The After Girls Read online

  “I still work here,” Ella said, crossing her arms in front of her.

  “Well, yeah,” Becky said. “I know. I just can’t even imagine how hard this must be for you,” she said, wrapping Ella in a bony hug. She pulled back, looked her straight in the eyes. “We just all loved Astrid so much. I just never would have expected this from her.”

  Jake stepped out from the back in time to save her, and Becky immediately forgot her sympathy speech. Her concerned face softened, turned to the beginnings of a smile.

  “Hi,” he said. “You’re Becky?”

  Full smile this time: “Yeah.”

  Then she shot a look at Ella, like, You didn’t tell me a hot guy started here. Apparently her sadness about Astrid hadn’t lasted all that long.

  Ella ignored her and headed to the back to get an apron. Becky throwing herself at yet another cute guy was just too much of a train wreck to watch. She pushed the door open slowly, breathing a sigh of relief when she realized no one else was there. No Claire. No Grace. Today would be at least a little less heart-wrenching than the one before. She grabbed her apron and knotted it tight at her waist.

  “We still have to brew all these pots,” Jake said as soon as she was back up front. “The tables need to be prepped, the counters cleaned, the pastries are in the back, and I’m getting the register together.”

  “Of course,” Becky said. “Where should I start?” She looked at Jake like she’d looked at pretty much every guy on the football team at one point or another. A look that said, I’m interested. I’m available.

  “Why don’t you brew?” Jake asked, without returning her look. So far he seemed immune to Becky’s charms. One thing, at least, to count in his favor.

  Ella set to work scrubbing as Jake counted out the bills. Soon, the place was bustling, the three of them taking turns at the register and at the espresso machine. They didn’t talk about the day before — it was too busy to talk about much.

  Around one o’clock there was a lull. Ella was wiping down the espresso machine — she wanted to get it nice and clean before the next rush. Jake was quiet, changing out the tip jar. Becky was dramatically wiping down a few tables.

  Ella thought about the day before — she hated what Jake had said, but at the same time, she knew that he never would have said it unless he really loved Astrid. And it was nice to be around someone who cared about her, not someone who felt compelled to say sorry, like Becky. Or someone who would promise to be there, like Ben. Someone who really, truly missed her — maybe not as much as she and Sydney did — but some.

  Before she could change her mind, she cleared her throat. She was no good at olive branches but she might as well try. “You like music?” she asked, and immediately she regretted it. What kind of question was that?

  “Me?” Jake asked, even though it was so completely obvious that it had been directed at him.

  “I mean, do you like going to see music?”

  Jake nodded all big and dramatic. “Uh, yeah.”

  Ella smiled, recovering. “My friend, Sydney,” she said. “Well, she’s — she was — ” Jake winced, but she kept going, “Astrid’s friend, too. Anyway, she’s in this folksy kind of band and they’re playing tonight, and — ”

  “I’d love to go,” he said.

  “Oh, I mean,” Ella felt the blood rush to her face. She hoped that he didn’t think she was hitting on him. She was no Becky. Plus, she had Ben.

  “You’re asking me, right?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” she said hesitantly. Inviting him and letting him know about it were two different things. “I mean, and Becky, too,” she said. “If you guys want to.”

  Becky turned around, a pout on her face. “I have dance practice,” she said. Of course she did.

  But Jake just smiled. “Sounds good. I’ll be there.”

  Ella smiled, too, maybe too long, and finally he broke their gaze, looking down at the register. “You mind getting me a roll of quarters?” he asked. “They’re right in the back.”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling as she walked to the back room, her phone buzzing from inside her apron. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. She hoped to hell that he hadn’t. Still, a part of her couldn’t help being glad that he’d said yes.

  But Ella pulled out her phone, and in seconds, the good feeling went away.

  Her heart pounded as she stared at the screen — it echoed in her ears, felt like it was going to pump itself right out of her chest. A notification on her phone, from Facebook:

  Astrid Allen commented on your post.

