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NEW FACES

act one ━ chapter four

. . . . . .

━ EVAN CHAPMAN ━
june sixteenth 2022

          THE MESSAGE STARED BACK AT HER. She stared blankly at it. There was a lot of staring.

𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗿𝗮𝗱_𝗳𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗿𝟬𝟰: can we talk?

          It just didn't make any sense to August. What did he want to talk about? Hey, thought we'd clear the air about how I broke your heart a while back since I now remember you exist!

          Did he feel entitled to talk to her? Like, if his mother knew about everything that had happened, she would want him to reach out? Trying to talk to her would be bad for her, but honestly worse for him. August Jacobs had got very confrontational over the years and she was not afraid to call this guy out.

𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗿𝗮𝗱_𝗳𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗿𝟬𝟰: can we talk?

          Yep, it was still there. He hadn't thought better of it and deleted it.

          She wanted to scream no, we cannot! and maybe if she was loud enough he'd even hear it. But something about that felt uncalled for and off-putting. She then brainstormed a couple of messages she could, in theory, send.

Maybe later.

Okay.

Why?

Hey! This is random! Wtf!!!

Fuck you.

          Concluding none of them would work, August stared back at his name a couple more times, felt very weird inside that his name was on her phone screen for the first time, before flopping backwards onto her bed, hoping it would somehow suck her into the pits of hell. Because that was pretty much where she thought she was anyway.

          August did the only thing she thought she could do: ignore it.

❀°。🌺 .ೃ࿐

          AUGUST QUICKLY REALISED THAT SHE BETTER START MAKING SOME FRIENDS if she didn't want to be bored out of her mind all summer. People came here to vacation, to have fun ─ there had to be people her age who wouldn't mind hanging out with someone new. And since she couldn't cling onto Jeremiah the whole time, she decided to venture out.

          Suncreamed up and telling herself she can just go home for a surf if it all goes wrong, August left the house bright and early. She thought back to all the spots Jeremiah had taken her to and thought she could grab some breakfast. She had got exactly one hour of sleep the night before what with Conrad's social media technological ambush and was craving something sweet. Remembering where the pancake house was, August headed there.

          It was around nine o'clock on a Thursday and the place was practically deserted besides an older couple and a mother with her young daughter. The sign out front said to seat yourself and so August chose a booth in the mid-section by the window and began to browse the menu.

          She doesn't know which God was looking down on her that day but within four minutes of sitting down in this oily, friendly little diner, someone was calling her name.

          Literally.

          "August Louise Jacobs?"

          The full name scared her shitless and she dropped her menu onto the sticky table. When August glanced up to, apparently, someone from her past, she was met with a big familiar grin.

          "Oh my God, it is you," the girl cooed. "What are you doing here?"

          It wasn't long before August figured out who this girl was and it became even easier to piece together their history when the girl slid into the seat opposite August.

          Evan Chapman. Socialite, rich girl, the kind of person you lived vicariously through. Evan had been at the same middle school as August. They were the unlikeliest of friends but August remembered one of the hardest things about moving away from Boston was that she would be leaving behind Evan. Once they both started high school and August was travelling to the UK for semesters, they eventually lost touch. Even the happy birthday messages slowly dropped off.

          But by the way that Evan was beaming back at August, it was like no time had passed at all.

          How could August forget that Evan vacationed on the coast every summer? Sure, she wouldn't have remembered the name Cousins but she could have at least wagered a bet that it wasn't far.

          Apparently, the making friends part of August's daily to-dos wasn't hard at all.

          "Evan?" August gawked.

          Evan swatted her hand playfully. "So you do remember me."

          Evan looked practically exactly the same as she had when she was eleven. Just taller, more elegant. She had grown into her cheekbones and she still spoke in the same softer Boston accent August had once laughed at. But her charm was still the same and she had yet to get rid of the nose ring August had pierced for her when they were kids on some sugar rush they liked to think had made them feel drunk.

          August felt a whole barrel of memories that she had put away hit her like a truck all at once as she stared into the eyes of her old friend. Walking home together, endless dinners at each other's houses, park dates and spending their pocket money on as many sweets as a few cents could buy. At one point in August's life, Evan felt like the only constant ─ someone she could rely on, someone whose house she could always escape to when Louise and her new boyfriend were fighting. It had broken August's heart the day she learned she was moving to Ohio and would be flying to England as soon as she was old enough for high school. After all, a pre-pubescent girl's best friend was practically her whole life back then.

