by Kit Frick
I attempt to shine my flashlight on the ground in front of me with one hand and text with the other. It’s slow going, but the distraction from my intensely awkward evening with Caden is welcome. We basically didn’t talk through the whole movie, some B horror flick from the eighties. And then I left as soon as it was over.
Painful how?
The three dots hover while Martina types.
It’s not just a listing. You have to search by combinations of at least three letters. Then I’m typing names of the female students who come up into Google and running an image search to see if any match Ida’s. Who’s obviously not really Ida.
Crap, I’m sorry.
Did you know A names are the most common? I might switch to U or X soon.
There must be computers at the library, right? I could go after work tomorrow and help.
Library closes at 4, but thanks. I sent a couple of the Ida photos to my friend’s sister. She’s a sophomore at Yale. She didn’t recognize her, but she’ll ask around discreetly.
Are you sure Ida’s a Yale student?
No. But it’s our most likely bet. She’s definitely not from around here, and where else was Caden spending all his time?
She could be a local from New Haven.
Let’s hope she’s not. Then we’re really screwed. I’ve already checked out her Gmail account. It’s registered to Ida B. Wells, naturally. So, dead end there.
Right. Thanks, Martina.
Sure, I’ll keep you posted.
I cross the lawn to the pool house and step inside. My shoulders unclench the moment the door slides shut behind me. I didn’t realize how tense I was. I flop down on my bed and try to make sense of tonight. The glassed-in pool is part of Zoe’s house. That was probably Zoe’s house I was standing in front of the other night. It was on a street called Crescent Circle, but I can’t remember the exact address. I should have written it down.
I grab my phone. It only takes a minute of searching online to confirm my suspicions: Forty-Five Crescent Circle belongs to George and Joan Spanos.
Maybe I saw the pool in a magazine spread, but I seriously doubt it. It was a memory. Somehow, I’ve been there before.
With Zoe.
22 THEN
July
Herron Mills, NY
“THREE CALLS IN two weeks? Is something wrong?”
I can hear myself inwardly groan. I can’t win. I’m either calling my mom not enough or too much. But today’s call isn’t just a mother-daughter check-in. Today’s call has a specific purpose.
“This a bad time?” I ask.
“Of course not, sweetie. What’s up?”
“I need to ask you about Herron Mills.”
There’s a long pause on Mom’s end of the line.
“There are these things I remember,” I press on. “Like, the first week I was out here, I could swear I’d been to this exact beach before. It’s not like the city beaches; it’s narrow but really nice? And there’s an ice-cream shop with an elaborate chalkboard menu.” As I tick off my eerie moments of nostalgia, even I have to admit, they sound a little thin.
“Anna.”
“And I remembered this glassed-in pool. …”
“Anna,” Mom repeats. “That sounds a lot like Stone Harbor.”
I stop. “Where?”
“Stone Harbor? It’s on the Jersey shore. When your dad and I were together, we used to take you on trips there in the summer. There was a really nice beach. And you loved the ice-cream shop. The hotel where we stayed, it had an indoor pool.”
“With vines and stuff?” My heart sinks a little in my chest.
“There were planters, yes. Lots of vines and flowers. You called it ‘the tropical rain forest’; I don’t know how you even knew what a rain forest looked like.” My heart sinks a little deeper.
“And we never came here? To Herron Mills?”
Mom’s snort is so loud I almost pull the phone away from my ear.
“To the Hamptons? Lord, no. Your father was far too cheap for that.”
* * *
Paisley and I spend Tuesday morning at Parrish Lake, our second trip there since Caden clued me in to its shade. In the afternoon, I promise Paisley ice cream if she’ll hang out with me at the library for a couple hours. Turns out, she loves the children’s room, so it’s a win-win.
I spend the first few minutes poking around the Yale student directory, randomly searching the Rs, figuring Martina probably hasn’t gotten that far in the alphabet yet. She was right; it’s a giant pain. You have to enter combinations of at least three letters to pull up anyone’s directory listing, so I start with Raa, then Rab, then Rac, and so on. Muriel Raab. Rabia Sadik. Rachel Paulson. Then transfer the names over to Google, run an image search, look for anyone who looks like “Ida” from the photos. I give up pretty fast.
That’s not the reason I’m here anyway. I close out of the Yale directory and type a new name into Google:
John R. Cicconi. My father.
The same old results come up; this is not a new game. But it’s been a while since I tried to find him. When I went into high school, I made myself a promise: No more moping around about the father who clearly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me. No more fantasizing about the day he’ll come home, all rich and handsome, and sweep Mom and me away to a nice house in the suburbs. No more fantasizing he’ll come back at all.
But for the first time in years, I feel the burning need to talk to him. I just want him to back Mom up, to hear him say, You’re remembering Stone Harbor. It’s still vivid for you because those were the last good times we had together as a family. You’re searching for that link, and you’re just a little mixed up. I can hear his rough, soft voice in my ear. The voice I haven’t heard in years. I can see it: the two beach towns shifting and merging in my memory. That would explain a lot. But it doesn’t explain my precise memory of the glassed-in pool, the way Caden was sure it was Zoe’s house I was describing. How when I think about that pool, it’s Zoe and Kaylee I see.
