The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(39)

He mutters about the electrical problem, something to do with frayed wires in the main breaker box, and takes the plates off several light switches and outlets, muttering some more. I follow him, standing in doorways as he tracks the trouble.

Finally, he heads back to the fuse box and closes it. He turns, not quite meeting my eyes. “I have to get some parts, but this is a pretty serious issue. The kitchen looks good, but don’t use anything in the bedroom and living room area until I get back.”

“I had the kitchen updated three or four years ago,” I say, crossing my arms. “I thought the rest had been done when I first bought the house in 2012.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” He shrugs back into his performance raincoat. Expensive. His boots, too, are high-end waterproof hiking gear. It’s hard to look directly at him, so I can only gather these details. He’s wearing old-school Levi’s with copper rivets. “Won’t take me long.”

“Okay.” I feel like there is something else I should say, something to fix the moment I pulled away, but I can’t think what that would be, and he simply goes out the same door he came in. Winded, oddly on the edge of tears, I sink down on the banquette and pick up my phone to text Phoebe:

Did you know Joel was back in town??????????

Yes. I thought I told you. He’s been back a few years now. Longer than me.

What???? Was he here during the pandemic?

No, I think he was in Salem taking care of his mother. I don’t really talk to him. We’re not friends or anything.

Why not?

No reason, really. Our paths don’t cross.

I hold the phone in my hand, a thousand memories tumbling through my mind. Joel and I met the first day of seventh grade, both outcasts and outsiders. I think of that boy, with his brutal acne and hunched shoulders, hiding his face behind a fall of thick black hair. I think of the Joel he grew into by the time we started high school, tall and lean and way too good-looking, still my main person after Phoebe, or maybe equal to her.

I text: Did you know he would be the electrician who showed up?

No! OMG!

I told Phoebe everything back then, but she doesn’t know the truth about Joel, that he and I were deeply in love for over two years. We kept it to ourselves, all through ninth and tenth grades, even though it irked Joel a lot.

But she struggled with friends and boyfriends. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She had a gigantic crush on him for literally years. He was safe, the boy who lived in Blue Cove. She’d kissed him a few times, even though he was my friend first.

The first betrayal, hers.

The second was mine, because I kept the truth from her: that I loved him, and he loved me back, and we have some pretty heavy history. She knows that he burned the church down, and I always thought she’d put the rest of the pieces together, but somehow she never has.

Even I can see it’s stupid to keep this secret after so long. I saw the mistake by the time she and I were twenty, but by then, I’d hidden some of the most important parts of my pain from her, and she was struggling enough in art school and with her longing to be an artist, and then I landed the part and my life took off and it was all unequal, and she married Derek and—

The time was never right.

The facts are so simple. I could blurt them out in a single paragraph. I could say, Phoebe, Joel and I fell in love at the start of ninth grade and we had a serious relationship and the baby you think was Victor’s belonged to Joel. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d be mad and you were so lost yourself.

A pain that never really goes away has risen in my gut, where it mixes with other traumas, other times, other things. I feel the blow to the back of my head, hitting the earth, tasting dirt—

My father grabs my hair, roaring—

I stand up, open the patio door to let in the cool air, take in deep lungfuls. I told Phoebe I was going to call my therapist, and it’s important, but I hold the phone in my palm, feeling texts buzz and buzz and buzz again.

From Phoebe:

Suze? Was it weird?

Suze, you okay?

Are you all right?

The air fills my head, my lungs, settles me. On top of the Starfish Queen, which is what we always called the regal middle rock, birds touch down and take flight, bringing food to others, keeping watch for hawks.

I text: I’m okay. Sorry. Got distracted. My nerves are pretty raw.

I bet. You want us to bring Yul Brynner back?

Some small part of me had been maybe hoping to go back down there tonight, but that’s foolish. I live here. I can’t go live at my friend’s house, even if I did when I was a teenager, though it wasn’t her house then. It was Beryl’s.

Sure. Joel had to go get some parts, so I have to stay here.

Jasmine wants to come over anyway. She loves that house as much as we did.

She sounds so friendly. It breaks my heart, because the whole reason I came back is to work out all the things between us, to finally tell her the truth. But instinctively, I know that the fight that ostensibly wounded our trust in each other was nothing compared to this secret, the secret I’ve kept for decades.

What would Beryl do? I wonder.

I’ll put the kettle on.





Chapter Thirteen


Phoebe


Jasmine and I load Yul Brynner into his carrier and drive him up the hill. Maui insists he needs to be included, which makes for a crowded cab. I feel weirdly happy and keep forgetting why, and then I hear Ben’s voice again, asking me out.