Page 21 of Dead of Summer

ORLA

Orla’s fingers struggle with the top of the Xanax bottle.

It’s lighter than expected. She’s horrified to discover a thin layer of pills rattling around on the bottom.

The bottle was meant to last her entire trip.

For emergencies only, she’d repeated to herself when she filled the prescription.

She pulls out one pill and wavers, trying to decide if she should save it.

Running into David Clarke definitely qualifies as an emergency.

She’s been waiting for this to happen for years now.

She had been on the lookout for David when she first moved to the city.

As a downtown artist, Orla was flying in very different circles than the billionaire’s son.

And she had tried her hardest to keep it that way, graciously declining events held on the Upper East Side and avoiding parties with his kind of people.

“What kind of people, Orla?” her exasperated agent had asked her.

“Rich assholes,” she’d explained, not telling him the whole story.

“You mean the kind of people who buy art?” He sighed.

But he’d given in. Her “no Finance Bro event” addendum had remained in full effect until he dropped her after the disaster show.

The years in between passed and the worry of running into David receded to the back of her consciousness.

Eventually he became more of a myth than an actual person, popping up occasionally in news items about Geoffrey, photos of the two of them in a conference room or taking long strides toward a helicopter.

David always in his father’s shadow. Whenever Orla ran across one of them, she would get a tight feeling in her chest, but even that reaction had diminished over time.

David was just someone she once knew, but no longer. Someone she’d rather forget about.

But now, as she braces herself against the kitchen counter, on the brink of a massive panic attack, Orla realizes that seeing David in person is something else altogether.

She hadn’t realized he was still even coming to Hadley, not after everything.

And she certainly didn’t want to run into him now, not like this.

How dumb of her to think she could avoid anyone on an island this small.

She tosses two Xanax into her mouth and washes them down with a palmful of water from the sink.

It wasn’t just seeing David that threw her.

It was that woman, Faith. With her long tan legs and her shiny brown hair.

And that name. Ridiculous. She should have known he’d date someone like that.

And didn’t she bear an uncanny resemblance to Alice?

More than Orla would ever care to admit.

Her chest tightens as she pulls on a striped cotton sweater and storms out to the back porch.

How could she revert so quickly to her childhood self?

The one who was insecure and jealous. She can feel the blood rush up to her cheeks.

She tries to imagine how he must have seen her in her old swimsuit with her hair unbrushed.

The humiliation of all of it. Orla is even more disturbed that even after everything that happened, she still wants David to see her a certain way.

After all this time, how pathetic is she?

As if any of it matters. Disgusted with herself, Orla flops into an old rattan lounge chair.

She pulls her knees up to her chest and looks toward Alice’s house.

The trees between her and the Gallo house twist angrily into Orla’s peripheral vison. A large maple is covered in untended vines that have run amok, creeping claustrophobically up the trunk and out across the branches. The entirety of it ripples in the breeze.

Orla finds herself sketching the shapes of the woods in her mind, the dark silhouettes of the trees, the negative space where the light spills through the branches, and beyond, the angles of what is left of Alice’s house in the background.

Her fingers suddenly itch to be active, to help her mind escape thoughts of David and his new love interest and the vision in her yard of the young woman in the hood.

Instinctively, Orla reaches down to the low table in front of her.

This was the place where she and Alice spent most of their time together drawing.

She pulls open the drawer below and isn’t too surprised to find one of her old sketchbooks still inside.

A few pencils roll out from under it as she lifts it out.

The whole of it is warped from humidity and its edges are fraying.

She flips through the first few pages. Sketches of the beach and a few sailboat studies all done with college applications in mind.

Then, as if to chronicle the exact time that Alice disappeared, the rest of the book is blank.

Orla starts to draw and her mind calms into a pleasant buzz of concentration.

The scratch of the pencil eases her anxiety.

It reminds Orla that she had actually loved drawing once.

Back in school. With Alice. Before it became art with a capital A.

