by Kit Frick
“You want to sink your own ship, fine.” Kaylee can’t see Anna flinch at her poor choice of words. “But leave me the hell out of it. All this time, I thought you were too messed up that night to remember anything. But apparently, you were much more messed up than I realized.”
“What do you—?”
“Listen to me, Anna. If you remember anything real, you have to know what happened—whatever happened—it wasn’t our fault.”
Anna tries to swallow, but her mouth is all sand and grit. “I said you were inside when she died,” she manages. “I told them you didn’t have anything to do with hiding her body.”
“No shit I didn’t. Because I wasn’t in the Hamptons, Anna. And neither were you. I don’t know how you got things so freaking scrambled. Mom and I had the cops here earlier this week, you know that? Wanted to have a little chat about my account of New Year’s Eve.”
Anna sucks in a sharp breath. “What did you tell them?”
“The truth, obviously. Well, the parts that mattered. That I never left Brooklyn. We never left Brooklyn.”
“But—” Anna wants it to be true. But she knows better now.
“No, you listen. The story you told police, the one they wanted me to confirm? Girl, you are way off, so let me jog your memory. We were at Starr’s. Everyone wanted to go dancing, but you were passed out on the couch. Mike and I got you in a cab, and you were home before ten. Got it?”
One more piece clicks into place for Anna. Kaylee got her in a cab. But Kaylee’s not telling the whole truth, because she got in that cab too. She was with Anna at Windermere. Anna remembers the three of them on the balcony together. Zoe’s silvery laugh in Anna’s ear. Kaylee pinching her cheek, holding back her hair. The freezing bite of the night wind rolling in off the ocean.
“Do you have a lawyer, Anna?” Kaylee asks, voice taut with exasperation.
“Of course I do.”
“And what does he say?”
“She says I shouldn’t have talked to the police without my mom present. Without hiring her first.”
Kaylee’s sigh is so loud Anna swears she can feel it blow through the phone line. “Well, I guess it’s too late for that now.”
From down the hall, the guard jerks her chin at Anna, taps her fingers to her wrist. Wrap it up.
“I have to go.”
“Tell them to stop sniffing around my place. Deep in your heart, Anna Cicconi, you know no good is going to come of this.”
“I really have to go.”
“What you need is to get your head on straight. Tell them you were wrong; you didn’t do it. Make that lawyer of yours get the charges dropped.”
But Anna did do it. How else can she explain everything she remembers about Herron Mills, about Zoe? She’s not sure if it really was manslaughter. What she remembers sounds a lot like an accident. But they told her Zoe didn’t drink, ever, not with the medication she was on. So it must have been Anna who got her drunk that night. Anna’s bad influence. Anna who behaved recklessly. It sounds a lot like the person she used to be. The person she was with Kaylee.
The guard starts to walk in her direction. She puts the receiver back in its cradle without saying goodbye.
“Excuse me?” Anna asks. “The update I requested to my approved visitors list. Do you know if it went through?”
“Can’t add anyone who isn’t family.” The guard ushers Anna away from the phone bank. “You know the rules.”
“But Aubrey said Pathways might make an exception, since family’s just my mom, and she can’t—”
“Take it up with the office, honey.” She motions to the inmate at the front of the line. “Next!”
5 THEN
June
Herron Mills, NY
MY THIRD EVENING at Clovelly Cottage, I post up by the pool with my sketchbook and charcoals as soon as dinner is cleared. While the light is still good, I want to capture the way the water looks like it’s vanishing clean into the landscape, inky and alchemical. I draw the pool first, then the lush yard behind, thin blades of grass fanning out to meet a robust bank of pristinely manicured trees. I brought my watercolor pencils and some oil paints too. Maybe once I’ve gotten a few sketches down, I’ll play around with painting the pool’s silvers and navies, the emeralds and laurels of the lawn, the way the sky is a soft powder blue until the first tendrils of orange and pink sluice across it like melting sherbet.
