Free Love and Death in Blue Lake by Cynthia Harrison

munched in the dark. Just a few. She should leave. But she wanted to see him so bad. Felicity found her.
    “Why are you hiding out in here? You used to love to dance.”
    “Still do. Feeling a bit rough at the moment.” She held up the individual-sized crackers.
    Felicity’s eyebrows raised, but she didn’t comment. She didn’t ask where Eddie was, either. It was after midnight. Would he even show? To his own party?
    “You still live around here?” Courtney vaguely remembered Felicity. They’d been friends in grammar school, and then Felicity faded, just as everyone except Edward had.
    Felicity laughed. “Brooklyn. New York.”
    The opening chords to the anthem of 1992 played. She’d read it was about Kurt Cobain’s girlfriend’s deodorant. She didn’t care. It had spoken to her then, it spoke to her now.
    Felicity grabbed Courtney’s crackers and tossed them on the counter. She grabbed Court’s hand and led her out of the kitchen and onto the dance floor, even though this song was not a great one for dancing. It went from slow and dreamy to screamy, but Courtney knew every lick, every beat, every time she needed to move an arm or swing a hip, and so did Felicity. They grinned at each other, mirrors. Some of the class formed a circle around Felicity and Courtney and clapped along, giving up on trying to keep time to such a weird beat. Felicity whipped her long hair and Courtney did a slow shimmy, moving her body up and down to the chorus. How low—she’d show them how low she could go.
    The singer looked impressed from behind his microphone. That used to be Edward up there. Now he mentored these kids, his protégés.
    After the song, people laughed and clapped and the singer came down off the stage. “You have to be Courtney.” He still had his mike clipped on, and the crowd roared with approval. Huh, tide turns. Courtney glowed, not from the praise of her classmates, but because Edward had told his band about her. In enough detail that they’d picked her out easily. Courtney laughed and nodded and introduced Felicity and slipped off to the sidelines. Too much attention always made her uncomfortable, and she figured it was time to go. She was all out of small talk.
    Felicity came over after the singer got mobbed. “That was fun.”
    “It was. Thanks.” Dancing was one way she lost herself. Didn’t feel on display. Just felt her body in its elemental state.
    “I have to tell you or I’ll hate myself, but I always admired you when we were kids. You always knew what you wanted. You never compromised. You’re the reason I moved to New York to pursue journalism.”
    “You are kidding me.” Courtney felt confused. “I was the class joke.”
    “Not to me. And not to a lot of people.”
    “That was because of Edward.”
    “No, Courtney.”
    Felicity had always been scary smart. She should listen to her. “I wish you still lived here.”
    “Yeah, heard you bought Doc’s house. Just for summer or full time?”
    “I don’t really know. It was an impulse. Honestly, I still can’t believe it.”
    “Well, your mom is over the moon.”
    Felicity’s mom and Courtney’s mom were friends. That’s how the girls had gotten to know each other as toddlers.
    “Still a journalist?”
    Felicity laughed. “No, not really. I freelance a bit. But mostly I’m a mom. That’s why Brooklyn and not Manhattan.”
    Courtney heard the last word but didn’t. Because Edward had just walked in the door with a guitar strapped to his back. And he was with Ruby. She had her guitar, too. And Lily was suddenly there, filming it all.
    ****
    His staff, his regulars, his former school chums, all wanted a piece of him, but Courtney was all he could see. She only had eyes for her daughter. “Ruby, where have you been?” She ran and hugged the girl to her, and the two of them stood whispering. Eddie snapped out of it and went back where he belonged. Behind the bar. Which is where he’d been when Ruby had ambushed him