Last she knew of Russell he’d moved up to Bangor and was training to go into sales. Life insurance, or something equally necessary and staid. Life insurance! Russell Perkins, one of the best lobstermen Little Harbor had ever seen. It was outrageous. Must be that that hadn’t stuck, that he’d come back. The good ones always came back. They couldn’t really figure out any other way to live—they didn’t want to.
Eliza stood motionless, holding the phone. She wasn’t sure what to do next, call the children over to her, or go back to her bag, to start getting her things organized, or call Rob, who she knew was in the middle of a meeting with his client, the indomitable Mrs. Cabot.
Eliza was for a moment quite paralyzed. Fresh Bloody Marys had arrived at the table, and Deirdre brought one to Eliza, first putting it into her hand, and then closing Eliza’s fingers around the plastic cup. “You look like you saw a ghost,” said Deirdre.
“I did, sort of,” whispered Eliza. “Thank you, Deirdre.” Her father, who never needed anyone, needed her. Russell Perkins, who never called her, had called her. If she left in an hour she’d be in Little Harbor before sunset. Cue the Springsteen. There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away. Eliza tipped the cup back; she downed the whole drink in three gulps.
2
LITTLE HARBOR, MAINE
Eliza
Zoe had called Eliza twice when she was going through New Hampshire, where cell phone use while driving was not allowed. Then Zoe had texted her twice but Eliza had been disciplined and had not looked at her phone, thinking of a very effective campaign she’d recently seen in the supermarket that featured a driving texter failing to see two elderly people crossing the road.
The third time Zoe called Eliza was passing through Ellsworth. Three teens from Ellsworth had died on this road when Eliza was in high school—for the longest time there had been three wooden crosses there, adorned with flowers, teddy bears, bright strings of beads. Now Eliza slowed significantly on the curves, centering her car—Rob’s car; she’d left hers behind for kid-related reasons—exactly between the yellow lines and the edge of the road.
Once she had passed the danger zone outside of Ellsworth she called Zoe back. She listened to her for a while and then said, “Oh, sweetie.”
Jackie Rackley had started doing extremely enviable things with certain friends and posting the photos on Instagram and then tagging other girls who weren’t included. Just to hit them over the head with their un-includedness. (Zoe had had to explain this to Eliza twice.)
“All this happened in the last four hours? I’m perplexed. We were just with Jackie this afternoon.” Maybe, thought Eliza, most friendships had an element of treachery to them—grown-ups were just better at hiding it.
“No,” said Zoe. “The pictures were taken at different times. She’s just posting them now.”
“It’s okay to be upset,” said Eliza carefully. She had read that you were supposed to validate your kids’ shifting emotions as they were growing, so they would continue to confide in you.
“I’m not upset,” said Zoe. “I’m mad. She’s being a jerk.” If this had been Evie it would have been a waterworks show, but Zoe wasn’t crying. She never cried. She snarled. She snorted. She seethed. Sometimes she raged. But she didn’t cry. Even as a young child she’d borne insults and injury stoically, blinking hard and going internal. This was probably unhealthy, but Eliza didn’t know how to change it. You couldn’t force someone to cry, could you?
Even so. If Eliza could have, she would have turned the car around, driven back to Barton, parked in the Rackleys’ driveway, rung the doorbell, and unleashed a bucketful of venom on Jackie. For many obvious reasons, that wasn’t practical. But also. You had to be so careful with teenagers. Your children wanted you to save them. Or they didn’t want you involved at all. They wanted you to tell everyone. Or they’d die if you told anyone.
Because she was nearing Little Harbor, Eliza opted for a practical, efficient approach: “Do you want me to talk to her mother?”
“No! No, do not do that. You have to promise me you won’t do that.”
“I won’t,” said Eliza. “I promise. But you really can’t waste any mental energy on it. You’re a smart girl, you don’t need friends who would do something like that.”
“She’s not my friend,” Zoe snarled.
“Exactly!” said Eliza. “You know who your real friends are, and they don’t treat you this way.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that now everyone who follows me can see that I wasn’t included. And I can see that I wasn’t included. That’s the problem. It sucks.”
When Zoe was born and had finally stopped screaming like a fisher cat (she hadn’t had a problem crying that day) long enough for Eliza to breast-feed for the first time, the careworn nurse had said, “Here’s your daughter.” Ah, thought Eliza. Lovely. And then the nurse had said, “I’ve got four of them. Good luck!” Eliza had looked at her newborn little girl and thought, Maybe you needed the luck, Nurse Whoever-You-Are, but I have good sense on my side. Then, after some sustained effort, Zoe had latched on for her very first meal. She’d been so small and fragile (she’d been born almost four weeks early), Eliza had felt like she was holding a collection of raw eggs.
Eliza wanted to knock the teeth out of the world that had turned that trusting, slurping little thing into a girl left out of someone’s stupid Instagram post.
“Zoe, sweetie? I’ll call you soon. For now, go do something! Get your mind off of it. I promise Jackie Rackley isn’t worth an ounce of your anything.”
“What should I do?”
“Ride your bike!”
“You always say that. Riding your bike is your solution to everything.”
Eliza did always say that; she loved bike riding. “That’s because fresh air and exercise clear your head.”
“Fine,” said Zoe. “I’ll ride my bike.”
“Wear your helmet,” said Eliza, and at the exact same time Zoe said, “I know. Wear my helmet.”
“I’ll call you soon, little bunny. I love you.”
“I’m not a little bunny,” said Zoe. And then, maybe reluctantly but then again maybe not: “I love you too.”