Page 70 of Dear Ripley

Ripley looked at me, holding my gaze for the longest she had in eight years. It was an odd kind of high, especially in the midst of such panic. “I think so. She said something about it being imperative that the flowers came from Petal and Pebble.”

Harlow was shaking her head before Ripley finished speaking. “It’s not Petal and Pebble, per se, it’syou. Ellie needs the flowers to come from you.”

Ripley and I shared a glance as we both asked, “Why?”

Harlow sighed heavily, reaching for her milkshake. “Because she’s sending me a message. She wrote the card herself, I’m guessing?”

Ripley nodded, her eyes wide.

“Of course.” Harlow sank back in the booth. “Ellie knows about you. Sort of. She and I were together for quite a few years, and Alicia’s my best friend. And, well, you know, your marriage is a pretty defining part of Alicia and her life, so it came up. You came up. If she’s coming to you to send flowers, she’s sending a message.”

“Letting you know she’s in Jackson Point?” Ripley ventured.

“Yes, probably, but also something bigger, something…” She looked from Ripley to me and back again, before sharing a look with Morgan.

Morgan snorted. “You two are endgame. We all know it, we’ve all always known it. The fact that you broke up and have been divorced for eight years doesn’t really mean anything in the long run. We both know you’re getting back together.”

“We are n—” I started, but Harlow cut me off with a wave of her hand.

“Ellie’s trying to imply we’re the same. If she’s sending me flowers from Ripley’s and she’s here in Jackson Point, she’s trying to tell me she’s the Ripley to my Alicia.”

“She’s trying to tell you she’s a weird fucking stalker,” Morgan muttered.

“That too,” Harlow laughed.

The pair of them—and anyone else included in their whole swarm of people who apparently thought Ripley and I were destined to be together—were wrong, but there was no denying they worked well together. If Ripley and I ever could bear to be around one another socially, I didn’t doubt Harlow and Morgan would be great friends. They’d been friendly enough back before our divorce, but eight years of life experience had put them more on the same wavelength than I would have ever expected, even though I couldn’t find it in myself to be surprised.

Ripley shook her head, spreading her arms out to take charge of the situation. “Okay, okay. Putting aside the fact that she’s dead wrong about the whole me and Alicia thing, your ex-wife has stalked you back to Jackson Point, knows where you’re living, and is ordering flowers from your best friend’s ex-wife to try to win you back—oh, and pretending you’re still married in the process. This whole thing is ridiculous. We need to get you out of here.”

“What?” Harlow looked from Ripley to me with an expression like she expected me to calm my wife down. Had everyone in this town suddenly forgotten what divorce was? “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Of course you are. Your ex-wife, who honestly seems a little bit dangerous and a lot obsessed, followed you here, knows where you’re staying, and isn’t taking divorce as an answer. Plus, you’re pregnant and vulnerable, you can’t just sit around waiting for her.”

Harlow laughed. “I’m not that vulnerable, Ripley. But I appreciate the concern. I just don’t think she’s going to do anything dangerous. She knows where I am, as you said, and it sounds like she’s dyed her hair. She could have snuck up on me any time she wanted. But she hasn’t.”

“I don’t know, Harlow,” I said, tension in my whole body. “I’m with Ripley on this one. Ellie’s not taking no for an answer, how far do you think she’s going to go to get her way?”

“She’s not that bad…”

“She really is.” I squeezed her hand tight. “Look, I know it’s easy to look back and think nothing was as bad as you thought, but really think about it. She love bombed you hard, Harlow. You were barely allowed out of her sight until she started to lose interest and look elsewhere. She abandoned you when you were miscarrying to go sleep with someone else. You don’t do those things to the people you love. And why do you think she’s coming around again now? You said it yourself the other day—she’s probably broken up with her affair partner, and is sniffing around again, thinking she can use you, and have you under her thumb. That’s no life for you, Harlow. Or for the baby.”

She stroked her hand softly over her stomach. “She’s probably back because of the baby,” she murmured.

I nodded, thinking about how true that sounded. She always had loved the attention and the status symbols. People loved babies, they came with lots of attention and congratulations. Plus, there would be the power trip of getting her wife back after cheating, and all the praise for seeing the error of her ways, making amends, and becoming a success story with a wife and a child…

I really hated Ellie.

“Okay,” Harlow said, releasing my hand and picking up her knife and fork again. “You’re probably right, and I really don’t want to go back there. I meant it, what I said the other day. I don’t want her back. And purple isn't even my favorite color.”

Morgan laughed, halfway through another doughnut. Her appetite was, thankfully, unaffected by the drama. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Green, probably.”

“Pretty fucking weird that your ex is wandering around with purple hair then.”

“Yeah, I’ll say,” Harlow agreed, before popping another bite of pancake into her mouth. “Never thought of dying your hair Ripley’s favorite color?” she asked me after swallowing, her face angelic and innocent, and her eyes filled with amusement and mischief.

I glowered at her. How could she be making jokes at a time like this? “No.”

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