Page 25

I couldn’t text Tam because it was ridiculously late—the middle of the night—on the East Coast. I paid for Wi-Fi on the plane but didn’t know what to do with it. I finally opened my email and tapped out a quick note to her.

If you didn’t watch the game, I’m sure you know by now. Amazing. I’m on the red-eye home (alone). Hope Kyle will still want me. Feels more like Jerry Maguire than Harry and Sally. But I’m fidgety Tom Hanks trying to get to Jonah in NY in Sleepless in Seattle on this plane. xo me

There wasn’t anyone else I was ready to talk to about any of it, and I had already spoken to David’s mom from LAX after she landed in Denver. I knew that I should try to sleep, but my attempts were fruitless. I ended up watching two seasons of The Office , remembering that it was one of the few shows Kyle enjoyed. Maybe we had a little of Pam and Jim in us, too. I had to hope for the best.

Once I landed at Logan just after eight o’clock in the morning, I felt like I was running in slow motion. My legs couldn’t possibly get me through the terminal any faster. By the time I finally made it to the elevator to go to the parking garage, I realized I didn’t have my car since Heath had driven me to the airport.

“That fucker!” I exclaimed as the door to the elevator opened, just in time for a family with two young children to stare back at me. “I’m so sorry,” I said, holding the door open for them. “It’s a guy with a car.” The woman nodded in reply and shuffled her kids away from me as quickly as she could.

I would either have to rent a car that I would have to figure out how to return somewhere or take another form of transportation. I pulled up the Amtrak app and saw there was a train departing in twenty minutes that could get me to Durham on the University of New Hampshire campus. Right near Norwell , I thought. I dashed outside and threw myself in a cab. “North Station! Please!” I shouted at the driver, who must have had immediate regrets for letting me into his car.

I sprinted through the train station and into an Amtrak Downeaster car as the doors were about to close. The ride was over an hour long, so I walked to the café car and bought a hot coffee and a whoopie pie. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten anything. As I devoured the cream-filled chocolate cake sandwich, my phone rang. Tam must have read my email.

“Hey,” I said with a muffled voice, my mouth full of whoopie pie.

“You sound weird. Where on earth are you?”

“Eating a whoopie pie on the Amtrak Downeaster,” I said, taking a sip of coffee to clear my voice a bit. “We’re about to pull into Haverhill.”

“Okay, weird, but I’ll excuse it for now. Devon, oh my God! I feel like so much has happened since you left two days ago.”

“It has,” I agreed as a few new passengers boarded the train. “First of all, David was unreal. It finally happened. You can’t tell anyone this, but he was an absolute mess before the game.” I looked around to see if anyone was watching me, and luckily, they were either sleeping or staring at their phones with their headphones on.

“Ooh, that must have been awful. Sounds like you got him through it. You two are a good team.”

“I think so. It all made me very grateful to have him in my life—if that makes any sense. He feels like family now. Like you.”

“Aww, I love that. Speaking of family, I moved in with Professor Plum.”

“Tam! That’s the best news! I’m so happy for you. I really dig him.”

“Thank God because he’s here to stay. And I love your place, but the wood-burning fireplace won out.”

“I get it.” My condo was now empty. I had a lot to decide where that was concerned, but it could wait. I had much bigger issues to deal with. “So, about Kyle,” I began.

“And Heath! Darling, you went out there with the handsome paramedic, and you came home alone? And somehow, you’re now on a train? What happened?”

I sighed, looking out the window as we crossed into New Hampshire. Soon, Kyle. “It’s a long story that involves snoring and someone who was not what he seemed, and the most wonderful bartender named Charlie, who used to live in Charlestown and who we probably got drinks from at some point but now lives in LA. But it all made me see that Kyle’s the one. I just hope he still wants to be with me.”

“So, you’re heading there now?”

“I’ve got to figure out how to get from UNH to Rockwood, but yes, that’s the plan.”

When I got off the train in Durham, I found someone who looked like a student and might not be totally freaked by a person asking transportation questions. “Do you have any idea how I can get to Portsmouth from here?” I posed, trying to seem as normal as possible.

“There’s a bus,” she said, giving me the once over. Considering my lack of sleep and a recent shower, I may have looked worse than I realized.

“Awesome!” I exclaimed. “When?”

“Not till noon,” she said with a shrug. Which was almost two hours away, yet it seemed like an eternity. “Sometimes Uber will do it. I usually ask a friend for a ride,” she said, walking away from the unstable stranger asking strange questions.

Ask a friend for a ride. I dug out my phone and called Andrea.

...

“I can’t thank you enough,” I said to Andrea, closing the passenger door behind me as I settled into the front seat of her Volvo sedan.

“I needed to unload some hot gossip on someone, so your call came at a great time,” she said, pulling her car away from the curb. She gave me a quick glance. “But seriously, what the hell happened to you? You look a little, well, thrown around. Like you’ve been on a bender or something. I saw the basketball game last night. That was some exciting shit, but it didn’t end here until after midnight. I wasn’t expecting to pick you up at a train station less than twelve hours later.”

“Heath-the-paramedic and I are through,” I said, checking myself out in the car’s visor mirror. Rough. I threw a stick of gum in my mouth and dug through my purse for a hairbrush and some lip gloss. “It took a cross-country flight that he slept—and snored—through and very minimal interaction once we got there for me to realize that he is not the guy for me. And once that game was over, I couldn’t wait to get back here.” I had left out quite a bit of the story—Charlie the bartender, David’s pre-game near-collapse, my post-game phone call with Kyle—but I knew who I was talking to. Anything I told Andrea could easily be repeated at The Horse later that night or to any random staffer she happened to run into walking from her house to her office.

