“I’m still mad about it!”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Morgan is still figuring things out, you know, and I don’t want to pull the Mom Squad into everything.” Rebecca leaned forward again, her voice settling into something approaching a stage whisper. “And now I’m sleeping with basically a Mom Squad relative! Daniel could easily say something to Steve. He’s still close to Steve, even though Gina took Veronica the Cheater’s side.”
“And...?”
“And,” said Rebecca. “And, Gina has the biggest mouth north of Boston. She would immediately tell, oh I don’t know, probably Georgia, who’d tell Esther, and then all of Plum Island would know, and then it would take about forty-five seconds before one of the kids overheard and it got back to Morgan!”
“And?”
“Well, and! And, then Morgan would know. That I’m seeing someone. And. It would crush her, after losing Peter. She’s not ready for that. Alexa,maybe,almost. But not Morgan! I mean, I know our situations are different, but you must see what I mean? Wouldn’t Katie have a hard time if you started dating right away?”
Sherri thought about that. There were so many times when she wasn’t sure what was going on behind Katie’s whitewashed, cheery exterior. She knew she’d been upset about the Boda Borg party. What if she was upset about other things?
“If I started datingright away,yes. But this isn’t really right away, is it?”
Around her she heard snippets of conversation:Patriots preseasonandcouldn’t get a plumber inandboarding schoolandup to Ogunquit.
Rebecca looked troubled. “I think I thought you were going to be on my side. Tell me I was right.”
“I am on your side,” said Sherri. “I am, I promise. But I think Daniel might be right about this one. I don’t think you need to hide him.”
She watched a wide range of emotions travel their way across Rebecca’s face: confusion, defensiveness, maybe even a little fear. A small helping of hope.
“Just consider it,” said Sherri. It felt really good to step outside of her own problems and into somebody else’s for a moment, or an afternoon; it felt more than good to consider the possibility that she might be helpful. “Think about it,” she continued. “And if you need to talk more about it, you know I’m here.” She picked up her sangrita and went to town on it.
“Two more,” she told the pretty, tan waitress. “One for me, and one for my friend here.”
48.
The Squad
What we heard about the Tyler/Alexa breakup was this. We heard that immediately when Tyler got back from Silver Lake toward the end of July he stopped by the Cottage during one of Alexa’s shifts. She refused to talk to him while she was working.
One of us had gone to get a Ringer one evening after dinner and witnessed the whole thing. We won’t say who it was, and also we wouldneversay that the person in question should not have been consuming a Ringer, claiming as she did to be lacto-intolerant and eating low-carb. That is not our place.
The person in the Cottage bought her Ringer, walked up to the beach and back again, and upon returning to her car saw Alexa and Tyler arguing near Alexa’s Jeep.
Tyler accused Alexa of ghosting him the whole time he was in Silver Lake, and Alexa shot back that one look at @silvergurl’s Instagram told her that it didn’t look like Tyler was thinking too much about Alexa.
Alexa then asked Tyler what was the point of continuing their relationship anyway, since he’d be headed to UMass in the fall and she’d be long gone herself. (Alexa was going to Colby, according to Rebecca, but some of us who had watched her video on understanding current market conditions swore that she’d mentioned something about moving to L.A.)
“So you’re just, like, giving up on us?” Tyler asked, perplexed. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” said Alexa. Cucumber cool, according to our source.
We heard that Tyler was insanely angry and that he shouted, “You’re going to regret this, Alexa Thornhill! For as long as you live you’re going to regret this!”
The person in question waited in the shadows at that point, in case Alexa needed help. Because Tyler was known to have a temper.
Alexa said, “I doubt it,” and drove away in her Jeep. Tylerran afterthe Jeep, but he didn’t get very far, because lacrosse season had ended some time ago, and he wasn’t in shape.
Okay, it was Gina, all right? If you must know. It was Gina who heard and reported on the whole thing. But please don’t tell anybody that we told you that. We promised we’d keep it to ourselves.
Next we heard that Tyler immediately started dating Zoe Butler-Gray, whom he’d taken to Blue Inn earlier in the summer.
We also heard that he’d never taken Zoe Butler-Gray to Blue Inn.
