But there was nothing comforting about sitting alone at the bar in Elm Park. At least half of the other patrons were looking at me—some openly staring, some sneaking what they thought were stealthy glances over mugs of beer. I could almost hear them whispering to each other. That’s Josie Buhrman. You remember, her father was murdered and her mother was crazy? And her sister? That hell-raiser? And there’s that podcast, you know the one. Just look at her. What did she do, cut that hair with a hacksaw? What a mess. Guess it runs in the family.
My cheeks flaming with embarrassment, I ducked my head and glared into my drink. I hated that my short hair allowed those vultures a clear view of my reddening neck. I had lowered my head nearly down onto the bar when I felt the uneasy sensation of all eyes lifting off me at once. I braved glancing up to see what had captured their collective interest.
Adam.
Last Call’s dim lighting softened and blurred the lines of his face, and for a second he looked eighteen again. My heart instinctually and traitorously clutched, but then the neon light of a beer sign reflected off his wedding band and brought me back to reality. He glanced around the bar, and our eyes locked. The spot on my left hip, where I had drunkenly had his name poorly tattooed by a Flemish-speaking tattoo “artist” in the back room of a bar in Brussels—and later covered with an elaborate floral design by a more reputable, actual artist in Athens—burned. Reflexively, I placed my hand on my hip, as though Adam could see through the clothing and the expensive cover-up job and read his name on my body. He didn’t deserve to know I had once been so heartsick over him. I was no longer that girl, and he was no longer the boy I had once loved.
I met Adam Ives on my first day at Elm Park High School. I had been both immensely excited and blindingly terrified about transferring to public school. Nearly everything I knew about public school I had learned from television; Ellen had filled in the gaps with her own dogma. Aunt A had chastised Ellen for putting “conformist ideas about beauty and classist notions of popularity” into our heads, but the damage (as it was) had already been done. I knew other students were people to fear, and to impress, even though I didn’t understand why or how they would humiliate me.
“Break a leg.” Ellen smiled, depositing me in the doorway of my first class.
“Wait,” I hissed, clutching her as she turned to leave. “What do I do now? Just go in and find a seat? Do I need to tell the teacher I’m here?”
“Just sit in one of the empty seats. Try to avoid the ones in the front row or the very back. And,” she added, surveying the classroom with her sharp hazel eyes, “don’t sit next to that guy in the blue shirt.”
“Why not?”
Ellen shrugged. “Because he’s a douche bag. Just avoid him, okay?”
“What’s a douche bag?”
Ellen stifled a giggle. “And keep your mouth shut.”
As I nodded my agreement, Adam brushed past us on his way into the same classroom.
“Hey, Ives,” Ellen said, grabbing him by the arm. “This is my cousin Josie. She’s new here. Look after her, all right?”
Adam’s caramel-colored eyes sparkled as he smiled at me, and a liquid warmth oozed through my body. Later, I would attribute the sensation to love at first sight; later still, I would dismiss it as hormones. Adam embodied the same easy confidence as Ellen, a self-possession that I coveted. As he steered me into a seat beside him, he reviewed my schedule and discovered we had three classes together; he then proceeded to walk me to each of these classes, as well as my others.
“You don’t have to do this,” I told him. “This school isn’t that big. I can find my own way.”
“Come on,” he said with a mock groan. “Can’t you just let a guy be chivalrous?”
“That’s an eighteen-point word,” I said, impressed.
Adam’s cheeks flushed endearingly. “I play a lot of Scrabble. My dad says it will help me on the SAT.”
“I was homeschooled,” I told him. “Sometimes, Scrabble was our vocabulary lesson.”
That afternoon, after the final bell had rung, I was putting my books in my locker and trying to remember where Ellen had said to meet when Adam sauntered up. He leaned against the locker beside mine and grinned, all nonchalance and shiny white teeth.
“Looks like you survived your first day.”
“I did.” I smiled. “And you know what? I think I’m getting the hang of this school thing.”
“Awesome. So, listen, Josie, some of us are going to the movies on Friday. Think you might want to come? Should be cool.”
Not trusting myself to speak without squealing, I nodded.
“Or,” he added with a teasing laugh, “we could stay in and play Scrabble.”
I burst out laughing. “Tempting. But let’s go to the movies.”
Later, on the car ride home, I said, “I think Adam Ives asked me out on a date.”
Ellen shrugged. “You could do worse.”
“That sounds fun, Josie,” Aunt A said, flashing me a smile in the rearview mirror.
I looked to Lanie for her reaction, but she was glaring out the window, her mouth set in a determined scowl.
“Hey,” Adam said, dropping onto the barstool Ellen had vacated.
The casualness of his greeting infuriated me, and I snapped, “Are you kidding me? Just ‘hey’? Like nothing has changed?”
Adam closed his eyes and shook his head. “Josie, everything has changed.”
“No kidding.”
Adam sighed and flagged down the bartender. “Can I get a Diet Coke? No, wait, on second thought, can I get the IPA on tap?”
“Drinking in the middle of the day? Looks like my sister is a bad influence on you.”
Adam opened his mouth to say something and then appeared to think better of it. He shrugged and said, “At least I’m not drinking alone in the middle of the day.”
“Touché. But I didn’t start alone. Ellen got called away by her husband. What’s your excuse?”
“Strangely enough, also Ellen,” Adam said with a small chuckle. “I had lunch down the street with a client, and saw Ellen on the way back to my car. I wasn’t in the mood for one of your cousin’s famous lectures, so I ducked in here to hide.”
“Fate,” I said drily.
“I don’t believe in fate,” he said, taking a sip of his beer.
“Me neither.”
We both had, though, once. We had taken the similarities in our schedules as an omen, we had marveled at the way our hands seemed to fit perfectly together, and we had proclaimed each other soul mates. In the aftermath of my father’s death and my mother’s complete breakdown, I had so desperately wanted to believe in something, some grand design, that I had clung to Adam as proof that the universe was something other than cruel and random. That, of course, had been a mistake.
“How you holding up, Josie? Honestly?”
“Well, I’m drinking in the middle of the day.”
“We’ve established that.” He tipped his beer in my direction. “But at least you’re not doing it alone anymore.”
“Your wife threw a casserole dish at my head,” I added, my voice catching on the word wife.
Adam looked startled. “What? When?”
“About thirty minutes ago.”
“What happened?”
I looked into Adam’s expectant face, at its familiar lines, the way he always tugged his right eyebrow up higher than the other when he was concerned, and reminded myself that he was no longer my confidant. I couldn’t tell him about the questions the podcast had raised for me.
“Sister stuff.” I shrugged.