Summers & Co Department Store.
Angry aftershocks rumble through me. I ball up my hands into fists to keep them from shaking as I stare up at the art deco letters that curve around the side of the old building. I mean, why does this even exist? It looks like a movie set through which Cary Grant might stroll. A dinosaur that should have died out decades ago. But no. Here in Beauty, it’s still going strong. Enormous pane glass window displays from the 1920s, mannequins wearing pastel boating shorts and bright yellow sundresses. And all of it lining the Summers family’s pockets.
For a moment, the rumble in my chest seems to have a real-life echo somewhere around me that I can’t find. Then I see a single headlight and hear the insect-like buzz of a vintage motorcycle engine. A red Superhawk glides up to the curb.
“Are you following me?” I shout at Lucky over the vibration of his bike.
He shuts off the engine. “It’s late, and we’re going in the same direction. You shouldn’t be walking alone. I can drop you off on my way home.”
“No, thank you.”
“I’m not a creeper. Seriously. Someone was mugged out here last week.”
“I appreciate your concern,” I say. “But I can take care of myself. You know, seeing how I’m an entrepreneur who makes my own porn to sell online, apparently. Even though it wasn’t—goddammit!” Great. Now I’m crying.
“Hey—” He pops his kickstand, stands up from his bike.
I brush away angry tears—Temper Tears, Mom calls them, and they are the absolute worst—and turn away from him, walking in a circle.
“That wasn’t my picture,” I say. To him. To myself. To the empty, dark town common.
“It doesn’t matter if it was. He’s an asshole, and if you had a lawyer, you could sue him.”
“But it wasn’t! Lucky. Don’t you get it? It was my mom’s photos from college.”
He stills. “Oh shit.”
“Yes, shit!” I say, watching realization dawn over his face. He knows all about my origin story. At least he used to. I guess he remembers, or he’s heard gossip, because he looks mighty uncomfortable right now. “As far as the other thing Adrian said, I mean, I do have an online non-nude—I can’t stress that enough—subscription service. But I don’t even know how anyone here would know about it. We haven’t lived anywhere close to here in years. I know it’s not Evie spreading gossip about me.”
“It’s not Evie,” he confirms, taking off his helmet—the one with the Lucky 13 design.
“Can’t be Evie’s mom. Aunt Franny is kind of uptight, but she’s not mean. She’s more of a mind-my-own-business kind of person.”
“She makes good carrot cake,” he says.
She does. “Maybe my grandmother told people about my subscription service and it got distorted through gossip … ?” I make a frustrated sound at the night sky.
I’m so tired. I’m tired of gossip. And Beauty. And my mom. And defending my mom. And our terrible, broken communication. I’m tired of moving around. I’m tired of trying to prove myself to my father. I’m tired of feeling both too young to start my life and too old to cling to the way things were, and I’m tired of feeling so damn unstable and unsure about the future.
I’m tired of losing everything that’s important to me.
But most of all, right at this moment, I’m tired of looking at those polished steel letters of the Summers & Co sign, because why does this family get to be on top of the food chain?
His father cost me my internship.
And now Adrian’s blond, stupid I-row-at-Harvard head gets to humiliate me and hurt my cousin while I have to scurry into the shadows and hide.
The Summers family. I hate all of them.
And I hate Beauty.
Furious, I pick up a rock near my feet. It fills my palm with a delicious weight.
“Uh, Josie?”
I pull back my arm, use all my strength, and lob the rock at the shiny steel letters of the Summers & Co sign.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Lucky says, holding out his hands to stop me. But it’s too late.
Funny thing about rage. It makes you think you have more power than you do. My pipsqueak-size arm sends the rock sailing through the night air, sure enough, but it fails to reach the art deco sign. Instead, it lands smack in the middle of the giant display window.
It shatters violently. Glass tumbles like a waterfall. Everywhere, a horrendous sound that echoes around the town common. Mannequins fall. Stubborn shards stuck to the top of the casing fall a few seconds later like an afterthought, as if they’re melting icicles of death.
“Ho-ly shit … ,” Lucky mumbles.
What.
Have.
I.
Done?
My chest hardens like cooling lava as shock floods my limbs. This isn’t just any old window. It’s a local legend. People come from miles to see the live models who pose in it every fall and the lavish orchid displays at Easter. Every December for almost a hundred years, people have gathered around this sidewalk to see the unveiling of the annual holiday display.
OH MY GOD. I RUINED CHRISTMAS.
I don’t have time to wallow in this realization, because when the last big shard of glass falls, shattering on the concrete with a terrible crash, an even worse sound follows on its heels:
The store’s security alarm.
It roars to life, a sleeping bear that’s been poked, emitting a harpy-like screech that sounds as if it’s a civil defense siren warning the entire town that an atom bomb is incoming.
Panic roots me to the sidewalk. RUN! I tell my legs. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, RUN. But all I can do is stare in a stupor at the broken window.
“Josie!” Lucky shouts, pulling my arm. “Get out of here. Come on. On my bike.”
But it’s too late. A security guard appears from nowhere, beaming a flashlight over the broken glass … and then into our faces.
I’m toast.
BEAUTY POLICE, ALWAYS ALERT: A no-frills carved wooden sign with a giant open eye guards the lone law enforcement station. Six double jail cells can accommodate up to twelve prisoners comfortably—but rarely is more than one cell in use on any night. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Chapter 4
The Beauty Police Department is a model of small-town efficiency. An hour after my shortsighted moment of rage went sideways and fell on its ass, I’ve already been scared straight, given a Breathalyzer test, and hauled off in the back of a cruiser to await my fate here. Any moment, I’m sure I’ll be mugshot-ed like a badly behaving popstar after a drunken weekend of strippers and fast cars in Miami.
But I’m not alone. They hauled both of us into the station.
Me and Lucky.
Now that we’re here, we’ve been shepherded into a holding room together. I don’t think the door’s locked; guess they believe we’re no flight risk. But hey, joke’s on them, because that’s exactly what I’m thinking about right now—running right the hell out of here the moment I get a chance. Run and never look back. Forget high school, the Nook, and my family. It’s too late to salvage any of that now. I’ll have to change identities and sneak aboard a ship bound for Iceland. Josie Saint-Martin is dead; long live Jamie San-Miguel.