          "How could I forget?" August joked. "We spent every Friday together watching─"

           "─Watching CSI re-runs and eating a tub of ice cream each," Evan finished. "Wow, it is good to see you. Finally, someone around here I might actually like."

           "Oi," a voice from behind the counter came.

          Evan scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You're not a part of this conversation, Ryan."

          "Then don't talk so loudly, Chapman."

          The source of the other end of Evan's conversation showed himself then. A boy, of similar age, August reckoned, with a perturbed look on his face, approached their booth. He wore a worn apron covered in a yellow batter and a bright blue hair net. He gave August a tight-lipped smile upon arrival.

          "This is Sawyer," Evan introduced August with a sigh. "He hates people, has no interests, and is a complete pessimist. He lives here permanently, so he's probably the only company you'll have when we all go home after summer. Lucky you."

          "I'm standing right here, but okay."

          "Then sit down."

         August didn't think Sawyer looked like the kind of person to take orders from Evan, but the next second, he was sitting down next to Evan and shaking August's hand.

          "So, you both work here?" August asked, her eyes sweeping over the establishment. From what she remembered about Evan Chapman, the girl could not be caught dead doing any type of labour. Her parents were wealthy; what business did she have in a place like this?

          "She hardly works," Sawyer chimed in with a roll of his eyes.

          Evan jabbed the boy harshly with her elbow and turned back to August, "It's the easiest money ever," she said.

          "Only because you show up and do nothing."

          "Sawyer, you really aren't a part of this conversation."

          "You told me to sit down!"

          August's eyes flitted from one worker to the other but since the restaurant was almost empty and they had the liberty to argue whenever they wanted to, August concluded that she was right about her earlier assumption of Evan. She therefore also concluded Sawyer was probably right about Evan not working very hard.

          "Anyway," Evan huffed. "It really is the nicest job. Free food, nice people. It gets busy, but we're rarely understaffed."

          "Woah," August chuckled. "You hiring?" Friends could only get her so far in Cousins if she had no money.

          "No."

          "Oh my God, do you want a job?"

          Clearly, Evan and Sawyer rarely agreed on anything. Even when August was just joking.

          As Sawyer began to protest, Evan got more and more excited about the idea of having August as a new coworker.

          August was shocked at how easy that was and was still in shock that the perfect place to earn some extra money hired so simply. "I mean, I'd love one but─"

          "You're hired!" Evan exclaimed, clapping her hands, completely ignorant of how Sawyer was now resting his head in his hands.

          August buffered. "You can just . . . do that?"

          "I'm the Deputy Manager," Evan said proudly. Sawyer was not pleased with this reality. "An older guy owns this place and trusts me to run it because he can't. Which means I get to hire whoever I want!"

           August's eyes slid over to Sawyer because he seemed like a more reliable source to consult. "Is that true?" She asked with a quirked brow.

          Sawyer sighed, "Unfortunately."

          August, quite literally, could not believe her luck. "That would be amazing."

          Evan was ecstatic. "Great, you're hired!"

          Saywer was less so. "Do you even have any experience frying pancakes?"

          August noted his deadpan and took it as a sign that he just hated his job, not her. "No," she winced.

          "Perfect," he tutted sarcastically, his eyes rolling to the ceiling and staying there as if debating his entire existence.

          "We'll teach you," Evan assured August. "Can you start next week? I'll get Sawyer on a training shift."

          "Oh, will you now?"

          August ignored the boy. She was not about to risk her job by agreeing with his opinion on Evan's simplistic hiring style. Instead, she chuckled, "I can start right now."

❀°。🌺 .ೃ࿐

          AUGUST WAS ASTOUNDED BY HOW PRODUCTIVE HER DAY HAD been so far. And it was only eleven o'clock. Not only had she made two friends (Sawyer counted, whether he agreed to it or not ─ they were coworkers now anyhow) but she had secured herself a part-time job. She had yet to meet the manager/owner of Paddy's Pancake House (so, whoever Paddy was) and she was only getting started but those were details she chose to ignore for now. It gave her something to do and her mom would be pleased.

          It was a slow morning, Evan was telling her, meaning Sawyer could man front of house while Evan trained August behind the scenes, as well as keeping on top of jobs back of house. The longer August spent with Evan, the quicker they slipped into their normal way of things ─ giggling, reminiscing, and, most importantly, gossiping.

