Page 25 of High Season

SEVENTEEN

FIVE WEEKS BEFORE THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

Josie knew, although she would never say it, that Hannah felt sorry for her.

She saw it in the way that Hannah always looked at her with a sympathetic tilt of her head when Hannah did better at school.

How Hannah always tried to excuse the fact that she still lived with both her parents by complaining too much about her dad, talking about the fights that often brewed at home with an eagerness that made Josie suspect she was trying to make her feel better about her own parents’ divorce.

The way that she extended the invites that Blake Drayton occasionally tossed out to her as if she was doing Josie a favor.

Sometimes, Josie wondered if she and Hannah would ever have become friends if Josie hadn’t encountered her on her way to the sea in those hazy first few weeks in France.

If this meeting, along with the fact that they were both outcasts at the money-soaked school over the hill, had thrown them together far more than any shared interests or commonalities.

She suspected that, in another world—back in England, perhaps—the two of them would not have become close at all.

As summer drew to a height, the crowds on the beaches thickening, the sea bloating with swimmers, Josie barely saw Hannah. Han nah said that it was because she was busy at the dive shop, helping her parents out, but Josie knew. She always knew more than Hannah thought she did.

Besides, Josie was busy, too. She was at the pink house most days, babysitting Nina.

Evelyn was even more frantic than usual, her quest to hold Harrison’s interest giving her a frenzied, manic air as she planned nights out at romantic restaurants, days when she would give Josie a handful of cash to keep Nina busy and entertained.

Josie pocketed most of the money, amused by how demanding Evelyn must imagine her five-year-old daughter to be.

Instead, she took Nina down to the beach to paddle in the shallows.

She took her to a cheap burger joint and laughed at Nina’s evident delight at the mounds of fries and sickly sweet ice cream milkshakes.

She took her to the small art deco cinema in the town, a relic of the resort’s past, and promised her popcorn if she was good for the entire film.

Once, Tamara, seemingly running out of things to do when her mother demanded a free house, joined them. They went to get pizza at a place usually filled with locals. They sat at the Formica table, Nina swinging her legs between them, a pizza slice the size of her head clutched in both hands.

“What’s your brother doing tonight?” Josie had asked.

Tamara took a sip of Pepsi through a plastic straw.

“I think you know the answer to that,” she said.

“Do I?”

Josie was feigning ignorance, of course. She wanted to see what Tamara would say. She wanted to know what she thought.

“He’s with your friend. Hannah.”

Tamara said the word friend as if it was too large for her throat. As if she had to force it out.

“Is that a problem?”

Josie’s defensiveness was quick, even though she also hated Hannah hanging out with Blake. It was one thing for Josie to think that Blake was no good for Hannah. It was another for Tamara to think that Hannah was no good for her twin.

Tamara peeled a string of cheese from a slice of margherita.

“So what if it is?” she said.

“Because.” Josie could feel a spark of anger beneath her words. “He’s not better than her, you know. Blake should consider himself lucky to be with someone like Hannah.”

Tamara paused, the cheese still pinched between two fingers, inches from her mouth.

Josie had noticed that the Draytons had a habit of playing with their food.

Her mother was always complaining about the plates that returned, fillings picked out of otherwise untouched sandwiches, pieces of meat cut into minute pieces but uneaten.

“It’s not Blake I’m worried about,” Tamara said, so quietly that Josie thought she might have misheard her.

“Josie,” Nina said. “Can we get chocolate ice cream?”

Tamara stood, her pizza still practically intact.

“I’m going to head back,” she said.

“Tamara?” Josie said. “What do you mean?”

But Tamara was already bending down, mussing up her little sister’s hair.

“I’ll see you back at home, Neens,” she said, in a voice that was entirely different. Softer. “You be good for Josie, yeah?”