Carl and Fiona sweep Piper back up the stairs, hushing her rapidly rising voice, spiriting her away before anyone besides me notices.
I hover at the bottom of the staircase for a moment, trying to decide. Should I follow them? Try to help?
“Charlie!” Viv is suddenly at my side. “Hey, love. Come on, you’re missing your whole party!”
Did she see? Or did she happen to look over and notice me standing by myself?
I eye Viv’s sumptuous red dress, clinging to her body and offsetting her dark hair. “I wish you had told me about this, Viv. I’m so underdressed.”
“No way, babe, you look incredible. Soyou.”
Weird. That was almost the same exact thing Fiona said to me. “I heard Trey was here. Can I meet him?”
“Of course!” Viv replies, smiling and reaching out to take myhand, pulling me through the crowd of people. “There are so many friends of ours I need you to meet!”
I wish she would stop touching me. There’s something too familiar about it.
“I don’t see him inside; he must be out on the deck,” Viv says, craning her head. She turns, winking at me. “I’ll go get him. You grab a drink. There’s a pop-up bar over by the kitchen. I think you’ll appreciate the signature cocktail.”
She disappears into a throng of bodies, leaving me alone in a cluster of sexy people who are ignoring me because of course they are. They probably don’t think this party is for the way-too-casually-dressed tattooed chick in dollar-store flip-flops.
Sage was the outgoing one. She made friends easily, was the life of every party, and told me my social anxiety was something I needed to “get over.”
“Especially if you want to be an author!” she’d crow at me. “How are we going to do giant book signing events together if you’re too shy?”
My chest contracts, squeezes. I wonder if she meant it at the time. That was beforeA Song of Scales and Salt. She had no idea what was coming. Or maybe she did. Maybe she planned it all along.
Why did she do it? I never got a real answer from her. And I never would.
An image of her floating, face down, hair spread out on the water’s surface invades my mind. I didn’t see her body, couldn’t even attend her funeral, but my mind is intent on picturing itanyway.
“Stop it,” I say out loud, panic rising as flickers of memory creep into my consciousness.
My friend. The book. The boat.
I smack my palms against the side of my head.
A buxom white girl in a bodycon dress gives me a weird look, and I turn away, desperate. One of the twins—the plastic-surgery-free nutritionist—is weaving her way to the bar, and I dart over. Rachel stood up for me when her twin called me awkward; maybe that means I can trust her to help me now.
“Rachel!”
She turns, takes one look at my face, and changes direction, ignoring the bar and gliding toward me instead. “Come on.”
I don’t question it. Desperate to get a moment of quiet to corral my spiraling thoughts, I follow Rachel back to the staircase, letting her lead me down into the belly of the yacht. It’s blissfully quiet on the lower level. I expect her to take me to the billiards room, but she opens the door to her bedroom instead and guides me inside.
The only difference between our quarters is that Rachel’s headboard is an ornately carved piece of black wood. And Rachel’s space is highly personalized—there is a stack of cookbooks on her end table, a yoga mat and a pair of yoga blocks in one corner, and a collage of photos—Rachel with members of her family—stuck to the wall closest to the bathroom.
“Go on, sit,” Rachel offers, nodding to her perfectly made bed.
I perch daintily on the edge of her comforter and breathe deeply. “Thanks.”
Up close and away from her sister and the others, Rachel looks different. More relaxed, more approachable. There’s an ease in her eyes, and her shoulders have dropped a whole two inches away from her ears.
She asks, “What happened? Overwhelmed by the party? I know it was a surprise.”
“Uh, yeah.” I look down at the pale gray carpet, try to memorize the crisscrossing white lines that form a pattern upon it.
The bed sinks slightly as Rachel sits next to me. “Okay, now tell me the truth.”