          As Evan taught August the basic way the restaurant prepped their batter, the latter learned that her new coworker didn't really take her job seriously. While August whisked, Evan attended to reapplying her lipstick, counting her presence in front of August as overseeing her training.

          "So, have you met anyone yet?" The girl asked absently.

          August's grip relaxed on the whisk. "Like . . . in Cousins?"

          "Yeah."

          August debated broaching the topic of Conrad Fisher but when she concluded she was more curious than anything else and that she didn't have to mention her and Conrad's complicated history, she decided to add: "I'm next door to the Fishers?"

          August said it with little confidence on the off chance Evan didn't know them.

          Of course she did. The arm that was holding up her compact mirror fell to reveal Evan's gaping mouth. "Oh my God," she grinned. "Have you spoken to them yet?"

          This was already a very loaded reaction from Evan which meant she knew a lot more about the Fishers than August did. "Jeremiah gave me a tour of the town yesterday," she replied. "And . . . I met Conrad after."

          Not the full truth, but it wasn't technically a lie.

          Evan bit her lip, her hip resting against the counter. The pancake batter was completely forgotten about by this point. "What do you think about them?"

          "They're," August fumbled for a word to sum them up but considering they were so different and while she was very fond of one of them, she held a three year grudge over the other one, so she was never going to locate a word in the whole English language to summarise both of them simultaneously. ". . . nice."

          This seemed like an unassuming, no-follow-up question kind of word.

          As soon as Evan's eyes narrowed, suspicion and curiousity written all over her face, August knew it was over for her.

          "You're holding back," Evan stated.

          "Am I?" August chuckled nervously, wasting no time to pick the whisk back up again and stir the pancake batter like it was the most important task in the world.

          "I can read people," Evan stated plainly.

          "She can, it's true," Sawyer's voice called out from somewhere near the counter.

          August's shoulders sagged. She wasn't leaving this pancake house until she told her old friend more about the Fisher brothers. Finally, she said, "Jeremiah's nice." That was the easy part. August sighed, without realising she needed to. "Conrad is . . ."

          "Less so?"

          At least she wasn't the only one who thought so. "Yeah."

          "Conrad Fisher is a mystery," Evan told her, dropping her voice just in case there was someone hiding in this deserted kitchen. "Everything anyone knows about him has come from Jeremiah. He rarely goes to parties, he just surfs, maybe makes one public appearance, and then goes home. He usually picks one girl to have some fun with every summer but it never goes very far and it's never with the same girl."

          August was no longer curious. She didn't want to know about what Conrad got up to. She honestly just wanted to forget he existed but that didn't seem to be possible with him living next door. And now she was learning that his hobbies included being unsociable and dumping girls when he saw fit? So just like he did three years ago, Conrad would come and go, and leave a poor girl when summertime was up.

          That was pretty much all she needed to know.

          "I think I've had one conversation with him in my nine years vacationing here," Evan then told her, scooping her finger through the batter and licking it.

          "Wow."

          "Yeah," Evan sighed, lifting herself up to sit on the counter. "Maybe he'll actually speak to you since you live next door."

          "Probably not," August responded shakily. She was trying so hard to play it nonchalant that she was definitely overstirring the batter.

          Evan's attention was back on her appearance. "Hopefully not," she chuckled.

          Evan hadn't even realised she had said this until August was blinking back at her, saying, "What is that supposed to mean?"

          "Nothing," Evan sing-songed.

          As much as August agreed ─ she did not want to speak to Conrad Fisher if she could help it ─ there was more to this story that Evan was not telling her and she couldn't help but be nosy.

          But before August could ask any more questions, Evan was saved by the bell. Literally.

          The front bell tingled to signal a new customer, followed by Sawyer's greeting, which sounded slightly chirpier than August had heard of him so far.

          "Hey, Cam," he said.

          And Evan's eyes lit up. She hopped off the counter like an over-excited child. "Cameron!" She yelped, grabbing August's hand. "Training's over. Come meet Cam!"

          August frantically removed the gloves from her hands just in time for her to be yanked out front. Behind the swinging doors and standing behind the counter was a smiling boy of average height engaged in conversation with Sawyer.

          Upon seeing the brown-eyed boy, Evan dragged August over to the till with a mega-watt smile. "Hey, Cam!"

          Cam waved in greeting. "Hey, Evan."

