“Bea and Blanche were like this.” Twisting her index and middle finger together, she holds them up to my face. “They’d been best friends forever, too. Since they were, like, little bitty.”

I nod, as if I have any idea what it’s like to have a best friend. Or to have known someone since I was little bitty.

“Eddie and Bea had a place down at Smith Lake, and Blanche and Tripp used to go down there with them all the time. But the boys weren’t there when it happened.”

The boys. Like they’re seventh graders and not men in their thirties.

“I don’t even know why they took the boat out because Bea didn’t really like it. That was always Eddie’s thing, but I bet he never gets on a boat again.”

She’s watching me again, her dark eyes narrowed a little, and I know she wants me to say something, or to look shocked or maybe even eager. It’s no fun to spill gossip if the recipient seems bored, so that’s why I keep my face completely neutral, no more interest than if we were talking about the weather.

It’s satisfying, watching her strive to get a reaction out of me.

“That all sounds really awful,” I offer up.

Lowering her voice, Emily leans in even closer. “They still don’t even really know what happened. The boat was found out in the middle of the lake, no lights on. Blanche’s and Bea’s things were all still inside the house. Police think they must’ve had too much to drink and decided to take the boat out, but then fallen overboard. Or one fell and the other tried to help her.”

Another head shake. “Just real, real sad.”

“Right,” I say, and this time, it’s a little harder to fake not caring. There’s something about that image, the boat in the dark water, one woman scrabbling against the side of the boat, the other leaning down to help her only to fall in, too …

But it must not show on my face because Emily’s smile is more a grimace now, and there’s something a little robotic in her shrug as she says, “Well, it was tough on all of us, really. A blow to the whole neighborhood. Tripp is just a mess, but I guess you know that.”

Again, I don’t say anything. Mess does not even begin to describe Tripp. Just the other day, he asked if I’d start packing up some of his wife’s things for him, since he can’t bring himself to do it. I was going to refuse because spending any more time in that house seems like a fucking nightmare, but he’s offered to pay me double, so I’m thinking about it.

Now I just watch Emily with a bland expression. Finally, she sighs and says, “Anyway, if Eddie’s getting a dog, maybe that’s a sign that he’s moving on. He didn’t seem to take it as hard as Tripp did, but then he didn’t depend on Bea like Tripp did on Blanche. I swear, that boy couldn’t go to the bathroom before asking Blanche if she thought that was a good idea. Eddie wasn’t like that with Bea, but god, he was broken up.”

Her dark hair brushes her shoulder blades as she swings her head to look at me again. “He was crazy about her. We all were.”

I fight down the bitter swell in my chest, thinking back to the one photo I pulled up of Bea Rochester on my laptop. She was strikingly beautiful, but Eddie is handsome, more so than most of the husbands around here, so it’s not a surprise that they were a matched set.

“I’m sure it was a really big loss,” I say, and finally, Emily waves me and the dogs away with one hand.

“I’ll probably be gone when you get back, so just put them in the crate in the garage.”

I take Major and Colonel for their walk, and sure enough, Emily’s SUV is missing when we return. Their little fluffy bodies tremble with excitement as I settle them in the crate. Major and Colonel are the smallest of all the dogs I walk, and the ones who seems to least enjoy the exercise.

“I know how you feel, dudes,” I tell them as I close the latch, watching Major sink into a dog bed that costs more than I make in a couple of weeks.

Which is why I don’t feel all that bad taking the sterling silver dog tag from his collar and slipping it into my pocket.

5

“You’re late on your half of the rent.”

I look up from my spot on the couch. I’ve only been home for ten minutes and had hoped I might miss John this afternoon. He’s an office assistant at a local church, plus he works with the Youth Music Ministry, whatever that actually means—I’ve never been a big churchgoer—and his hours are never as set as I’d like. This is hardly the first time I’ve come home to find him standing in the kitchen, his hip propped against the counter, one of my yogurts in his hand.

He always eats my food, no matter how many times I put my name on it, or where I try to hide it in our admittedly tiny kitchen. It’s like nothing in this apartment belongs to me since it was John’s place first, and he’s letting me live here. He opens my bedroom door without knocking, he uses my shampoo, he eats my food, he “borrows” my laptop. He’s skinny and short, a wisp of a guy, really, but sometimes it feels like he sucks up all the space in our shared 700 square feet.

Another reason I want to get out.

Living with John was only ever supposed to be a temporary thing. It was risky, going back to someone who knew my past, but I’d figured it would just be a place to land for a month, maybe six weeks, while I figured out what to do next.

But that was six months ago, and I’m still here.

Lifting my feet off the coffee table, I stand, digging into my pocket for the wad of twenties I shoved in there after my visit to the pawnshop this afternoon.

I don’t always get rid of the stuff I take. The money has never been the point, after all. It’s the having I’ve always enjoyed, plus knowing they’ll never notice anything is missing. It makes me feel like I’ve won something.

But dog-walking isn’t bringing in enough to cover everything yet, so today, I’d plucked Mrs. Reed’s lone diamond earring from the pile of treasures on my dresser, and while I didn’t get nearly what it was worth, it’s enough to cover my half of this shitty concrete box.

I shove it into John’s free hand, pretending I don’t notice the way his fingers try to slide against mine, searching for even a few seconds of extra contact. I’m another thing in this apartment that John would consume if he could, but we both pretend we don’t know that.