It gets dark too fast. By eight thirty, the pool lights have cast the patio in a bright wash of yellow, and the world beyond the water is pure black. The back of my throat itches, and I cough into the crook of my arm, but the itch only gets worse. Summer nights mean dark bars where the air-conditioning can’t compete with the body heat. Long walks on never-quite-empty beaches with Starr and Kaylee, the world soft and pill-blunt around us. Fumbling, boozy hookups that were better as stories after than they were in the moment. Summer means never sitting still. I don’t want to be back in Brooklyn, not exactly, but I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not working. Last night, I had unpacking to keep me busy once the stars came out. But tonight, I’m fully settled into the guest cottage / pool house, and at least three hours stretch between me and a reasonable bedtime.
Inside, I place my sketchbook on the small table by the window and wonder if I should have taken a room in the main house instead. The cottage is as big as the apartment I share with my mom in Bay Ridge, and the privacy is nice, but it’s almost too quiet out here. I slip out of respectable sundress number three and back into my cutoffs and tank top and consider heading inside to see if Emilia wants some company. But that would be weird, right? It’s probably close to Paisley’s bedtime. I’d be interrupting.
I dig out my phone and spend some time on ModCloth searching for dresses with pockets, then scroll through Instagram, catching up on the south Brooklyn summer, the parties I’m missing, the rowdier beach with its diverse medley of sunbathers, so different from the mostly white, all-moneyed crowd at the main beach in Herron Mills. In one photo, Mike tackles Kaylee and her hair flashes like strands of spun gold across the brassy brown of his arms. In another, Kaylee’s posed on her stoop with our friend Vic from school and Wanda, another girl we go out with sometimes.
I click over to Starr’s account to see if she’s posted anything new, but there’s nothing, not that she ever posted much from Brooklyn either. We used to talk on Messenger, so I open the app, send her a quick note, something I haven’t done since the spring. It stung when she skipped town without saying goodbye. She’d told Kaylee her plans, and Mike, but I guess I didn’t rank. Now she’s not responding to my messages either. I tell myself it’s not personal, that she got the fresh start I’m looking for now. We had fun, but I know her life in Brooklyn wasn’t great. Twenty-two, no college, shitty job waiting tables at an all-night diner in Brighton Beach. Estranged from her ultraconservative family in Arizona, a string of boyfriends who didn’t stick around long. She always loved Disney. I tell myself it’s not about me.
By nine, cabin fever has officially set in. My fingers dance across the screen, itching to open my messages, text Kaylee. My phone has been trenchantly quiet all day. Either Kaylee has given up on me or she’s serving up a bitter taste of my own medicine. Knowing my best friend, it’s surely the latter.
I press my phone facedown into my comforter and shrug on a hoodie. Then I spritz some bug spray on my legs, grab one of the several mini-flashlights from the glass bowl on the kitchen counter, and head out into the night.
* * *
My star-lit tour of the Clovelly Cottage grounds is surprisingly brief. Maybe Tom was right, two point two acres isn’t quite as massive as it initially seemed. I hug the tree line, crossing behind the pool, then pass the detached garage and gurgling fountain on my way toward the tennis court. But when I’m there, I can’t figure out how to turn on the lights, and the rackets appear to be locked in the storage shed anyway.
I abandon my plan of privately smacking balls in the general direct
ion of the net and trudge down the pebbled drive toward the road instead. The LED beam casts a thin white veil over the bushes as I pass—azaleas, according to Emilia—their pink flowers fluttering in the breeze with a ghostly glimmer that makes me shiver, despite the still-warm air. I zip my hoodie all the way to my throat.
Out on Linden Lane, I think about turning right, stealing a glimpse of the houses on the longer stretch of street Tom and I didn’t cover on our way in. But my feet are drawn instead toward Windermere, sneakers pulling me next door, toward its neglected grounds. When I get to the wrought iron entrance gate, all vine-covered rails and scrolls and flourishes, the first thing I notice is how much closer the house is to the road than Clovelly Cottage or the other, newer houses in Herron Mills. Here, standing in the slice of driveway that isn’t entirely obscured by the unfettered growth of the privacy hedge, I have a clear view of Windermere through the gaps in the gate.
