Nicola has curtain bangs that are cut perfectly to frame her face, and Joey marvels at how put together she looks for this time of night, like she’s just come from a party. Maybe she has. Her expression is dreamy, as if she’s thinking of someone in particular—one of the good apples, no doubt. Joey’s about to agree.There are bad men everywhere. There are bad men here.But she doesn’t. Because her heart stops.
As Nicola tips her cup to her mouth, Joey stares.
There. On her middle finger. A gold band with a witchy-looking black stone. In the center of the stone is an overlaid gold charm shaped like a droplet of water. Or blood. Instant recognition sends Joey to her feet, and Nicola looks startled.
“Where did you get that?” Joey sets her cup down and points at the ring with a shaking hand. She’s breathing fast, like a feral animal, both terrified and indignant. It’s impossible that Nicola Bianco has Quinn’s ring, but it’s right there.
Nicola looks caught out for a second and brings the coffee mug to her lap. “I found it,” she says finally. She looks at Joey from behind her curtain bangs.
Joey’s heart is hammering. She narrows her eyes. “Found it where?” Her teeth are clenched, and she thinks she might jump on top of this woman and pluck the ring off her finger herself.
There’s a long pause, and Nicola’s face eventually softens into a nostalgic smile. “At a vintage shop I love just off South Beverly. They have some really unique jewelry. This one is Victorian. Eighteen ninety-one, I think she said. It’s gorgeous, no?”
“Oh,” says Joey, feeling thrown. She’s studying Nicola’s face, but there’s nothing. No flinch, no sign of a lie.
“Are you alright?” asks Nicola. She’s peering at Joey inquisitively, and Joey realizes she probably looks unwell, the way she’s staring with heat and fear behind her eyes. She thought for a minute—
But it really does look like Quinn’s. It’s almost exactly the same.
Nicola tugs at her finger and twists the ring free. She holds it out. “Try it on if you like it that much. I will send you Marilyn’s website. Maybe she has something similar.”
Joey takes it in her hand and turns it around. She slips it onto her finger. As much as she wants to feel something, as much as she is hoping for a sign from the ring that it is, indeed, Quinn’s, there’s nothing.She’s even less sure now that she’s seeing it up close. She can’t tell. Was Quinn’s this shape? Was it this heavy?
Nicola takes the ring back and stands quickly, looking uncomfortable. She sets her empty cup on the counter and waves a delicate, manicured hand. “Good night.”
Joey gives her as much of a smile as she can manage.
As she goes back to the storage closet to get more towels for the wet floor, she’s not thinking about the extra cleanup or the fact that Nicola did not, just as predicted, offer to pay. Instead, she thinks about the ring. Not Nicola’s, but Quinn’s. She strains to picture it on Quinn’s finger when she brushed her hair back or sipped on a Coke, but just like staring too hard at a faint star, the images go dark and blurry. Joey is certain Quinn wore a bulky black and gold ring on her middle finger. Then, her memory swerves from practical to morbid, and she squeezes her eyes tight. She wishes desperately that she could be the kind of person who finds the positive in things, the kind of person who could celebrate her friend’s short, beautiful life. But Joey is emotionally impotent. Optimism, if she ever had it, has been wrung out of her. Now, all she can see—all she ever sees—are the things that go wrong.
Sophie’s right. She needs therapy.
She thinks she hears a noise at the front of the store, and she thinks Nicola might be back. But when she rounds the corner, she realizes it’s just her growing unease. The store is empty. Feeling the churning of espresso on an empty stomach, Joey cleans up quickly and flicks off the light before heading out and locking the door. The street is dark, and she can hear an owl in the distance. She thinks about turning left to her house but changes her mind and turns right instead.
She doesn’t want to be alone.
22Quinn
May 2011
Two weeks before the fall
I am walking back from another amazing night withhim, though I’m lost in swirling thoughts about Elena. It’s been less than twelve hours, but my anger has already doubled, like a bowl of dough sweating on the windowsill. Collingswood is taking advantage of my friend. I know Elena acts grown up, but she’s not. He could ruin her life.
I almost miss Otto Stringer watering the lupines by his mailbox as I walk by Sophie’s house on the way to mine. When I see him, I think about doubling back and taking a path through the woods instead, but he catches my eye and rights his watering can.
“If it isn’t Quinn Winter,” he says brightly. “So good to see your face.”
“Hi, Mr. Stringer.”
“Haven’t seen you around in a while. Everything okay between you and Soph?”
Warm fingers of embarrassment wrap around my neck and cheeks.
He looks back at the house, then at me again. “Hey, can I bother you for a few minutes? She’s upset about something, but I can’t get her to talk to me. Will you…? I know it’s a lot to ask…”
My senses perk up instinctively. “What’s wrong?”
He just shakes his head, and I realize then that the crease between his eyebrows is deep with worry. He watches me walk all the way to the front door before splashing more water into the dirt.
