Edgewater (21 page)

“And?”

“And not much else happened, on account of Claire interrupting us—and Altana and Jen, too.” Lennox gave a sympathetic eye roll. “But a little more happened the other night.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lennox said. “The other night? You've seen Charlie
twice
since the Fourth of July? I'm sorry, but this is essential information, and there are a thousand ways you could've gotten in touch to tell me. Brian's phone.” I made a face. “Or the phone in Naomi's office. Or you could've stopped by the house. Or sent a carrier pigeon.”

“Next time I'll definitely send a carrier pigeon,” I told her.

“Good. That's settled,” she said. “Now spill.”

“He called me at the barn a couple days ago, and I went over to his house.”

“You went to
his house
?”

“You've been there, too,” I reminded her.

“That was different. There were a thousand people there, and I happen to know there wasn't another campaign party, because Julia's out in the district. I've been following along online.”

“Of course you have.”

“I haven't seen much about the senator, though. Kind of a double standard, don't you think? Julia was always at his side when he was the one campaigning. But anyway, we're way off-topic
here—back to you and Charlie at his house. How'd you end up there, anyway?”

“He called me here and invited me over for dinner,” I said. “The chef made a quiche. It was unlike anything I'd ever tasted before—there were shrimp in it that must've been marinated in some sort of pepper-lemon concoction.”

“Who cares about the shrimp?” Lennox said. “Did he kiss you during dinner?”

“No, we just talked,” I said. “And here's a Copeland snippet you'll like. Charlie asked what the best thing was about my day. He said his dad used to ask him that. The weirdest thing is, my mom used to ask us that, too.”

“I didn't know that.”

“Well, it's been a long time.” I leaned back against Cobalt's stall door. The mare hung her head out next to me.

“You okay?” Lennox asked.

“Yeah, of course. Anyway, after dinner we walked down to the beach and took our shoes off and sat in the sand.”

“And then he kissed you?” I nodded. “God, this story is such a cliché. And if it wasn't you, I'd be so jealous right now.”

“Yeah, but—”

“But what?” Lennox asked. “Are you going to tell me that Charlie Copeland is a sloppy kisser?”

“Not sloppy at all,” I said. “He's sort of gentle and strong at the same time.”

Lennox let out an involuntary
ah
.

“But then Victor Underhill interrupted us and started asking me a bunch of questions.”

“God, that guy,” Lennox said. “I'm so dying to know what his story is.”

“My impression of him is that he's not a hornet's nest you'd want to kick,” I said. “And it was like he knew I had things to hide. About my family.”

“I'm sure you're being paranoid,” Lennox said. “The way you always are about your family.”

“Something he said was strange.” I shook my head.

“What?”

“Charlie told me his dad's doctor's appointment was in New York, and then when Victor came up to us on the beach, he said the senator was calling Charlie from DC. And Charlie jumped up like it was a code.”

“Code for what?”

“I don't know. Maybe: Get away from this girl.”

“Oh, come on, Lor. Clearly that's not the code. He showed up here to see you
after
you went there for dinner.” She paused. “And there's something else you'll want to know, too.”

“What's that?”

“He called my house this morning to get information on you.”

I did a double take. “Charlie called your house? Now who isn't telling who things?”

“Serves you right,” she said. “But it turns out that Charlie Copeland went online to find my blog, and then he found out my last name, and he called me.”

“What kind of information did he want?”

“He asked me if I knew whether you'd be home tonight,”
she said. “And he asked for your address so he could stop by.”

My stomach was a fist. “Oh God,” I said. “You didn't tell him where I live, did you?”

“Of course not. I didn't give him your address or your phone number or even your last name—Lorrie
Hall
.”

“Thank you.” I paused. “I just want to keep the fantasy going for a little bit longer.”

“It doesn't have to be a fantasy, Lorrie,” she said. “You need to face your fear that this could actually go right.”

I shook my head. “I'm not afraid of that. It's just . . . everything is so hard right now.”

“Well, I made this part easier for you,” Lennox said. “I told him you definitely wouldn't be at your house tonight because you were coming to a barbecue at mine, and I invited him to join us. So I scored you a date, and you'll be miles away from Edgewater.”

“Plus, you'll get to see Charlie and pump him for further Copeland info.”

“I got a Google Alert this morning—a blogger claiming that Charlie's dad has a drinking problem.”

“Really? My dad had a drinking problem,” I said.

“You don't corner the market on alcoholic dads,” Lennox said. “But I don't buy it, because if it was true about Franklin Copeland, it would've been uncovered before, and this guy didn't even offer up any evidence of it, other than that some unnamed source saw the senator laughing loudly and carrying on in a restaurant. My guess—it was probably some political opponent trying to start a rumor.”

“You're not going to ask Charlie about it, are you?”

“No, don't worry,” she said. “Unless it comes up. Then all bets are off.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “And you won't blog about me and Charlie?”

“I swear, your love life will never appear under my byline,” Lennox said. “Listen, I'm late to meet Claire. She said there's a new Theory store on Main, and obviously I need the perfect thing to wear tonight. You should come with.”

“I have a job,” I reminded her. “Some of us need to work for a living.”

“Just for now you do,” she said. “Just until the trust fund gets sorted out. And I can't wait until it does, because I don't get to see you nearly enough.” She paused. “But at least you love it here. You've always loved it more than I do.”

I was pretty sure she'd said that last part to make herself feel better. She pulled out her phone and mumbled as she texted:
If you beat me to the resto, order me the La Scala salad.

