Reunited (24 page)

A year ago—even
a month
ago—Tiernan would have never believed a moment like this could exist—the three of them together on a road trip,
having fun
. But the truth was, she liked being in this dumpy bar even with its d-bag bartender and sticky floors. Sure, the place was super sketchy, but it wasn’t trying to be anything other than it was. It was “keeping it real.” She’d have to send Judy a postcard.

Tiernan pulled her camera from her bag. She wanted to capture this feeling. Whatever it was.

“Hey.” Tiernan held her camera up to the bartender. “You mind taking a picture of us?”

Chippendale gave her a rude little grunt and took the camera. “Squeeze in,” he directed, pressing his back against the whirling drink machines.

Tiernan and Summer each leaned toward Alice and she slung her arms around their shoulders.

“Say Bourbon Street!”

Tiernan smiled the way she usually did for photos. It was a pose she’d practiced many times, alone in the mirror—chin down, lips pursed, eyebrows raised in a mix of sultriness and irony. Her “picture face,” her friend Melissa called it. It was the way she looked the best. But it wasn’t the way she really looked.

Chippendale was already pulling the camera strap over his head—a feat that took some time since he was trying to do it without messing up his male stripper hairdo.

“Hey, wait.” Tiernan stopped him. “You mind taking another one?”

He gave her a slightly annoyed head flick, but stepped back into position.

“Ready? In one, two . . .”

“Level3!” Alice blurted out as he snapped the shot.

When Tiernan got her camera back the difference between the two photos was striking. In the first one, the girls wore well-rehearsed (if slightly tipsy) smiles. In the second, Alice had a double chin going, Summer was all nostrils, and Tiernan’s smile was so wide she looked like the Joker from
Batman
. To a stranger, their picture would look like three friends having fun. But was it possible to actually
be
a friend to people she’d lied to for all these years?

“Aren’t you glad you came out with us?” Alice slurred as she leaned in to Summer.

Summer nodded. “I had no idea you guys were actually this fun.”

“Thanks,” Tiernan said, giving Summer’s arm a playful slap.

Part of her wanted to just blurt it out and get it over with right here and now, even if it ruined the moment. Even if they hated her forever. The later it got (and the more Tiernan drank), the more she felt her secret from freshman year scratching and clawing away at her insides, like the squirrel digging his way out of his grave. And if she didn’t do something about it soon, Tiernan was afraid that the truth about that night might just bust its way out all on its own.

“Oh my God!” Alice screamed. Then she jumped off her barstool, searching the floor frantically. “My purse! Have you guys seen my purse?”

“Where did you put it?” Tiernan asked, still trying to make sense of what was happening.

“I thought I put it on the bar, right in front of me. But then I went to pay the bill and . . .”

Tiernan just stood there, taking it all in, as Summer immediately sprang into action—dropping to her hands and knees and rummaging beneath every barstool in the place as if Alice’s purse might have fallen down and then hopped away on its own.

“Well, one of you needs to take care of this.” Chippendale waved their bill in his hand, unconcerned by their crisis.

Tiernan slapped twenty-five bucks on the bar. No compassion, no tip,
dink-weed.

Summer made her way back to them from the end of the
bar, looking resigned. “Nothing,” she said sadly.

“That’s ’cause it’s not here!” Alice said.

“When do you last remember seeing it?” Tiernan asked in her calmest voice.

Alice’s eyes looked wild. “I don’t know!” she cried, throwing her hands in the air.

“Well, let’s just take a breath and try to retrace our steps,” Tiernan instructed. She didn’t know how she was managing to keep her composure. Just that someone needed to do it.

They all held hands as they ran back down Bourbon Street plowing their way through the mob, dodging the people who looked even wobblier than the three of them.

Finally, they got to the place they’d been last, an obnoxious Mexican-themed chain restaurant so strict with ID that Tiernan had resorted to begging some lonely middle-aged loser to order their drinks. A half hour ago the place was packed to the point of being uncomfortable. Now, it was just ridiculous.

“We were right here!” Alice shouted over the crowd, sounding a lot more sober than she had ten minutes ago.

“Did you use the ladies’ room?” Summer asked.

Alice nodded and dashed off to the back of the bar.

“This totally sucks,” Tiernan said, as a waitress holding a tray of margaritas squeezed in front of her.

Summer exhaled through her nose. “We shouldn’t have let her get that drunk.”

“
We
didn’t
let her
do anything,” Tiernan said.

“And who was pushing the frozen drinks on her for hours?” Summer asked.

As if this were all Tiernan’s fault, when Summer was drinking all night too. Not to mention that it was Alice who had lost her purse, all on her own.

“I didn’t find it,” Alice said, emerging from the crowd. Her face looked so shiny and pale Tiernan was sure she was about to get puke on her shoes.

“You guys . . .” Alice spoke haltingly, as if the words themselves tasted of bile. “Our tickets were in there.”

“THE NEW, NEW THING”

I WANTED A NEW THING

I WANTED A NEW, NEW THING

DON’T WE ALL? DON’T WE ALL? DON’T WE ALL?

I WANTED A NEW THING

I WANTED A NEW, NEW THING

BUT THE OLD THING

TURNED OUT TO BE BETTER

THAN NOTHING AT ALL

—from Level3’s second CD,
Rough & Tumble

AS FAR AS SUMMER COULD TELL, SOMETIME AROUND MIDNIGHT
Bourbon Street turned into a total free-for-all—sweaty tourists packed in like a kitchen at a keg party, a different tune wafting from the door of each bar they passed. Yet Alice’s voice managed to rise above the din—the runaway trumpet in a jazz solo gone wrong.