  Ella’s breathing got heavy and all she could think was, What the hell, what the hell, what the hell? She held the phone in her hands, willing herself to keep going. It was hard to even do it because her hands were shaking so much, but she clicked to the page she’d been on just last night. Astrid’s page.

  And there they were, four little words, four little horrible, terrifying, comforting, wonderful words. Right underneath her post. From Astrid. From Astrid Allen.

  I miss you, too.

  • • •

  She didn’t know how long she stood there, but she heard Jake’s voice in the distance, and soon her body was moving of its own accord. Autopilot, like she’d rehearsed this. Door open. Apron off. Around the counter. Towards the door.

  “I have to go,” she said to Jake, without even looking over.

  “What?”

  “I’m not well,” she said. “I have to go.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, just pushed through the door and walked.

  Away from the shop. The people. She had to get away.

  But she had nowhere to go but home, and in minutes, she was there, at her old familiar door, pushing it open, her mom asking why she was home so early, mumbling an excuse. She climbed the stairs two at a time, and then she was in her room, and she went straight to her computer and flipped it open.

  The page was still there, and before she could lose her nerve, she hit refresh.

  Ella felt herself gasp — out of fear or relief she couldn’t tell — and she kept hitting it, over and over and over. Refresh, refresh, refresh!

  But it was no use — there was nothing she could do.

  Those four little words.

  I miss you, too.

  Those four little words were gone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sydney’s fiddle had a broken string.

  She’d been putting it off — real, productive tasks seemed difficult lately (hair-brushing, making a sandwich, watching Darcy) — but now she had no choice. She had a show tonight and practice in two hours.

  The drive to her aunt and uncle’s was a little less than twenty minutes. The road was windy, curving around hills, the lanes just big enough to let two cars pass. Led Zeppelin was playing on the radio. Crooning, metal poetry.

  Syd hated speed limits. They assumed that every driver had the same limitations, the same abilities. Her car was old and tiny. It made a lot of noise, never shut up, really, but it handled the turns well, even when she did go quite a bit faster than she should.

  It was misting today. Not actual rain, but enough to make the sky sad and gloomy, the mountains blurry, moody, in the distance — they didn’t call it the Blue Ridge for nothing. Sydney followed the highway around the side of a hill, and her aunt and uncle’s house came into view. The music had changed, and now Paul and John and George and Ringo were telling her it was all getting better, a little better, all the time.

  But she didn’t believe them.

  She parked the car in the back. She opened the door and stepped out, the red clay on the ground made darker by the wetness of the weather, squishing beneath her feet.

  A wooden sign reading “Sid’s Music Repairs” swayed back and forth in front of the shop. She’d been named after her uncle, a simple one-letter swap making her version more girl-appropriate, or at least distinguished from his. She pulled back the screen door, the squeaking announcing her presence.

  Th
e shop was an all-purpose kind of place. In the front was quite the sampling of used instruments, brass saxophones in need of a good polish, acoustic guitars grown scratchy with heavy use. There was a counter and a workroom behind it where Uncle Sid did his repairs. Tune-ups for those who hadn’t learned how, new strings, and pretty much whatever was needed to bring an instrument back to life. Sid had given her a violin when she was eleven. It was used and the wood was a little scuffed up in places, but it was a good one. She hadn’t let it go since.

  Her uncle was busy with a customer, so she gave him a quick wave and headed towards the back to find Audie, parting the curtain that led to their living space, strings of beads jangling behind her.

  Audie must have heard the beads. She floated into the kitchen, followed by yards of lime green linen. Her dress fell across her pleasantly plump body in billowing ruffles, punctuated with about a dozen bangles and a big wooden necklace. Her glasses were too big for her face, and her hair was just a tad too long for her age.

  “Hey there, Syddie,” she said, wrapping Sydney in a noisy, jewelry-jangling hug. Her aunt held her tight, longer than she usually did.

  Finally, she pulled back, and her aunt’s eyes looked almost wet. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “What brings you this way, dear?”

