The Peach Keeper

  “He knew I dropped out?” It didn’t seem possible, but Willa’s brows rose even more.

  “Of course he knew.”

  “How do you know?” Paxton asked, amazed that her grandmother had been harboring not only her own secrets but Willa’s father’s as well. What else was in that hard head of hers? All these years, Paxton had thought her grandmother was nothing more than a mean old lady. But she had a complexity and depth that no one suspected.

  “Ham and I had a very long conversation when the time came for him to move his mother into a nursing home. He was going to travel. I promised I’d watch over Georgie.” She straightened her shoulders. “Not that I ever stopped.”

  Willa sat back in her seat, seeming to think things over. Paxton used that opportunity to ask, “Why did you never tell me the club had lost its way? Maybe I could have done something.”

  “Paxton, I think you’ve tried to make the club more about the deed than the social aspect, and I give you credit for that, but I also believe it’s more because you don’t have friends than because of a higher calling.” Paxton reared back at that. “Friendship started that club, and if you ever want to see it back to what it was, you have to understand what it means to be a friend. I know you’ve always looked at me and thought, I don’t want to be like her. Well, here’s your chance. People always say life is too short for regrets. But the truth is, it’s too long.”

  “Will you come to the gala?” Paxton asked again. “I think it’s important that you be there.”

  “Maybe. Keep bringing me chocolate like this and … maybe. Leave me to eat in peace,” she said, opening the box.

  Paxton and Willa stood, and each was lost in her own thoughts as they walked down the corridor. Paxton was heading toward the front doors when Willa stopped.

  “I’m going to see my grandmother,” Willa said.

  “Oh. Right. Okay.”

  “Do you want to have some coffee first?” Willa pointed over her shoulder, toward the dining room.

  Paxton smiled, almost relieved. “Yes. That would be nice.”

  They got their cups and filled them, and then they walked to a table near a window that overlooked the side garden.

  “Why do you think we never became friends?” Paxton asked as Willa was emptying a packet of sugar into her coffee. “I’ve always been aware of the way you looked at me. You never liked me, did you?”

  “It’s not that,” Willa said.

  “What is it, then?”

  Willa hesitated. “I guess it was jealousy in high school. I hated not having what you had. I ended up resenting my family because of it, and I wish I could take that back. As adults, I don’t know.” Willa shrugged. “You set an impossible standard, and no one can live up to it. And sometimes it seems like you do it on purpose. Your clothes are perfect. Your hair is perfect. You juggle a work schedule that would take three normal people to manage. Not all of us can do that.”

  Paxton looked into her coffee cup. “Maybe I do do it on purpose. But it’s only because everyone else seems happier than I am. They have their own homes, husbands, children, businesses. I sometimes think there’s something wrong with me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” Willa said. “Why did you never make friends with me?”

  “Oh, that’s simple.” Paxton smiled as she looked up. “You scared me.” That made Willa laugh. “Seriously. You were so quiet and intense. Like you could see right through people. If I had known you were the Joker sooner, maybe it would have been easier to get to know you. I would have at least known you had a sense of humor. Then, when you came back, you didn’t seem to want anything to do with the people you grew up with. You took up with the National Street set like you were thumbing your nose at us, like we were silly yokels.”

  “It’s not that,” Willa said immediately. “It’s not that at all. After my dad died, I came back here to the realization that I could never say I was sorry for making it seem like he didn’t do enough. I made a promise to myself, and to him, to be happy with what I had. Every day. But being around people I grew up with brought back all those insecurities at first, so I just got used to avoiding it.”

  “There’s no avoiding me now, you know,” she said. “You know my secrets. You maced people for me. You’ve got me for life.”

  Willa laughed and tried to wave that off. “Any of your friends would have done the same thing.”

  “No,” Paxton said. “They wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Willa said, reaching into the back pocket of her jeans. “I need to return this to you.” She handed Paxton a folded piece of notebook paper.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a note you dropped one day in the hallway at school. I picked it up and read it. After that, I was just too embarrassed to return it to you.”

