Shutter by Melissa Larsen

Author:Melissa Larsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

Beneath the afternoon sun, steam rises in slow waves from the water, like gauzy sheets of silk. On the porch, Sofìa is sprawled in a lounge chair, a book splayed in one hand. She looks up when I settle into the lounge chair opposite her, as though it takes her a moment to remember where she is. She’s reading something she brought with her, Wuthering Heights—which isn’t unusual for her. She was always the smart one. That’s how I remember her, in school, back home, just about wherever I saw her, with her nose buried in a book, and almost always an old one I wouldn’t have ever thought to pick up myself.

Sofìa lets the book drop to her lap. “How are you doing?” she asks me, giving me a critical once-over. “It’s hard to get used to this”—she gestures to my hair—“whole thing.” Then, with a gasp: “You look like your mom.”

I make a face at her.

She slaps a hand over her mouth, histrionically. “Same expression, too,” she tells me. She cranes her neck around, and says, to the house and its many cameras, “Sorry, Anthony.” She gives me a guilty grin, like we’re back in school and the teacher just caught her passing notes. I wonder if the cameras can pick up what we’re saying. If Anthony’s hidden microphones are actually that powerful. “Maybe we’re not supposed to be childhood friends anymore. Has he said anything to you?”

“No,” I say. “You’re probably right, though. I don’t think it’s a good idea.” And it really isn’t. Not just because it will make it harder for her to think of me as Lola and not Betty, but also because the fact that she grew up three streets away from me is another tether tying me down to Betty. I don’t want to think about home. The whole point of changing my hair, my wardrobe, my story, is so I can forget about these things. About Betty. And that’s already hard enough to do with Sofìa just being here. To her, that’s who I am. Who I’ll always be. Betty Roux, the gangly girl who was her best friend for sophomore and junior year of high school. I dye my hair and nothing changes, except now to her I look more like my mom. There’s no space to breathe, to exist as Lola, with her around.

She loses interest in me, quick. She still asks me what I’m going to do today, but her voice is distant, and her eyes are back on her book.

I’m rescued from having to lie about what I was going to do next—pretending like I had actually thought about it when I hadn’t—by Anthony. He slips out the front door, catches my attention, and beckons me over to him.

When I reach him, he pulls me inside to give us some privacy, but still pitches his voice low. “Sammy’s chopping our firewood,” he tells me, and it strikes me as he speaks that I’ve been hearing the steady beat of the ax for some time now, without identifying it.

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