The porch light is on, bathing the unused swing and blue-painted rocking chairs in soft, pale light. I switch my flashlight off and tuck it in my pocket, lean into the shadows surrounding the pillar on which the gate hinges. Tom said that Windermere was built in 1894, which must make it one of the older original homes in the area. I try to imagine this swath of the Hamptons before Seacrest or Magnolia House or Clovelly Cottage. The landscape must have seemed unlimited, nothing but farmland and sky. There would have been no need for hedges or tall banks of trees to keep the estate’s secrets veiled from nosey neighbors. And Linden Lane was probably barely traveled, the silence even deeper than it is tonight.
“Hello?”
I rocket back from the pillar, skin buzzing with something that feels like electricity or fear. “Hello?” The word passes through my lips, more demand than question, as if I’m not the one skulking in shadow, gawking at someone else’s house after dark.
On the other side of the gate, a figure steps into the driveway from somewhere on the front lawn, a part of the property blocked from my view. He’s slim and not too tall, maybe five feet ten. His hands are shoved in jeans pockets, and a silver watchband glints on one wrist.
“Are you lost?” he asks. I squint into the glow of the porch light, trying to get a good look at his face, but I can see only that his skin is a soft shade of brown, and he’s my age, maybe a bit older. My heartbeat slows to a slightly elevated thud. This must be Caden Talbot, the Yalie.
“I’m Anna,” I say. “The nanny at Clovelly Cottage?”
“Oh right.” He leans leisurely against the pillar, his body pressed against the stone in a mirror image of my stance a moment ago. “Emilia mentioned she’d hired someone new.”
“I’m sorry I was staring.” My words slip out on a hot rush of breath. “I’m not a creeper. Well, not usually.”
As my eyes strain to compose something photo-realistic from his backlit silhouette, an itchy sensation crawls down my spine. This boy is a stranger, but for a slippery moment I can see our lives intertwining, our darkest secrets and deepest fears laid bare in the still night air.
He grins, and just as suddenly, the itchy feeling is gone, and along with it my pseudo-psychic inklings. I’m clearly lonely, and maybe a little bored.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Windermere is something to behold. I’m Caden, by the way.” He sticks his hand through a scroll in the gate, and I take it in mine, forcing myself to behave like the friendly stranger I am. It’s warm and smooth, and he smells just slightly of sage and vanilla. Everything about him seems well cared for, in sharp contrast to the house in the background.
“I just got in on Monday,” I tell him. “I’m still getting to know the area.”
“After dark?”
I shrug. I can feel the darkness wrapped around my skin like a cloak. “There’s not a lot to do at night. I was restless.”
“Yeah, me too.” He gestures toward the lawn to my left, beyond my line of sight. “We used to have a koi pond. Now it’s mostly frogs and weeds. I was thinking about how I might clean it up.”
“After dark?” I throw the question back at him.
He laughs, a warm, easy sound that makes my skin flush beneath my hoodie. “I do my best thinking at night. Besides, I’m stuck here right now.”
“At home?”
“Yeah. My mom gets kind of freaked out when I leave Windermere at night.”
I can feel my eyebrows arch up my forehead, but Caden must not be able to see the face I’m making in the dark. A college boy with a curfew? I’ve been basically leashless in the city for as long as I can remember. I can’t fathom staying home at night to please my mother, even if home was on multiple acres.
“How old are you?” The words are out of my mouth before I can bite them back.
He laughs again, but it’s cooler this time. “Nineteen. My mom hasn’t been doing great. That’s why I’m home this summer.”
“Oh, sorry.” Now I feel like a jerk. “You’re at Yale?”
“Just finished my second year. Emilia tell you about me?”
“Tom gave me the Linden Lane tour when we were driving in.”
He grunts softly, and I strain to get a better look at his face, but he’s still backlit in the porch light. “You in school?” he asks.
“Just graduated. I start at SUNY New Paltz in the fall.”
