LITMIR.BIZ

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burst into laughter that turned a few heads, even over the sound of the Violent Femmes pounding from the speakers. “Look who got herself a Word of the Day calendar.”

      Missy didn’t appear insulted, but she did look crafty. She gulped the final dregs of her margarita without even a grimace. “I saw you touch him when you went past.”

      She hadn’t, actually. Over the past week, as he’d managed to stop in almost every day to see her, Bess had thought about touching Nick. She always thought about it, but never did it. “You’re drunk. You didn’t see anything.”

      “I saw you,” Missy insisted. “I saw you thinking about it, Bessie.”

      “How the hell do you see anyone thinking about anything?”

      Missy made a face. “Just because you’re pissed I told you he’s gay…”

      “I think he’s the one who’s pissed about that. Not me.” Bess couldn’t help looking for him again. Touching him with her eyes. Now he was deep in conversation with Brian, whose hands were waving, but while Bess missed the sizzle that came from Nick’s gaze meeting hers, she also liked watching him when he wasn’t looking. She could drink him in that way.

      “I’m talking to you!” Missy snapped her fingers in front of Bess’s face.

      She heaved a sigh and gave Missy her attention. “Nick and I are just friends.”

      Missy spluttered into laughter. “Oh, right. Nick? You and Nick the Prick? He’s not friends with any girl unless he’s fucking her.”

      “Whatever, Missy.” Bess tried to pretend hearing that didn’t bother her, but her friend wasn’t too drunk to know when she’d struck a direct hit.

      “Yeah, yeah. You say whatever.” She pointed across the room. “Ask Heather about him. She’ll tell you.”

      Bess wouldn’t ask Heather for a glass of water if she were on fire. She looked up, though, to see Heather standing with her hip cocked, talking to Nick. Heather flung her fall of long blond hair over her shoulder and twirled a piece of it around one finger. If she pushed her boobs any closer to him she’d be holding his beer in her cleavage, Bess thought, and turned away.

      Missy looked triumphant, then put on a mask of sincerity that might have fooled someone as drunk as she was, but didn’t convince Bess. “I was only looking out for you, Bessie. Nick’s bad news. And you have a boyfriend, remember?”

      As if Bess could forget. She hadn’t told Missy about the sort of. “We’re just friends.” She tried to make the words taste better by swallowing them with a swig of margarita. It didn’t work, and made her cough. Missy pounded her on the back.

      “I’m just saying,” Missy said, but nothing else, as if those three words were explanation enough.

      Across the room, Bess watched Heather lean in close to Nick, who didn’t pull away. And why should he? The blonde had big tits and a small ass and a flat stomach. Heather could suck the chrome off a truck hitch. She didn’t “sort of” have a boyfriend.

      “Slow down with that drink,” Missy advised as she poured herself another. “That bitch Brian’s a fiend for the alcohol.”

      For maybe the first time in her life, Bess wanted to get drunk. Instead she put down the cup and left the party. At home she declined an offer by her older, married cousins to join in on a game of gin rummy. She stretched the phone cord as long as it could reach, out onto the deck, and though it wasn’t their appointed time she called Andy, anyway. The phone rang for a long time before his brother answered.

      “Andy’s not home.”

      “Do you know when he’ll be back? It’s Bess.”

      Did she imagine Matt’s hesitation? The sympathy in his voice? Would Andy’s brother tell her the truth if she asked him to, about the other girl whose letters Bess had found in Andy’s desk drawer?

      “I don’t, Bess. Sorry.”

      He sounded sorry, but that didn’t do her any good. Bess thanked him and hung up. She looked out at the black ocean but could see no waves.

      She hadn’t meant to look in Andy’s drawer, hadn’t been looking for something she wasn’t meant to see. He’d asked her to grab a package of snapshots he wanted to show his parents, and Bess, who liked Mr. and Mrs. Walsh but wasn’t sure if they really liked her, had been all too happy to escape the dinner table to get them.

      She’d been in Andy’s room quite a few times and knew what drawer in his desk he meant. The pictures weren’t there, but there was a rubber band-bound package of envelopes addressed to Andy in a looping, unfamiliar hand. A girl’s handwriting. Men didn’t dot their i’s with little flowers.

      She hadn’t meant to find them, but once she had there was no question of her not reading them. She’d eased the first from the envelope and glanced at the salutation, skimmed the body of the letter and went straight to the signature.

       Love, Lisa

      Love? What the hell was some girl doing sending Andy, Bess’s Andy, letters signed with such a word? At the sound of footsteps in the hall, Bess had crammed the letters back into the rubber band. If it had been Andy in the doorway she’d have confronted him then, not left it a secret dissolving them like acid.

      But it had been Matty, Andy’s younger brother, who’d come to see what was taking her so long. Bess saw on his face he knew what she’d seen, or guessed, but Andy was Matt’s brother and Bess was just some girl who might or might not someday be part of their family. Matt had said nothing, so neither had she. Not to Matt, and not to Andy himself.

      She’d left the next day for the shore with Andy’s promises ringing in her ears. He’d write. He’d call. This year, he’d visit. So far he hadn’t kept any part of his promise.

      So far, Bess had stopped expecting him to.

      Chapter

      09

       Now

      The Surf Pro still sold overpriced bathing suits, but like so much else time had changed, money was no longer quite the issue it had been when she was younger. Bess perused the racks of clothes, knowing she wouldn’t find much of anything Nick really needed—jeans, T-shirts, boxers, socks. Her fingers drifted through racks of baggy surf shorts and wetsuits. It didn’t escape her that she knew just what a twenty-one-year-old guy needed, or what one would like.

      She’d only stopped into the shop on a whim because Nick had once worked there. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find. A plaque? A shrine to his memory? She doubted there’d even be anyone working there who remembered him. That, more than anything, and hearing him ask why she hadn’t known he was gone, pushed her out of the shop and back onto Garfield Street. She’d driven into town to hit the small grocery store, Shore Foods, because it was what she knew. A lot had changed since the last time Bess had been to Bethany Beach. More shops, for one. She’d have to look for something like a discount store to find everything she really needed, but for now Nick would have to deal with wearing shorts and T-shirts she picked up from the Five and Ten.

      Across the street from where she’d parked was Sugarland. Or rather, where Sugarland had once stood. The storefront had changed, nearly swallowed up by a bunch of newly constructed specialty shops and an arcade, but the store inside looked mostly the same. Cleaner and with updated decor, but not much different than it had been when she’d been a slave behind the counter.

      On impulse, clutching her plastic bag of gaudy, tie-dyed clothes, Bess crossed the square and went into the shop. The bell jangled on the door the way it always had, and she couldn’t help smiling. The bored teenager behind the counter barely glanced up. She looked about sixteen, with dark, thick hair pulled into a ponytail, and rectangular glasses perched on the end of her pierced nose. She yawned as Bess came up to the counter.

      “Help

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