Emily’s lower lip started to tremble. She felt a sudden disconnect, like her body was there on the boardwalk with Ricky, but her brain was floating off somewhere else—somewhere safer.
“Em.” Ricky knew that something was wrong. “You know you can talk to me.”
“I know,” Emily said, but could she really? Ricky had this weird twin thing with Blake where telling one immediately meant you were telling the other. Then there was Nardo, who could get anything out of Ricky. Then there was Clay, to whom they all reported.
Emily said, “The boys are probably wondering what happened to us.”
“We should go back in.” Ricky pushed off from the railing and headed back toward the diner. “Did you get that worksheet from trig class?”
“I was—” Emily felt her stomach tighten. The salty breeze or the odors from the kitchen or the smell of cigarettes or all three hit her at once and she suddenly felt very sick.
“Em?” Ricky glanced over her shoulder as she walked up the hall. “The worksheet?”
“I was going to—”
Vomit hurled up her throat. Emily slapped her hands to her mouth as she stumbled toward the bathroom. The door popped open then slammed back into her shoulder. She lunged toward the toilet. The sink was closer. Hot liquid squirted between her fingers. She released her hold and a torrent of puke sloshed into the sink.
“Jeez Louise,” Ricky mumbled. She yanked a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and ran cold water into the other sink. “God, that smells terrible.”
Emily dry-heaved, eyes squeezed shut against the undigested cookies and soda she’d had with Gram before leaving the house. Another dry-heave wracked her body. She was completely empty but she couldn’t stop.
“It’s all right.” Ricky placed the cold paper towels on Emily’s neck. She rubbed her back, making reassuring noises. This wasn’t the first time she’d performed the dubious task of vomit soother. Of the group, she had both the strongest stomach as well as the strongest nurturing instinct.
“Fuck!” Emily horked, using the word that she never used because she had never in her life felt so sick. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Maybe you caught something.” Ricky tossed the wet towels into the trash and took out her make-up bag. “How long has it been going on?”
“Not long,” Emily said, but then she realized it had been going on for a while. At least three days, maybe even a week.
“You remember Paula from art class?” Ricky used her lighter to warm up the end of her eyeliner pencil. “She kept puking during third period and you know what happened to her.”
Emily looked at herself in the mirror, watching the color drain from her face.
“Of course, you’d actually have to get your cherry popped for that to happen.” Ricky freshened up the dark lines under her eyes. “Did you lose your virginity without telling me? Oh, shit—”
She was looking at Emily closely, reading the worst into her shocked expression.
Ricky’s throat worked as she swallowed. “Em, you’re not …?”
“No.” Emily leaned down to the other sink and splashed cold water onto her face. Her hands were shaking. Her body was shaking. “Don’t be stupid. You know I would never do that. I mean, I would, but I would tell you when it happened.”
“But if you did …” Ricky let her voice trail off again. “Shit, Em, are you sure?”
“Am I sure I’m still a virgin?” She went back to the puke sink and ran some water into the bowl to help it wash down the drain. “I think I would remember if I’d had sex, Rick. I mean, it’s kind of a big deal.”
Ricky said nothing.
Emily looked at her oldest friend’s reflection in the mirror. The silence between them reverberated around the tiny, tiled space like the echo of a cannon.
The Party.
Emily said, “I got my period last Friday.”
“Oh, fuck.” Ricky huffed out a relieved laugh. “Why didn’t you say?”
“Because I told you when it happened,” Emily said. “I started right in the middle of PE. I told you I had to go back to the locker room to change shorts.”
“Oh, right, right.” Ricky kept nodding until she had convinced herself it was the truth. “Sorry. That’s probably why you’re sick. Cramps suck so bad.”
Emily nodded. “Probably.”
“Crisis avoided.” Ricky rolled her eyes. “I should go take Nardo his precious milkshake.”
“Rick?” Emily said. “Don’t tell the boys I threw up, okay? This is embarrassing, and you know Nardo will make fish jokes or something gross.”
“Yeah, of course.” Ricky zipped her fingers across her lips and feigned tossing away the key, though Emily could already see the chain reaction—Blake to Nardo to Clay.
“I’ll clean this up.” Emily gestured toward the mess in the sink, but Ricky was already walking out the door.
Emily heard the latch click.
Slowly, she turned to look at herself in the mirror.
Her periods had always been erratic, following a schedule she couldn’t predict. Emily was usually late or early or perhaps she was really bad at keeping up with her cycles because she had never had sex and Ricky always carried Tampax so why should Emily bother with tracking something that was a nuisance rather than a warning?
Her eyelids fluttered as they closed. She saw herself walking up the concrete stairs to Nardo’s front door. Sticking out her tongue so that Clay would place a tab of acid in her mouth. Waking up on the floor beside her grandmother’s bed. Feeling hungover and clammy and panicked because for some reason, for some very unknown reason, her dress was on inside out and she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
Emily’s eyes opened. In the mirror, she watched tears roll down her face. Her stomach was still clenching but she felt ravenously hungry. She was tired, but somehow invigorated. The color had returned to her face. Her skin was practically glowing.
And she was a liar.
She hadn’t had her period last week.
She hadn’t had her period in the last four weeks.
Not since The Party.
3
Andrea stood at the sink in the bathroom at RJ’s Eats and splashed cold water onto her face. She studied her reflection, thinking she didn’t look nearly as freaked out as she felt. She had finally met Emily’s daughter. Her possible half-sister. That it had happened due to sheer coincidence rather than Andrea’s crack detective skills was something she was going to take as a gift rather than an omen of failure.
Judith.
Andrea fumbled for her phone in her pocket. She googled Judith Vaughn, but nothing came up but a pair of obituaries for some really old women and a Linked-In account that Andrea was not going to sign up for. Instagram, Twitter and TikTok were dead ends. She checked Facebook and found more older women and what she assumed were photos of older women’s grandchildren. The name was from another century, so that made sense. Even when Andrea narrowed it down to Maryland and Delaware, she still couldn’t find a Judith Vaughn matching the one she’d just gawked at in the street.
She held the phone to her chest. Her alternate investigation into Nick Harp wasn’t going to fall apart because of some dead-end internet searches. Judith didn’t seem like the marrying type, but she did have a daughter so maybe she also had a man’s last name. Or a woman’s, because that kind of thing happened too.