Anjali turns back to me. “You know her?”
“Old classmates,” I say, and manage to wipe the frown off my face by the time Olivia makes her way over to us.
“Sorry I’m late. Took forever for me to get the paperwork done.”
Anjali waves a hand in front of her face. “All good. You’re going to be set up right here next to Lucy.”
“Set up?” A slick of panic rises in my throat, and I look between Anjali and Olivia, though neither one responds.
Anjali pulls out the chair beside my desk and reaches inside the drawer, retrieving a laptop. “Liv’s our other intern. We met at a career fair at her high school, and when she told me she was going to be out here all summer, I knew she had to join the team.” She knocks her shoulder with Olivia’s. “Actually, you two have a lot in common. You both mentioned Mayor Cho’s environmental work in your cover letters.”
“I thought I was the only intern,” I say, not wanting to make eye contact with Olivia.
Anjali’s cell buzzes in her hand. “Ah, I have to take this. Lucy, can you walk her through the phones and email? Back in a few.”
I’m stuck staring at Anjali’s back as Olivia sinks into the seat beside me. She clasps her hands together, her knuckles turning white, and I wonder if she’s as caught off guard as I am. “So,” she says. “This is…”
“Unexpected.” I face my computer, trying not to look at her. I’veonly seen Olivia from afar since we learned Billy died—at the shiva, where she stood with her other aunts and uncles; at the Club, where she walked on the beach alone; across Main Street while she was buying a book at the Bonanza—and I’m not about to use my precious work hours to discuss the way she hugged me that day when she learned the news, not that I’ve thought about it much at all since then. Not one second.
She’s grieving, of course. All I have to do is be nice and kind and not get close enough for her to hurt me. Again.
“I didn’t know you’d be working here, too,” Olivia says. “I don’t want this to be weird.”
I keep my eyes focused on my laptop screen, even though the words begin to look fuzzy. “It’s not weird. Who said it’s weird? It’s normal. Totally normal.” My palms are warm, and I flex my fingers then rest them on the keyboard like I’m about to start typing a very important email to a very important person.
“That day at Scoop DeVille, I didn’t mean…” She trails off, and out of the corner of my eye I see her fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. “It was such a shock, and…I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”
I pull my shoulders back, and finally I look at her. Her eyes are wide, but her mouth twitches like she wants to say more. “You didn’t,” I say, keeping my voice even. “I’m sorry, by the way. About Billy. I know you two were close.”
“Thanks,” Olivia says. Her voice softens, grows quiet. “We weren’t that close.”
Olivia’s complexion takes on a blue tint from the screen. She looks so much like she did when we were younger, except now she’s grown into her high cheekbones, her curved jaw. If she was prettyback then, she’s beautiful now, elegant and polished, sharp at the edges, too, like getting too close might cut to the bone.
But the last thing I want is for her to think that I’ve been wondering about her for the past two years—which I haven’t, obviously—and so the best thing to do is make sure she knows I don’t care at all about our history.
“I want you to know,” I say, trying to sound as smooth and confident as I can. “There’s no bad blood between us. I don’t hold any grudges or anything like that. I barely remember it, really.”
Olivia twists her head and looks at me with a curious expression, her lips slightly parted and her head cocked. “Why would you hold a grudge?”
“Well,” I say. “I mean, you, like…dumped me.” My cheeks flame, warmth spreading down my neck. I never say the wordlike. Banished it from my vocabulary when I started doing mock trial. Words likelikeandumare telltale signs that you’re ill-prepared, which is the last kind of adjective I want associated with me. Especially in front of Olivia.
Olivia shakes her head. “We remember things differently, Lucy.”
“I don’t think so.” Olivia moves back in space but only slightly, and I tuck a stray curl behind my ear. “It doesn’t matter, though,” I say. “It’s all in the past.”
“Right,” Olivia says slowly. “And you and Ethan are still together, so it was clearly the right call.”
I jerk my head up. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I know you had a crush on him when we were together,” Olivia says. “And I know you guys kissed on that vacation. It’s okay. Really, it is. Like you said, we were basically kids. It’s all ancient history now.”
The heat on my neck travels down to my chest, and suddenly I need a drink of water. “Ethan and I didn’t start dating until after you moved away.”
“Okay,” Olivia says.
“It’s the truth.”
“Hey.” Anjali’s head pops up over the wall of my cubicle. “Would you two be interested in working on this archiving project? I need you to go through some property records for local businesses. It’s not as boring as it sounds, I promise.”