  Sydney held up her fiddle. “Broken string.”

  “For the show tonight, I presume?” Audie asked.

  Sydney nodded. “I can just get a pack from Uncle Sid,” she said. “I just thought I’d come back and say hi.”

  “Nonsense,” Audie said, taking the fiddle out of Sydney’s hands. “Let me just see if he has a second.”

  Sydney didn’t protest, and in minutes, Audie was back, the beads dancing around her, the kettle on the stove starting to whistle.

  “It’ll just take a few minutes,” Audie said, clasping her hands together and nodding towards a chair. “Earl Grey or English Breakfast?”

  “Earl Grey,” Sydney said, sitting down. Her aunt smiled and popped teabags into two chipped cups. She grabbed the kettle and poured, and steam rushed up between them, blurring Syd’s vision for a moment. Audie sat down next to her, an eager, earnest look on her face. She wanted to talk.

  “Is that new?” Sydney asked, pointing to a wooden sign hanging above the stove. Pie Fixes Everything.

  Audie nodded. “I found it at the flea a few weekends ago. You know I had to have it.” Sydney did. Audie was Miss Baker Extraordinaire, among other things.

  “It looks nice,” Syd said, adding sugar.

  “Thanks.”

  Silence for several minutes, apart from the clinking of the spoon against Sydney’s teacup. The sugar had long since dissolved but she just kept on stirring.

  “I’m thinking about painting the living room orange,” Audie said.

  “Really? What kind?”

  “Deep, deep orange, like a pumpkin,” Audie said. “I know you aren’t afraid of bright colors.” She ran her hands through Sydney’s bangs.

  More minutes passed while the tea steamed between them. Finally Audie took a sip and then opened her mouth to speak. Closed it. Opened it again. “Did I ever tell you that my best friend died?”

  Audie stared at her, waiting for an answer.

  “No.”

  “It was before you even existed,” Audie said. “She was only thirty-two. We knew each other since high school. We were joined at the hip. She and her husband used to double with me and Sid. We played bridge together. The whole works.”

  Sydney was quiet.

  “I still think about her every day,” Audie said.

  “So it never gets better then?” Sydney asked. “That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “I’m just trying to tell you that I understand,” Audie said. “And it does get better. It gets less,” she said. “It’s like a scar. Some days you barely know it’s there. Some you find yourself running your finger over it. Seeing how it feels.”

  “Right now it feels like a big gaping bleeding hole. Not a scar,” Sydney snapped.

  “I know, dear, but — ”

  “How did she die?”

  Audie paused a minute before answering. “A car accident. There was no reason for it. Just a bad intersection and two people driving too fast.”

  Sydney nodded. A car accident. It was a normal way to die — one that made sense. One that took lots of people. Like old age. Or cancer. She thought about Astrid’s terse, emotionless description when she talked about her dad. Car accident. It was just one of those crazy things that happened. An easy way, a TV-show kind of way, to die.

  “That’s how Astrid’s dad died,” she said.

  “Oh, I know,” Audie said. “I remember.”

  Sydney’s eyes widened. “You do?”

  Audie nodded, a soft smile creeping up at the corners of her mouth. “He used to come in here often — with Grace. Had a saxophone, nothing fancy, just an amateur one. I think he used to play old jazz. Big hotshot that one — going places. It was such a shame.”

  Sydney shook her head. She’d learned more about Astrid’s family in five minutes than she had in five years. “Astrid never talked about him.”

  Audie quietly took a sip of her tea. She took a deep breath, remembering. “You didn’t know what love was until you saw those two — Robert and Grace.”

  Robert, she thought, turning the name over in her mind. She’d never even known his name.

  Audie went on. “They were gaga for each other. I mean ga-ga. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and Astrid, God, was she the cutest kid. I mean, hair like you wouldn’t believe, a crown of ringlets. Some kind of Irish angel, she was.”

  Sydney shook her head, wishing she had moved here sooner, that she could have known Astrid as a tiny tot, shared a kiddie pool with her, swapped the toys of their Happy Meals. That their limited time had been longer.

