Page 19 of The Sandy Page Bookshop

Lucy

Why had Jep Parsons shown up at the Sandy Page? And how did he know she worked there? It was only her second day. There was no one connecting the two of them except for Ella, and Ella was in bed at Spaulding Rehab unable to talk to anyone. Lucy feared she knew the answer. He was looking for her.

She felt bad for taking off on her customer, that nice old lady especially, but she could tell from one look at Jep that he was there to say something.

Curious as she was, it could not have been a worst time or place.

And her parents had forbade her from talking about him, let alone to him.

Even mentioning his name wasn’t allowed at home.

Whatever it was he wanted, it involved Ella, that much she was sure.

Showing up like that at her new job, in front of customers, was not okay.

She was just glad she could duck away from him into the back office, and that Leah hadn’t noticed.

Working at the Sandy Page was the only thing keeping Lucy sane this summer, and she wasn’t about to risk that.

Maybe her parents were right; Jep Parsons was nothing but trouble and she should stay away from him.

But it wasn’t that simple. Lucy had seen her sister two times since Jep had shown up at Spaulding Rehab, and neither time did Ella respond to any of them the way she had when Jep was shouting in the hallway begging to see her.

Lucy couldn’t shake it. Despite the doctors and nurses assuring her family that Ella was making progress, that day was still the most connection she’d felt to her sister, her old sister, since the accident.

Ella was now able to sit up. To blink, to communicate.

To feed herself and follow simple speech.

But she was not back; as far as Lucy was concerned, she was not anywhere back to being Ella Hart.

Two months ago she was the high school homecoming queen.

A month ago, the valedictorian standing at the graduation podium.

Now, she was just a mute girl stuck in a hospital bed with sad eyes.

Jep Parsons either knew something or had something that Ella needed. Lucy needed to find out.

After work, Lucy retrieved her bike from where she’d propped it up against the side of the bookstore and rolled it to the sidewalk, looking left and right. She wasn’t sure if she was more relieved or disappointed when she didn’t see any sign of Jep.

It was a long ride home, but the weather was nice. Commuting by bike was one of the conditions her parents had made when they agreed to let her take the job. At first, Lucy was afraid they wouldn’t at all.

“What about your sister?” her mother had asked, as if Lucy were abandoning Ella somehow.

“Mom, it’s just a summer job. I need money. And besides, you guys let Ella work at my age.” She felt bad the minute the words were out. Any mention of her sister was just another reminder of the uncertainty of Ella’s future.

“We can’t drive you back and forth every day if we’re at the rehab center,” her mother explained. “How will you get to work?”

“She’s got her bike.” Her father, who’d been sitting at the kitchen table without any sign of listening, sounded decided. “Besides, it will be good for her. To be busy.”

Lucy had met his gaze across the table; all summer she had felt invisible, around him especially. Perhaps he wanted her out from underfoot. Or perhaps he, too, understood that she could not sit in this house every day, not with the slowly spinning clock or the deafening vacuum Ella had left.

“Alright,” her mother relented, finally. “But you still have to see your sister, at least every other day.”

Lucy agreed. She’d leave afternoons open three times a week.

But she was unsure how to broach that subject with her new boss.

Leah Powell was an enigma of sorts. Between a few breadcrumbs from Brad and an article in the local newspaper about the Sandy Page’s grand opening, Lucy learned that Leah came from some big publishing gig in Boston.

But it didn’t make much sense. She was young and pretty and used to live in the city, so why was she back in boring Cape Cod?

Sure, she’d had a vision of turning that place into what it was now, but it seemed like a small, lonely life compared to what she had left.

Something bad must have happened. Lucy was dying to know what.

But Lucy had her own ghosts to contend with.

She did not want to talk about Ella at work.

That was what she liked best about the Sandy Page so far, besides the books, of course.

As far as she was concerned, Leah was still a newcomer in town.

And Brad was visiting his grandma for the summer.

Which meant neither one of them had been in town during the accident.

And neither seemed to know about it, at least not yet.

For the first time in forever Lucy could sail in and out of a door just being Lucy.

Without anyone asking how Ella was. Or how her parents were getting on. Or when Ella would come home.

All Leah and Brad wanted to know was what time she was coming in to work, and whether or not she’d pick a side in the coffee debate.

It lent her a veil of anonymity Lucy did not have anywhere else in her life, and she planned to keep it that way.

Here she could be a high school girl who rode her bike to work and liked to read fantasy books.

Until Jep Parsons threatened to blow it all up by showing up like that at the store.

Lucy took the long way home, pedaling along Shore Road and through the back streets across town. It let her avoid the traffic on Main Street, but it was also for another reason. She wanted to ride down Crowell Road again. This time, alone.

It was six o’clock when she left the bookstore, an hour after the garage closed.

As she biked closer, Lucy worried that maybe they’d stayed late.

