We both still at the sound of the squeaking back-screen door.
Alarm causes me to stand. The back door is closed and the view through the window is the same. “That’s weird.”
“Your neighbor?” she asks.
“Maybe. He might have wanted to talk to me and saw you were here.” I answer her other question, opting to keep the girl’s name out of it. “Keith told me there was an incident in Marquette. It’s why Craig left the teaching job up there. He was forced out. Someone here on the search-and-screen committee found out and tried to stop his hire. Being married saved his position.”
Liv shakes her head. “I didn’t know about that. Mom was on that committee, wasn’t she?”
“She was.”
She takes another drink of her wine. “I must have missed the attraction-to-Craig Gilbert gene.”
“There’s a gene?”
“Julie and her friends were all infatuated, too.”
“Infatuated?”
“For them, I think it was different...an easy mark.”
“What does that mean?”
Liv looks momentarily into her glass. “I tried to understand, but I didn’t get straight answers.”
I’m not sure what my sister is saying.
Did one of these girls initiate the connection—show an interest in him? Then I remember what Becky said the other evening. “Becky said that some of the senior girls had a thing for married men.”
“This town seriously produces stupid people,” Liv says.
“It’s true.”
Leaving her wine glass on the table, Liv stands and walks to the railing. Sighing, she leans on her elbows and looks out at the lake. “Yes and no. Like I said, from whatI’ve pieced together, it’s different with them—Julie’s harem. They’re different.”
“I realize how naive it sounds,” I confess, “but when I...with Craig, I thought it was love. He was new here, and all the girls thought he was so sexy. He was older, but not that much. When he noticed me, really noticed, I fell. It was forbidden, secretive, and well, I fell.” I lift my head to the lake. “Like the fish, I fell hook, line, and sinker. I thought he meant all the things he said. I thought I was special.”
“I don’t think that’s the way it is for Julie and her friends.” Liv looks over at me. “I believe Julie loved Austin, or she thought she did. But her friends all broke up with their boyfriends either last summer or the beginning of their senior year.”
“Marty was dating someone too?”
“Before last summer, yeah. He was a friend of Austin’s. I don’t remember his name.”
“Theyallbroke up? Wait, Austin said he broke up with Julie.”
“In hindsight, I don’t think Julie was into it at first.”
“Into what?”
Chapter
Thirty-Six
When my sister doesn’t answer, I repeat my question. “What don’t you think Julie was into?”
“There’s a lot of conjecture involved in what I’m about to say, but I really need to say it.”
“Go on.”
