The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson Read Free Book Online Page A

store.
    Elsa leaned her elbow down on the counter and nodded toward Maggie conspiratorially. “It’s him. I’ll bet you. We’re working with a . . .” And then Elsa mouthed the word psychopath .
    “Just because he looks weird doesn’t mean he’s a killer,” Maggie said. “Older guys who like to stare at teenage girls aren’t that rare, unfortunately.”
    Elsa folded her arms, gazing down the aisle, then reached a finger up to dab at the corner of her lipstick. “Well, it doesn’t mean he isn’t.”
    At that moment a sound drifted to them from the back of the store. He’d put another record on the gramophone, something old and jazzy and instrumental.
    Elsa raised her eyebrows. “You tell me listening to old, scratchy records isn’t something a psychopath does.”
    “A psychopath or a music lover,” Maggie said sardonically.
    Elsa smirked, rolled her magazine, and swatted Maggie with it. “Next time I’ll hire a B student. You’re a smart aleck.” They both glanced up to see a girl coming toward them from the opposite direction. “Oh, here she comes,” Elsa muttered, and moved to the farthest edge of the counter with her newspaper.
    Hairica was what Elsa had christened her, though her real name was Erica. About Maggie’s age, she occasionally worked in the shop covering for her mom. Their booth had the ugliest stuff in the Emporium: frilly, lace napkins and gaudy, overdecorated lamps. “Stuff only your dead great-grandmother would love,” as Elsa said. Elsa, who happened to be Erica’s next-door neighbor, had given her the nickname Hairica because she was unusually hairy: She had long hair down to her waist, a low hairline on her forehead, hairy temples, and very downy hair along her cheeks and chin. The first time Elsa had used the name to Maggie, Maggie had frowned hard at her to avoid laughing. She tried not to encourage Elsa’s snarkiness, but it wasn’t easy.
    Now Maggie smiled kindly at Hairica as she approached the desk with a bright green imitation Louis XIV lamp, painted with bewigged people frolicking on a lawn.
    “Can you put this in the ledger and ring it up?” Hairica asked, shyly glancing up at Maggie. “I just sold it.” Maggie goggled at the price: $365.
    Maggie wrote it all down in the proper columns. “That’s . . . nice,” she said.
    “No, it isn’t,” Hairica said. A small, shy smile grew on her lips.
    “Okay, it’s hideous,” Maggie admitted. Hairica laughed. Maggie opened her mouth to say something more, but Hairica blushed, turned, and walked back to her booth.
    “Do you know Pauline and Liam, out on Water Street?” Maggie asked, turning to Elsa.
    Elsa nodded. “I know everyone.”
    “They’re my neighbors. They took me canoeing.”
    Elsa nodded, seemed to try to hold her tongue, but of course she didn’t manage to succeed.
    “I wouldn’t put too many eggs in that basket if I were you.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Liam and his dad are weirdos. They make me nervous; at least the dad does. And the Bodens, they’re just . . . into the Bodens.” Maggie took this in, not knowing quite what to make of it. “You know pretty girls like that, with all that money. They just get used to everything revolving around them. Her mom’s the same way. Self-absorbed. They think they’re entitled to everything.”
    Maggie guessed so, but to her it seemed like the opposite. It seemed to her that Pauline was on the outermost edge of things.
    But in a moment Elsa had moved on to talking about Matt Damon. In her eyes, Matt Damon could do no wrong.
    After her shift Maggie spent the afternoon at the Coffee Moose, trying to make a dent in Moby Dick . That night, as she drove home, she saw that all the lights were on at the Boden house, and the sounds of a large party drifted out through the windows.
    She felt a pang that she hadn’t been invited, but she guessed she didn’t know Pauline that well. Or maybe Elsa was right; maybe Pauline only wanted to hang out with her