I wasn't sure what I was thinking as I scooped them out of the dish, then slid them, one by one, onto my own wrist. I watched as they fell down my arm: clink, clink, clink, a sound I knew so well. I stepped onto the porch, wondering where Corinna was, and how she could leave them behind. But as I watched them catch the light on my own wrist, making her music, I knew the truth was that at home, or California, or anywhere in between, even Corinna couldn't help me now.

The first thing Rina did when we got to the lake house was put on her bikini and pop open a beer. We sat out on the front porch, overlooking the water, where she slathered Bain du Soleil all over her until she stank of coconut, and I sat in my dressand jacketchainsmoking, the cordless phone in my lap. I still couldn't get ahold of Rogerson, and I was starting to panic. If he showed up at Dave's and found out I'd been with Rina, and didn't tell himno. I couldn't even think about it. “Will you put that thing down, for God's sakes?” Rina snapped at me after I'd been dialing for a solid ten minutes, reaching over with one slippery hand to grab the phone away from me and dropping it onto the deck beside her chair, completely out of my reach. “Honestly, I have never seen anyone so co-​dependent in my life. Why don't you go put on your suit, have a beer, and relax?”

“I'm fine like this.” I stretched my legs out to make my point, easing the hem of my dress over the fading bruise on my upper thigh. The truth was I was sweating under my jacket: It was unbearably hot. I turned my attention to the lake, where I could see someone waterskiing, the motor humming as a girl on skis cut a swath back and forth across the water. “Caitlin.” She lifted up her sunglasses and looked at me. “What is the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Why?” She kept her eyes on me, as if daring me to tell her, like I'd told her a million other secrets in this same place the summer before: my crush on Billy Bostwick, lifeguard at the community pool. That I secretly liked liver as a child. That I'd stolen Cass's pearl earrings, the ones she thought she'd lost at school. But this was too much for me to tell Rina. Even if I really wanted to. “You're just not yourself,” she said softly. “You haven't been in a long time.”

I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes, and reached my arm up to my face, letting Corinna's bracelets fall down my arm. I could still hear that motorboat, humming past, the girl on skis laughing as she cut across the waves. “I'm fine,” I said. “It's like he's done something to you,” she said, and I squeezed my eyes shut tighter behind my sunglasses. “Like he's changed something in you. Hurt you or something.” I opened my eyes and looked at her, my best friend, her face worried as she waited for me to respond. I hated to treat her this way. But her face, slowly, was replaced in my mind with a flash of Rogerson driving, looking for me, his face changing and eyes growing darker, angry, the way they looked right before impact. It was like the mean lady on her bicycle in The Wizard of Oz, the music building as she raced to find Dorothy: You knew she was coming, you just didn't know when. “Caitlin,” Rina said softly. “Please. You can tell me anything. You know that.” But I couldn't. Rogerson was somewhere, on his way, looking for me. I could feel it, the way Boo always said she could feel rain coming in her bad elbow. I just knew. I took a deep breath and sat up, gra66ing my cigarettes. “I need to use the phone,” I blurted out, reaching over her to grab it. My hand brushed against her skin, damp and sticky and warm, as I started inside the house, pushing the sliding glass door open. When I looked back she was lying flat on her chair, one arm thrown across her face, having given up on me. I called Rogerson at every number I knew, standing under those rows of stuffed fish. They stared back at me, bug-​eyed and scared, as the phone rang on and on, endless, with nobody home.

It was late afternoon and I was long ready to go when Jeff showed up. He snuck around the side of the house, crept soundlessly behind our chairs, and expertly dropped an ice cube on the small of Rina's already pink back, scaring the crap out of both of us. “Jeff!” Rina squealed, sitting up quickly and slapping her top which she'd untied to avoid strap marksagainst her ample chest. “Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack, you jerk.”

“Lighten up,” he said easily, sliding a hand around her leg as he sat down next to her. He waggled his fingers at me and did his signature move, flipping his hair out of his face with a snap of his neck. I could see myself reflected backanxious, angry, glancing at my watch one more timein his sunglasses. “Rina,” I said, for at least the twentieth time, “I really need to go.” I'd been pressing her for what seemed like forever, while she kept drinking beers and waving me off. “What's your rush?” Jeff said. “I brought some steaks, invited over some of the fellas. Thought we'd have us a little cookout.”

“Umm, that sounds good,” Rina murmured, rolling over onto her stomach again. “Who'd you invite?”

“Ed and Barrett,” he said. “Oh, and Scott from the store.”

“I can't stay,” I told him. “Rina was just about to take me home, actually.”

“I told you, I can't drive home right now,” she said in an irritated voice, scooping some more pimento cheese out of my mother's Tupperware container onto a cracker and popping it into her mouth. “i have to sober up first.”

“Rina,” I said, feeling panic rising in me, higher and higher, even as I tried to squash it down. I'd been circling like this madly for over an hour, like an animal about to gnaw its own leg off to get free. “i told my mother I'd be home by six-​thirty, remember?”