After he leaves the kitchen, Rachel sits with me as I eat my lunch, her animated gestures punctuating her stories as she fills me in on some of the funnier moments of the camping trip,like realizing they hadn’t packed powdered milk and had to take their coffee black for a week. Her laughter fills the kitchen, bright and unguarded.
“So, anything interesting happen while I was gone?” she asks, twisting a long strand of hair around her finger. “Did you go to Eloïse’s graduation party?”
“Yep, I stopped by.” I press my lips together in a tight smile, trying to stop myself from asking about the bracelet. What I know, what I learned this morning, sits uncomfortably on me like a weighted blanket.
“What?” Her smile falters. “Why are you making that face? Was it extra?”
“I’m not making a face.” I busy myself with my pasta, stabbing at a cherry tomato harder than necessary.
“Please.” She leans forward, her elbows on the counter. “You are so bad at hiding your feelings. Were you going to say something bad about Eloïse?” A defensive edge creeps into her voice, the old loyalty still there despite everything.
“No, I wasn’t. I swear.” I have said enough bad things about the Allard kids for a lifetime.
“Just tell me. You’re the one who says we can tell each other anything.”
My fork clinks against the bowl as I set it down. “It’s just, you know how I do the yard sale every year, right? Well, I found a bracelet in the bottom of a bag you were donating to Goodwill, and I put it up for sale on the Facebook page. Then a woman in the neighborhood contacted me and told me it was stolen.” The words tumble out faster than I intended.
Rachel’s mouth falls open and she stares at me wide-eyed, all color draining from her face.
“Rachel?” I prompt gently, my stomach knotting with apprehension.
“Why did you go through the donation bag?”
“Honey, that’s not the point. Someone has been burglarizing houses in the neighborhood. That is a very big deal. If this bracelet is stolen, and you had something to do with it, I need to know. It’s irrelevant that I found it in a Goodwill bag.” I gird myself for more indignation that I’ve invaded her privacy, that I don’t understand. But instead she seems to crumple before me, her eyes welling with tears, her shoulders slumping as if under a sudden weight. The transformation is startling—from confident young woman to vulnerable child in an instant.
“Honey, what is it? Did you take that bracelet?” I resist the urge to reach for her, sensing she needs space.
She jerks her head back. “What? No. How can you think that?”
“You can tell me the truth. I won’t be angry.”
“I said no. I would never.”
“Honey, someone told me they saw you coming from the house that it was stolen from. Someone I trust.”
“Well, they’re lying.” Her voice is tight, indignant.
“Are they?”
“You don’t believe me? When did this supposedly happen?”
“Early fall, junior year.”
“When?” She crosses her arms.
I sigh and open my phone. I recall people posting on the Facebook group when that rash of break-ins was happening, so I open the app to look for the posts. It takes a while, but I finally find it. Holly Stone herself had posted about her home being burgled, asking for help. I tell Rachel the date.
She goes to her own phone and begins typing. “We weren’t here. That was parents’ weekend at UVA.” She holds her phone out to me. On it is a picture of the four of us, Miguel and I on either side of Zach and Rachel, on the quad in Charlottesville. I take the phone.
“You’re right,” I say softly. Then I double-check the dates on my own phone. “We weren’t even in town.”
“I told you. Just because some kids in this neighborhood are doing stuff like this, you think I do too.”
“So did you know about the break-ins?”
A stunned look crosses her face before her features harden in anger. “That’s not the point. The point is you accused me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I got my facts wrong.”
