Ben closed his eyes and tried to imagine the girls who bathed in the sun bathing in moonlight. Catching sight, maybe, of something in the water. Something worth leaning too far over to see. That got Ben to wondering in what order they fell. It made sense to Ben, now that he thought about it, that Francesca and Mira would have reached for each other. According to Kyle, the girls had been in the water for at least six hours, because the blotches on their skin had joined up. Ben opened his eyes and counted on his fingers, from 11:00 p.m. to 5:44 a.m.
The girls must have been quick. Quick to get there, quick to line up, quick to place the rocks that were found in their sweater pockets. Quick to fall off the high ledge into the black water, one after the other.
Not one after the other exactly. If it had been an accident, they would have tried to save each other. They would have done that.
Fingers snarled in wool.
Francesca first, then Mira.
Mira first, then Francesca.
Ben shuddered. Though he knew it was wrong, he preferred to think of them falling at the same time, holding hands. Because, by the start of the summer, they had sealed themselves together and off from the rest of the world.
Ben used two fingers to enlarge the image on his phone, but it blurred into meaningless pixels.
PART 1
Palm
AUGUST 2016
Mira’s letter arrived seven days after she died.
Mira. Was. Alive.
The idea hit Ben like a punch to the throat. It grew into a vibrating, ludicrous shiver of hope that he’d seen another girl’s body in Kyle’s photo. A different beauty with long arms and gold-flecked eyes and a perfectly straight back, another girl had fallen alongside Francesca. Not Mira.
But: the swell of a thigh. He knew that swell tanned in white shorts. He knew it peeking from under the hem of a skirt, sitting at her desk in English, toes curled under, leaning forward. He knew it taut, lying on her back on a towel at the club and the quarry, one knee up.
Of course Mira was dead.
Ben studied the envelope, wondering if it was a sick joke. But there was the handwriting. Benvenuto Lattanzi, 20 Springvale Street, spelled out in purple ink on a long white generic business envelope, stained where it had passed through hands. Mira had put the letter through a convoluted dance to be delivered next door, a dance that made little sense until you realized that arriving too late was the whole idea. A deliberate misspelling of Springdale Street that kept the envelope circulating around the city. That was like Mira: resourceful. Good at sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet Ben.
Good at sneaking out in the middle of the night to die.
Ben moaned. He pressed the curve of his fist into his mouth.
“Ben?” his mother called from her bedroom, her voice threaded with worry.
Overhead, his mother’s footsteps quickened. Ben’s head snapped. He pulled himself together fast and tore open the envelope, extracting the letter. It fluttered as his hand shook. More of Mira’s handwriting, but the words wouldn’t come together, and Ben felt like he was reading Spanish, which he sucked at, as if Mira’s sentence was a string of cognates at which to guess. Sweat prickled under his arms. He rubbed his forehead with his wrist and held the letter close, his eyes skittering over the words. Finally, the words decoded themselves.
Everyone wanted to touch us. Including you.
So remember the seven places you touched me.
That’s where you’ll find the truth. In my words.
Start at the beginning.
Ben wiped sweat from his eyes. Mira had left him something. Mira had left him her words. Letters, notes. Something. Where?
Remember the places you touched me.
A whole summer had passed since Mira broke contact with him, after Connie’s wake, days after Easter. But Ben remembered those places. Places where Mira had let him stroke, brush, caress, graze, kiss, nuzzle.
Stay.
He couldn’t go there, not now.
She had done things with him in those places, innocent things, then more. The parts of Mira that Ben had touched were etched on his soul.
Palm. Hair. Chest. Cheek. Lips. Throat.
Then—
Not now.
Ben shook it off. Mira had given him a puzzle, one that Ben could solve, that would give him answers for the holes that haunted him, the parts of Mira’s life between what he saw from his bedroom window and the diluted version he got when they were among friends. For Ben had spent endless hours wondering about the pretty mysteries of Mira’s life that seemed far away, but were playing out right next door. Ben drifted again to a place he knew he shouldn’t go, and the shame and pleasure was awful.
A creak above. He stuffed Mira’s letter in the back waistband of his shorts and looked up as his mother flew down the stairs, slowing at the bottom, attempting to model normalcy. She’d had practice at remaining calm when evil intruded into their lives. Specifically, when it targeted her son. Ben imagined her pacing upstairs moments before, whispering “You’ve got this” to herself, over and over.
“I heard a strange noise,” she said, her hand reaching toward his face, then pulling back. “Are you all right?”
It was like she thought death was contagious. Ben had considered the possibility. First Mrs. Cillo died (ten years back, and Ben barely remembered her); then the Cillos’ cousin, Connie Villela, in March; and now the Cillo girls. Was death a germ you could catch, like Mrs. Cillo’s depression, and Connie’s deadly allergy, and the girls with their … what?
Nothing.
Maybe he should call in sick. This would be the fourth day he hadn’t gone in to work, and the clubhouse manager had sent word that he was considering replacing him. Ben had been saving his paychecks to get Mira out of Bismuth. The timing worked. If he showed up five days a week for the rest of the summer, the $232.80 in his bank account would grow to $500.00. It was the half grand he needed to buy his father’s failing BMW. His father had been on his side since he’d turned sixteen—he was eyeing a new convertible—but that could change with weak grades or another roach and a vial of Visine found in a dirty pants pocket. Mira hadn’t known the plan, but she had only needed to say the word, and they would have left Bismuth for foreign highways. Getting out of Bismuth had become an obsession nearly as great as Mira herself.
Ben rammed his nose with the heel of his hand. He hadn’t realized he was crying.
“Oh, Ben,” his mother said softly, producing a tissue. “Maybe it’s too soon to go back to work.” She had been “giving space” and “being available”—the things suggested by her friends, who no doubt wished more than anything that this awful story would go away and they could get on with their tennis and low-glycemic diets.
Start at the beginning.
“Can you take me to the boat club right now?” Ben begged.
His mother searched his face while Ben took in the sight of her. Her unwashed hair fell in finger-combed rows. One freckled breastbone pointed out of a graying tank. The ends of her eyes drew downward into the soft wince that accompanied the subject of the Cillos. Another person might translate the wince into empathy for the Cillos, but Ben knew better. His father’s historic falling-out with Mr. Cillo had been brutal. The intervening years with a scant eight feet between their houses had been strained. Mr. Cillo’s daughters dying? That was plain awkward.