The La Scala salad was twenty-six dollars on Declan's lunch menu. Chopped iceberg lettuce with salami, provolone, tomato, and garbanzo beans. Hardly worth the price tag. I'd started cataloging things that were wastes of money and thinking what I could do if I had that cash. With nearly thirty bucks I could eat for a week. My stomach grumbled at the thought. “Sorry,” I told Lennox, cheeks reddening.

“Guess it's lunchtime for you, too.”

“I forgot to bring any today.”

“Granola bar?” she asked, pulling one out of her purse.

“Thanks,” I said. “You're a lifesaver.”

“It's the least I can do,” she said. She reached out and tapped Cobalt on the nose. “I told Charlie seven o'clock, because I figured that would give you time to come over first and clean up.”

“Yeah, I'm off at five,” I said. “I just have to run an errand first, and then I'll be there.”

“Cool. I'm going to say hi to Pepper. I'll see you later.”

She headed down the corridor. I wolfed down my granola bar and then continued with my chores, feeding who needed to be fed. When I got to Pepper's stall, Lennox had gone. But there was a pile of fresh manure in a corner.

Jeremy was in the feed room measuring grain when I arrived to retrieve the wheelbarrow and pitchfork. “Do you ever wish you could just hit the pause button for a bit, for like a half hour or so, so that everything you cleaned up would stay cleaned up?” I asked him.

“Let me guess: dump duty.”

“Yeah, Pepper. Major Code Brown.”

“I thought I just saw Lennox,” he said. “Second time in one week. I figured she'd be here more this summer with you around.”

“She just came by to say hello.” I paused. “She hasn't ridden Pepper much this summer, has she?”

“Nah,” he said. “But I don't mind. Gives me an excuse to take Pepper out now and then. He's a great horse.”

“Do you get tired of it?” I asked. “I don't mean Lennox, but just generally: Do you get tired of riders who have horses here not because they actually like horses, but because they like the idea of having them? And they have us to clean up after them?”

Jeremy dropped the grain scooper into the bin and shrugged.
“I don't really get caught up in it,” he said. “The truth is, people make careers off of doing things other people don't want to do or don't know how to do themselves. I don't know how to give myself a tetanus shot or wire my house for cable, but I do know how to train a horse. We all do different things. It's what makes the world go 'round.”

I heard Beth-Ann Bracelee in my head:
It takes all kinds of people for the world to function.
But she'd meant it in a different way.

“Listen,” he said. “It's no secret that I can't afford a horse of my own. So here I get to ride some pretty quality ones, and love them, and sometimes even show them. And cleaning up horse shit isn't that big of a deal to me.”

“I don't think Lennox knew about it,” I told him.

I didn't want to think that Lennox had left it there for someone else to clean up. Though, truthfully, I'd done the same thing myself in the past; that's what you paid for when you boarded your horse at a barn like Oceanfront. And though Lennox knew I was working here, if she had seen it, she probably hadn't made the connection that I'd be the one to clean it up, right?

And what did I care anyway, cleaning up Pepper's shit, after everything Lennox had done for me?

I took the wheelbarrow and pitchfork and made my way back down to Pepper's stall.

17

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

I DROVE ACROSS TOWN TO THE AREA BY THE
railroad tracks where Brian Beecher's parents lived. Searching for the trust had been fruitless so far. We were drowning in unpaid bills, and so it had come to this. I got out of the car and clutched the brown bag of my grandmother's silver to my chest as if it was a baby, glancing to either side of the road. A black sedan with dark tinted windows passed by and stopped right in front of me. My heart was pounding, and I held the bag tighter, as if whoever was in the car was about to reach out and grab it from me.

But then I noticed the stop sign. Of course. That was why the car had stopped. After a moment it turned right. I took a deep breath and crossed the street to the Scully Farms Pawnshop.

Inside the store were dozens of glass cases showcasing rings
and vases and other flotsam and jetsam that was surely once treasured by its former owners. I walked down the center aisle to the counter in the back, where a bald man with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth told me to dump the silver out onto the counter. He reached out with thick, dirt-smudged fingers, gruffly spreading the pieces around.

“They're from Tiffany's,” I said. I had to ball my fingers into fists to resist the urge to swat his away. “My grandmother started the collection right after she got married.”

The man grunted in response. He'd waited too long to flick his cigarette, and flecks of ash fell onto the silver. “Two thousand,” he said.

I knew that two thousand dollars was a lot of money. More than I'd ever held in my hands at once. But then I started my list in my head: the phone bill, the electric bill, the credit card bills, Orion's shoes, his food, his board. Two grand wouldn't even stretch the month, and it certainly wouldn't get me back to Hillyer in the fall.

The man opened up a lockbox and began to count out the amount in hundred-dollar bills.

“Wait,” I told him. “This set is antique. It's got to be worth more than two grand.”

“It would be if you had the full set,” he said. “But there are quite a number of pieces missing, and this one”—he held out a dinner knife—“isn't even silver. Feel it. It's too light.”

I picked it up and picked up another knife to compare; he was right.

“Eighteen hundred is the best I can do.”

“You said two thousand.”

The man was picking up serving pieces and putting them down, picking up and putting down, to check the weights. “You got a couple of fakes in here.”

“My grandmother spent years acquiring this set,” I said, my voice just above a whisper. I cleared my throat and went on. “Brian—my sister's boyfriend—I think maybe he sold some of the pieces already. Maybe to you?”