I'm not sure what that has to do with newspaper archives, but I reply politely, "No, ma'am. I live on the other side of the cemetery and just moved back to town. I'm Eveny Cheval."

Her eyes widen. "Sandrine Cheval's daughter," she breathes. "Well, I'll be damned."

"You knew my mom?"

"Honey, everyone knew your mom." She seems to gather her composure as she gestures for me to follow her. "How nice to see you back in town."

She leads me down a hallway to a small room, explaining as we go that it's a bit old-fashioned but that they still keep the archives on microfiche. "I find that the tried and true way is often the best way," she says confidently. "Now, what can I help you find?"

"Actually, I was wondering whether I could see this week's paper. And"-I pause, a little embarrassed-"if you have the paper from the week my mom died, I'd like to read that too."

"You don't want to go reading something like that, honey."

"But I do," I say, not sure why I'm explaining myself to a stranger. "So if you could bring me the articles, that would be great."

She purses her lips and leaves, returning less than a minute later with three slides.

"Here's this week's paper, which I just put on microfiche yesterday, and the . . . older ones. You just move them under the glass there," she says, gesturing to a microscope-like device on a desk, "and they'll show up on the screen." I thank her and she walks out, muttering to herself as she shuts the door behind her. I use the knob on the side of the machine to focus the lens and begin reading the article from the front page of the most recent Carrefour Weekly Chronicle, titled "Local Girl Stabs Self."

According to the paper, Glory was a well-liked, straight-A student who lived in Carrefour her whole life. Her mom is quoted as saying, "There was absolutely no indication that something like this could happen." Peregrine and Chloe are both quoted too, with Peregrine describing Glory as, "a true, trustworthy friend," and Chloe saying-apparently through sobs, according to the reporter-that she'll always blame herself for not protecting her friend.

Protecting her? Seems like a bizarre way to talk about a suicide.

Glory's body, the paper says, was found in a wooded area along Cypres Avenue on the north side of town by a possum hunter from the Peripherie who was trolling the woods before dawn. The police were called right away, but it was too late. The medical examiner estimated the time of death between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. the night before.

Just a few hours after I'd met her.

"It's definitely a suicide, although the manner of death was highly unusual," the chief of police, Randall Sangerman, has told the paper. "No prints on the body or on the knife, except for her own. Our department sends its deepest sympathies to her parents."

I search the rest of the newspaper, but there's nothing else about Glory, nothing that puts me any closer to understanding why she'd take her own life.

Confused, I pull out the slide and insert the first one from fourteen years ago, the one from the day after my mother's death. I take a steadying breath, adjust the viewfinder, and begin to read.

Sandrine Cheval, 28, died when her car slammed into a tree along the bayou on Route 786, on the outskirts of the Peripherie, near the town wall. "Death occurred when a shard from the windshield sliced open the carotid artery in her neck," the medical examiner told the reporter. "Ms. Cheval likely died almost instantaneously." The newspaper promises more information in its next issue.

I sit back, the breath knocked out of me. I've never heard the detail about her neck being cut open. It makes me profoundly sad, and I sit there for a moment wondering what could have been going through her mind in those final seconds before she died so horrifically.

I clear my throat before focusing and loading the next slide. The front-page headline screams, "Carrefour Mom's Death Ruled a Suicide." The police chief at the time told the paper, "Based on the lack of brake marks on the road, the speed at which she was traveling, the fact that Ms. Cheval had to have turned the wheel very sharply at the last minute, and the lack of any intoxicants in her system, we've concluded that Ms. Cheval's death wasn't an accident but rather a self-inflicted incident." The article concludes by saying that Sandrine Cheval is survived by a younger sister, Beatrice, and a daughter, Eveny, age three.

I look at the screen for a long time through eyes blurred with tears. I've heard bits and pieces about my mother's car crash from Aunt Bea, but it never seems to add up. Seeing it in black and white makes it even more confusing. My mother was happy and loving, with a whole life in front of her. Why would someone like that deliberately drive her car into a tree?

I switch the screen off, and stand up. It's irrational to search for answers that don't exist.

I shake my head, grab the microfiche slides and walk out to the librarian's desk.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asks.

"Not exactly," I tell her. "But thanks for your help." Her eyes look sad, and I can feel her watching me as I walk out the front door.

