Page 62 of The End of Summer

“I saw something I shouldn’t have seen,” I admit.

“What?”

“An e-mail.”

“From?”

“Someone at a place called Desert Breeze.”

“Oh.” She sounds sad but not surprised.

“I didn’t mean to see it,” I continue, explaining about how when a computer shuts down too fast or the wrong way or whatever, when it restarts, it saves your pages.

“Don’t worry,” she assures me. “You don’t strike me as the diabolical type. What did the e-mail say?”

I tell her the gist of it.

“Fuck,” Cherry says under her breath.

“It’s bad, right?”

“Yeah,” she concedes. “Listen, Summer. I believe you have a good heart, so I’m going to lay some truth on you and I need to know that you’ll hold it in the strictest of confidence.”

“I will. I promise.”

She sighs. “We’re from Plymouth, originally. Growing up, the three of us were like the Three Musketeers: me, Joyce, and Jenny.”

“Joyce and Jenny?” I repeat.

“That’s Arrow’s real name. Jenny’s her sister.”

“Shut up. Arrow’s real name isJoyce?”

Cherry laughs. “Yeah. It’s always been a point of contention for her. That’s why she never lets anyone keep their name when they come to work at Cosmo. ‘No one’s going to pay top dollar to take pole lessons from some grandma named Joyce,’ she used to say.”

“That’s too funny,” I reply.

“Can’t hate; she’s definitely right,” Cherry says. “Plus, I think she prefers anonymity. Dancing can make you feel exposed.By changing your name, it’s like you put on a fake persona and don’t have to feel so close to it emotionally.”

“I get that.”

“Anyway, Joyce and I went to 4Cs together after high school. We were totally coasting, but Jenny was the put together one. She was super smart. She went to Tufts, and she was studying to be a dentist. Everyone was always on Joyce. ‘Why can’t you be more like your sister?’ they’d ask. It drove her crazy, but she figured,whatever.Jenny got the book smarts but Joyce got the street smarts.”

“Uh huh,” I say.

“So fast forward two years. Me and Joyce got our Associate’s degrees from 4Cs. Her parents came to the graduation, but Jenny didn’t come down from Tufts. She had some big biology final or something. After graduation, Joyce and her folks went out to dinner in Hyannis, and then her parents drove home to Plymouth. They had to get home early because the next day they were leaving early in the morning for a vacation – just her parents, not Joyce. But they never made it.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Her parents were killed in a car accident on the way to the airport.”

“Oh my God.”

“I know. It was the worst thing you could ever imagine. I was with Joyce when she got the call. They were driving at like four in the morning for an early flight. They were supposed to go to the Bahamas – what’s that big resort there? Atlantis? I think that’s the name. They were supposed to celebrate their 25thwedding anniversary there. So they were heading up Route 3, and it was basically empty, but then a car came flying at them out of nowhere. It was going the wrong way down the highway at top speed, like something out of a horror movie. Like the driver had a death wish.”

“Holy shit,” I say.

“I know. He was totally high. They said he died on impact.”

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