Page 25 of No One Can Know

“Beautiful,” he says. She doesn’t stop.

A scent twines around her, escaping from his clothes. Jasmine and amber. She knows the woman the scent belongs to. She’s seen her, in the passenger seat of her father’s car. At the office. At a restaurant in the next town over. Kissing his neck. Sliding her hands over his chest. Laughing like he’s the most brilliant man in the world. She’s young. Twenty-three? Twenty-four? Not much older than Juliette, Emma pointed out, when she whispered the secret to her, side by side in the tree house as Daphne slept soundly beside them.

Juliette keeps thinking of how beautiful the girl was, with her shining hair and her dark eyeliner and the laugh that bared her long throat. Juliette’s mother isn’t beautiful. She’s the kind of person you call beautiful because she is thin and has good teeth and an expensive haircut.

Everyone always says Juliette looks just like her mother.

Her father tucks her hair behind her ear. “You look nice, with your hair down like that. You should wear it that way more often,” he says.

“You should remember to take a shower after you go into the office on the weekend,” she says softly.

He goes quiet. She freezes. She knows that quiet. His hand drops to her shoulder again, his fingers tightening. She breathes quietly, not moving, not making a sound, and curses herself. She knows better than to provoke her father.

“Keep your nose out of my business,” he says. She relaxes a fraction, though not so he can see. When he gets truly angry, there aren’t any words or warnings.

“Randolph.” Her mother comes back into the room. Her hair looks mussed, like she’s been raking her hand through it.

“I was just listening to Juliette play,” her father says.

“She is a wonder, our Juliette,” her mother replies. She clasps her hands together. “Why don’t you take a break, dear? You’ve been working so hard. Go get yourself a lemonade, and then we’ll get back to it.”

Juliette murmurs her thanks. She slides out from under her father’s hand and crosses quickly to the kitchen. She pauses at the refrigerator, her hand out to open the door.

“Everything all right with Emma?” her father asks.

“Someone needs to get that girl under control. And apparently I can’t manage it,” her mother says sourly. “She was in the park with some older boy. Marilyn says she’s seen the two of them togetherseveraltimes.”

“What boy?” Dad asks. Juliette forces herself to open the fridge, get out the lemonade, but her attention is trained on the conversation in the next room.

“Gabriel Mahoney,” her mother says, like this means something important.

What is Emma doing hanging around with Gabriel? She knows Gabriel, sort of—she sees him talking to Logan sometimes. He’s soft-spoken, good-looking in an unusual sort of way. Has he seen her? Does he know who she is? Has he told Emma about her and Logan?

She tells herself to calm down. Emma doesn’t know anything, becauseif she did, she wouldn’t have been able to go ten minutes without crowing about it to Juliette.

It’s still quiet. Juliette’s skin grows cold. It has been too quiet too long, and her father speaks at last, but the cold is still there. “I’ll handle it.”

“I told you it was a mistake letting her spend time at that house.”

“I said that I’d handle it.”

“The last thing we need—”

“Irene.” Randolph Palmer never uses his wife’s name unless he’s unhappy with her. And Irene Palmer knows that life is better for all of them when Randolph is happy. She makes a dismissive sound, not quite ceding the argument, and her footsteps click toward the kitchen.

Juliette springs into motion, pouring a splash of lemonade so it looks like she’s already had most of it. When her mother comes in, she is downing a dainty sip.

“Let’s get back to it,” her mother says.

Juliette smiles. “I’ll just clean up first,” she chirps. Her mother nods. Juliette picks up the pitcher of lemonade with its heavy glass base. She imagines smashing it into her mother’s perfect teeth.

She puts it away. She walks back to the piano.

She begins, once more, to play.

13EMMA

Now

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