Page 33 of Dead of Summer

ORLA

The liquor store is set in a tiny strip mall next to a launderette right in the center of Port Mary. Orla walks toward it. She’d walked into town in a fearful trance, the painting in the closet forcing her out of the house and onto the road.

But the idea of being questioned by the Hadley Police Department makes her feel nearly as sick as the paint dripping down the closet wall.

There is only one way out of this nightmare and that is to sell the house and leave Hadley as quickly as humanly possible. Coming here was supposed to heal her, but it has brought nothing but pain.

Orla finds a bottle of the same tequila David had brought to her house.

She’s developed a taste for it, particularly since the Xanax has run out.

It isn’t as expensive as she’d thought. Orla takes the largest bottle from the shelf—she’ll need it if she is going to survive another night in that house—and walks slowly toward the front of the store.

The rows of bottles comfort her, as does the gawky kid who rings her up at the register.

The world is still as it should be. Her breathing has begun to return to normal as she steps back out into the night.

She looks out at the curve of the restaurants’ glittering reflections on the water.

The clinking of silverware and dinner conversations are barely audible in the distance over the lap of waves against the pylons.

Orla crosses the cracked pavement to the pier, her sandals crunching across the debris of broken clamshells dropped by hungry seagulls.

Orla doesn’t know how she’ll go back to the house.

The drips of paint play on the backs of her eyelids whenever she blinks.

Before Alice died Orla never believed in ghosts.

But now she sees them everywhere. As she leans back and allows her eyes to close, she sees a flash of the drawing, mutilated by thick black lines.

She jerks them open just as the lights blink out at the Crab.

There is only one light on the dock, and it’s sending an orb of foggy light down on the bench.

The air is thick with humidity. Beyond the periphery of the light, Orla can hear but not see the water as it rushes past. The moored boats clang and creak out there in the dark.

She wonders what it would be like to sleep outside.

There’s no way it would go unnoticed someplace like this.

What a way to make her grand public reentry to Hadley—arrested for sleeping on a bench along the harbor.

She’ll have to go back to the house. But she is going to need help.

She pulls the tequila bottle out of its bag and fumbles with the top, her body thrumming with nerves.

“Need a hand with that?” She jerks with fright at the voice behind her.

A bearded man comes into the light. He sways slightly as he walks, and Orla realizes he must have come from the Crab.

She wonders how much he’s had to drink and how long he’s been standing there like that, watching her.

Her body tenses as she looks past him at the desolate road.

“I was just l-l-leaving,” she stutters, calculating how fast she could run. He reaches into his pocket, and something silver flashes in his hand; he unfolds it into a short knife as he advances on her.

“No, please I—” Orla pulls back, preparing to run away until she realizes it is a fish scaler. He reaches for the bottle.

“May I?” She lets him lift the bottle from her hands and watches him use the blade on it to take off the plastic and lift the cork.

“You should see your face right now.” He is smirking.

“Saw someone over here, thought you might need help, but now I see it’s you.

Heard rumors you were back. You don’t recognize me, do you?

” He steps away from her, sitting down on the next bench over.

Orla peers over at the weathered face and realizes there is something familiar about him.

“I’m sorry. It’s been so long.”

He flops into the bench next to hers. “It’s Walter Severson.

I knew your parents way back when. I know, haven’t aged a day, right?

” He grins, revealing a row of stained, crooked teeth.

She remembers him now. A surprisingly handsome man in his younger years.

He’s aged. Badly. He was always around town working odd jobs.

Orla offers him the bottle, feeling like she should be polite, but he declines, patting his chest. “Beer guy myself. Can’t do the hard stuff anymore.” Orla can tell he is lying. He pulls out a packet of cigarettes and tips one to his lips. He offers her the packet, but she shakes her head.

“I heard from Jean you were back, but I almost didn’t believe her.” He looks out at the harbor, the red of the cigarette glowing as he takes a deep drag.

“Jean knows?”

Walter drapes a weathered hand across the back of his bench.

His skin is deeply tan but bears a crisscross of white scars from years on a fishing boat.

He is the kind of person Orla could never quite explain to rich people in New York.

He is Hadley Island through and through, the type who would never leave.

There is something about him that is also in her.

Like a piece of home. Or a secret you try to bury.

