Two Truths and a Lie(107)
We had also heard, from Brooke, via Monica, who heard it from Dawn, who heard it directly from Gina, that Gina was in the process of breaking off her friendship with Daniel’s ex-wife, Veronica the Cheater, out of loyalty to Rebecca.
On the first day of the new school year the girls had all planned to walk to school together, those who weren’t on the bus route, which is how they’ve always done it. Always. Naturally Morgan was part of this plan. After the dressing-down at Brooke’s party, Katie was too. We made sure of it.
Then! Early on the first day of school something surprising happened! Morgan texted the rest of the girls on their group chat and said that she and Katie wouldn’t be walking with them after all. No explanation.
Esther had driven Audrey in from Plum Island. The buses are sometimes late on the first day, getting used to new routes, and Audrey didn’t want to take the chance of being tardy at the beginning of middle school, when there were so many new things to figure out: homerooms and lockers and the changing of classes and all of that. So it was Esther who told us that Alexa drove Morgan and Katie to school in her Jeep. And she didn’t leave them at the drop-off on Low Street the way parents were supposed to. No. She parked in the parking lot and she walked them to the front door of the school, in full view of everyone.
We had heard that Alexa had deferred Colby because she was so heartbroken about Cam. We had also heard that she’d never gotten into Colby in the first place. We’d heard that she’d been signed by a talent agent and was moving to L.A., and also that she was moving to New York City, and also that she was reapplying to colleges in the Midwest to get away from it all. We’d also heard she might be buying the Cottage with her Silk Stockings money and would be staying local to run it.
It was reported by Gina, who works for the upper elementary in the same building and was helping to usher the students off the buses, that Alexa said, really pretty loudly, to the girls, “Take care, bitches. You go kill it in sixth grade, okay?” Then the three of them did some sort of complicated secret handshake which Gina, when pressed, could not re-create.
And off Alexa went into her future, glowing with youth and beauty and vitality and fame, and something more complicated but somehow also beautiful—something that had to do with grief. She left in her wake a bunch of scrawny, clumsy middle school boys, fresh off the school bus, whose bar for beautiful women had been radically and irrevocably set very, very, very high.
Acknowledgments
I am beyond grateful to the team at William Morrow, who have welcomed me so warmly and worked so hard for my books: Liate Stehlik, Molly Waxman, Julie Paulauski, Vedika Khanna, Jen Hart, and my fabulous and insightful editor, Kate Nintzel. Kate has twice taken very rough first drafts and worked her magic on them, not letting me rest until we have the best book we can have. (Even when I really, really want to rest.) Here’s to the future!
My agent, Elisabeth Weed, has been my tireless champion and friend from the beginning of my publishing career, and I’m so thankful for her and all the people at the Book Group. Special shout-out to Hallie Schaeffer for keeping things moving smoothly and for smart editorial insight at just the right time.
While any mistakes in this book are mine alone, I owe a thank you to the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs for answering my many questions carefully and thoughtfully over the course of several months. For additional detail I used the book Witsec: Inside the Witness Protection Program by Pete Earley and Gerald Shur.
This book wouldn’t exist without the town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, which my family and I have called home for twelve of the past thirteen years. I moved around a lot as a kid and a young adult, and Newburyport is the place I’ve lived longest in my life—I consider it my hometown by proxy. Newburyport! Your restaurants, beaches, houses, history, rail trail, parks, ice cream, Yankee Homecoming festivities and general sensibility are all a big part of this book and I thank you for giving me so much to work with in life and in fiction. Thank you to Jabberwocky Bookshop and the other independent bookstores around the country that support authors and keep people reading avidly and shopping locally. The Book Rack, Newburyport’s other independent bookstore, did not survive to see the end of 2019 but remains alive in this book because it did so much for so many (including me) for so long.
An author takes a certain risk setting a book in the town where she lives, and to anyone with concerns about this I have three words: fiction, fiction, fiction. My own Newburyport Mom Squad has only its (former) name in common with the Mom Squad of this book. My squaders are full of love and empathy and kindness, and that might not make for enticing fiction, but it sure does make for sustaining friendships and really fun dinners out.
In a busy household it can sometimes be hard to find a quiet corner to work, especially in deadline times. Thank you to Cindy and Marc Burkhardt for the generous use of their Salisbury beach house for the second book in a row. Thank you to Sandy Weisman at 26 Split Rock Cove in South Thomaston, Maine, whose beautiful artist’s retreat apartment has saved me multiple times. Chococoa Baking Company, Plum Island Coffee Roasters, and Commune Café are all places where I have parked myself for long periods of writing time and really good beverages. The same goes for the Newburyport Public Library, except for the beverages, although I really like the new rule allowing covered drinks.
Jennifer Truelove and Margaret Dunn have been around now for six books (and a long time before that), serving as book-titlers, emergency readers, research assistants, laugh-generators, celebrity-introducers, and best friends. I am lucky to have them. I am also lucky to have the Destrampe and Moore families in my corner. My parents, John and Sara Mitchell, and my sister, Shannon Mitchell, have been longtime supporters of my work and my family as a whole, attending track meets and book readings and soccer games and plays year after year.