“She was here a minute ago,” Caroline said. “Addie! Where’d you go, sweetheart?” They went up and down the aisles, looking high and low among the stocked shelves. The store seemed no different from decades ago. They passed bins of candy and bags of marshmallows for s’mores. There were fishing supplies in abundance and a noisy chest freezer filled with bait and ice cream treats. Boxes of soup mix and Willapa Bay oyster breading and fish fry. A sign designating goods from local vendors—kettle corn, bread, eggs from Seaside Farm, milk from Smith’s Dairy. Caroline’s mother used to send her or one of her siblings to the Bait & Switch for supplies—bread, peanut butter, toilet paper, cupcake tins … With five kids in the house, they were always running out of something.
She made her way methodically along each aisle. She checked the restroom—twice. The indolent clerk pitched in, poking around the supply room in the back, to no avail.
Good God. Good fucking God, she’d only been in charge of these kids for a week and she’d already lost one of them. They had come from the urban pile of Hell’s Kitchen back in New York City, yet here in what had to be the smallest town in America, Addie had gone missing.
Caroline unzipped her pocket and fumbled for her phone. No signal. No goddamn signal.
“I need your phone,” she said, grabbing the clerk’s from the counter. “I’m calling 911.”
The guy shrugged. At the same time, Will stuck his head in the door. “Found her.”
Caroline’s legs nearly gave out. She set down the phone. “Where is she? Is she all right?”
He nodded and crooked his finger. Feeling weak with relief, she grabbed Flick and followed Will outside to Angelique’s car—her car now, Caroline supposed.
She leaned down and peered into the window. There, curled up on the back seat, was Addie, sound asleep, clutching her favorite toy, a Wonder Woman doll with long black hair. Caroline took a deep breath. “Oh, thank God. Addie.”
“One of the guys spotted her,” Will said.
Flick climbed in through the opposite door, his face stolid with contrition.
Caroline collapsed momentarily against the car, trying to remember how to breathe normally. The panicked departure, the jumbled, seemingly endless days of the drive, her terrible fears and confusion, the careening sense that her life was reeling out of control, rolled over her in a giant wave of exhaustion.
“You all right now?” asked Will.
Another echo sounded in Caroline’s head. He’d asked her that question ten years before, the night everything had fallen apart. You all right?
No, she thought. Not even close to all right. Had she done the right thing, coming here? She nodded. “Thanks for helping. Tell your guys thanks, too.”
“I will.”
After so many years, he didn’t look so very different. Just … more solid, maybe. Grounded by life. Big and athletic, a square-jawed all-American, he had kind eyes and a ready smile. The smile was fleeting now.
“I guess … you’re headed to your folks’ place?”
“They’re expecting me.” She felt a sense of dread, anticipating a barrage of welcome. Yet it was nothing compared to the situation she’d fled.
“That’s good.” He cleared his throat, his gaze moving over her, the crappy car stuffed with hastily packed belongings, the little kids in the back seat. Then he studied her face with a probing gaze. His eyes were filled with questions she was too exhausted to answer.
She remembered the way he used to know her every thought, could read her every mood. That was all so long ago, in an era that belonged to different people in a different life. He was a stranger now. A stranger she had never forgotten.
He went around to the rear of the car, where she’d left the hatchback wide open. His gaze flicked over the crammed interior—hastily stuffed luggage and gear, her prized single-needle sewing machine broken down in pieces to fit, her serger, boxes of belongings. He shut the door and turned to her.
“So you’re back,” he stated.
“I’m back.”
He looked in the car window. “The kids …?”
Not now, she thought. The explanation was far too complicated to explain to someone she barely knew anymore. Right now she just needed to get home.
“They’re mine,” she said simply, and got back in the car.
The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
—ISAK DINESEN
NEW YORK CITY
Fashion Week
A plume of vapor from a garment steamer clouded the backstage section where Caroline was working. She and a couple of others from the Mick Taylor design team inspected, tagged, and hung each item in readiness for the show. The area was overheated with makeup lights, klieg lights, and too many bodies crammed into the space.
When an elite designer was about to unveil his work to the public, the bustling pre-show energy was palpable. Caroline loved it, even the stress and drama. Today’s event was particularly exciting for her, because several of the designs she’d created for Mick’s label would be featured. It wasn’t quite the same as having her own line, but it was definitely a step in that direction. Although she labored long hours for Mick, she used every spare moment to work on her own collection. She gave up lunch hours, social time, sleep. She was a striver. She did what it took.
This was a key show for Mick Taylor, too. The past couple of seasons had failed to impress the fashion critics and influencers. Investors were getting nervous. Buyers for high-end stores wanted to be blown away. Mick and his design director were on edge. The whole industry was watching to see if he would climb back to the top of the food chain.
Everyone on the design team had been told to focus on the wow factor that would carry the designer to even greater heights. Rilla Stein, the design director, was dogged and demanding of her staff, and her loyalty to Mick was absolutely ferocious. Most of the team members were terrified of her. Though she favored pointy glasses and Peter Pan collars and looked like a cartoon librarian, she breathed fire in the design studio and had the personality of a pit viper.
“Hey, Caroline, can you give me a hand over here?” called Daria. She was a model on hiatus due to pregnancy, and was now working as a stylist. Her girl-next-door looks and growing baby bump contrasted dramatically with Angelique, Mick’s longtime favorite model, who stood on an upended crate. Angelique had become the hottest runway model in the city. She hadn’t even gone through casting. Mick had anointed her as his muse.
She was sought after for her innate sense of drama and her ability to switch looks at lightning speed, sometimes in as little as thirty seconds flat. She had dramatic chiseled cheekbones, bee-stung lips, and the slightest gap between her teeth. Her wide-set eyes held a shadow of mystery. Daria had styled her with a bold palette of makeup and a swirling updo, bringing the model’s features into sharp relief. To those who didn’t know Angelique, there was something vaguely frightening about her, a trait that commanded attention. She was one of Caroline’s best friends in the city, though, and rather than being scared of her, Caroline was inspired by