resurface

8

Again it took me a second to place her even though she was the same as she had been the other night. She looked so foreign with her thick eyeliner and piercings and her dark hair all pulled to one side and shaved on the other. Somehow she seemed so out of place now in combat boots and tight jeans. It made me feel strange, like cold and warm at the same time, breathless for the right and wrong reasons, shocked and relieved that we were in the same room.

"I hadn't thought you'd have such good company," Ivy said, her eyes flicking from me to Grady and back again.

For the hundredth time I wished I'd been working with someone else, but I wasn't sure how to express that.

"Emma is the best company," Grady said, even though he clearly knew she'd been talking to me about him. "She's the only one who knows how to get the taffy to just the right temperature. Without her the customers would have beat me up." He offered her a piece of today's blue raspberry taffy, but she waved it off. "I would have been helpless."

Ivy leaned on the counter, closer to him. "Probably not that helpless," she said with a smile and a shake of her head.

Her voice was breathy and the suggestiveness of it made my lips part. It reminded me that eleven years was a long time, and I couldn't help gawk at this girl I didn't really know at all, this girl who would turn down blue raspberry taffy and flirt with a summer boy. Of course she wouldn't be the same girl who wore sundresses in the winter and hated wearing shoes. I knew that, deep down, I really did, but it was still hard to see first hand.

Grady handled it like it was second nature. He flashed her a closed lip smile and then looked at me. "I've finished up here so I'll leave you two ladies to your mischief."

He saluted us both as he left. Ivy watched him, and I watched her. Her fingers were long, like her mother's, only the nails were painted black. She was thinner and taller than I had imagined she would be. I had been the gangly one when we were kids, but now we were almost the same height.

When Grady was gone, she turned back to me and shrugged out of her green military jacket. She was wearing a black tank top, and her skin was pale and creamy. At least that was the same.

"Okay, here's the truth," she said. "I don't remember much, not about the whole kidnapping thing and whatever and not about my parents or this town, and not even much about you."

It made sense. I knew this was a possibility.

It also made my stomach drop, my throat tighten, and my bare arms feel cold. She'd been such a constant presence in my life. She had been gone and we hadn't known what had happened to her, but she'd still be with me. I'd thought about her every day. Every little thing in this town reminded me of her. Sitting under the boardwalk and watching the waves, walking up to the lighthouse, seeing mussels wash up on the beach, roasting marshmallows at a bonfire—all of it made me think of her. But she'd forgotten me. That hurt even if it shouldn't.

"What do you remember?" I asked since it was infinitely better than any of the other questions that I was thinking, like Why are you here? Do you remember that it was my fault? What happened to you? Will we ever be the same again?

She waved a hand and rolled her eyes. "Nothing all that great. Foster parents, New Jersey public schools, being alone, not feeling like I belonged. It's your usual sad story. I don't really want to talk about it. It's not worth it. The important thing is I'm back."

I desperately wanted to ask her more, about that sad story, how she got back, why she shaved part of her head, and if she felt like she belonged now. I even wanted to tell her I knew how that felt, but I didn't since that would sound ridiculous. I hadn't been kidnapped and lost from my family for eleven years. I just didn't know my dad.

I also didn't want to scare her away. "You're also pretty famous," I said. "How'd you slip the press?"

She smiled. "Jacqueline, I mean my mom, was harder. She's been hovering since I got back, but as soon as I convinced her to run out and get some Aleve for my headache, the paparazzi all followed her and I could slip away."

She moved around the room as if she was seeing the shop for the first time. I followed her with my eyes and tried to remember if it looked different or if it had been the same all those years ago, but I wasn't sure. Not that it would matter. After everything she'd been through, of course she didn't remember it.

Memory was a strange thing, sometimes sticking to us and sometimes slipping from our grasp.

It took me too long to realize what that meant. Jacqueline would probably have a breakdown when she got home and found her daughter gone, again.

"Relax, Emma, I left her a note."

My name slipped off her tongue easily, like it used to, and I let it drop. Maybe she did remember me on some kind of subconscious level. "So..."

"What do I want to?" she said clapping her hands once. "So glad you asked. I heard about this party and I want us to go."

Not exactly what I was expecting. There wouldn't be much opportunity for the two of us to talk and reconnect if we were surrounded by a bunch of summer kids celebrating the end of another year of prep school or their first weekend at "the shore."

"Some chick, Jamie, is having it? Big house, has a bash every year. I figured you would know where to go."

"Jamie Young?" I asked, hoping there was another Jamie with a summer estate and a penchant for throwing parties that I didn't know about.

Ivy pointed at me. "That's the one. I knew coming to find you was a good idea. You know where she lives?"

Everyone knew where she lived. That wasn't the problem. "Yeah, we're definitely not invited to that party."

"Oh please," Ivy said with a laugh. "You and I, we are the party."

By the time I finished cleaning the kitchen and got my stuff together, I still hadn't convinced her this was a bad idea. When I locked the front door and headed out with her, I was resigned that I was about to crash a summer kid party. Or at least make the attempt.

If it was anyone other than Jamie Young, I would say maybe because Ivy was famous we really would get in no problem, but two summers ago Jamie slummed it by flirting with Dan Fischer then breaking his heart every chance she got. That year he was hopelessly in love with her, the way most guys where when they encountered Jamie. She was blond and tan and rich and gorgeous. Dan learned though. Last year, he didn't look at her twice since he was too busy trying to hook up with me. Despite the fact that nothing happened between us, his change of heart was, in Jamie's mind, completely my fault.

I explained all of this to Ivy as we walked up the main road towards the north side of town. Normally I would have gone straight up the beach, but since we'd get pretty close to the Anderson estate, I didn't want to run into anyone with a camera snooping around. That worked for Ivy, she seemed interested in rediscovering all the shops and then the houses.

"Basically she thought she could get me fired," I said (still talking about Jamie).

"Seriously?" Ivy laughed. "By saying your hair was in her taffy?"

"She thought she could gross people out and hurt the business or something."

"That's like the lamest thing I've ever heard. And Jacqueline would never fire you. I mean, I've only been here a few days and all she talks about is how wonderful you are, and why was she even mad at you anyway just because some stupid guy...hey, what's that?" Ivy pulled me into her. She smelled citrusy, like her mom's perfume.

I heard it first. Grunts and thumping, then I followed where Ivy was pointing and saw the movement, a figure in light clothing, curled into a ball on the ground. I didn't understand it at first. All the years I'd lived in Seaside, in a town where I'd seen everything, I had never seen this.

A step ahead of me, Ivy broke into a run, charging right into a fight, three guys dressed in black with black ski masks over their faces against one poor guy in a gray shirt and khaki shorts.

I raced after her, passing a pale pink tie strewn on the ground.