She comes right out and confesses. “I got suspended.” Then she starts to cry.
Ramsay gathers her up again, shushes her, plants a kiss in the part of her hair. “I see growth,” he says. “Because six months ago, you would have treated getting suspended like no big deal, maybe even like a badge of honor. Now at least you know better.”
“Hello, Ramsay,” Harper says.
Ramsay releases Ainsley and extends a hand to Harper. “It’s still eerie to me,” he says. “You two look exactly alike.”
Ainsley wipes her face with a paper napkin, leans across the counter, and orders a chocolate frappé. “What would you like?” Ainsley asks Harper.
Harper eyes Ramsay’s plate. “Bag of chips,” she says. “I prefer salty to sweet.”
“That would have been a dead giveaway,” Ramsay says. “Tabitha loves her sweets.”
“When she eats,” Ainsley says.
“When she eats,” Ramsay concedes.
A yellow bag of Lay’s appears in Harper’s hands. “Don’t let us keep you from your lunch,” she says. She checks the clock; it’s four thirty. “Or your dinner.”
“Lunch,” Ramsay says. “I’ve been working too hard.”
“Aunt Harper and I are going to start working at the boutique,” Ainsley says. “Mary Jo is moving to Maryland, so we get to hire someone new.”
“Wow,” Ramsay says. “I was certain Mary Jo would meet her peaceful end while refolding folded sweaters.”
“Do you know anyone who’s looking for a job?” Harper asks.
“I do, actually,” Ramsay says. He adjusts his glasses. “Let me take your cell number.”
“Okay,” Harper says. She gives him the number, which he programs into his phone, then she wonders if it’s okay to have given her number to Tabitha’s ex-boyfriend. “Who should I be on the lookout for?”
Ramsay clears his throat. “Her name is Caylee,” he says. “Caylee Keohane. She was bartending at the Straight Wharf, but she lost her job last week. I know she’s pretty desperate for something else.”
“Lost her job? Why?” Harper says.
“Some jerk grabbed her ass, and she dumped a drink in his lap,” Ramsay says. “Management blamed her.”
“Wait a minute,” Ainsley says. “Is this the girl you’re dating?”
“Was,” Ramsay says. “We parted ways.” He gives Harper a look. “Ultimately, she was too young.”
“Have her call me,” Harper says. She wonders if she can possibly hire Ramsay’s ex-girlfriend to work at Tabitha’s boutique. The longer she stays here, the more trouble she gets in. She waves at Ramsay. “No promises, but send me her info and I’ll schedule an interview.”
It will be interesting, anyway, to meet the woman Ramsay chose to replace Tabitha.
“Maybe we can hang out some weekend,” Ramsay says. “You, me, and Ainsley. We could pack a picnic and go to the beach at Ram Pasture. Someone has to show you the island.”
“That’s a lovely offer,” Harper says. “But we have to work.”
“How about a week from Sunday?” Ramsay says. “The boutique will be closed. Day of rest and all that.”
“I don’t know,” Harper says.
“Please?” Ainsley says. “Let’s do it.”
“Don’t you want to hang out with your friends?” Harper asks.
Ainsley’s face darkens. “Not really.”
“Okay,” Harper says to Ramsay. “That sounds like fun. Thank you.”
On the way home, Ainsley sips her frappé in silence.
“I’m not sure about interviewing Ramsay’s ex-girlfriend,” Harper says. “Much less hiring her.”
“Do it,” Ainsley says. “Mom will flip. She was, like, so jealous when Ramsay started dating her. She’s young. Like, just a few years older than me.”
“What do you think about going to the beach with Ramsay next Sunday?” Harper says. “Is that something you want to do? We could blow him off and just go you and me and Fish instead. Fish is fun at the beach.”
“I want Ramsay to come,” Ainsley says. “Mom and I always went to the beach with Ramsay on Sundays before. I think I need some consistency in my life.”
Harper laughs, though she’s still not quite comfortable with the beach plans. When Harper and Tabitha were growing up, lots of people thought they were interchangeable. They looked exactly alike, so therefore they were exactly alike. But Ramsay isn’t that simple, is he? He realizes that Harper isn’t Tabitha, not at all. She has different proclivities and aversions, different passions, a different life philosophy. If he doesn’t realize it now, he’ll figure it out soon enough.
Harper is so consumed with these thoughts as they turn into the driveway and get out of the car that she doesn’t notice the front of the carriage house until Ainsley screams. And once Ainsley screams, Fish starts barking from inside.
The front door, the porch, and the flagstone walk have been bombarded with raw eggs, probably four or five dozen of them. In the hot sun, it smells like a sulfurous fart.
Harper nearly gags, but she holds herself in check in front of Ainsley.
Sadie, she thinks. Sadie has found her here. In blue sidewalk chalk on the flagstone, it says: YOU SUCK EGGS.
Ainsley sees it and squawks.
“Emma,” she says. “This was Emma. And Candace, too, maybe.”
Harper closes her eyes. Of course it wasn’t Sadie Zimmer. For the first time in her life, Harper understands what it feels like to be a parent: she wants to take every bullet; she wants to protect Ainsley from every insult and affront. Harper can handle an egging. But Ainsley races into the house, sobbing, her sparkling flip-flops crunching on the broken shells and sliding through the albumen slime.
Harper closes her eyes and sends a brief prayer for strength to the universe. Then the smell gets to her, and she vomits in the bushes.
At the beginning of the week, Harper interviews Caylee alone at a place called the Lemon Press on Centre Street, which Caylee suggested. The Lemon Press has Mocha Joe’s coffee and an organic menu. Harper doesn’t enjoy food that is aggressively healthy, but she has to admit that the offerings look delicious. Caylee has ordered an iced jasmine tea and an assortment of avocado toasts—some with radishes, some with heirloom tomatoes, some with hard-boiled egg. Unfortunately, at the sight of the egg, Harper feels queasy, hot, and dizzy. She orders a hot water with lemon.
Caylee is young—too young for Ramsay—and pretty in a wholesome way: long dark hair, big blue eyes, and a crooked nose that keeps her from being too beautiful. She has a tattoo of a pink ribbon on the inside of her wrist, and initially Harper thinks, Uh-oh, tattoo, but when Caylee sees Harper looking at it, she says, “I lost my mother to breast cancer three years ago.”
Harper feels herself misting up. “I just lost my father,” she says. “It’s hard.”