“I know you think going to the police is pointless. So, what am I supposed to do, Tiernan? Nothing?”

It wasn’t the first time Summer had witnessed an Alice freak-out. There was the episode in sixth grade when Alice got assigned to do a presentation on the excretory system in front of the whole class, while Summer and Tiernan got to work together on a circulatory system diorama. There was the time she left her brand-new pink cleats at the Andover soccer field. And, of course, her swan song: the Winter Wonderland Dance. The main difference about tonight was that this time, Alice’s tantrum was fueled with rum.

“Just don’t be delusional.” Tiernan’s voice rose to meet Alice’s. “You think the New Orleans police don’t have anything better to do than to look for some girl’s purse?”

“Can you guys keep it down!” Summer yelled. Yes, she was shouting about shouting.

“Fine! If you guys don’t want to go with me, I’ll go by myself!” Alice marched off in a huff.

Tiernan grabbed Summer by the arm. “Come on, help me talk some sense into her.”

For some reason, Summer let herself get dragged along. The path of least resistance. Of course, there was an even easier option. She could leave. Just flag down a cab and go to the airport right now, before this night completely spiraled out of control. But she couldn’t walk away in the middle of this crisis.

Tiernan yanked Summer’s wrist, slamming her straight into two middle-aged guys in business suits.

“Yo, blondie,” one of them called out drunkenly.

She pulled herself loose from Tiernan’s grasp. “I can walk on my own, okay?”

“Well, hurry up. We don’t want to lose her.”

Summer’s head was throbbing, like she’d gone straight from buzzed to hungover.

“Alice!” Tiernan screamed blindly into the crowd. But Summer had several inches on her and she could see Alice’s frizzy mass of hair just fine, ten feet ahead.

“Calm down, she’s right up there.”

“You need to talk to her,” Tiernan said. “She’ll listen to you.”

Ah, yes. The same person who just let herself get peer-pressured into drinking four Hurricanes, the person who was
gallivanting around in a strange city at two in the morning, the person too chicken to break the news that she was leaving in a few hours, was now the voice of maturity and reason.

“Alice!” Summer yelled when they were finally close enough. Shockingly, Alice stopped, moving over to the sidewalk where the flow of human traffic was slightly less intense.

“I think we should go back to the hotel room and talk,” Summer said. “We need to get out of here.”

“I don’t want to go back.” Alice pouted. “I want to find my purse.”

Summer stifled a sigh. “Your purse is gone. You just need to accept it.”

“I don’t need to accept anything!” Alice shot back. “I’m not like
you
, I don’t just drift along letting whatever happens happen. I make things happen for myself!”

Summer felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Here she was, trying to help, and once again Alice was treating her like a second-class citizen.

“Yeah, you
do
make things happen. Like this wonderful trip we’re on.” The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Alice just stood there, her face cycling through emotions so fast it was hard for Summer to tell if Alice was about to slap her or burst into tears.

“Guys . . .” Tiernan tried to butt in, but Alice shouted over her.

“You chose to come on this trip! No one twisted your arm.”

“I did . . .” Summer swallowed hard. “And now . . . I’m choosing to leave it.”

And with that she turned and walked away. She didn’t need to deal with this. She hadn’t even wanted to go out tonight in the first place.

“Wait up.” Tiernan was right at her heels. “Where are you gonna go?”

Summer paused just long enough for Alice to catch up. “Home,” she said quietly. “Jace bought me a ticket. My flight leaves in a couple hours.”

Alice’s eyes had a million questions, but all she managed was a quiet “Oh.”

“So, how long have you known you were bailing?” Tiernan asked.

“Since yesterday, at the hotel. It’s not like I’m trying to ditch you guys. It’s just . . . Jace and I had plans to go the Vineyard together, and I thought they were canceled, but then . . .” Summer couldn’t think of the right way to sum up just what had happened between her and Jace. “Anyway, I’m gonna head back to the room to get my bags, if you want to come with.” She tried to sound casual, as if by ignoring the angry words she and Alice had exchanged, she could pretend it hadn’t happened.

“I brought a key,” Tiernan said, making eye contact.

Summer dug through her wallet and handed Alice a fifty. “Here’s some money for the ticket. When I get back home, I’ll
send you a check for the rest if that’s okay with—”

“He’s cheating on you,” Alice said, her eyes locked on the bill in her hand.

Summer felt her body stiffen. For a second the world seemed to move in slow motion.

“He’s cheating on you,” Alice repeated, this time staring at her with such intensity, Summer actually stumbled back a step.

Tiernan’s gaze flew from Alice to Summer, then back again.

Summer opened her mouth to refute this claim. But when she went to speak, nothing came out. Her body seemed to know the truth before her brain did.

“With that sophomore girl, Debbie Davis—” Alice continued.

Tiernan held up her hand like a stop sign. “Alice, just—”

“Everyone knows they’ve been hooking up forever.”

Summer’s last phone call with Jace flashed through her mind, all of his texts. All the times he swore up and down “nothing happened” now made it seem so glaringly obvious that something had. And what about Melanie and Jocelyn and the rest of her friends? If
everyone
knew . . .

“You know, Alice . . .” Summer’s voice quavered. “. . . if I thought you were telling me this out of kindness, that would be one thing. But you’re not.”

The fear in Alice’s eyes made Summer’s voice grow stronger.

“I think the only reason you’re telling me this is to try to get me to stay on this stupid trip. And if you think, after all these years, that I’m still your little puppet, that you can control what
I think and what I do, then you must be even drunker than I thought.”