Sadie(22)

It makes me shiver.

I know your name.

“H-hi.”

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“Y-yeah,” I say, and then: “I st-stutter.”

His mouth breaks into a warm smile.

“Cool,” he says. “I’m Javi.”




“So you’re new,” Kendall says, after we’ve all introduced ourselves.

Her voice is older than the rest of her, the kind of voice you earn by years of drinking whiskey and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. I don’t know how that happens to some girls, but it just does. She’s feeling me out in that pointed way girls do, but I’m used to people looking at me twice, from the stutter. I don’t like it but it’s something I know I can withstand. Kendall doesn’t look like she’s used to being withstood, and for now that’s my advantage.

I’ve told them my name is Lera.

“Y-yeah,” I say. I’m squished between Javi and the other girl, whose name is Carrie Sandoval. His thigh touches mine. Carrie’s doesn’t. I have to believe the contact, and the lack of it, is on purpose. “J-just m-moved in.”

I take a swig of the Pabst Javi bought me and it tastes like piss, but between it and the shots, I’m humming and wondering why my mother couldn’t have ever stopped at a feeling like this because this is when it’s good and you still have control. I remember the first time I drank just to see if I could. May Beth tried to scare me away from it, told me that what Mom had was a catching thing, a passed-down thing, a sleeping disease that works its way through bloodlines and if you’re lucky, it won’t wake up, but why ever tempt it? I did. I had to. And guess what? I didn’t turn into a junkie. Maybe that was the real reason May Beth never wanted me to try; it was just one more thing I’d never be able to forgive my mother for.

“And you just … ended up … here?” she asks. “Cooper’s?”

“W-well.” I pick at the label on my beer. “Your Instagram m-made it look like s-some kind of p-place to b-be.”

Noah smirks. Javi’s mouth drops open and he ducks his head. Kendall and Carrie share an incredulous look. Kendall says, “Did you just admit to Instagram stalking me?”

“W-wanted to see how you h-held up a-against your own hype.”

Javi lets loose a peal of laughter then tries to take it back by covering his mouth with his fist. I stare at Kendall and wonder what it must be like to live a life so unchallenged that my unspectacular retort could make any kind of successful landing. There’s a fire in her eyes that tells me maybe I need to walk this back if I want access to her father.

And that’s what I’m here for, after all.

“How am I doing so far?” she asks coolly.

“T-too early to tell.”

“I like you, Lera,” Noah declares, tipping his bottle to me. I clink mine with his. Noah Baker has a TV news anchor’s voice, if the news anchor was a little drunk. “You can stay.”

“So where do you live?” Javi asks, and immediately flushes at the question, like it’s somehow too personal, even though not that long ago his hands were on my hips. Kendall rolls her eyes but relaxes back into the booth.

Carrie snaps her fingers and says, voice sweet as a bell, “Hey, wait … did you move into the Cornells’ place? You’re the … Holdens, right?”

That’s the gift of the city, I guess. The constant flow of it. I can’t remember people coming in and out of Cold Creek the same kind of way, the kind of leaving and arriving with the energy of a promise behind it. In Cold Creek, it’s only birth and death, that kind of coming and going. The Cornells’ place. The Holdens. It’s too good for me not to take.

“Yeah,” I say.

“That’s like three streets away from me,” Javi says.

“My sister-in-law sold that place,” Carrie says. “It’s real fucking cherry. There’s a sauna and like, some kind of treehouse in the back?”

I nod. Sure.

Noah eyes me. “Parents got it good, huh?”

“G-good as yours.”

“And what do you know about them?” Kendall asks.

“Your d-dad seems like a b-big shot,” I say, meeting her eyes. Noah knocks his fist against the table in affirmation, and then takes a swig of his beer.

“You g-guys.” I nod at the four of them. “You g-grow up t-together?”

“You tell us,” Kendall says. “Since you know everything.”

“My family moved to Montgomery around third grade,” Carrie says. She gestures to Javi, Noah and Kendall. “These three are lifers, though.”

“Their dad was my T-ball coach,” Javi says, nodding at Noah, who polishes off the rest of his bottle in one impressive swig. He reaches across the table to thump Javi on the arm.

“Come on, dude. ’Nother round. On me.” He flashes me a bright white smile. “In celebration of our new friend.”

“I’m g-good, thanks.”

I tap my nail against my mostly full bottle. Any more than this and I don’t think it would be good. I turn to Kendall, “You know a g-guy named J-Jack Hersh?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Who?”

“N-no one.” I pause. “Or D-Darren M-Marshall?”