But Andrea knew better. “You couldn’t wait to get back here to Kyle, huh?”

“Time will tell,” I said, dropping Visine into my bloodshot eyes. “I’m sure you’ll find out.”

“Likely,” she said with a laugh. “All right, gossip time. Wait until you hear this one.”

“Lay it on me,” I said. “We have approximately twenty-five minutes until we are back on campus.”

She cleared her throat and almost whispered, “I know who’s behind The Underground Stallion. ”

“No way! I thought it was your niece until the other day, and I point-blank asked her. Not sure if you heard about that,” I said.

“You know, I always suspected her, too. The perfect way to say eff off to your aunt, you know? Anyway, it’s not her. It’s a team effort. A partnership. Are you ready for this?”

“You’re killing me, Andrea.”

“Ryland Dennis and Marnie.”

“ Marnie? My Marnie? ” My jaw was probably scraping the floorboards of Andrea’s car at that point. What the hell was Marnie doing running an underground newspaper? And with Ryland, of all people? A faculty member?

“Well, she’s sort of his Marnie, to be honest, but from everything I can tell, they’re not involved sexually. I think it’s more of the fucked-up kind of thing he had with Kyle’s ex-wife Cora. He gets wrapped up in these weird, co-dependent, emotionally obsessed relationships. And then there’s the Ward Connelly situation. That’s who she’s actually banging from what I can ascertain. You know about that, right?”

“I do. I spotted them making out on the scaffold. She was disguised, but we figured out who it was. How do you know?”

She sighed. “Julianna Preston called me one day screaming about it. I guess he’s done with Julianna, at least for now, and told her that he found a woman who serves him meals in tiny, inspired, beautiful boxes.”

I burst out laughing.

She nodded. “Right? You couldn’t make any of this up. I should just leave Rockwood and write a damn book.”

“So, it’s sort of a love triangle, but not really? And why did Julianna call you? What on earth would you do about it?”

“She wanted me to fire Marnie. I’m not sure what impact that would really have. Ward has plenty of money. Marnie would be fine, provided they stayed together. I think Julianna was desperate because she was losing her sugar daddy.”

I tried to process all of this. “She wanted you to fire Marnie for sleeping with her longtime lover, who is the actual father of her child, while she stays married to Bentley.” I realized what I had said while thinking out loud. “Oh my God! I didn’t mean to say that.”

Andrea patted my knee. “You don’t think I figured out the paternity of Adrienne a long time ago? Ward basically told me without telling me when he called to beg me to admit her after she got kicked out of her most recent school.”

“The Walden Pond horse incident.”

“Exactly. But I think she’s a good kid.”

“So do I,” I said, smiling, thinking of my kitchen apprentice. “But that still doesn’t answer the original question. Why The Underground Stallion ? How do Marnie and Ryland benefit from any of this? And who’s doing the grunt work? It’s definitely not them running around snapping pictures.”

Andrea groaned. “That’s how I found out that they were behind it. A small group of students came to see me at my house yesterday afternoon. No one has ever shown up at my house, so I knew something strange was going on. Two of the kids were crying. Ryland has been putting pressure on these students of his to do all the investigative work. It’s wrong on so many levels. They’re worried they’re going to get bad grades in his class if they don’t comply.”

“That’s atrocious. Sounds like you have a human resources nightmare on your hands. I’m sorry, Andrea.” I did feel bad. She had dealt with one mess after another since she became Head of School.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Definitely a little housekeeping in order, but we’ll get through it. It’s a good school. I can still say that.”

“What about Marnie?”

“There will be an investigation. Obviously, Ryland’s involvement is worse since these were his students. And he’s just a big asshole who wanted to spy on people and make their lives miserable when it comes right down to it. Just to fuck with them, I think. But I do want to better understand Marnie’s motives more than anything else. I’m not sure, however, if she is to be trusted anymore. I mean, she worked for you, but the newspaper still spent much of the fall trying to slut shame you. Sorry for the brash terminology, Devon.”

“No, I agree, it was a rough way to start a new job, that’s for sure.” I was so tired I had no idea what to make of it. “Whatever you decide, Andrea. You’re the boss.”

“Yes, yes, I am,” she said, pulling into Portsmouth. “Look at this, all decorated for the holidays. I’ve been so distracted I’ve barely paid any attention. It’s December, for God’s sake.”

“Indeed, it is.” I looked at the pretty shops on Market Street, all decked out in lights and bows and sparkles. “I’m so glad to be back here. Thanks for coming to get me.”

“Anytime, Devon. I am very grateful to have you at Rockwood,” she said, turning onto the road that would lead us to St. George’s Island and Rockwood. We were quiet for that stretch of the drive, and I pressed my forehead against the window to take it all in. I noticed every tree, bush, curve of the road, and glimpse of the ocean as if I was seeing it for the first time. We passed by The Horse and onto the island, hanging a right into the campus. There, waiting for us, was Ward Connelly’s infamous sculpture, The Stallion , now adorned with huge cutouts of Celtics shamrocks and basketballs, plus a gigantic poster with my face on it and the words, “It must have been the cookies.”

“What?” I asked as Andrea slowed the car so I could see all of it. “How did this happen? There are security cameras. I’m so confused.”

Andrea smiled. “I can turn off the cameras whenever I want. There was a student watch party for the game last night, and Adrienne Preston suggested we do something for your arrival home. Glad they got it done then because you’re back a little earlier than we expected.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Kinda feels like home now, huh?”

I nodded, taking it all in, still floored by what I was seeing. “I think so.”