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“Well,” Charlotte said. “This is something.”
“I know,” Zoey said with a laugh as she walked to a pink refrigerator, on which was an empty wicker birdcage. She opened the freezer and brought out two boxes of chicken sandwiches. “I thinkmy mother must have redecorated just before she died. The dresser still had the price tag on it.”
Charlotte approached the refrigerator to look at three photos tacked there with magnets. “Is this her?” she asked, indicating the photo of a woman with stunningly symmetric features. She was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that men would move mountains for, but there was also something hard and unpredictable about her as she stared at the camera, like you didn’t want to get on her bad side.
“Yes,” Zoey said. “I think it was taken just after she arrived in America. She immigrated from Cuba.”
“You look like her.”
“No, she was beautiful.”
“So are you.”
“Not like her.” Zoey opened the boxes and put the sandwiches in the microwave. “I still can’t believe Frasier knew her and didn’t say anything.”
She’d been going on about that all morning. “Frasier probably has more secrets than the rest of us combined.”
“He certainly seems good at keeping them,” Zoey said, punching the microwave buttons.
“Who is this?” Charlotte asked, pointing to the photo of an old man in a tie-dyed T-shirt. What was left of his hair was in a salt-and-pepper ponytail. “Your dad?”
“No. That’s Kello. He owns the bookstore where I used to work. I wanted a photo of him to take with me, but he hates having his photo taken. He made me promise not to post it online. He’s a little paranoid about technology.”
“I don’t like having my photo online, either. And this?” Charlotte indicated the last photo. It was of Zoey and another, heavier girl sitting in a restaurant booth with two ice cream sundaes in front ofthem. They looked young, about twelve, and had smears of ice cream on their noses and were laughing about it.
“That is, was, my best friend, Ingrid.”
“Was?”
“She moved away about a year after that photo was taken. Those are the three people who’ve meant the most to me, so I like looking at them.”
“What about other friends?” Charlotte asked.
Zoey shook her head. “I sort of did my own thing after Ingrid left.”
“A boyfriend?” Charlotte waggled her brows.
Zoey snorted, which Charlotte took as a no. The microwave dinged and Zoey played hot potato with the sandwiches, still in their plastic bags, before tossing them onto plates. “I don’t remember seeing any photos in your place.”
“There’s no one from my past I want to remember.” But then she thought of the photo of Charlotte and Pepper under her bed. “But I had a best friend once, too. She was my whole world.”
“Yes!” Zoey said. “That’s how it was with me and Ingrid. I used to spend more time at her house than I did my own. When my father and stepmother and my stepmother’s kids went on summer trips, I even asked to stay with Ingrid. We said we were going to keep in touch, and I don’t know why we didn’t. Sometimes I’ll look for her online, but I wonder if she changed her name. Maybe her mother remarried and she was adopted.” Zoey set the plates on the coffee table in front of the leather couch. “Did you lose touch, too?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Charlotte said. “She died when we were sixteen.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Zoey sat on the couch heavily. “That’s when you said you went out on your own. Sixteen.”
Charlotte nodded, but was saved from any more questions by a voice calling from the garden. “Hello?”
They exchanged glances, then walked to the balcony to see Mac standing at the base of the staircase. He was looking up at them like they were maidens in a turret.
“Do you mind if I come up?” he asked.
“Of course!” Zoey said. “We’re having chicken sandwiches. Do you want one?”
“No, thank you,” he said as he navigated the twirly staircase with care. “I just wanted to give something to Charlotte.”
When he reached the balcony, Charlotte took the piece of folded notebook paper he held out to her.