It doesn’t matter, though. Google turns up nothing new, nothing that might point me toward where he’s living now, what he’s been up to for the last twelve years. Mom either doesn’t know or wishes she doesn’t. She firmly refuses to talk about him. If I had a city, or even a state, I might be able to track him down. But I have no idea. My father stopped wanting to be my father a long time ago. He doesn’t want to be found.
I’m out the library doors and halfway to the sidewalk before I remember Paisley’s still reading inside.
That night, Martina texts me.
News, but I’m working until 10. Meet me in front of the shop?
When I walk up at a few minutes of, Martina’s inside, placing chairs on top of tables. The blond girl from before waves goodbye and pushes through the door.
“We’re closed,” she says when she sees me perched on a bench out front.
“Just waiting for Martina.”
She nods, then unlocks her car and slips inside.
A few minutes later, Martina’s sitting next to me, grinning.
“I found her,” she says. “Tiana Percy, Yale rising senior. She’s one year ahead of Caden.” She holds out her phone, and I scroll through the public photos of Tiana. It’s definitely the same girl.
“How’d you find her?”
“My friend’s sister’s friend recognized her from around campus. She couldn’t remember her last name, but once I could search for Tiana in the directory, I found her pretty fast. But the only thing I could find connecting her to Caden was a group photo from the African American Studies Department’s website.” She takes her phone back and pulls it up.
I hold the screen close and squint down at the group shot, a bunch of students gathered behind a seminar table and smiling. “They’re not even standing together.”
“No, but it proves they know each other. Tiana Percy is our Ida.”
“Okay.” I hand Martina’s phone back. “But where do we go from here?”
“Think she’ll bite?”
Martina shrugs. “It’s only been a few hours. My school account’s Martina Jenkins, not Martina Green, and I am the EIC of my high school paper. She wouldn’t connect me to the podcast unless she really does her research.”
“And if she does?”
“Then I’ll keep digging on my own. See what else I can turn up.”
“Thanks, Martina.” I shove my hands in my hoodie pockets. Despite how hot it’s been during the day, it’s cool at night close to the water.
A pair of headlights flash momentarily, then dim as a car pulls into the space on the street in front of us. Martina stands and gives the driver a wave.
“That’s my ride.” She slides her phone into her dress pocket.
“Hey, Martina?” I ask, standing up too. “I know you’ve got lots of friends here already, but to be honest, Caden’s the only person I’m really friendly with, and …”
“Things are a touch weird right now?”
“To say the least. I don’t want to be a third wheel, but if you and Aster ever want to do something in the evenings, I’m free after dinner.”
“Sure.” Martina grins. “We’re hanging out on Friday. You should come along. I’ll text you when I know the plan.”
“That would be great.” As Martina rounds the car to the passenger’s side, I smile wide and make a silent wish that plan involves hanging out at Aster’s. I need to get inside those walls. See the pool for myself.
Alone again on the bench in front of the closed shop, silence settles all around me. Up the block, an awning rustles. One car drives by. It’s never this quiet in the city. It’s almost oppressive. You are alone. You are alone. I open up Messenger, and my unanswered notes to Starr glare up at me. I type out one more.
Did you know I’m in the Hamptons for the summer? Do you even care?
23 THEN
July
Herron Mills, NY
IT’S POURING ON Friday, so we eat dinner in the Bellamys’ dining room instead of out on the pool deck. Mary’s stretched beyond her typical Mediterranean repertoire, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t what pad thai is supposed to taste like, but I eat it anyway to be polite. Tom seems distracted, constantly checking his phone, so I don’t feel too bad checking mine when Martina texts with an offer to hang out at Aster’s tonight.
Bring your swimsuit. There’s an indoor pool; it’s fun in the rain.
It’s almost too perfect. I can’t keep the grin off my face.
“Plans tonight?” Emilia asks.
“Oh, sorry.” I tuck my phone away. “Yeah. Yes. I’m meeting up with a couple girls from town, Martina and Aster.”
“Aster Spanos?” Tom asks, joining the dinner conversation for the first time tonight. He sets his phone down on the table.
“I introduced them,” Paisley says. She turns to me. “I can’t believe you’re hanging out without me!” She’s teasing, but maybe also a little hurt.
Emilia laughs and says something about the unfairness of childhood. She’s talking to Paisley, but her eyes stay trained on me. The back of my neck itches.
“Please give Joan my best,” she says softly when Paisley has excused herself to watch TV inside and Tom is on his phone again. Her voice is tight, and I know I’ve stepped into something best avoided. I promise to say “hi,” even though I know I won’t.
* * *
At seven fifteen, Martina’s mom’s car is pulled up outside the Clovelly Cottage gates, and I’m hurrying down the drive, umbrella barely putting up a fight against the steady, lukewarm downpour. I slide into the backseat and try not to create a puddle on the floor of their nice car.
