“And Trey found a video of your kiss at graduation.”
Kia lifted her head from the cold window and looked at Deja.
“Where? How?”
“Someone filmed your graduation. And they didn’t exactly put it online, but Trey is good at research. The way that guy was talking shit about how much you hate each other, and then you just grabbed her and kissed her, and she kissed you back like… fire. There was so much there. I can’t believe you didn’t get together after that. It was obvious you’ve been in love with her since that kiss. And I could tell she saw you looking all snatchedand realized she feels the same way.”
Deja’s words hurt like grabbing the handle of a pot that had been in the oven. For a split second, the body didn’t register pain. Then pain washed in on a wave of how-could-I-have-been-so-dumb because Kia had played this fantasy in her mind a thousand times. Sullivan saw her again and suddenly realized what their time together had meant and how irresistible she found Kia. They kissed and skipped into the sunrise of happily ever after. (The exact details of HEA were hazy. Did Sullivan move into Old Girl? Would Sullivan like living in a vintage RV? Did they buy a farm and raise chickens? There was definitely a lot of sex and cuddling on comfortable sofas and planning birthday adventures.) Hearing how ridiculous the fantasy sounded coming from Deja made Kia feel like a fool a thousand times over.
“I don’t want to talk about Alice Sullivan.”Please take a hint.
“Yes. But,” Deja said with enough pep to make the sun rise early. “This is your chance to connect with your long-lost love. God, I wish I had someone like that. It’s so romantic. What tore you apart? Was it another woman?”
“What? No.”
“A man? Anyway. Doesn’t matter. Maybe you’ll even get married. Hell, maybe it’d make you a legacy owner. But that’s not the point. The point is you get a second chance at love. You could live with her. Portland’s hella expensive. Seattle too. When I lived in Seattle, I had four roommates.” Deja relayed something about a roommate who ate everyone’s condiments. “But like way more mayo than normal. It’s like,What did you do with it?You don’t think it was something sexual, do you?”
Deja paused, apparently genuinely waiting for an answer.
“I so can’t answer that.”
This morning Kia “Gourmazing” was living the elusiveAmerican dream. Now she’d betrayed Me’shell, ruined Sullivan’s life, opened the door for Mega Eats to barge into a neighborhood that didn’t want them, and Deja was asking her about sex and mayo. And she wanted to cry, but there was no one to cry to. Her father was yachting out of cell phone range. No one had ever cried on her aunt Eleanor’s shoulder. And ever since her cousin and best friend Lillian had moved to Paris with her girlfriend, Izzy, Lillian had started scheduling their calls. The gaps between Lillian’s texts had gotten longer. Kia had been Lillian’s person. Now it was Izzy. And even though Lillian loved her and would listen to her all night long if Kia wanted to talk, it didn’t feel the same knowing that some part of Lillian wanted to get off the phone and get back to Izzy.
When Kia got back to her RV, she threw herself on her bed. She’d always been an optimist. She found solutions. She tried new things and they worked. She expected people to like her and they did. She gave a bitter laugh, thinking about Deja’s romantic fantasy. Sullivan hadn’t missed her. There was no lost love to rekindle. They weren’t moving in together. Kia wasn’t going to become a legacy owner by marrying Sullivan. Marry Sullivan. Ha! Right.
Deja was sweet but she was ridiculous sometimes. So ridiculous it wasn’t even worth googling the Oakwood Heights charter to see if marrying a legacy owner made you a legacy owner. Deja needed a lesson on identifying realistic plans. The last thing Kia was going to do was show up on Sullivan’s doorstep and beg Sullivan to marry her so Kia could build Taste the Love Land and torture herself by imagining a world in which Sullivan loved her.
chapter 6
Sullivan stood inher living room. Nothing had moved since that afternoon. Chenille throws still draped the sofa. Her grandfather’s books still lined the built-in bookshelves over the fireplace. Her stereo was still queued up to the audiobook she’d been listening to. But now the vaulted A-frame ceiling swallowed up the light from the table lamps, casting the room in gloom, like a mix between the Midnight filter and the Gritty filter on Insta. (She couldn’t believe she remembered the names.)
