Page 50 of High Season
Josie shakes her head.
“You don’t understand,” she says. “What they’re like. How they twist your words. Turn the slightest thing you say against you. And besides, what are they going to do? Are they going to turn back time? Are they going to give me back all the years I spent in prison?”
Nic’s mouth slides shut.
“Look, I’ve had years to come to terms with what happened,” Josie says. “I know it must seem like this huge, big deal to everyone else. But to me, it’s my life. I can’t change it. All the worst things have already happened, and now it’s time for me to move on.”
“I get it,” says Nic. “But what if people believed you this time? What if the police actuallydidreopen the case? What if they found out what really happened that day?”
“But what if they didn’t? What happens if I put myself out there again, let everyone know where I am and what I’m doing, only for them to decide that I’m some evil kid killer all over again?” She can hear her voice rising, her words coming fast. “I’ve done that before. I’ve been through all of this. I am not going to let them tear me apart again.”
“OK, OK.” Nic holds his palms out flat toward her. “Look, you’re right. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“I understand,” says Josie. “Why this might seem like… I don’t know. An opportunity. But honestly? I’ve seen this kind of thing dozens of times before. A new podcast, or some TV special comes out, and all of a sudden people go crazy about the case. But it doesn’t change anything. It never does. And pretty soon, people forget. They move on, and I’m still here, still trying to put some semblance of a life together, still standing in the wreckage. That’s what nobody understands.”
Josie crumples her napkin, wilted with grease.
“At the end of the day, Nina Drayton has never changed her story,” she says. “And as far as the record goes, she was the only witness.”
She takes a deep breath. She is thinking about Tamara. She thinks of her often, even now. She can see her so clearly. Ripped jeans, even in the summer heat. The smell of cigarette smoke and perfume.
“I’ve had years to come to terms with this. Over half my life. As long as Nina Drayton says I’m guilty, I’m guilty. I’ve accepted it. I’m trying to move on. And I just wish everyone else would, too.”
Nic looks thoughtful.
“But what if Ninadidchange her story? What if—”
“Hey, lovebirds!”
“Oh god,” says Josie. “Don’t tell me that’s—”
“Fancy seeing you guys here.”
Gabby swoops up to the table, dragging Calvin behind her.
“You look so cute together!”
“Sorry,” says Calvin, red-faced. “We didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“You don’t mind if we join you, do you?” Gabby is beaming, sliding into the seat next to Josie.
“Gabby.” Calvin looks like he wants the ground to swallow him up. “They’re on a D-A-T-E.”
“I did actually do my exams in prison, you know,” Josie says. “I know how to spell.”
She glances at Nic, their unfinished conversation still hanging there, unsaid. There’s a flicker of a discussion that passes between their eyes.Is this OK with you?The intimacy of it surprises her.
“It’s cool,” says Josie. “As long as you guys get the next round in.”
“It’s a deal,” says Gabby. “Calvin. To the bar!”
The night is so different from what Josie is used to.
She is used to dark, discreet bars. Toilets with UV lighting. People who talk more than they listen. People who drink because they are trying to forget, rather than because they want to create a night worth remembering.
With Gabby and Calvin and Nic, it’s easy. They play stupid drinking games, the kind that Josie never learned because she missed out on going to university and those late teenage years of bar hopping and trying to break the ice with strangers. They talk about work—easy, inconsequential problems about rude customers and late deliveries of stock. Gabby tells Josie about how she first visited the town as a teenager with her high school boyfriend, how they had fantasized about moving out here and opening up a café. How the dream outlasted Gabby’s relationship, and she had come back alone thinking that she would stay for a summer, heal from heartbreak. Instead, she never left, a dream becoming her reality. It reminds Josie all over again how special, how magical this place can be. How it can take hold of your heart and refuse to let go.
When a song that Gabby loves comes on, she squeals and grabs Josie’s hand, tugging her to the dance floor. Gabby dances with short, happy bounces, and briefly the two women catch hold of each other and spin round and round. Josie is tipsy enough not to feel self-conscious. The music is inside her, as deep as her bones, and she throws back her head and sings the lyrics at the top of her voice.
