“So, she must have convinced him it was time?”
“Or tricked him,” Samantha said, looking like she’d spoken ill of the dead.
“Tricked him?” Emily prodded.
“I’m overstating, I think. You know what I mean, she just wanted a baby so much. She’d skip her pills and make things happen. She wouldn’t have been the first woman to do that.”
Emily could no longer resist the cookie. The buttery crunch reminded her instantly of her own childhood, of holidays with her family, and later with Jenna and David. There was a bittersweetness to the memory.
“Mitch was looking forward to the baby, too?”
“I think so. I think it took awhile. Dan and I went out to dinner with them in late October and they both seemed excited that they’d be parents by Christmas. Mitch was bragging about how he’d have a son to follow in his footsteps at the dealership.”
“But it wasn’t a son.”
Samantha looked across the room then back at Emily. “I know. I almost dropped my fork. I nudged Dan to keep his mouth shut. I knew it was a girl, but it was clear that Mandy hadn’t told Mitch. You could have knocked me over with a puff of air.”
“I’ll bet. Did you ask her about it?”
When Samantha started to answer, her cell phone rang. The ringtone was “Jingle Bells.” She looked at the number and let it go to voice mail.
“My husband’s late,” she said. “And, to answer your question, I did ask her about it a week or so later.”
Samantha Phillips had been out running errands. She made a trip to the bank, the cleaner’s to drop off her husband’s shirts, and she picked up two bags of Halloween candy because the old Justin House had been rumored to be haunted; every year, it got more trick-or-treaters than probably any other residence in Cherrystone. She knew that Saturdays were Mitch’s biggest day at the dealership and that Mandy would be home. She parked behind a dark blue Lexus on the street in front of the house.
When she rang the bell, Mandy met her at the door.
“Oh, hi, Sam,” she said.
“Hi, honey, I thought I’d stop by for coffee. I tried your cell, but it must be off.”
Mandy lingered in the doorway, not really opening it for Samantha to come inside. “I guess I forgot to recharge it again.”
There was a beat of uncharacteristic awkwardness.
“Can I come in?” Samantha asked.
Mandy stood still. Her hair was clipped back, as if she hadn’t had time to brush it out. It looked like she was getting a late start on the day. “Not a good time.”
A flicker of worry came over her. “Are you all right? Is the baby all right?”
“The baby’s fine. I’m just trying to take it easy.”
The excuse seemed so hollow, so completely unlike her friend.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure. Let’s get together later. I’ll call you.”
“But I wanted to talk about last night. What you said about the baby…I thought Mitch knew it was a girl.”
“I can’t go there right now,” she said, narrowing the opening of the doorway. “I’m sorry.”
“Can I come in? We need to talk.”
“Not now. Now isn’t a good time.”
Before Samantha could change the subject and offer to go to the store or run an errand to help out, the door snapped shut. It was as if she was selling magazine subscriptions door to door or maybe handing out pamphlets for a fundamentalist religious group.
She stood there and looked at the grand front door.
What just happened here? What’s going on?
Two days later, Samantha got Mandy on the phone at her job at the county clerk’s office.
At first, she thought that Mandy’s cell phone had died and that had been the reason why she hadn’t called back, despite several messages.
“Are you mad at me?” Samantha asked.
“Not mad,” Mandy said, keeping her voice office-low. “I’m going through some things.”
“With Mitch?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Is he being an asshole again?”
“Listen,” Mandy said, “I know you’re worried about me.” Her voice grew curt and now, very final. “I’m not going to talk about this. I need you to back off. OK?”
Then she hung up.
That was the last time they ever spoke about it.
Jenna Kenyon’s cell phone vibrated somewhere in the depths of her purse. She’d been dispatched to the basement bedroom that her stepmother Dani had said was built with her in mind.
“You father wants you to feel you have a home here, too,” Dani Kenyon said as she first revealed the unfinished bedroom, more than a year ago. “I want you to help pick out paint colors and fabrics. I’m thinking of chocolate with mango accents.”
“That sounds yummy,” Jenna said, knowing that Dani wouldn’t get the irony of her pun, nor the literal distaste she had for orange and brown. The colors reminded her of the design scheme used by her junior high.
“Having you happy here is a big, big priority,” Dani said.
The passage of time proved that. The room hadn’t changed a bit, save for a few more items shoved inside the space. Jenna knew where she stood with Dani, and by extension, where she stood with her father.
She found her cell phone and let out an audible sigh.
It was Amber Manley.
She let it go to voice mail and turned on her laptop, waiting for it to whirl into life.
Amber Manley was a sister from the Beta Zeta House at Cascade University, Jenna’s old chapter. Amber had stumbled onto a cache of food and clothes that had been squirreled away by Pepper Raynor. The problem was that while Pepper was a thief—stealing food from the kitchen and ripping off bits of every size two in the house—Amber had become the target of disciplinary action because she opened Pepper’s closet.
Jenna started typing.
Dear Amber,
I know you’ve been trying to reach me. As much as I’d like to help you, I’m afraid I can’t. The chapter rules are very specific. Despite the odor coming from Pepper’s closet, you had no right to open it…
More than a thousand miles away, he stirred as she came online. His computer know-how came in part from the endless loneliness that draws a boy into the insidious depths of a computer screen, searching for connections to people, and for his own place in the world. He liked how the keyboard felt; cool at first, then hot as he pounded the keys to take him to places he thought he’d never go. His screensaver had been an image of the jade-colored waters around the sandy edges of Oahu, a place he thought he’d never see. But he had. He’d been all over the country, and to Europe. No place he visited, however, made him feel better about himself.
Nothing could.
And just when he thought it could be different, it was all snatched from him.
She was to blame, because she’d stolen from him all that mattered.
He’d e-mailed from