“Okay, sure. Pennsylvania may technically be what people call a burned bridge. So we’ll drive straight through town and head down the coast to Connecticut instead. You liked Hartford, remember?”
“Too many murders, too expensive. We lasted five months and got evicted.”
“We could go farther south. Maryland?”
“Or we could just stay here in Rhode Island and do what we planned. Live in Grandma’s apartment rent-free for a year and save up money for Florida. It’s your dream, remember? Palm trees and white, sandy beaches? No digging cars out of snow?”
“Palm trees and white, sandy beaches … ,” she murmurs.
“And you promised I could finish high school here. Henry said—”
“Oh my God, Josie. Seriously? Don’t bring up your father when I’m in the middle of a panic attack.”
“Fine,” I say, protectively crossing my arms over the soft leather of my camera case. One of the few gifts he’s ever given me, the Nikon is my most prized possession … and a point of contention between Mom and me. My parents hooked up in college, when she was enrolled at a prestigious state art school for a couple of semesters. He was a thirty-something photography professor, and she was a rebellious nineteen-year-old student who did some nude modeling for him that turned into a one-thing-led-to-another situation.
I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I try not to think about it too much.
Regardless, they never lived together, much less married. And now Henry Zabka is a famous fashion photographer in Los Angeles. I see him every year or so. I think Mom wishes I would forget he even exists. “Look,” I tell her diplomatically. “There’s no need for panic. This is easy. It’s not a viper’s pit. Besides, even if it is, Evie is counting on us. She’s alone. Support Evie. Save money. Let me finish high school. Then you can head down to Florida, just like you’ve been dreaming.”
“I’m not going alone.”
I let out a nervous laugh and hope she doesn’t notice. “Both of us … Florida … yep. That was implied.” Wow, that was close. Gotta be more careful.
“Okay, you’re right. We can do this,” she says, calming down as gabled buildings and picket fences appear up ahead. “And Beauty is just a town, right?”
“Like any other.”
Only it isn’t. Not even close.
Beauty is a strange place with a long, dramatic history that stretches back to colonial America. It was founded in the late 1600s by a man named Zebadiah Summers, who helped King Charles III of England “purchase” the “goodly” waterfront land here from two warring New England tribes, the Narragansetts and Pequots. A large quarry of high-grade marble at the edge of town made the English settlers stinking rich. And the postcard-blue harbor—which stretches beyond our U-Haul windshield as Mom drives the curving main road around the coast—later attracted other members of New England high society, who built their summer homes here in the 1800s and helped make this one of the most affluent communities in Rhode Island.
Being a harbor town, Beauty has a lot of boating action. A private yacht club. Racing cups. Boating festivals … A public pedestrian path called the Harborwalk circles the water for several miles, and if you like sandy beaches and saltwater taffy, you’ll find that here too.
But it’s the kooky parts of Beauty that I like. Things like that the town nickname since the 1920s has been—no lie—“Clam Town,” because it has more fried clam shacks per capita than any other New England town. (Suck it, Providence!) Or that a slightly famous gothic nineteenth century American poet lived here and is now buried in Eternal Beauty Burial Grounds, a historical cemetery—and here’s the weird part—inside the grave of one of the original female colonists who was found to not be a witch when she drowned in one of those “if she floats, she’s a witch” tests given by Beauty’s early paranoid townspeople.
Graveyards and clam shacks aside, the beating heart of Beauty is its historic harbor district. Hazy childhood memories surface in the setting sun as Mom drives us past a horse-drawn carriage trotting alongside gas streetlamps. I crack my window and breathe in the familiar briny air. Along Goodly Pier, sailboats bob in their winter moors, and tourist shops along the waterfront begin closing up. Glassblowers and candlemakers sit across from a row of gated historical mansions, some of which are occupied by families whose kids go to Ivy League schools.
It’s another world here. A strange mix of money and weird.