Maybe someone had come in last minute needing an oil change or a tire repair.

But as she swung her bike into the lot, to her great relief Parsons’s Garage was empty, the bays closed for the night and the office windows dark. There was no sign of anyone around.

Lucy dismounted her bike. Parsons’s was a small family outfit with an office on one side and three mechanics bays on the other.

Parked behind it was a neat row of vehicles waiting to be worked on.

Aside from the occasional passing car, there was no sound but for the breeze rustling trees around back.

Warily she scanned the roofline of the building, wondering if they had security cameras. Not that Lucy was doing anything illegal. Well, trespassing after hours maybe. But she doubted anyone would blame her if she were caught doing what she came to do.

She was a little surprised to find Jep’s Mustang right where it had been.

It was out of line of sight, which she imagined they’d done on purpose for themselves as much as for the inquisitive gazes of customers, but she wondered why they hadn’t brought it in for repair yet.

Or towed it away to a body shop. From what Ella had shared during their late-night conversations, that vintage Mustang was Jep’s pride and joy.

He’d saved up his own money working for his dad for years, and together they’d found a junker that they could restore together.

By the time he turned sixteen it was done: the body painted cherry red, its chrome polished to a high shine.

It was the kind of car people took note of and remembered.

Which was one of the reasons Ella took great pains not to be seen in it.

Her parents would never have approved of her seeing Jep.

Riding around town in his showy classic car was impossible.

But Lucy knew Ella had been in it. At night, they snuck out together.

Once, Ella told her she convinced Jep to let her drive it.

“You can’t believe the sound it makes when you get it going!

” she’d shared in urgent whispers, her eyes bright even in the darkness of their room at that late hour. “I love that car.”

Lucy had wondered if she also meant she loved Jep.

Now, tucked among the shadows on the far side of the garage, Lucy lifted the front corner of the green tarp.

The plastic crinkled and snapped audibly as she peeled it back and away, moving along the side of the car as she did.

The red nose of the Mustang jutted through, crumpled and creased.

Then the windshield. The sight of the windshield, fractured like crushed ice, stopped Lucy in her tracks.

There in the center was a crater, the glass split around it like rays from a crystal sun, save for a red-brown stain at its core.

Lucy heaved. Dropping the edge of the tarp, she spun away from the car, holding her stomach and lurching toward a nearby bush.

Was it Ella’s blood? Both of them had had head injuries, the police had told her parents.

But it was only Jep who walked out of the ER the next morning.

Her chest heavy, Lucy bent over waiting for the sickness to rise up and out of her, but instead it settled. Eventually, so did her heart. She straightened, forehead still prickling with sweat. This was not a good idea. She shouldn’t have come back without Reya. She shouldn’t have come here at all.

Standing away from the car she saw the entirety of its damage for the first time.

The front end was done for, pushed into the hood and engine well like a crushed metal box.

The driver’s door hung ajar, crooked on its hinges.

Jep was drunk that night. How could he have driven her sister like that if he cared at all?

Lucy wanted to get out of there, but it was as if the car was calling her back.

And even though it scared her just looking at it, Lucy felt compelled to look more closely.

She went to the passenger side where Ella had been.

The seat sparkled with glass. The floor was empty.

Lucy crept around to the driver’s seat, unsure what it was she hoped to find but determined to look.

The driver’s side had the most damage, to her surprise.

Like the other side, the seat was covered in glass shards and debris.

Lucy rested her hands on the door and peered down to the floor.

There, among the glitter of windshield shards, something else sparkled.

It was gold. Lucy pulled the open door farther ajar and it protested loudly.

Glancing quickly around, she squeezed through the opening, straining to reach the floor mat.

With one final heave her fingers reached the object, rescuing it from the glass.

Lucy knew right away what it was: Ella’s gold chain bracelet.

The one her parents had given her for graduation.

The dainty emerald birthstones glittered in her palm. She closed her fingers around them.

Standing beside the car, Ella’s bracelet practically humming in her palm, Lucy pictured the wreck.

Jep staggering out from behind the wheel, onto the roadside.

Did he go back for Ella? Had he checked on her first?

From what the cops said, both of them were out of the car by the time police arrived.

Ella was lying on the grass, unconscious. Jep was holding her.

In his statement Jep swore she’d been awake after the accident.

That she’d been hurt, but awake and conscious.

He claimed that it was only after he helped her to the side of the road that her eyes fluttered, her head lolled, and she slipped away into unconsciousness.

It was in the official accident report, which Lucy had snuck a look at when she’d slipped the folder from her father’s desk one night.

Jep’s story about that night was the only story they had.

There were no other witnesses, not even Ella, who remembered nothing or at least couldn’t communicate it if she did.

If there was a story to be told about what really happened that night, Jep Parsons was the sole writer.

Jep held all the words in the palms of his hands, and so far he’d never broken from the page.