Page 3 of WASP

Annie considered him for a moment. “You know what, yeah. That would make me feel better.”

“Oh, and look at that… We no longer stock Banana Panic ice cream.” He smiled sweetly at her across the counter.

“Thank you,” Annie said softly, a smile returning to her face. “Thanks for making my day just a little bit better.”

“Any time,” the kid said, giving a tiny salute as Annie left the store.

After a reshuffle of her belongings, one Cow Tale tucked safely away for later, the other unwrapped in her hands, and after taking a swig of Diet Coke, Annie whipped out her phone, looking up the number for the moving company set to deliver her belongings to Caroline’s house the following morning.

“Hi,” she said sweetly to the woman on the other end. “I need to update where my belongings are going. How much will it cost to have them taken to 7 Jacob’s Lane, Wellington Point, CT?”

After a little bit of back and forth and some tough haggling, Annie ended the call, already feeling relieved having one big item checked off her list. On to the next.

Ten minutes later, she had secured herself a one-way first-class flight from D.C. to Hartford, CT, leaving in a few short hours. She called a car to take her to the airport, and as she slid into the back seat, she didn’t even look back as the Washington, D.C. skyline disappeared behind her.

“Hey,” she said into the phone, holding it close to her ear.

Her older brother Andrew’s nervous voice greeted her. “Annie, hey, um—everything okay?”

“Can’t I call my brother from time to time to chat without there needing to be something wrong?” she asked, flexing her hand out in front of her, examining her fingernails.

“You can, but you don’t.”

He wasn’t wrong. She and Andrew weren’t exactly close, not in the way she and her younger brother Austin were. But Austin was off somewhere in some obscure part of the world, doing doctor things, as he called it.

“I need you to pick me up at the airport tonight.”

“Hartford or New Haven?” Andrew asked and Annie, for once, was thankful for his no-nonsense, no-questions-asked approach to life.

“Hartford,” she answered.

“You sure everything’s okay?”

Annie chewed her lip, debating whether she should tell Andrew about the breakup or not. Part of her was tempted never to tell anyone exactly what had happened. But she knew that wasn’t realistic. However, it did not make the truth any less embarrassing.

“Caroline cheated on me.” She surprised herself with how calm her voice sounded and how it conflicted so starkly with the pain currently twisting its way through her stomach. “And I don’t want to talk about it. And please do not tell anyone. I just—I need to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do next.” She watched the outlines of marble monuments zoom past her window as the car crossed the river, heading in the direction of the airport and away from the city she had called home for her twenties. “I’m coming home, Andrew.”

TWO

MAX

Shit. Fuck. Shit.

Max tore through the small apartment kitchen, hopping up and down as she stuffed her foot into the crisp white sneakers required as part of the McCallum-Windsor Country Club employee uniform: white sneakers, white socks, and any golf attire in black with at least one article of clothing in the quintessential McCallum-Windsor green. Her selection for today: a quarter zip pullover.

She propped her foot up on the kitchen chair, lacing up her sneakers with lightning speed, ignoring the stack of envelopes on the kitchen table that so desperately needed her attention. That was an after-work problem. Right now, Max was late.

Swiping a banana from the basket on the counter, she paused in the front hall for only a moment to straighten her hair, put on a quick swipe of mascara, and apply a thin layer of tinted lip gloss—enough to meet the insanely strict dress code for McCallum employees. She scrunched her nose, examining her reflection—long dark hair falling a little below her shoulders, square jaw like her mother, and clear blue eyes like her father. Her appearance was as good as it was going to get today, and now she was really late.

She thundered down the exterior stairs of the second-story apartment she rented on the edge of town, the crisp November air biting her cheeks.

“Good morning, Max!” a voice called from the glider on the front porch of the old Victorian house she called home.

“Morning, Lynn! I’m so sorry, I don’t have time to chat today. I’m late. Chloe called out sick at the last minute, and I need to get to the club to cover for her or else I’m going to have to listen to Landon bitch at me that the golfers don’t have their drinks,” Max explained to her landlord and best friend Lynn Paterson, whom she had met shortly after moving to the sleepy coastal Connecticut town of Wellington Point.

Lynn rose from the same spot she sat every morning to enjoy her lavender Earl Grey tea and joined Max as she hurried down the flagstone steps set into the hillside. “No worries, I needed to stretch my legs anyway,” Lynn said with a grin. “Everything going okay?”

“Yes, why do you ask?” Max raised an eyebrow at the older woman before noticing an envelope clutched in her hands, the sight of which made her gulp with unease.