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“You want to sell?”
He hesitated, trying to hold on to the thread of the conversation. “Sell what?”
“The condo.”
“It was hers? I thought…” He thought the great Roscoe Avanger was just letting her live there, free of charge, because she worked for him and he felt sorry for her and Oliver.
“It was in her name,” Frasier said. “She owned it. It’s yours now. Do you want to sell?”
“Wh… Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll be in touch. Give me an address where I can reach you.”
“I’ll text you,” Oliver said, not wanting Frasier to know he didn’t have a permanent address, that he felt in such dire straits. He was supposed to be thriving away from Mallow Island. “Is this your cell number?”
“Yes. Are you all right, son?”
“I said goodbye a long time ago.”
“I know you did.” Frasier paused. “Are you okay out there in California? Are you still in school?”
“Just graduated. Look, I have to go.”
“Right. I’m sorry, Oliver.”
Oliver hung up, and then he texted Frasier Garland’s address. He’d ask her to forward anything to him when he got his own place.
“Who was that?” Garland finally asked when it became clear Oliver wasn’t going to explain the call.
“An old friend of my mother’s from home,” Oliver said, putting the phone back in his pocket and picking up his cup of coffee, but not taking a sip. His hand was shaking slightly. “He just found out I graduated.”
“My sweet Southern boy from Mallow Island,” Garland said. “Take me there one day.”
Oliver didn’t respond.
“Oliver’s mother died when he was ten, just like mine,” Garland told the others. He’d never said that. She’d just assumed it, creating her own narrative from what little Oliver had told her. He’d never talked about his mother to anyone but his school therapist. And only Frasier ever knew how bad it was, living with her.
While their voices floated around him, Oliver stared at the pool water, his eyes behind his sunglasses watering because the sun was so bright.
No other reason, he told himself.
No other reason at all.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte had gone to bed intending to get up first thing in the morning to look for new places on the island to do her henna. Yet here she was, still in bed, staring at those damn witch balls so long that her eyes felt gritty.
Zoey’s music suddenly fired up and Charlotte blinked out of her stupor. Time to get rolling. She was just wasting time. She got out of bed and found some clothes, and then she grabbed her backpack and walked to her blue scooter in the living room. She always kept it inside at night for fear of how easy it would be to steal, thus robbing her of her only mode of transportation. Sometimes she truly longed for a car, but this had been the crazy mode of transportation teenaged Charlotte had dreamed about. She was about to push up the kickstand, but stopped.
She really, really didn’t want to do this.
Not yet. Not today.
She set her backpack down and followed the thumping bass nextdoor instead. She knocked on the doorframe and Zoey looked up from a box she was going through.
“Hi. Want some company?” Charlotte asked, becauseI want some companywas so much harder for her to say.
“Of course! Come in,” Zoey said. “Lizbeth’s door was unlocked again this morning. You didn’t hear anything again last night, did you?”
