Cybill looked upset, but she laughed. “No, he isn’t. You can thank Camilla for that one. It’s like she poisoned him or twisted him or something. I don’t think she meant to, but she did. He was different after they were together. Darker. Crueler.” She fell silent for a bit, then said, “Your sister, she thinks she’s in a love triangle with Jude and me. But she’s not. She’s in a love triangle with Jude and Camilla. She wishes she was competing against just me. I wish she was competing against just me. She’d win and she’d be good for Jude. Fresh blood, fresh energy, fresh start.”

“But there’s no way, right?” Alice said softly.

Cybill shook her head sadly. “He’s as hung up on Camilla now as he was when she was alive. Nobody beats Camilla. She’s stronger than anybody, above ground or below it.”

Alice was quiet for a beat or two, then said, “Everyone says how strong she was, but strong people generally don’t commit suicide.”

Cybill turned on Alice fiercely. “You didn’t see what happened to her mom. How ugly it got, how nasty. Mrs. Flood had been diagnosed with breast cancer when Camilla and I were in middle school. She was sick for a while, but she got better and the cancer went into remission. For a couple years she was healthy, doing well. And then it came back the winter of Camilla’s and my sophomore year. Stage four, had already spread to her liver. It was incurable but it was supposed to be manageable if properly treated. And for two or three months she seemed like she was improving, so much so that they sent her home from the hospital. Then she got worse, fast. I mean, really fast. It was like she fell off a cliff or something. She was dead within days, not weeks. God, that was a horrible spring.”

“She died in the house?”

Cybill nodded. The two girls looked at each other for a while, not speaking, thinking, digesting.

Finally Alice said, “Where’s Charlie?”

“Sasha found a joint she forgot she had rolling around the bottom of her purse. A bunch of them went down to the beach to get high. I wasn’t in the mood.”

Alice nodded. She was about to ask Cybill more about Camilla’s relationship with Richard, but at that moment, another couple appeared on the porch, a man and woman Alice didn’t recognize. They saw Jude on the ground, pants halfway down his thighs, lips mashed against one of the dirty wooden planks. They stared down at him for a second before shaking their heads in disgust, walking around him, the man kicking Jude’s foot out of the way harder than strictly necessary.