          "Meet August," Evan gestured to the girl at her side. "She just moved here. We went to middle school together."

          Cam seemed pleasantly surprised by this information. "Oh, hi August. I'm Cameron."

          "It's nice to meet you."

          "Do you work he─"

          "Okay," Sawyer interupted with a sigh, practically falling onto the till as his legs caved in, "I really can't stomach the introductions again," he said before icing out the two girls and asking Cam, "The usual, I assume?"

          As Cam ordered his takeaway breakfast, Evan turned to August and whispered, "He's one of the good ones. Not the Conrad Fisher kind."

          August noted this as essential information. She hoped to God there wasn't any other variants of Conrad Fisher in this small beach town. One was already too much. She wasn't going to take Evan's word as gospel but she obviously knew more about the people here than August did and August only wanted to align herself with non-insecure, friendly non-heartbreakers wherever she could. And if Cameron was one of those, she decided to mentally note his Paddy's usual and carry on with her training.

❀°。🌺 .ೃ࿐

          AUGUST WASN'T SURE WHETHER IT WAS NORMAL FOR A TRAINING SHIFT to go unpaid, but since she was learning so much from Evan, and sometimes even Sawyer chimed in with gossip he had heard, she didn't mind getting free pancakes instead of a wage for the day. They would organise that later ─ August was just grateful for the intel.

          As new customers came in, August learned information about every single one. Evan was like an earwig, feeding her dirt on the people of Cousins. August had never spent enough time anywhere to gather this much knowledge on the people around her but Evan had lived in Massachusetts her whole life and was always one to gossip. At least August now had someone she could rely on.

          One person she didn't need her earwig to inform her on was Jeremiah, when he strolled in at lunchtime for a sandwich. He was accompanied by a brunette girl with the longest lashes August had ever seen, glowing skin, and the kind of smile people wrote songs about.

          Jeremiah wasn't wrong when he told August that Paddy's was a hotspot among the teens of Cousins.

          "What are you doing here?" Jeremiah laughed as soon as he spotted August in her new apron and makeshift name tag that Evan had sprawled on and handed her in improvisation.

          August just shrugged. "I guess I work here now."

          Jeremiah just bobbed his head, "You waste no time," he laughed before he placed his hand on the small of the brunette's back and gestured towards her. "This is Belly. Isabel. She's one of the family friends I was telling you about."

          Belly waved back politely. "Jeremiah told me you just moved in next door, August," she said. "It's nice to meet you. Maybe we could grab food sometime?"

          August smiled fondly back at the girl. "I would love that, thanks."

          Belly nodded in recognition and then she and Jeremiah were settling into a booth with Sawyer in tow with two menus and a jug of water.

          Just like routine, Evan pulled her aside and dropped the gossip on the newest arrivals, even when one of them was the only other person August knew in Cousins.

          "Isabel? Her?" Evan said with a raise of her brows to which August nodded. Then, as if it were the juiciest gossip yet, Evan disappeared into the kitchen, expecting Augst to follow.

          When she did, Evan dropped her voice to a whisper. "Yeah, well, apparently, she's been in love with Conrad Fisher since she was like eight." As if checking the girl in question wasn't following them, Evan peered through the small window in the doors to glance out at the restaurant. "Or so people say. I don't talk to her much."

          August suddenly felt very sad for the girl. Having been through that herself, August wouldn't have wanted people gossiping about it all across the scene of the crime. And Isabel seemed so lovely, too.

          Instead of expressing this sympathy, August asked, "Oh, she's the one staying with them?"

          "Hm mhm," Evan nodded. "Every summer, Isabel and her brother stay with the Fishers. Family friends or whatever."

          "Every summer?"

          "Yep. They were pretty much raised together."

          One summer and that was enough time for Conrad Fisher to do his damage on August Jacobs. She couldn't imagine what it must feel like to be in a one-sided relationship with him for years and years.

          August had said five words to the girl and yet August already felt like she knew her so much. Isabel too, had fallen for the Conrad Fisher charm and there's no coming back from that. It's a certain type of pain that August knew all about and if Belly had felt anything like August had, they had more in common than Belly could possibly imagine.

          As August watched Isabel "Belly" Conklin browse the menu with a laughing Jeremiah opposite her, she wondered one thing: they would probably get along great.

❀。🐠 ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ 🌊 ❀°。🌺 .ೃ࿐

🌴 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬!
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