Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“And you want people to know that you’re…” She trailed off as she looked at Zoë’s makeup and hair.

“I’m what?” Zoë said daringly.

“If you’re so determined to talk, please do so. Tell me all about your rotten childhood and how you grew up hating everyone because of something awful that happened to you. What was it? An uncle that visited you in the night?”

Zoë blinked at Faith for a moment. “You can give it out, can’t you?”

“You mean that I can be as hateful as you? You may think you know all about me but you don’t. For your information, when I was a teenager, I was considered the wildest girl in town. I drank too much, rode in too many fast cars, and had sex with lust and abandon.”

“What changed you?” Zoë asked softly.

“Marriage to a good man,” Faith said quickly, then picked up the bill off the end of the table. “Shall we go? Or do you want to sit here and cut other people to shreds?”

They paid at the register without saying a word to each other, and when they walked back to the summerhouse, Faith kept ahead of Zoë, not speaking to her. She unlocked the front door and went in, still saying nothing to the younger woman. Faith stayed in her bedroom with the door closed and waited until she heard the water running in the bathroom, then she slipped out the back door and into the little garden.

As soon as she was outside, she flipped open her cell phone and called Jeanne. “This isn’t working,” she said without preamble.

“What isn’t?” Jeanne asked, her mouth full of food.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. This. All of it. The three traumatized strangers staying together in one house.”

“Okay, tell me everything,” Jeanne said.

Faith told her about being the first to arrive and how she thought the town and the house were both lovely. She didn’t know what was supposed to be accomplished there, but she’d had high hopes.

“That is until Zoë arrived. How could you have thought that that aggressive, opinionated girl and I would get along?”

“Did she tell you about herself?” Jeanne asked.

“Not a word.”

“That’s because she doesn’t know much about herself. She was in a car accident that split her head open and she doesn’t remember anything after she was about sixteen. All she knows is that she woke up in a hospital and an entire town was furious at her.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“But surely you could find someone who knew her and you could ask them.”

“Of course I did.”

“And what did they say?” Faith asked.

Jeanne was silent.

“Well?”

“Patient confidentiality. Why don’t you ask Zoë?”

“Cute,” Faith said, “but you’re trying to entice me to like her.”

“Not like her, but have some patience.”

“That’s not easy,” Faith said. “Zoë says she can’t stand Amy and wants nothing to do with her.”

“How is she?”

“Amy? Zoë opened the door to her and she looked scared to death. She took her suitcase into the new bedroom and we haven’t seen her since.”