The Leaving Part 44

Avery said, "Understood."

"And let's not jump to conclusions, okay? Let's just sit tight. I'll come home as soon as I can."

Sam came and got her when she texted him the news-I will not call Lucas. I will not text Lucas-and they went to the Love Boat for ice cream because she couldn't think of anything else to do and neither could he.

As usual, he ordered a flavor she didn't even want to try.

Pistachio.

Who did that?

Who didn't at least try to coordinate?

They'd had to wait a long time to get served-the kid in front of them had a peanut allergy and the mom had asked them to use a clean scoop and open a new gallon of whatever flavor the kid wanted-and by the time they got outside, there were no tables worth sitting at. Only two seats at a table where someone had spilled what looked like a combination of chocolate-chip-mint and blue-raspberry sorbet. They'd melted together into a green and purple swirl that she half wanted to take a photo of. She could study it later and decide whether it looked hideous, like a close-up of some aggressive cancer cell, or beautiful, like something the aurora borealis might whip up in the sky. So they headed for the car.

"Have there been any more notes?" Sam asked, and it took her a second to figure out what he was referring to. "Because they can't really be from Max if . . . Well, you know."

"There was another one yesterday," she said. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She shrugged and took a swipe at her coconut almond fudge with a hard tongue.

"Well, hopefully this will put an end to all that."

"You mean if it's Max's body," she said.

"Can't I say anything right?" He shook his head.

"I don't know, can you?"

He shifted his green cone to his left hand, then reached over and took her hand. "I know this is unbelievably stressful for you. I can't even imagine."

"No, you can't."

"That's what I just said!" he shouted.

"I'm sorry," she said, even though she really wasn't; she just didn't want a scene in the parking lot at the Love Boat. "I'm just so on edge."

"Come on," he said. "I told Emma we'd come get her."

Avery stopped walking. "Why'd you do that?"

"Uh," he said. "Because she's our friend? Because I thought you'd want to see her?"

"I didn't know you guys, you know, texted."

"Sometimes," he said. "Is that a problem?"

"No," she said. "Should it be?"

"Why would it be?"

He got into the car and she got in, too, and he started to drive toward Emma's. After a few long blocks, her ice cream had reached that point of no return, where it was melting faster than she could reasonably lick it, and she opened her window and tossed what was left of it out. It hit the car with a thud as Sam took a sharp turn.

"What the h.e.l.l, Ave?"

"I didn't want the rest of it." Her hands were sticky, and the only napkin she had left was sticky, too.

He shook his head. "We could have found a trash can."

She leaned out to look in her side mirror, saw a racer's stripe of ice cream. "There's a car wash up on the right. My treat."

They stopped at a light that had to be in the running for the longest red in the world, and then he pulled into the car wash. She handed him a ten to slide into the machine at the entrance and then he pulled up to the doorway, put the car in neutral, and they were off.

First came the rainstorm.

And she knew she wasn't making it up, the tension between her and Lucas. The way that he looked at her, the way the air felt around them. You couldn't make that up.

Then the blue-and-purple foam soap. She wanted to take a picture of that, too, compare it to that ice-cream swirl.

Then the dullflapping of those oversize brushes-the car basically being pummeled clean by some palsied rubber octopus.

She could remember all this, seen from the backseat when she was little.

A feeling of car sickness and fear and wonder.

He felt something for her.

Something more.

She knew it.

Then more rain.

Then huge fans to blow it all dry.

A gale.

Avery picked a droplet of water on the windshield and watched as it held on for dear life-so much longer than the droplets around it that she actually started rooting for that little guy and then it finally surrendered and went poof in the now blinding daylight.

She slid her sungla.s.ses back down over her eyes.

Sam reached over and squeezed her knee as he pulled away. "You okay?"

She nodded and looked out her clean window, saw everything in sharp focus. "I think we should break up."

Scarlett

Her hands on fabric, her foot on the pedal, her eyes focused on the line of st.i.tches.

She made a skirt first, to get her fingers used to working the machine again. It was the only thing she'd done since coming home that felt right.

Her mother had had some old fabric lying around, so she'd used that.

She didn't love it.

It didn't matter.

There'd be time.

She'd shop.

She'd make dresses.

She'd make simple tops.

She knew how to do all that and had a moment of grat.i.tude for . . . whoever.

This, at least, was a small gift.

Some small consolation prize.

Maybe the others had secret skills, too. Things that could bring them even a small bit of . . . joy?

Sarah had seen things in her mind like sketches.

Scarlett went and got her phone and called her.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Then voice mail-the robot kind, prerecorded.

"Sarah. It's Scarlett. Listen. I want you to try to do something. I want you to try to draw what you see-the house, the girl. You said you see them like sketches, so just pick up a pencil and see what comes out. I just realized I know how to sew and, I don't know. Maybe you can draw. Call me? Okay?"

She went back to the machine with the last piece of fabric she had on hand, thinking just to practice more, to maybe make a small purse.

She ran the machine and lost herself in the rhythm, the hum, the click-clicking of the needle.

When she stopped, she hadn't even sewn along a seam.

She'd made a series of lines with right angles.

Nothing but three rectangles.

Such a waste of fabric.

She'd have to find a seam ripper and pick them out.

She heard Tammy's phone ring, heard her pick up and then, a moment later, say, "Yes, thanks. Of course I'll tell her."

Tammy came into the room and stood there, looking . . .