  “So what happened? Was it like a big wreck?” Thinking about it, talking about it now, it was nuts how little she knew. But it was the way Astrid had always said it. Don’t push. This is all you’re going to get.

  Audie gave a shrug. “I don’t know the exact details. They were up in West Virginia, I think, when it happened. He was alone in the car — a rental, I guess. The funeral was far away — I think he had some family on the West Coast.”

  “And that was it? Everyone just never spoke about him again?”

  “It was what Grace wanted,” Audie said with a sigh. “God forbid something like that ever happen to me and your uncle,” she knocked on the table and proceeded to cross herself. “But who’s to say what you’d do to get through it?”

  Sydney nodded, but she wondered how Astrid had felt about that. If she’d just accepted it with nothing more than a sigh and a shrug.

  Sydney thought about Astrid. Choosing to leave. Taking fate into her own hands. She almost wished it had been something as simple as a wreck.

  “I’m really sorry about your friend — and about Astrid’s dad,” she added, her breathing quickening. “But it’s not the same.”

  “What do you mean?” Audie asked, her mouth just barely hanging open. She almost looked hurt.

  “Because it wasn’t your fault,” Sydney said. “Anything like that — it just happens. There’s not a reason. There’s no fault. It’s not the same,” Sydney said again. “It’s just not.” Her voice caught in her throat.

  Audie slammed her cup down on the table so hard that Sydney almost thought it would break. “It’s not yours either,” she said.

  Sydney just shrugged.

  “Look at me, Sydney,” Audie said. “You have to believe that. It’s not yours.”

  “I don’t know,” Sydney stared down at her cup. She thought about the night at the party, Astrid almost ready to open up, how she’d just walked away. “She was my best friend, and looking back, it’s like I barely knew anything about her. I didn’t even know her dad’s name. I should have done things differently.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Audie said. “Astrid was
a quiet girl, a disturbed girl. Nothing you could have done would have changed that. It’s a tragedy, just like what happened to her dad. It’s just a tragedy.” Audie put her hand on her cheek then, but Sydney couldn’t even bear looking up. What if it was like that thing in psychology, the thing where all the people just watch a crime happening, and no one does anything because they think the other person will — bystander something? What if that was them — Astrid crying and crying for help and she and Ella just standing there, waiting for someone else to take care of it? She wished there was something stronger in her tea, something that would erase the thought.

  The timer dinged, and Sydney felt herself jump. The moment was broken, and Audie moved her hand back to her lap. “Scones,” she said quietly. “You’ll stay for one?”

  Sydney shook her head. “I should go.”

  “Wait,” Audie said, ignoring the beeping timer. She shuffled over to the bookcase, grabbed the first one on the shelf. “I want you to take this,” she said. “I think it’ll help.”

  Her aunt pushed the book into her hands: The Other History of Falling Rock. It was Audie’s pride and joy. A book that they now sold in town gift shops, the kind of shops that also sold hemp jewelry and postcards. It had taken Audie ten years to compile.

  Sydney opened it to the first page: “What follows is a history which not all will believe …”

  “The ghost book?” Sydney asked. “I don’t really think — ”

  “It’s not just about ghosts,” Audie said. “It’s about loss. It’s about spirits moving from one world to the next. About how this one here is just one stop on the journey.”

  Sydney felt her stomach knot. The dead, spirits, whatever you wanted to call them, were a huge part of Audie’s worldview. Guardian angels. Ghosts hanging out in old places. A whole other world full of specters and unusual sounds in the night. Most of the time Sydney found it at least mildly funny, just another one of her aunt’s quirks. Now was not that time.

  Sydney scooted her chair back and stood up. She wasn’t in the mood for any half-cocked philosophies or theories. Astrid had left. Astrid was gone. And she wasn’t coming back. Maybe Sydney could have done something months ago, but now there wasn’t anything that could help — especially not some bullshit book.