“Surprised you’d show up back here actually.” His eyes don’t open all the way, and she can see only the small slivers of blue under his lids, so bright they nearly glow in the dark.

“I am too,” Orla says quietly.

“Why’d you come then?”

She takes a long swig out of the bottle. She has no reason not to answer truthfully. “I’m going to sell the house.” It feels good to have at least one of her secrets out in the open.

“Oh, okay.” He shrugs as though it makes sense.

“What? You don’t think I’m a traitor?” Orla says, surprised he isn’t more reactive.

“Maybe. Or maybe you just want to start over,” he says. “Nothing wrong with that. People do it every day.”

“Not here,” she says. Walter smiles a little at that.

“Not me,” he agrees. “Nothing running away would fix for me. And besides that, I’m comfortable here. Got my place. Got the Crab. And this view.” Walter gestures out at the black nothingness in front of them. “Speaking of, Jean’s not too happy you’re back.”

“She doesn’t like me,” Orla says, reverting.

“I think it was just what you did to her brother-in-law,” Walter says matter-of-factly.

“I didn’t do anything to him,” Orla protests.

“Well, you told the police that he killed your little friend.”

“I didn’t. I only said I saw him there. Which I did.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, raising his eyebrows like don’t kill the messenger .

“You don’t believe me?” Orla’s heart pumps a bit faster.

“I didn’t say that. Did I say that?” Walter puts his palms up to show his innocence. “I don’t take sides. I’m like Austria.”

“I think you mean Switzerland,” Orla says. She’s becoming annoyed now. Walter is an idiot. She should never have engaged with him.

“Don’t know. Never been there.”

She stands up and is preparing to leave, when he says, “I hear David Clarke has a new girlfriend.”

“Does he? I wouldn’t know.” Now she can see he is toying with her, trying to get a rise. That’s what small-town people do when they’re bored. Create their own gossip.

“Oh, I met her. Faith.” Walter rolls the name around in his mouth.

“That ridiculous name,” she mutters, remembering the woman on the beach. The way she looked at Orla. Would I have seen any of your art? Walter stretches back against the bench, entertained.

“Yeah, she came into the Crab alone a few times,” he says. “Nice girl. Smart too. Pretty, like Alice was.”

Orla takes a swig of tequila. The thought of Faith makes her feel sick to her stomach.

Walter smiles, he’s enjoying this. “You don’t like it. Still have a crush on David Clarke after all this time, don’t you?”

“What would you know about that?” she snaps. “No, I don’t. I hate him actually. I just don’t see why he deserves to be happy.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry, she won’t last. Trust me,” he says. “Look at what happened to the other one, to David’s mom.”

“What do you mean? I thought she left them.” Orla barely remembers the beautiful woman who teetered in the background, worry gnawing on her face until one summer she was gone. She’d gone into treatment, David said, and never brought it up again.

“You could say that. Or you could say that she was put into circumstances that made it impossible to stay.”

“You’re saying Geoffrey got her addicted to painkillers so he could get rid of her?”

“Me? I’m saying nothing.” He twists an invisible lock near his lips.

Orla lets out an angry laugh. “None of those Clarke men could ever commit to someone.”

“Maybe they just like their freedom,” Walter posits, insincerely.

“Maybe they are just selfish assholes,” Orla snaps at him.

“Whooo, okay. You have a real chip on your shoulder, lady.” Walter pulls himself down to the other end of his bench and studies her.

“Could say the same about you,” Orla replies. She stands up as though to storm off but realizes she isn’t sure where she is going.

“You never really bounced back from all that drama with Alice, did you? Maybe time to move on?”

“Maybe it’s survivor’s guilt,” she says quietly, crossing her arms in front of her.

“Maybe,” Walter says, though he doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

Orla has had quite enough of Walter and his bullshit.

“There’s another girl missing, you know? Gemma, works down at the Crab or did until a week ago.”

A shudder rattles Orla’s spine as he continues, “They’ll probably be going after Henry again.”

“Why? What do you know?” Her chest heaves.

Walter shrugs. “The police have some evidence on him. At least that’s what my sources say.” He gives her one last long stare, and then he stubs the cigarette out on the side of the bench and begins to walk away.

Orla starts in the other direction, following the dark curve of the road up past the beach toward home.