She must’ve read the disapproval on my face, because she gave me a slight smile, said, “He’s harmless, Leah. All bluster on the surface. You can see everything about him, plain as day.”
I knew not to argue after that, after her fiancé and the things she never said. Just the insistence that she didn’t want a phone or her name on the lease or any bill. She must’ve felt safer with a man like Jim, everything out there to see, rather than the way her ex had unexpectedly changed on her—the insidious way danger can sneak up from the inside of a person you thought you knew.
But that was Emmy, always flirting with disaster. It was why I saw her as the start of a story, something that could turn tragic.
I didn’t go to sleep until long after midnight. Couldn’t get the visions of Emmy out of my head—all the stories I’d told Kyle, like she was filling up the space around me. Her breath on the back of my neck, the bed now cold and empty without her. That time someone had stolen my wallet from my bag in an overpacked bar and she’d said, to ease my panic, “It’s just stuff, Leah. You’re still okay.” Words I repeated to myself even now. And when I’d calmed down, her hands on my shoulders, she’d smiled, counted down from three, and we’d skipped out on our tab.
I had just about drifted to sleep when I jerked awake from the sound of her voice, unable to tell whether it was from nearby or a dream. I was straddling that line, and I searched the house just to check. Called her name in a voice just above a whisper. Because in my semiconscious state, the word I’d heard was Leah.
After I’d finished checking the house, I saw a cruiser out front. I watched out the window with a glass of water in my hand, standing in the dark kitchen with nothing but the light from the open refrigerator, but I couldn’t tell who it was. I pretended not to notice him and climbed back into my bed. Had those half-sleeping dreams where everything felt too close to real and then too far away.
* * *
KATE TURNER KNOCKED ON my open classroom door Friday morning. Of all the teachers, she was probably closest to me in age. She was also new this year, having moved from out of town, and by all accounts we should’ve been friends from the start.
But she had done a better job assimilating, and our slide toward friendship had been slower, more halted. The one time we went out for lunch, back during orientation, we’d had very little to talk about. “Divorce,” she’d said as an explanation of what had brought her here.
Meanwhile, I was too busy sticking to my line, as a defensive maneuver. “Looking to make a difference,” I’d said, which shut down the conversation pretty quickly. I realized now what a transparent lie that had been. She had nodded agreeably, but that was the last honest piece of information she’d bothered sharing.
Now she was a sympathetic smile in the doorway. Maybe she had only wanted company to begin with, in her heartbreak. Now she could probably see the misery written clearly across my face. We had both picked up and moved to start over. She must’ve seen it on me that first lunch, perfectly obvious. Who the hell had I been trying to fool?
“Pretty rough week, huh,” she said. Pretending, for my benefit, that we had all come under the same scrutiny, were all shaken and fighting our way through.
I nodded, gathering everything up.
She leaned against the doorjamb, her dark curls brushing her shoulders. “I thought I’d only miss my ex—who was a real piece of shit, by the way—when I needed someone to reach the smoke detector batteries. But I can’t say I’m looking forward to going home by myself for another weekend, either.”
I wondered whether she was nervous. If she missed the protection of living with another person. “They’ve got cops watching the Cobb house,” I said. “He wouldn’t do anything.”
She shook her head. “Apparently, it might not have even been him to begin with.” She saw the look I gave her, changed her approach. “Well, either way, one woman who lived alone, fighting for her life in the hospital, is enough. I can’t keep my mind from going to the dark place.”
I didn’t know what she wanted me to say or if she was gearing up to tell me something.
“Anyway, I was hoping you’d be up for joining me for a drink.” And before I could object, she said, “I could really use a night out, with no pressure to flirt with random guys at the bar. Just to get out. What do you say?”
I could really use a night like that, too. Sitting home was full of waiting and unanswered questions, a constant fear. A day had passed, and I hadn’t heard from Kyle. Hadn’t heard if they’d picked up James Finley yet, or tracked down Emmy’s last-known whereabouts. “Yes,” I said. “I’m in.”
Her smile stretched wide, her shoulders dropping in relief. “How’s seven? Do you know the restaurant by the lake house?”
I did. It was the place Davis Cobb had taken me the first time. There was a bar on one wall, windows facing the lake on the other, booths and tables scattered throughout. The noise level was high, and the beer was cheap, and it was crowded enough to feel anonymous. It was also not too far from where I lived, which was a bonus. I hadn’t been back to it since.
“Okay,” I said. “Seven it is.”
* * *
BY SEVEN P.M., LAKESIDE Tavern was full, and it took me a while to spot Kate; then she stood from a booth on the other side of the bar and waved. I slid in across from her, recognizing but ignoring a few other people from school as I passed. The history teachers all out together, joined by what I assumed were a few of their significant others. An English teacher maybe out on a date. A few students I vaguely recognized, working as waiters and waitresses.
Rounds of laughter at the bar, music playing underneath, so I had to tip my head forward just to hear Kate. “Come here often?” I asked as she leaned across the table as well.
“Once or twice.” She smirked. “Only place in town where eligible bachelors seem to gather on a Friday night.”
I smiled. “And how’s that been going for you?”
She scrunched up her face, which made her seem about ten years younger than what I had guessed, mid-thirties or so. “It’s getting old. Really, it’s the same crowd each time. Kind of impossible around here to meet someone you haven’t met before.” She spoke as if this were something she’d lost—a feeling I recognized well.
“You from the city?” I asked.
Her face lit up. “Pittsburgh. You?”
“Boston,” I said.
She smiled, spread her hands on the tabletop. “Allow me to lay it all out for you, then.” She tipped her head toward the bar. “Here’s the breakdown tonight: Far end, too young. In the middle, already have dates. Over there, guys’ night. If you make a move on one, you gotta deal with the whole thing of it, know what I mean?”