Page 16 of Unspoken Tides

“I just stopped by to see if you were home,” Stella said.

This wasn’t necessarily strange. Even early on in their twenty-year-old friendship, they’d made spontaneous house calls, always eager to lend an ear or make a cup of tea. But now that Hilary was trying to hide her newly returned to career (and her newly returned to friendship with Rodrick), house calls weren’t as simple. Stella was pretty good at reading minds. She knew something was amiss.

“I have to run pretty soon,” Hilary said, “but do you want to come in for a bit? I have tea, coffee, or wine.”

Stella followed Hilary into the house, watching her like a cat. In the kitchen, Hilary chatted easily about the weather, local politics, and the other Salt Sisters, pouring them small glasses of wine. She hoped the alcohol would calm her nerves before her dinner with Rodrick later that evening. The idea of it nearly brought her to her knees. Would talking to Stella about it relieve the tension? She wasn’t sure. She was pretty sure Stella would say simply, “What has gotten into you? Don’t you remember what he did?”

“Hilary.” Stella interrupted her reverie. “What has gotten into you?”

Hilary’s laughter was sparkling and strange. “What do you mean?”

“You look frantic,” Stella said warily. “Like something bad happened, and you’re keeping it from me.”

Hilary handed her a glass of wine. “Everything is just the same as ever.”

Stella sipped her wine, her eyes in slits. She didn’t believe her. “I’ve missed you lately. You’ve felt distant. I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry about that. I think I’ve been distracted.” Hilary’s head throbbed, and she poured herself a glass of water. “Have you seen the other girls lately?”

Stella said she had. She’d spent the afternoon shopping with Nora, the morning gardening with Katrina, last weekend hiking with Robby, and on and on. Hilary normally enjoyed these activities with the Salt Sisters before she’d dropped back into the black hole of Hollywood.

“But we’ve missed you,” Stella went on, her voice harsh. “I keep having nightmares that you’re trying to get away from us.”

Hilary bit her lip. After a long pause, she said, “Don’t tell the other girls this.”

Stella’s eyes sparkled. There was nothing women liked more than being brought in on a secret. Hilary knew that. She also remembered her mother, manipulating so many others by sharing specific secrets at specific times.

“I took a gig in costuming,” she said. “I’m working on that film set downtown.”

Stella gasped and set her wine down. “You are? Hilary! That’s incredible!”

Hilary blushed. “It’s been so much work. I feel crazy.”

“But this must be your first gig, in what? Twenty years?”

“I haven’t worked in costuming since before we formed the Salt Sisters, no.”

With Rodrick now ten minutes down the road and a sewing kit in her bag, her last film didn’t feel like it’d been twenty years ago. Maybe a month or two. Time was a strange thing.

“You must be so excited!”

Hilary laughed just as her phone lit up with a text from Rodrick. She dropped it back in her purse before Stella had a chance to read who it was from.

“I just haven’t wanted to talk about it,” Hilary said. “I was worried I would jinx it. That, and I don’t love talking about my Hollywood roots. You know that.”

Stella nodded. “I won’t share this with the other girls. You can tell them when you’re ready.”

“I appreciate that, Stell,” Hilary said, raising her glass. “Thank you for always being there for me.”

Even as she said it, she wondered when was the last time she was fully honest with anyone? When was the last time she asked for help?

After forty-five minutes of conversation (which felt more like a performance for Hilary), Hilary confessed she had to run because she had a meeting with a costuming department member soon. Stella hopped to it, respecting the time constraints of the film industry.

“You’ll let me know if you need anything?” she said as she stepped into the dying light of the evening.

“Anything at all.”

Hilary drove to Rodrick’s rental twenty minutes later. She had the windows down, and the radio up, and her heart rammed against her rib cage like a baseball in a batting cage. When she pulled into the driveway and cut the engine, she spread her hands across the steering wheel and peered up at the beautiful home, which was less than half the size of Isabella Helin’s place (Hilary’s, now). It lacked a gate and sat on a nice stretch of beach that ran on the backside of the property. Perhaps, all those years ago, when Rodrick had suggested they buy their own place on Nantucket, he’d imagined a home like this.

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