“She seems pretty normal. If not, a little jumpy. Guess I was expecting her to be a lot weirder.”
“She seems normal because sheisnormal,” Ariel said in a hushed voice. “Which is why I’m still not sure what you guys are so worried about!” She glared at Mallory. “Why are you still so suspicious?”
“You all just got here,” Mallory reminded them. “You haven’t seen and heard everything I have! Besides, Taylor, you can’t possibly be okay with how all of this came to be. What did mom say when she told you about Sasha and the baby?”
He shrugged. “Not a lot, to be honest. It’s all a bit strange... It was just surprising to meet her and have her not be even remotely… what’s the word?”
“Off-putting?” Erica suggested.
“Something like that,” Taylor responded. “I don’t know how to put it. I thought it was going to be obvious from the moment I met her that she was a scammer. I could somehow tell she was lying about something. That probably makes me sound like a jerk—or like I was going to profile her—but I don’t mean it like that.”
“No, I know what you mean,” Ariel said. “From the way Mallory described her. I was also expecting someone more aggressive or something.”
“Hey, that’s not fair!” Mallory interrupted. “I never said anything mean about her. If you made up some version of her inyour head before coming here, that’s on you. The thing I’ve been most wary about isn’t her personally, but the lack of information mom and dad have about her. They can’t even remember the charity’s name that they’ve been working with! I never said she acted like a criminal or anything!”
“You called her cagey,” Ariel said.
“Well, she is! A little.” Mallory sighed. “Ugh! You guys are making me sound like the bad guy, but you only just got here. There’s a lot you don’t know. Like how she kept her twenty-first birthday a secret last week, or how she was snooping around in mom and dad’s bedroom. Not to mention, the one and only time I really tried to press her for more information, she turned the whole conversation around and accused mom and dad of being liars! If all of that doesn’t lead you to think she’s at least beinga littlecagey, then perhaps we have two different definitions of the word.” Mallory crossed her arms and huffed.
Erica and Taylor shared a concerned look.
“How do you know she was snooping around mom and dad’s room?” Ariel asked. “Did you catch her?”
“No, mom caught her. That was the incident I mentioned yesterday when you first arrived. And it’s why I mentioned buying Sasha some body wash or whatever. I wanted to see if she was going to have the same explanation for why she was in their bathroom as mom did. The look on Sasha’s face when I brought up the soap was all the proof I needed to know that mom had made the whole thing up.”
“But why would she do that?”
“Who knows? But she’s been acting strange ever since I got home.”
“Yeah, mom was pretty defensive with me on the phone when we talked about all of this,” Taylor added. “I think she might’ve been either lying about a few things or at least avoided telling me the full truth. She promised she’d explain everythingonce we were in town though, so I’m trying to avoid making snap judgments before we chat.”
“How sensible of you,” Mallory said with a scoff and gestured to herself. “I,on the other hand, am going to keep digging for info on this woman. I started to do some research last week but ended up hitting a bit of a snag.”
“What kind of snag?” Her brother asked.
“The technological kind.” She made a face. “I might’ve accidentally poured some coffee on dad’s laptop and it’s dead. We managed to save all his files though, so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but now I don’t have access to a computer. Doing this kind of research on my phone isn’t easy.”
“I see. So that’s why dad needs a new laptop.” Taylor smirked. “Mom left that little detail out too.”
“Who iswe?” Erica asked.
Mallory frowned. “What?”
“You said that ‘we’ managed to save all your dad’s files. I was just curious what you meant by that. I didn’t realize you were tech savvy.”
“She isn’t,” Taylor said, and his sister stuck her tongue out at him. “Well, it’s true!”
“I’m savvy enough,” she complained. “But you’re right in assuming I wouldn’t be able to save a computer from its death bed.” She shoved her hands in the pocket of her sweatshirt. “I had some help from this guy who works at a computer repair shop in town.”
“Ooh, a guy!” Ariel’s face lit up. “Is he cute?”
“He’s… fine looking.”
“That means he’s cute,” Ariel announced and smirked at Erica. “I’ve had decades to learn what Mallory’s really saying when she’s trying to dodge the truth, and if he wasn’t cute, she would’ve just said that.” She clapped her hands together. “Exciting! Is he single?”
Mallory shook her head, exacerbated. She knew the answer to this question—she’d found out by asking around town—but she didn’t necessarily want her sister to know all the details yet. Still, she knew her mother was going to spill the beans at some point, so she decided to rip the band aid off herself.
“It’s James Harris,” she said. “We went to high school together. Taylor, you wouldn’t have overlapped with him, but Ariel, you might’ve known him.”