He says something about liking the New Paltz area, how he has a friend studying theater there. He recommends a place to go hiking, and I make a mental note for September. I wonder for a moment if he’s going to open the gate, invite me inside. Maybe this is the start of something, or the sequel to a memory idling deep beneath the surface. But then a light blinks on on the third floor of the house, and a filmy shadow darkens the window. Caden turns to follow my gaze up, toward Windermere.
“I should go in,” he says, voice suddenly brisk.
I don’t want this conversation to be over. I haven’t gotten a chance to ask about his mom, what’s wrong with her, why he can’t leave. But I can see his body closing up, shoulders hunching inward, and I know it’s not the right time.
“It was nice meeting you?”
He’s already backing away from the gate. He gives me a small wave before he turns.
“See you around, Anna.”
* * *
Back in the guest cottage, I dig out my watercolor pencils from my bag. Sketchbook spread out on the bed, I draw a slender boy with light brown skin and a silver wristwatch. His arm and side are propped gracefully against a stone pillar crawling with vines, and one foot is crossed over the other where the pillar meets the drive. In my drawing, he’s turning to look at a brightly lit window in the house behind him, and his face is lost in shadow.
6 THEN
June
Herron Mills, NY
PAISLEY WANTS ICE CREAM. I raise my eyes from my bowl of granola and yogurt to peer at Emilia across the breakfast table, ready for her to tell her daughter she’ll have to wait until after dinner. But Emilia just nods and digs in her wallet for cash before slipping into her office and closing the door. While I load our dishes into the sink, Paisley chatters excitedly about Jenkins’ Creamery, the much-lauded shop on Main Street that has withstood the luxury brand takeover for two generations. In the few days I’ve been in town, I’ve already had it recommended to me three times. I insist we wait until eleven, when the shop opens, then we set off on foot, leaving Emilia to her client work and the midmorning sunshine that spills through the east-facing windows at the front of Clovelly Cottage like yards and yards of buttery gauze.
When we reach the end of the drive, Paisley tugs my hand, pulling me right, away from the shortest route to town.
“This way,” she insists. “It’s prettier.”
I let myself be dragged, momentarily mourning the fact that I won’t get to steal another glimpse of Windermere, possibly see Caden in daylight. Last night, he trailed me across a series of dreams I otherwise can’t remember, the features on his face shifting and rearranging into something out of Picasso’s cubist period. I can vividly see
the outline of his body, the way he turned to meet his mother’s gaze in the upstairs window. But his face is a mystery to me, an endless jumble of possibilities that won’t let my artist’s brain rest until I see him again.
I tell myself that’s all it is. The painter in me in need of artistic resolution.
Caden and Windermere quickly fade into birdsong and Paisley’s bright chatter as we walk the other way down Linden Lane, Paisley giving me her own version of a tour, which centers around which families have kids, how old they are, and who’s here and who’s renting out their house for the summer while they flit around Europe or Japan.
Pretty nice set of options. I press my lips between my teeth.
“Do you have friends on your street in Brooklyn?” Paisley asks.
“Sure, although we’ve moved a few times. When I was your age, I had two really good friends on our block, Krista and Jayla. Our parents called us Triple-A.”
Paisley wrinkles her nose at me, fine lines creasing her soft skin.
“Because our names all ended in A? Krista, Jayla, Anna?”
“It would be better if your names all started with A,” Paisley declares, then pulls me around the corner, off Linden Lane and onto a connecting street that will take us into town. Paisley clearly knows where she’s going, but I checked the route on my phone before we started, just in case. The streets here form a wide, irregular grid, spaced far apart to accommodate the properties in between, and even on this slightly longer route, we’ll make it to Jenkins’ by eleven fifteen. They’d better have coffee ice cream.
When we turn onto Main, I’m surprised by how busy the street seems for a Thursday morning. Shop doors open and close, and sidewalk café tables are filled as we pass, the empty peace of the residential streets replaced by a low-key bustle.
“Doesn’t anyone work around here?” I mutter, instantly regretting the twinge of contempt in my voice. Paisley responds with complete solemnity.
