Free Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison Page B

heavily. “We all miss Miriam, and wish all of this would just go away, but that’s not how it works.” He puts his hand forward, reaching for mine. I let him take it. “I’m sorry, honey. You’ve been through so much. If I thought there was anything else I could do to help your family, I’d do it in a heartbeat. You know I would.”
    The giant room seems to get closer and closer in until I feel the walls press my body paper-flat and near-breathless. I take his piece of paper, fold it up, and put it in my back pocket. Then another thought occurs to me. “What about the other lawyer?” I blurt. “Mom’s first lawyer, the one who quit on her. Greg Foster, right?”
    Ted looks momentarily shocked, straight-backed now in his chair like someone’s just snapped his spine straight. He was just as horrified as we were when Foster quit on us.
    “Look,” I say. “I know you don’t think it’ll make a difference, but I’d still like to talk to him. Just in case.”
    He opens both hands, palms up, on the desk. “I don’t actually have any information for Mr. Foster. He may have moved. Did you ask your dad?”
    “No,” I say quickly. “And I’d appreciate—I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell him I was here.”
    “I understand.” Ted nods, his face softening into a smile again. “I really am sorry, Olivia. I know how badly you must want to fix this.” He stands from his chair and I dothe same. “But the best thing you can do is try and move on.” He comes around the desk to give me a fatherly hug. “Come back anytime, okay? Maybe dinner some time soon, with the family?”
    I manage to mumble something noncommittal; then, as Ted returns to his desk, I make my way back through the long, chandelier-lit hallway.
    I remember my promise to say good-bye to Clare. I find her outside, watering plants on the deck in the fading daylight. “Come back soon,” she tells me as we hug a brief good-bye. “And say hello to Austin on your way out. Aus!” she yells, down toward the pool. I freeze—I forgot, somehow, that he might even be here.
    “What?” He calls out from somewhere below the deck. His voice is muffled. There’s a splashing sound.
    “He’ll get such a kick out of seeing you, I’m sure,” Clare says, sotto voce, to me. If only sweet, BOTOXed Clare knew of our sandy little tête-à-tête on the beach.
    I suppress the urge to let slip that he
has
seen me … a lot of me, as well as my French-inspired lingerie. Unless he was too drunk that night to remember.
    “What, Mom?” Austin calls out again. Clare nudges me forward, down the stone stairs to the pool, where Austin makes easy backstrokes through the glassy water.
    I can practically feel Clare’s eyes on me from above. There’s no way I’ll be able to make a sneak exit, although for a moment I consider bolting for the back gate. Instead I suck in a deep breath, wait for his head to emerge fromthe water at my end of the pool, and force myself to say: “Hi, Austin.”
    He whips around, beads of water spiraling off his hair. “Whoa. Olivia Tithe. Hey.” He sounds oddly pleased to see me. The bad girl. The poor girl. The girl who gets so drunk she takes her shirt off for boys on the beach. He moves a few feet forward and rests his forearms on the smooth concrete lip of the pool. “What are you doing here?” He grins. “Did you miss me?”
    Something about being in the presence of such sheer boy-brain loosens the knots in my stomach. It’s like watching the same romantic comedy remake again and again. It’s so easy to know what’s coming and how it will end.
    “I came here to see your dad, so, don’t get too excited,” I say, watching the water ripple around his body with every small movement. “Working on your sunset tan?”
    “You could say that, Tithe.” He hoists himself up to the deck, grabbing a towel from the beach chair beside me and shimmying the wet from his slender torso, his legs, his shoulders. He’s got a lot of