk with Katie. She couldn’t go right for the notebook. She asked Katie if she was hungry or if she wanted to walk over to Kent Street playground, which was not far away. But Katie gave her a baffled look and declined.
“I don’t really do playgrounds anymore?” she said.
“Of course not,” said Alexa. Katie and Morgan were at that in-between age: too old to use playgrounds seriously, too young to use them ironically, the way the high school kids sometimes did, swinging in the dark of night with their vape pens or their edibles.
Alexa tried again. Did Katie want to walk down to the waterfront or go for ice cream at Haley’s? They could get to Haley’s via the rail trail.
“I’m good,” said Katie, her face placid. Alexa’s mother hated when people saidI’m good—she considered it a non-answer kind of answer—so both Morgan and Alexa had been conditioned not to say it. But Alexa believed in free speech within the walls of one’s own home so she just nodded. “I’m reading,” Katie added. She held upSisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Alexa recognized the book as her own copy, the one she’d handed down to Morgan, because of the jagged tear in the cover. Katie was reading the first of the series, the one where Tibby meets the girl who has cancer. Alexa loved those books when she was in middle school; she had hoped that her own female friendships would turn out to be as sustaining, as reliable and life-affirming and, well,fun, as those of Tibby, Bridget, Lena, and Carmen, but, alas, Destiny and Caitlin simply didn’t seem to have what it took.
“Okay,” said Alexa. “If you need me, just holler. I’ll be around.” Katie went back to her book and Alexa clattered around in the kitchen for a few minutes, for show, in case Katie was listening. She inspected the contents of the refrigerator (disappointing) and the cupboards (barren). She looked for the liquor cabinet (nonexistent).
There was a copy of theNewburyport Daily Newson the counter, and on the front page was one of those advertising stickers with an ad for Canobie Lake Park, the amusement park not far away in Salem, New Hampshire. As a kid Alexa loved Canobie—it wassmall enough that she used to be allowed to go off with friends (back when she had friends), and big enough that some of the rides were legitimately scary. In the past few years they’d put in a new roller coaster, Untamed, and Alexa hadn’t tried it yet.
Maybe it was the knowledge that she’d be gone soon, or maybe it was the realization that she didn’t have any friends, and if Tyler kept it up with @silvergurl she soon wouldn’t have a boyfriend either (not that she cared), but Alexa found herself overcome by a fit of generosity, as powerful and unexpected as a punch. “Hey, Katie,” she said. “Do you like roller coasters?”
Katie looked up from her book. Her eyes were bright and shiny. “I love roller coasters.”
“Morgan does too,” said Alexa. This was true—surprisingly true, given Morgan’s fear of so much else in the world. “Have you ever heard of Canobie Lake, the amusement park?”
Katie shook her head.
Alexa held up the sticker she’d peeled from the paper and pointed it toward Katie. “I’ll take you two,” she said. “You and Morgan. On my next day off. It’s really fun.”
