When the waitress came by, I ordered them another round, and then, not wanting to be perceived as a creep trying to get two young women plastered, went to the bar and got myself another grapefruit soda. Even though I wasn’t drinking alcohol, something about the peculiarity of the afternoon made its edges blurry, and the longer I talked to Skye, the less I cared that Andie didn’t seem to want me there. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, more just the feeling—the feeling of being free and happy and alive for the first time in longer than I can remember. I swear, I could’ve been drunk.
Andie finally wandered off to call her boyfriend, some guy named Spencer, who I feel bad for, because after only a few hours of being in her presence I can already tell Andie is a Heather-esque handful.
Skye suggested we take a walk on the beach, and that’s when I felt it, the sureness that she didn’t have a boyfriend. The sureness that she was interested, that this spark between us was a shared thing.
Skye asked for the check and the waitress dropped the bill in front of me—me, of course, old man sugar daddy—and Andie had already left, and I swatted Skye’s hand away when she tried to lay down a credit card, because even I know that’s what you do when you’re interested in a woman. I’d paid for my mocktails separately, but six Aperol spritzes at Gurney’s—they’d each had one before I arrived—at twenty dollars a pop plus tax and tip comes out to $134.32. I dug my Visa out of my wallet, and my mind flashed to Heather and the kids, and I wished I could, for once, just not think of them.
I forced the credit card transaction out of my head as I followed Skye toward the ocean. It was just after five, that perfect wedge of time near the end of a beach day when the sun isn’t quite so strong, and a golden film is in the air. Skye and I chatted for another hour, maybe two, the ocean waves rumbling back and forth, back and forth, a sprinkling of humid mist along the shoreline. I watched Skye dig her heels into the sand and squish it between her toes. This feeling is amazing, you have to try it, she told me. The ocean is my favorite place in the world.
Todd is so right. Gurney’s is the place.
Skye’s blond hair flew in wisps around her rosy face, strands of light dancing against the darkening backdrop.
I grabbed her hand, soft as silk, and interlaced our fingers. We walked like that for a while longer until the sun dropped into the ocean—a neon glow lining the horizon, Aperol-spritz orange. Darkness crept up the shore and it was time to turn back—Skye and Andie had a dinner reservation in town. Text me tomorrow, Skye whispered before we separated, typing her number into my phone. Skye Starling is the newest addition to my address book. Skye Starling—can you believe that? What a beautiful, fitting name.
Today, Dr. K, the world made a little more sense.
Chapter Three
Heather
OCTOBER 1989
I met Libby Fontaine when I was sixteen, a junior at the high school in the tiny, forgotten town in far upstate New York where I’d lived all my life. I looked my best back then, but Libby looked better. Even her voice sounded pretty—buttery and feminine and articulate, never tripping over a single word, never a like or an um. She called me one morning in early October.
“Hi. Is this Heather?… My name is Libby Fontaine. I got your number from your sign at the general store. I have a four-year-old and a three-month-old, and I’m in desperate need of a sitter. We just moved here and I don’t know anybody. Do you have experience caring for infants?”
“Absolutely,” I stammered. It was mostly true—I’d spent enough time looking after Gus when he was a baby and my mom would disappear for eight-hour chunks. That was before she disappeared for good when Gus was two, so toddlers … toddlers I definitely had experience with.
But I was desperate for money, always, and the truth was, I’d forgotten about the babysitting sign I’d posted on a whim at the general store over the summer. As it turned out, nobody in the microscopic town of Langs Valley could afford a babysitter—people locked their kids in the house in front of cartoons whenever they needed to run out, as I should’ve known—and Libby Fontaine was the first person to respond to my ad.
“Perfect,” Libby said. “Amazing. You’re a godsend. What do you charge? Is twelve an hour okay? Fifteen? Fifteen sounds right. I know it’s two kids.”
I almost dropped the phone. “Fifteen works,” I replied in sheer shock. At my last gig—pulling the weeds out of Mrs. Lundy’s garden—my hourly wage was five dollars.
“Amazing,” Libby repeated. “Can you come today?”
“School’s out at three-thirteen. I can come then.”
Burke dropped me off that afternoon in his rusty Chevrolet pickup. He sucked the butt of his Marlboro Red before flicking it out the window, onto Libby’s spotless front yard.
“Burke.” I gave him a look.
“What, Bones?” He grinned, dimples appearing on either cheek, and pulled me in for a tobacco-flavored kiss.
I climbed out of the Chevy and walked toward the house, where a flaxen-haired young woman was standing behind the front screen door, arms folded. She’d been watching us, and I felt my cheeks burn crimson.
“Hi,” I managed, stepping up to the porch. “I’m sorry about that.”
She opened the door and walked past me, across the driveway to the place on the lawn where Burke had littered the butt. She picked it up. I knew I was bright red.
“Heather. Do you smoke?” She stood in front of me, tall and willowy.
“I don’t,” I lied.
“Who’s the guy?”
“My boyfriend, Burke.”
“I’m not a hard-ass, but I can’t have smoke around my kids.”
“I’m really sorry. I’ll try to drive myself next time, if the car’s available. Or I’ll have someone else drop me.”
“We can always pick you up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Fontaine.”
“Call me Libby.” She swung the screen door open, an invitation.
The house wasn’t big—no houses in Langs Valley are—but it was the nicest one I’d ever stepped inside. The wood floors were polished and all the furniture was white or a pale wood, and the walls were painted soothing hues of ivory and sea-foam green. My eyes lingered on a sterling-silver-framed photograph of Libby in a stunning white dress and lace veil next to a handsome man, their smiles bleached and radiant.
I cringe now, thinking about the way I must’ve looked to Libby that first afternoon—the epitome of white trash with my nose ring and diamond-studded jeans and ashy-blond hair.
“The playroom is back this way.” She smiled at me warmly, as if I didn’t look completely out of place in her idyllic home. Closer to her now, I studied the details of her face: impossibly high cheekbones, wide-set eyes the color of caramel, those thick, arching eyebrows. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and had only simple diamond studs in her ears. Back then I couldn’t have defined what it meant to be classically beautiful or well-bred, but I instantly knew Libby Fontaine was both of those things.
Libby led me through the refurbished kitchen and small dining area toward the back of the house. Glass vases of fresh flowers were on nearly every surface.