I'm in a fog, puzzling over the new details of my mom's death, as I head back out onto Main Street. I'm so caught up in my thoughts that I don't notice the guy rounding the corner of the library building until I run straight into him.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" I exclaim. "I wasn't looking. . . ." I'm about to ask if he's okay, but my breath catches as I look up and realize that the solid, muscular chest I've just collided with belongs to the guy from the cemetery, the guy with the blue eyes. Caleb Shaw.

"It was my fault too." He reaches out with both hands to steady me. "You okay?"

His voice is deep and warm, just like I imagined it would be. I blush as I look down and realize the hairs on my arms are all standing on end. "Uh-huh," I finally say.

He looks unconvinced. "You sure?"

"Uh-huh," I manage to repeat. Brilliant conversational skills, Eveny.

He stares at me for a minute, and at the same time we both realize that his hands are still on my arms, holding me upright. He pulls away like he's been burned. "Well, I'm just headed into the library to check out a few books," he says.

"Yeah, reading's cool," I mumble. I immediately want to smack myself. Reading's cool?

I can see a smile tugging at the corner of his perfect mouth. "Sure," he says.

"Cool," I manage to say very uncoolly.

"Right. So see you later then?"

"Later," I squeak.

He gives me a long, searching look and then vanishes through the library door.

I stand there frozen in place for a moment before shaking myself out of it.

"Reading's cool?" I say aloud. "Who says that?"

I can feel my cheeks flaming in embarrassment the whole way home.

6.

Idon't even know if it's a date," I tell Meredith on Sunday evening as I put makeup on in the bathroom mirror. I'm wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt, my old leather jacket, and a pair of skinny jeans, which I'm hoping are appropriate for the crawfish boil Drew's taking me to tonight. At Meredith's insistence, I've swapped my Converse for a pair of cowboy boots.

"But you said this Drew guy's cute?" she prompts. I have her on speakerphone, and the way her voice fills my room, as if she's right here with me, makes me miss my old life in New York so much it hurts.

"Very," I tell her. I put the tube of mascara down and concentrate on dusting some blush on my cheeks.

"So do you like him?" she asks.

"I don't know," I tell her. "The thing is, there's this other guy. . . ."

Meredith is silent as I tell her about Caleb and the way our eyes met across the cemetery on Thursday. I refrain from telling her about our spectacularly dorky encounter Friday outside the library.

"Girl, for all you know he's gay. He could have been staring at Drew," Meredith points out. "Go for the guy who's already into you. How cool will you be if you start at a new school already having a boyfriend?"

I shrug before realizing she can't see me. "I don't even know if he's interested. Besides, the girls I was telling you about don't seem to like him."

"Well, they sound like snobby little rhymes-with-witches," Meredith sniffs. "So who cares?"

"I guess you're right. But they're from my past too. Everything feels totally complicated here."

"Or maybe you've just been reading too many angsty novels," Meredith says. "You don't need to have every step planned out. Just do this crawfish boil, have a good time, go with it, and make out with the Drew guy if you want to."

I swallow hard. I wish it were that easy. I wish I weren't thinking about Caleb. I wish I hadn't spent the last twenty-four hours daydreaming about being pressed up against the solid chest I'd collided with outside the library.

The doorbell rings, snapping me out of it. "That's him. I've got to go."

"Have fun!" she replies. She makes some kissy-kissy sounds, then I hear the phone click and she's gone.

"Eveny!" Aunt Bea's voice wafts up from the front hallway. "Drew's at the door!"

"I'll be right down!" I take one last look in the mirror, spiral my fingers through a few errant curls, and head for the stairs.

On the drive over to the crawfish boil in Drew's pickup truck, I once again note that the Peripherie is practically the polar opposite of central Carrefour. In my part of town, every building sports a fresh coat of paint, every neighborhood looks like it could have been lifted from Better Homes and Gardens, and every person strolling by looks like they've been styled for a photo shoot.

But as soon as we make it through the thick tangle of trees that surrounds the center of town, it's like we've driven into a new universe.

"It's so different out here," I say, hoping that I don't sound like a snob.

Drew looks amused. "Poor, you mean."

"No, that's not what I meant," I say quickly. "It actually seems like it has character."

"I think you mean decay."

"Not at all. It's just odd that there'd be such a big divide between the two sides of town."

Drew raises an eyebrow. "You have a lot to learn about this place."

"Even the weather is different," I add. Indeed, outside Drew's pickup, clouds swirl against a dark, ominous sky, and it feels like the temperature has dropped twenty degrees since we emerged from the trees. I shiver and roll my window up.

"I heard once that the temperature variation between the two areas has something to do with water vapor from the bayou," Drew replies. "I'm no meteorologist, but it never made much sense to me."

