Free The Barefoot Believers by Annie Jones

ever lived in it?”
    â€œNo one was ever home the weeks we were here.” Kate shook her head trying to recall sharing the quiet cul-de-sac with any other vacationers or locals. “But look at it. So neat and well kept. Someone must live there or rent it out sometime or it would be in as bad a shape as…”
    Jo followed Kate’s line of vision, putting her facing their own cottage again. She let out a slow, muted sigh.
    â€œDidn’t you ever go over there and…”
    â€œAnd what? Snoop?”
    â€œInvestigate.” Jo raised her nose in the air, making her gorgeous blond curls shimmy over her squared, straight shoulders. “You never went over and rang the bell or knocked on the door to see if anyone was home?”
    â€œEvery year,” Kate confessed. “But no one was ever there.”
    â€œEver?”
    â€œNope. I mean, there was furniture from what I could see through the windows, you know, from standing on the porch.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œIt was as if whoever owned it packed up and left as soon as they heard our car come down the lane.”
    â€œLike those photos in documentaries about ships at sea that are found with the table still set for the evening meal?”
    â€œWell, maybe not quite that dramatic but the place looked like someone could come home at any minute and pick up their lives without much fuss or bother. The kitchen had all the appliances, fridge running and all.”
    â€œYou looked in the fridge?”
    â€œI could hear it humming.”
    â€œStanding outside?”
    Kate ignored the loaded question. “And the place always had curtains and a window air-conditioning unit and a phone. Sometimes even a dish with hard candy in it on the coffee table and a new TV Guide by the armchair.”
    â€œBut that was just what you could see from the porch, right?”
    â€œWell, maybe when I was younger, I did press my nose to those windows.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd peeked through the old-fashioned keyhole in the back door.”
    Jo folded her arms to show she could hold her ground as long as Kate could stall. Longer, probably, given that Kate’s foot had already begun to throb. “And?”
    Kate exhaled and leaned on her cane. “And dragged a crate from the garage so I could climb partway through an open window with a torn screen around back.”
    â€œMy word, Kate! You were guilty of breaking and entering.”
    â€œI was not. That screen was already broken when I got to it. And I only entered my head and most of my shoulders, just so I could get a good look around, you see.”
    â€œWell how do you do, Kate-the-cat-burglar.” Jo snickered.
    â€œI didn’t burgle a thing! C’mon. I was a good kid, just…curious.”
    â€œKate the curious,” Jo echoed, somehow making it sound as if she were disappointed she couldn’t use a more unflattering label.
    â€œDidn’t you ever do a little harmless pretend spying of your own when we came down here as kids?” Kate tried to remember the two of them engaging in the covert action but couldn’t.
    Jo went back to the task of unloading their things. She heaved a gym bag onto a plastic tote filled with sheets and towels and shook her head. “I was too busy spying on you.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œOkay, not so much spying, since I didn’t try to hide it. But the truth is most of my memories of this place center on you, not either of these cottages. From the time I can really remember coming here, all you cared about was going to the beach and hanging out with other teenagers and college kids. You didn’t care about the house. So I didn’t care about the house.”
    â€œYou weren’t even curious?”
    â€œIt had always been there.” Jo shrugged. “I don’t try to spy on my neighbors now, if that’s any consolation to you.”
    â€œIt is, in an odd way.” Kate smiled,