A breeze rushes up the lawn and pulls at the page.

It has the scent of woodsmoke on the back of it.

The smell is melancholy, and it reminds Orla of their last summer together.

David was the one who had invited Orla and Alice to the bonfire. There would be weed, he promised. And one of his friends was going to be making gin and tonics. “Jeremy is obsessed with them apparently.” David had shrugged, but she could tell he was trying to act cool about it all.

Orla realized then with a twist in her stomach that this was not going to a summer full of bare feet and ice cream cones and hot dogs down on the pier.

That wouldn’t be enough for them anymore.

This summer already had a restlessness to it that prior ones hadn’t.

They were getting older. Things were changing, whether Orla was ready for them to or not.

David had raised his eyebrows at them, an invitation and a challenge all in one.

“I love gin and tonics,” Alice said. Orla turned to look at her, screwing her eyes up as though to say you’ve never had a gin and tonic . Alice had shrugged and said, “We’ll be there, won’t we, Orla?” She gave Orla a meaningful stare.

“Of course,” Orla had said, returning the look.

That night David had pulled up to Orla’s house in a blue Lamborghini.

He was running through his father’s entire collection, he explained when she got in.

Trying to decide which was his favorite so that he might know what to buy when he was on his own.

He was trying to impress her, Orla realized, flattered by the attention.

When they went next door to pick up Alice, she wasn’t home.

Her mom, a stylish but frail woman, came to the door instead.

A tiny cigarette smoldered between her fingers as she looked out through the screen door.

Orla had never seen her smoking before. “I thought she was already out with you,” she’d said.

Her face rippled with concern. “She’s always off god knows where lately. ”

She’s only ever with me , Orla had thought. But even she hadn’t seen Alice as often as normal recently. She hadn’t thought much about it either way, assuming she’d been at home. After all, where would Alice go without Orla?

“I’m sure she’s fine. We said we’d go to the beach later. Maybe she’s there already,” Orla said to comfort Alice’s mother as much as herself.

“If you see her, tell her to come home by dinner. She’s always going off lately, not telling me anything,” her mother said, shaking her head. Orla peered past her one last time into the gloom of the house before skipping back to the car.

“She’s not there,” she’d told David as she’d jumped back into the car. “Maybe she’ll meet us there?”

“That’s strange,” David said, looking more concerned than she wanted him to.

But Orla was right. As the sun was going down, Alice had arrived at the bonfire in a pair of short white denim cutoffs and a cropped white top that showed off her even tan and slim arms. She was wearing a stack of gold bracelets Orla had never seen before.

They jangled as she dropped down onto the blanket across from Orla.

“You like?” she’d asked. Orla had nodded noncommittally.

But the truth was that Alice’s outfit made her feel insecure.

The top displayed her flat tan stomach and tiny waist. Orla’s own body, which had started to develop, made her feel large and indelicate next to Alice.

Her sundress suddenly seemed young and unsophisticated.

Her pale legs looked too wide whenever she gazed down at them.

Alice’s outfit felt almost like an act of betrayal. There was something different about her, something distant and unfamiliar. But the real kick to the gut came moments later when David reemerged from the water, his skin prickled with cold, his hair slicked back from the waves.

“You’re here!” he’d said, the relief in his voice palpable as he picked up his towel. He gazed down at them in a way that made Orla suck in her stomach and toss her hair back, but she noticed his eyes linger on Alice.

“Would never miss a hang with you two,” she’d said, leaning back and meeting his gaze.

“Hey, you ever get that Rocky Road?” he said in a way that felt like an inside joke.

“What Rocky Road?” Orla asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Nothing,” Alice said quickly, still looking at David. Something passed between them that made Orla’s heart dive into her stomach. David turned to Orla, his voice even and light.

“I saw Alice down by the ferry the other night. She was going to buy an ice cream, or so she says, but Mint Ship was closed.”

“When was this?” Orla asked, her head toggling between the two of them. Alice shrugged stiffly, trying to end the conversation.