Martina’s mom, a quiet woman who keeps the soundtrack of soft instrumental music at a barely discernible volume and drives at two miles below the speed limit, drops us off with instructions to call her for a ride back no later than ten thirty.
Outside the car, my breath catches. We’re standing in front of the house from the other night, just like I knew we would be. The internet may have already confirmed the address, but being here again makes it feel that much more real. I know this place.
Martina punches in the security code and beckons me to follow. “She never lets me borrow the car,” she complains as we make our way up the driveway. “It would be so much easier, but she’s a total control freak.”
We had a car until last fall, when it unceremoniously died on us after fourteen years and over two hundred thousand miles. Just in time for me to get my license. Mom wants to replace it, but she hasn’t saved up enough yet. For a few short months, though, I had wheels. I used to drive that little junker five blocks to Kaylee’s even though I could walk faster than I could park it, just because I could. Parents out here are so involved.
As we near the Spanoses’ front door, I try to take in every detail through the waning light and still-pouring rain. The house—Maple Grove, Martina tells me, for the many maple trees surrounding the back of the property—is modern and huge, like a lot of homes out here. One minute it’s familiar, the next it’s a trick of the light. We step onto the porch, below the overhang, and take down our umbrellas.
“You didn’t tell her anything, right?” I whisper to Martina. “About Tiana Percy?” Again I wonder what Tiana might be capable of. What she might have done to make Zoe go away …
“Not a thing,” Martina whispers back, touching the pad of her thumb and index finger together and running them across her lips like a zipper. “It’s a little weird keeping it hidden, but there’s no point in upsetting them yet, not until we find out more.”
Aster greets us at the door wearing a red and teal sarong. A little white dog runs circles around her feet.
“This is Julia Child,” she says. “Zoe named her.”
I squat down to offer Julia Child my hand to sniff, but she completes her laps around Aster and runs off into the back of the house without even acknowledging my presence.
“She’s nine and still a total energy ball,” Aster says. “Don’t take it personally.”
We make our way through the house and into the kitchen, and to my disappointment or relief, nothing looks particularly familiar. It’s a nice house with nice stuff, but there are no chilly tendrils of memory reaching out to grab me like the other night. The possibility that I was just confusing Herron Mills and my recent deep dive into Zoe’s life with some memories of childhood vacations dances at the back of my mind.
In the kitchen, Aster and Martina flutter around collecting cups, straws, and a pitcher of something that looks like lemonade. I’m instructed to grab a tote bag filled with snacks, and then we head through a large red-stone archway connecting the kitchen to an airy breakfast nook, which then leads out to the pool. When we step through the sliding glass doors, I stop doubting myself. I may not have Kaylee’s steel trap memory, but the pool is unmistakable.
I press my lips between my teeth and try to keep the mix of shock and validation off my face. Maybe there was a similar glassed-in pool at the hotel in Stone Harbor. But this is the pool that’s been tugging at the edges of my memory, telling me to pay attention.
I’m so focused on keeping my expression neutral that I don’t realize I’ve stopped walking. My feet are glued to the terra-cotta tiles, my eyes roving all around, taking in the lush vines, the pink and orange and yellow blooms, the delicate waterfall—all the details I knew I’d find. The dog scampers in through the sliding glass doors and brushes past my legs in a blur of white, yapping at something only she can see in the air in front of her.
“What’s out there, Belle?” I squat down and extend my hand toward her again.
Aster turns slowly to face me. “What did you call her?”
Choosing that moment to acknowledge my existence, the dog nuzzles her little pink and white sn
out into my hand. I look up. “Um. Julia Child, right?”
“Right,” she says, face tilted slightly to the side. “I thought …”
Aster trails off, and Martina clears her throat, saving us from the awkwardness. “Pretty amazing, right?” She gestures with her chin around the space.
“It’s gorgeous,” I say, straightening up. “I thought the Bellamys’ pool was impressive, but this is something else. …”
“My dad’s in landscaping,” Aster says. She’s slipped out of her sarong and stands at a glass-topped table in a black tankini, filling three plastic, pineapple-shaped cups from the lemonade pitcher. I force my legs to work again, to carry me over to where she’s standing so I can unload the snacks onto the table. Martina slips her dress over her head, revealing a blue and white polka dot one-piece with a little skirt that’s either actually vintage or styled to look that way.
“He worked with another architect who specializes in glass to design the pool when we moved in,” Aster continues. “I’m sure he’ll find his way down here at some point tonight. He’ll talk your ear off about it if you let him. Lemon Spritz?”
She holds a pineapple cup out toward me, and I accept.
“It’s a mocktail,” Martina clarifies before I can place the pink-and-white paper straw between my lips. “So don’t get too excited.”
“I don’t really drink,” I say. “Or I’m trying not to. So this is perfect.”
We walk over to the lounge chairs at the edge of the pool and settle in. “This pool is like something out of a magazine,” I say, fishing.
Aster laughs. “Well, between landscape architect Dad and magazine editor Mom, you could say they’re a little obsessed with aesthetics.”
“Did her magazine ever run a profile?” I ask.
