I’d miss the house. I’d miss the view. I’d miss the people most of all.
I never knew having this many choices would feel like this.
For most of my life, I concentrated on one goal. My main plan hasn’t changed. I want to graduate from college and become a social worker.
There are many paths to get there, though. Different schools I could choose from.
I feel a bit like I did when I first came to Maine. My clothes were all wrong for the weather. I didn’t fit here. Each of the choices feels like a new climate I’d have to learn.
Part of the complexity comes from the people, too.
Before, it was me and Noah against the world. Now I have Beau, but Paige is very much a part of our lives. Anything I decide will also affect her. I might not be her nanny anymore, but I can’t turn off caring about her. I don’t want to, anyway.
I’m still thinking about it when I head back inside the house. Our Monopoly game will, of course, be left untouched. My cell phone buzzes on the table next to it. It’s ringing.
Beau, maybe.
I turn it over and find an unknown number. I’ve been talking to a lot of admissions counselors, but I don’t recognize this particular area code. “Hello?”
“Jane Mendoza?” A man. I don’t recognize his voice.
“This is she.”
“This is the Maine Investigator. I know you’re close friends and neighbors with Emily Rochester. Do you know about the scene at the courthouse today?”
My heart pounds. Emily hasn’t been back from the courthouse very long, so it must be the same guy who accosted her. “Nothing happened at the courthouse today.”
“So you do know. Listen, we have it on camera. I’m looking for some insight before we go to print. Get her side of the story on paper. Or maybe your side of the story.”
It feels like the walls are closing in on us. On the cliffside. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say over the buzzing of panic in my ears. “Don’t call back.”
I hang up on him.
It feels very final, even if I’m just tapping a screen.
If no one has anything to say about Emily at the courthouse, this will all pass by quickly. Right? Emily Rochester and Mateo Garza will be a local news story that everyone has forgotten by next week. Except that this guy worked for the Maine Investigator, a larger paper than the one here in Eben Cape. This could be bigger than I feared.
No. No, I’m sure it will blow over. Emily’s finished testifying. She’s with her daughter. And she lives so close. Close enough for us to keep an eye on her.
My heart keeps racing anyway.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mateo Garza
It’s funny how life keeps circling back to the same things. The same people. I left Eben Cape for Los Angeles, and I still ended up with Beau Rochester as a best friend. Now we’re both in Eben Cape again. Beau lives next to the house he grew up in, and I have a small beach house I rented. I think he spends more time talking to Emily Rochester now than he did in school, and that’s saying something. Same places. Same people. We both have our own money now, Beau and I, and here we are on a fishing boat.
The boat is an upgrade from the speedboats we used to take out on the water when we were younger. This one has an interior. It has an enclosed wheelhouse so you don’t have to feel even a drop of the ocean while you steer. It looks over the bow of the boat, where we are. A couple of rich jackasses who have lost their touch.
“You should find another hobby,” I tell Beau. “You’re absolutely terrible at this.”
He glares at me from his position at the railing. “Compared to what? You don’t have a line in the water.”
“It’s too much fun to watch you.” Beau used to attract catches like he was a fish magnet. Today, not a single bite. “You’ve forgotten all your skills.”
He holds up his pole. “This is a fishing pole, Mateo. You hold it in your hands. Is that beyond you?”
“Yes,” I tease. “I usually hire someone to fish for me while I watch. You’re doing a great job, by the way. You’re going to get a huge tip when this is over.”
Beau gives a gruff laugh and goes back to staring at the bobber on the end of his line. The joke is that I can afford to pay a person to fish for me while I pretend to be a fish voyeur. So could Beau. We could hire a whole crew. How times have changed.
“Goddamn it,” Beau says. “This thing is fucking with me.”
“What thing?” I peer over the railing at the bobber. “You’re not getting bites. There’s nothing down there.”
“Mind your own business.”
“Why are we out here? We don’t need fish to survive. This ship has a couch we could be sitting on.”
“Go sit on it, then. I’m going to catch something.” He furrows his brow and concentrates. A breeze comes up from the water. The ocean still smells the same. The sun feels the same on my skin. We’re the ones who are different now. Eben Cape stayed the same while our lives rearranged themselves like portable sets. He and Paige were trapped together on the island of Coach House. Then Jane came along. And then, to everyone’s surprise, Emily Rochester. Now everything’s in a new place.
In my opinion, which hasn’t been humble for a very long time, Beau Rochester takes things too seriously. I’ve known him long enough to know he’ll never stop. Acceptance is the first step toward being friends with a guy like that. You’re not going to change him. You can only watch him try to catch a fish on a nice-as-hell boat.
Prepare to be disappointed, though. He almost never catches anything these days. He’s more patient in some ways since he had custody of Paige, but less patient in others. He’s always impatient to get back to Jane, for instance. There were times in our past that we’d go out on a Friday night and come back home on a Tuesday. Beau would never agree to be away from Jane that long.
Only way he’d ever do that is if she asked him. I don’t think she would.
How long have I been away from Emily? A day? Probably can’t count it as “being away” when we’re not together. Emily wouldn’t want that, anyway.
Unless she would. I’ve never met a woman more in need of a shoulder to cry on. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she needs a partner, though. Emily’s tackling her newly resurrected life with grim determination. She’s writing that damn memoir with the kind of focus that I think most people would envy. In my business, when someone writes a book, it’s cause to throw a party and get drunk on champagne. Emily works on it like she’s going into battle.
Worked out for her, though. She got the book deal, though the memoir itself won’t be finished for a while. And it won’t come out until next year.
This time, Beau doesn’t concentrate for as long as I thought he would. After a few minutes he puts the pole in one of the holders on the railing. He stretches his arms over his head.
“I’m going to go down. Do you want anything?”
“Taking a break so soon?”
“Like a beer, asshole. You want a beer?”
“Yes.”
Beau goes into the cabin. Three steps down to a nice-sized living room with the previously mentioned couch and a full kitchen behind it. There’s also a little bedroom down there. Like I said, not a speedboat.