It had taken years for Hal to admit he’d been part of a vigilante computer hacker group dedicated to exposing what he called “information injustice.” Evelyn had told him she never wanted to know the details. But he got himself out of that shady world and started a successful Internet security consulting business. Hal was now among the small group of people she considered her closest friends, and for that reason, it was impossible to lie to him.
“I do have an issue. It’s nothing huge, but I want to run it by you.”
Hal was quiet for a moment. “Let’s hear it.”
This would be embarrassing. She worried she’d sound ridiculous telling the story, like some kind of heartsick teenager. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what she had been all those years ago. She took a deep breath and steeled herself.
“Evie?”
“All right. All right.” She glanced up at the old bathroom ceiling fixture, which was not a smart thing to do. A layer of dead insects had piled up inside the cradle of the light’s frosted globe. “Oh, gross. There are dead bugs in the bathroom light.”
“That’s your issue?”
Evelyn giggled, relaxing a bit. “I wish. But, um, you know how Amanda had been planning this trip as a surprise for Pop-Pop’s seventieth birthday?”
“Yeah.”
“You know how we used to read all those mermaid storybooks to Christina and told her we came to see the beautiful mermaid as kids?”
“Yes.”
“And how Christina begged to see the mermaid for herself?”
“Yeah, but what are you getting at?”
“Well, what I didn’t tell you is that when we were here eighteen years ago, I had a . . . well, I sort of met a boy.”
“Uh, are we headed into Annette Funicello territory? ’Cause I need to prepare myself if we are.”
“Please, Hal. This is no joke.”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
“I was fourteen. He was an island kid. The first day we were here, Amanda dragged me down the beach to meet up with a group of kids going swimming on a no-trespassing beach. We swam out to these rocks and started diving into the waves. I knew it was stupid, but I did it anyway, and . . . well, I almost drowned in the undertow.”
“Oh, my God!”
“The local boy saved my life. He dove under and pulled me out, and later he told me he hadn’t even planned to be there that day but changed his mind at the last minute.”
“Wow.”
“So for the rest of the week, we were inseparable.”
“Does he still live there? Is that where you’re going with this?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Uh-oh.”
“So this boy was my first love, right? He gave me his address and I promised I would write him and give him all my information so he could write me back. So just days after I got home, I poured my heart out to him. He never wrote back.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. It felt like I’d been punched in the face, you know? So he was my very first love, and my very first broken heart. It was a two-for-one deal.”
“Give me his name and I’ll check him out.”