We arrive at Drew's friend Teddy's house a few minutes after six. Most of the guys are wearing sweatshirts and jeans, and about half of them are in maroon and beige letter jackets that I assume are from Carrefour Secondary. Most of the girls are in cowboy hats and jeans or denim miniskirts. The only piece of my outfit that fits with this crowd are the cowboy boots Meredith insisted I wear.

There's a bonfire blazing in the middle of the yard with a few dozen people clustered around it, talking, laughing, and occasionally sloshing their drinks out of red Solo cups. On the side of the house, two huge pots at least three feet high and three feet across are simmering on big propane burners, sending giant puffs of steam shooting skyward.

"What are those?" I ask, pointing at the pots.

"That's where they cook the crawfish."

Just then, a guy with green eyes, freckles, and a cleft chin, all shaded by a giant cowboy hat, materializes next to us. "It ain't crawfish season yet, but we got a whole load of those daddies in the freezer from last year's catch, and we got to use them up before we can start getting 'em fresh again. That's why I'm calling this my Clean Out the Freezer Crawfish Boil." He sticks out his hand and adds, "You must be Eveny. Real pretty name. I'm Teddy. Welcome to Freezer Night."

I laugh, shake his hand, and thank him for inviting me.

"Thank this guy," he says, clapping Drew on the back. "He's been raving about you since you got back into town. We've all been dying to meet you. So this is your first crawfish boil?"

"It is." I can't help but grin at him. He's a ball of happy energy.

"Sweet! So what'll you have? We got beer, or there's something my girl Sara over there made called Swamp Punch. No idea what's in it."

"I'll stick with the beer."

"Smart girl," he says with a wink. "I'll be right back. You want a beer too?" he asks Drew.

"Just one. I gotta get this girl home safe."

"He seems nice," I say to Drew as we watch Teddy bound off toward the back deck, which is lined with three rusted-looking kegs. "He goes to Pointe Laveau too?" I'm already imagining a new life where I hang out with the down-to-earth people from the Peripherie even if I go to school at Snob Central.

"Nah," Drew says, kicking the dirt and looking down. "Pointe Laveau is kinda reserved for your kind."

"Excuse me?"

"The people who live in the privileged part of town. People with money. Out here, none of us can afford the tuition, so every year six merit-based scholarships per grade are awarded to Peripherie kids. I guess it's some kind of philanthropic gesture."

I'm quiet for a moment. "Just so you know, my aunt Bea and I weren't rich when we lived in New York."

"Eveny, you live in a mansion. Your family founded this town. You're probably one of the richest people in Louisiana."

I don't know what to say.

Finally, Drew sighs. "Maybe your aunt was trying to raise you with some values. Most of those spoiled rich kids don't have any."

I swallow the urge to defend the Dolls. In a strange way, I feel as much a part of them as this life out here, because even if we're polar opposites now, we share a past. I don't know whether I'm rich or poor, refined or casual, city or country. But I have the uneasy feeling that living in two worlds isn't going to be easy for long.

The crawfish boil turns out to be a blast.

Even though I worried I wouldn't belong, everyone is being really nice. Drew leads me around the sprawling yard, his hand lightly resting on the small of my back, and he introduces me to so many people that I start forgetting names. There's a raucous game of cornhole-which apparently involves throwing beanbags into a board with holes cut out-going on near the bayou, and in the yard another group is playing beer pong. There's country music blasting from speakers on the back deck, which has turned into a dance floor.

Everyone shrieks with excitement when Teddy announces the crawfish are ready to boil, and Drew excuses himself to go help. I stand alone and clap along with everyone as Drew, Teddy, and two other guys dump huge cases of crawfish into the boiling pots, which are already simmering with red potatoes, corn, and spices like garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne pepper. The air smells sweet and spicy, and I find myself getting hungrier and hungrier.

"Thirty minutes till we eat!" Teddy announces. "Y'all better work up your appetites!"

The crowd cheers, and the dancing on the deck gets more frenzied. When Drew comes to find me a minute later, his cheeks are flushed and he's grinning. "Man, I love a good crawfish boil," he says. "Want to go take a quick walk down the bayou while we wait for the food?"

"Sure." His enthusiasm is contagious, and I find myself smiling too.

We grab a flashlight from the deck and stroll toward the back of the yard, where it dissolves into a mess of dying cypress trees, brown Spanish moss, and darkness. When Drew grabs my hand, I don't pull away.