She’d shooed Opal and Nina out after three hours of Nina trying to ply her with expensive tequila and Opal hugging Sullivan like a Little League coach comforting a losing player. Spring rain like nothing she had seen before slashed her deck as though the world raged at Kia, Mega Eats, the board, the neighborhood, and, most of all, Sullivan. She used to go to the neighborhood association meetings. Before Aubrey’s unrelenting pursuit of social media content had eaten up every minute of Sullivan’s free time, Sullivan had been involved in the association. She probably would have run for board president except Aubrey said it didn’t play well on Insta. Food festivals slapped. Going to rugby games and doing charitycooking classes together served up sexy, sapphic couple. There was no way to make board membership exciting. And Sullivan let some of Aubrey’s hunger for likes pull her away from the causes she believed in and the community she wanted to serve. For a while it had felt worth it. After all, she had Aubrey, the love of her life, what more did she need? It turned out other things she needed included room to be herself, privacy, and a chance to live her values.
Sullivan would have heard about the sale if she’d been more involved. She could have read the handwritten letter her grandfather wrote to the board the last time the board discussed selling, the letter that persuaded them to protect the land for fifty years. That was her grandfather’s legacy. And Sullivan could have led guided tours of the forest, pointing out trillium and clues that pointed to bobcats gliding through the Bois. She jumped as the wind knocked a pot of cilantro off her porch railing.
Who was she kidding? The world wasn’t mad at Kia or even at her. Climate change had turned the patter of spring rain into a hurricane. What did dear Miss Brenda used to say?Unleash the fury of a changing sky and then duck and hide!Climate change brought about by a thousand causes, but tonight all she could see was a pile of single-use plastic mounting in front of her house.
A spark reflected in her living room window. Sullivan turned to see what appliance had flashed in her kitchen, but the kitchen and living room rested in darkness. Her living room looked out on a deck set a story above the garden, a lovely vantage point to observe deer and raccoons without disturbing their habitats. There were no walking paths behind her house, as she had been painfully reminded when she’d stalked away from Kia, refusing to flinch even when a blackberry vine snagged her cheek like a fishhook.
The light grew closer. Maybe it was someone’s lost dog withan LED collar, but no, the way the shadows flailed around the flashlight saidperson. Who would walk in this weather, let alone tangle with the armed and vindictive blackberries? A tremor of fear interrupted her fork-ridden despair. She checked the lock on the slider and then the front door. The light got closer. She should call the police, but there’d be flooding all over the city. The police would have to leave someone stranded in their second-story apartment so they could rush to Sullivan’s rescue, andthenshe would find out it was someone’s golden retriever. Her backpack lived in a front closet. She was always ready for an impromptu hike in the Cascades or overnight backpacking trip near Camp Sherman. When she was stressed, she’d go camping solo. It was safer than people thought if you were prepared. She pulled it out and grabbed a Nitecore spotlight that could light up a mountainside. She’d never used it, but you had to be prepared when you were alone. God, she felt alone tonight.
She hurried to the window and turned on the spotlight. A person was lying on Sullivan’s low-water moss “lawn,” where they had obviously slipped. It was a girl. Probably a teenager who’d snuck out to smoke pot and gotten lost. Sullivan pulled open the slider, letting in a tidal wave of rain.
“Are you okay?” Her words got lost in the storm.
She dialed back the lumens on the Nitecore and shone her light on the girl. No, not a girl, a woman, with a glittery handbag lying in the mud beside her and dark hair streaming over her eyes. Sullivan hurried to the porch railing.
“Are you hurt?” She projected her voice.
“No, I’m just frickin’ wet! Fuck, it’s raining!”
The woman sat up. And the tableau all came together… or didn’t, because it was impossible thatKiawas sitting in the mud in Sullivan’s backyard.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sullivan called. “Wait. I’ll come down.” Sullivan must be dreaming. “Hold on.” She headed for the front door.
Had Kia sat around the grange for hours waiting to stalk Sullivan in the rain?
“Whatare you doing?” Sullivan said.
