“No Houdini acts without warning me, okay?” I say, my heart hammering at the audacity of my request.
Bree glances up. Her brown eyes rake over me in surprise.
“It’s been good to see you, that’s all.” I try to backpedal when the silence stretches too long. “I want to be able to say goodbye.”
“That’s fair.” She puts her glasses back on and targets a Doritos bag with her reacher. “I can’t believe how many people litter. These poor animals.”
“The fish deserve better.”
“And the birds, the sea lions, all of them.”
“Even the sharks?”
“I doubt a Doritos bag will slowJawsdown, but yeah, of course they do.”
I chuckle, moving away from her to nab a Red Bull can half buried in the sand. My feelings and emotions are a jumbled mess, all swirling together and confused. These are the facts as I know them: we’re both single, we used to be in love, and she’s here for a short period of time. At least…Ithinkshe’s single. As far asPeopleis concerned, she’s recovering from a massive heartbreak.
I glance across the dune, where she’s frowning at a clear cellophane wrapper, trying to get it into her trash bag. The Bree I knew fought heartache with 90s romcoms and lots of takeout. This Bree looks perfectly at ease, except for the murder in her eyes directed at all the trash-leaving miscreants. How hard is it to take your garbage to the garbage can?
My head is getting all kinds of distracted, so I walk the opposite direction. Obviously, the more I’m around Bree, the more I want to be around Bree. If I pursued seeing her again—strictly as friends, of course—what would I be facing when she inevitably went back home?
I haven’t really dated anyone in over a year. I kinda saw a tourist for a while last summer, but it fizzled when she went back to Arizona. Before that, I dated Peter’s sister, but she moved to be a ski instructor in Tahoe, and I rarely see her anymore. Neither of them broke my heart.
No one has broken my heart in the last decade of casual girlfriends, not like Bree. Which feels unfair since I’m the one who ended the relationship and left.
Again, it makes me wonder if this is a bad idea. What am I going to do, invite her over for Monopoly and lasagna? There isn’t really a way to pursue friendship with this woman without setting myself up for regret.
By the time we wrap up our cleaning in the dunes, I’mdecided. The best thing for both of us is to go our separate ways today. Anything else is asking for trouble.
We carry the bags of trash to my truck and climb in. “The BBQ at the community center will have a much larger turnout than the beach. People always come for the free food, which is part of our purpose anyway…but there’ll be a crowd. Should I take you home first?”
Bree looks at me, cocking her head to the side. The sun is fully out, warming the earth. It’s shining over us, glinting off the truck’s mirror beside her. “Do you think we’ll stay outside the whole time?”
“Usually, I’d say yes, but they mentioned putting the tables indoors today because of the wind. I don’t know.”
She chews her bottom lip, and I force myself to look at the road as I pull out of South Salmon’s small lot. We drive along the narrow street in front of a row of pastel-colored houses. Sand blows across the lane in front of me, the sun glinting off the ocean to our side. I never get tired of this view.
“I’ll come,” she says. “So far, no one has suspected anything. I think my wig is doing its job.”
“You aren’t wearing your signature lipstick, and your glasses cover half your face, Bree. If you take those off?—”
“You know about my signature lipstick?” She draws in a playful gasp. “And you know it’s called asignaturelook?”
Heat blooms on my cheeks. “It’s kind of hard to be American andnotknow about it.”
“You have a good point. About the glasses, I mean.” She sits back in her seat with a huff. “I think my makeup helps, and I really don’t want to return to that quiet, empty house yet. Did you know your cousin has dolls in one of the bedroom closets?”
“Those are probably his mom’s. The house was hers first.”
Bree shivers. “Still weird. Last night, I was convinced something was trying to break in, but it was just a branch hitting the window.”
“You mean someonewas trying to break in?”
“No. Something. It felt like an actual scary movie.”
“LikeThe Birds?” I ask.
“The what?”