Page 64 of The Glass Dolphin

She breathed a sigh of pure pleasure as she stepped back into the sunshine. March had been full of thunderstorms and dark skies by three p.m. Alice swore it had rained every afternoon, but now that April had bloomed, so had the trees around Five Island Cove. The sun shone more and more, and Alice didn’t think there was a better month on Rocky Ridge.

“Ahh,” she said as she exhaled. “I love this black sand.” The beaches here didn’t glow golden like some other places. They shone with black gold. Alice had grown up with this view, and she’d never loved another beach more than the one that only took her seventy steps to descend to from this back deck.

“Hey, you.” Her dad wrapped her in a hug, obviously pleased with the effort Alice had been making in the past several months since the twins had gone off to college.

“Hey, Dad.” Alice hugged him right back, her smile real and genuine as it filled her face. “Guess what?” She pulled away in a jerk. “I wanted to tell you and Della in person.” She felt like she’d swallowed a lantern, the electric light beaming from her the way they did in lighthouses.

“Arthur and I got roles inKiss Me, Kate.”

Della whipped out her phone. “What dates will you be performing?”

“It’s not until July,” Alice said. “The second week, after the Fourth.”

“That’s great news,” her father said, and Alice hadn’t even told him what roles they’d gotten.

She couldn’t stop smiling, though there was plenty to turn her grin into a frown. She’d tried to shelve the things that troubled her, and she’d already spent a lot of today worrying over Kristen and Jean and the lighthouse.

She’d filed the paperwork with the county courthouse to get a duplicate title, but she hadn’t heard anything about it in ages. The only two people she’d spoken to since the incident at the hospital were Robin and Eloise, and she knew hardly anyone was talking to each other.

The group text had been very quiet in the past three weeks, and Alice actually found that she missed it. The last time they’d gone silent, it had taken a strong person and personality to get them all back in the same room.

Alice wondered if that was her role this time. Last time, it had been Robin with the sharp words and lecturing texts. It had been El, with her insistent messages that they didn’t have to let Laurel’s case break them up.

With a jolt, Alice realized that she was talking to both El and Robin. Eloise definitely didn’t have the mental fortitude to do much right now. Alice still wasn’t sure what had caused her to completely come apart just outside the hospital’s sliding doors. Honestly, with Eloise, it could be something with Aaron, one of the girls, or the inn. Or something else entirely.

Robin wouldn’t allow conversations to die, and Alice had her phone out before she realized her father had asked her what roles she and Arthur had gotten inKiss Me, Kate.

He currently looked at her with quizzes in his eyes, and Alice gave herself a little shake. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have so much on my mind.” She tried to laugh lightly, but it didn’t last long and certainly didn’t sound happy. “Arthur is playing Baptista, who’s got some speaking parts. I’m playing Hattie, who’s the assistant to the lead actress in the show.” She grinned. “It’s like a show within a show.”

“We can’t wait to come,” Della said, her smile wide.

“Paul said he’d be there too,” she said. “Oh, did I tell you? He got a citation for his participation in that pro-growth group.”

“Yeah,” her dad said with a sigh. “Of course he doesn’t want the cove to make it harder for him to sell houses.”

“The ones that are already here shouldn’t be a problem,” Alice said.

“Well, he sells more than that, doesn’t he?” He dad raised his eyebrows, and Alice supposed her brother did do more than just sell existing homes on Five Island Cove.

“Ready?” Della asked, clearly trying to break up this conversation before it grew too many teeth.

Alice wanted that too, so she said, “Yes. You?”

Della smiled her back into the house, and Alice led the way away from the black sand beach and through the house. “I ordered a ride,” her step-mom said from behind her. “They’re waiting.”

Sure enough, a gray sedan waited in front of the house, and Alice slid into the back seat. She’d often wished for a mother to chit-chat with while she picked up her house or did her dishes. Her mother had died when she was a teenager, and she’d never invited Della into the role.

She still hadn’t quite done it, but today, she looked over to her. “My friends and I are kind of in the middle of a thing,” she said. “It’s because of the building permits, the speed the cove has been growing, all of that.”

Della blinked at her, her dark eyes wide and completely interested. “It seems to be all anyone can talk about.”

Alice nodded, her throat so narrow it almost seemed like air couldn’t get down it. She somehow managed to keep breathing as the car navigated toward the only nail salon on Rocky Ridge. This outlying island didn’t have as many amenities. Only one park, which was right next to the ferry station, and a small corner market that sold gas and groceries and hardware items and anything else they could cram onto the shelves. It was enough for people coming to their expensive second homes—one of which Alice had used to own—and anyone coming to spend a couple of hours on the black sand beach.

Right next to the gas station sat a strip mall that had been there for as long as Alice could remember, though the shops it hosted had changed a lot over the years. A nail salon sat there, and it only took five minutes to get there.

Alice had not unraveled her thoughts before then, but as she went inside with Della, she said, “I need to get everyone in the same room, so we can talk.”

They’d done that at AJ’s before Kelli’s wedding. They’d been forced to talk through things in Kristen’s cottage. At the lighthouse. At their semi-regular lunches.

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