her. He’d never yelled at her before—not since they’d started doing it—but he’d raised his voice to the team more than once, like when they were playing Port Angeles and gone into halftime down by seven…Coach definitely had a temper, but he wasn’t crazy; he wouldn’t yell if they were outside where anyone could hear them…
That made her think of Amanda Young, what she’d said at Pam’s party. Lisa’s lip curled. Total bullshit. Coach would never hurt her, never, and Amanda was a bitch for calling that shit out right in front of everybody, practically. That was not cool. Nobody knew anything; they’d been careful, there was no private connection between her and Coach, and Amanda’s dramatic bullshit scene had created one.
All the more reason to do this now.
She saw the glow of approaching headlights a block down, heard the familiar purr of the Volvo’s engine. He could have walked, he lived close enough, but he almost always drove if he could, so they’d have a dry, clean place to lie down. Not tonight, though, not unless it was to say good-bye, one final time together…
That sweet, heavy chill tried to overtake her again, but she was suddenly nervous, because there was his car, it was time, she was going to tell him, tell Coach—
Ed! His name is Ed!
—that she didn’t want to be with him anymore.
She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders as the lights splashed over the dead end’s turnout, trying to make herself ready. Walk and talk. It would all turn out OK.
Miranda Greene-Moreland breezed into the newspaper office early Monday morning with a beaming smile and open arms, followed a beat later by her husband. James Greene-Moreland was lugging a large cardboard box—presumably containing the picnic leaflets—and he set it on Bob’s desk with an audible sigh of relief.
“Robert!” Miranda said, and Bob stood, allowing himself to be embraced, his cheek smacked. As usual, Miranda reeked of lavender oil. Her outfit today was a long, blousy floral affair over an ankle-length skirt, belted with a wide macramé sash that she had undoubtedly made herself.
“Please, Miranda, it’s Bob,” Bob said, knowing she’d ignore him. She always did.
“We’ve brought the flyers,” Miranda said. “They turned out beautifully. James, show Robert the flyer.”
James hurried to comply, handing over one of the leaflets, a half page of tan paper—what Miranda would undoubtedly call “ocher”—that was adorned with a pretty good sketch of the lighthouse to one side. COME ONE AND ALL, the flyer proclaimed, and beneath that:
PORT ISLEY’S ANNUAL EMBRACE OF THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
FINE FOOD, GOOD COMPANY, DIVERSIONS OF EVERY KIND
At the bottom, in smaller print, were the specifics—June 21, eleven a.m. to eleven p.m., Stanton’s Point Park at the lighthouse.
‘Embrace of the Summer Solstice’? What the hell was wrong with ‘picnic’?
“Isn’t it perfect?” Miranda said, not really a question so much as an exclamation. “Simple, clear, and concise, but inviting, too—the font is Copperplate Gothic Light. James actually suggested Times New Roman, but the Copperplate is so much more refined, don’t you think?”
“I like the lighthouse,” Bob said.
“I know,” Miranda said, presumably in agreement. “It’s by Darrin Everret. He’s new this year, came to us all the way from Massachusetts. All his landscapes are simply amazing. He did a piece on one of the trails in Kehoe Park? You can just smell the trees, it’s so real.”
“Well, I can’t thank you enough for picking the flyers up,” Bob said, hoping to deter her from launching into a fresh spiel of uninspired adjectives. Once she started talking about the retreat’s new “prodigies,” he’d be doomed to a good half hour of amazing.
“Or designing them,” he added, before she could remind him. “They’re very nice. Um eloquent.”
“They are, aren’t they?” Miranda gushed. “Now, they’ll be going out in this week’s edition, is that right?”
As if she didn’t know. “That’s the plan,” Bob said. The Port Isley Press—managed, operated, and edited by the silver-haired Bob “Robert” Sayers—came out every other Wednesday. Since the picnic was on the coming Saturday, having it go out two weeks from now didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
“Wonderful,” she said. Miranda had crowned herself Isley’s unofficial PR personality at some point and had decided their annual picnic wasn’t trumpeted nearly loudly enough, to her taste. She’d actually lobbied for the job, presenting her case at one of the council’s quarterly meetings, offering to foot the cost of advertising herself. The council’s response had been a big shrug, which had pretty much mirrored Bob’s regard for