  Paxton took it and opened it. As soon as she realized what it was, she laughed in surprise. “My list of qualities in the man I wanted to marry.”

  “I’m sorry,” Willa said sheepishly.

  “This is how you forged my handwriting with that note to Robbie Roberts!”

  “Yes. I’m really, really sorry.”

  Paxton shook her head and put the note in her tote bag. “That’s okay. It’s just a list. One of many. I’d completely forgotten about it.”

  “It’s an impressive list,” Willa said.

  “I knew what I wanted back then.” Paxton smiled and decided to go ahead and ask Willa what she was dying to know. “Speaking of wanting. My brother didn’t come home last night. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

  Willa looked away. “He might have slept on my couch.”

  “Then why are you blushing?”

  Willa turned back to her with a glint in her eye. “I might have slept there with him.”

  “I knew it!”

  They laughed, and she suddenly felt like she was on such good footing with Willa. She never thought she was good at making friends. But maybe she was just trying to be friends with the wrong people.

  They ended up talking long after their coffee had gone cold.

  PAXTON OSGOOD’S FUTURE HUSBAND

  Will be kind

  Will be funny

  Will be accepting

  Will be able to cook

  Will be a good kisser

  Will smell good

  Will always surprise me

  Will argue with me and sometimes let me win, but not always

  Will be mysterious

  Will always love me, no matter what I look like

  Mama will not like him, which means I will love him even more

  Hours later, after they left the dining room and Willa went to see her grandmother, Paxton got in her car and immediately took the note out of her tote bag and read the list again.

  She remembered losing it and panicking for days about where it could be. She’d been afraid some ridiculous boy like Robbie Roberts would find it and tease her. But years passed and she’d forgotten about it, one of many things she’d managed to leave behind.

  Where did this girl go? Paxton wondered. It was just like looking at that old photo of her grandmother. Where did this girl go? Colin said she was the only one in their group who hadn’t changed. But she had, and not in a good way.

  The girl she used to be would not approve of the woman she’d become. That girl always assumed she’d be happy at this age, as happy as she’d been back then. What happened?

  She sat there, staring into space, the note on her lap, until her cellphone rang.

  She looked at the screen. It was her mother, probably wondering why she wasn’t home yet for the last fitting of her dress for the gala.

  With a sigh, she put the phone and the note back in her tote bag and started the car, then drove away.

  Back to life as she knew it.

  FIFTEEN

  The Risk

  Monday afternoon, Paxton worked through lunch in order to give herself the rest of the afternoon off. Paperwork requiring her signatur
e was piling up at the outreach center, and there were a million little details to attend to before the gala on Friday night, but there were some things that were just more important.

  She drove into the lot of Harris & Associates Realty, which was located next to the organic market, and parked her car. When she walked in, she saw Kirsty Lemon on the phone at her desk. As soon as she hung up, Paxton walked over to her.

  “Paxton,” Kirsty said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “I noticed that the townhouse on Teal Street is still on the market.”

  “Yes, it’s still on the market,” Kirsty said carefully.

  “I want to buy it.”

  Kirsty looked cautious, distrustful, which Paxton wasn’t expecting. “Are you sure this time?”

  “Yes.”

  Kirsty sighed and grabbed her keys. “Well, let’s go look at it,” she said with all the enthusiasm of a person going in for a colonoscopy.

  They both got in Kirsty’s minivan. Paxton couldn’t remember the last time they’d been in the same car together. It might have been as long ago as high school, when Kirsty would borrow her father’s ancient Range Rover and they’d drive into Asheville on Saturdays. She missed that, being in the car with Kirsty, talking about everything. Before adulthood. Before there were so many things they didn’t want each other to know.

  The townhouse was in a community called Waterview, a pretty green place with a common that had a gazebo and a fountain. The homes were red-brick colonial and beautiful. The townhouse Paxton had loved from the moment Kirsty showed it to her last year was in a cul-de-sac. Wisteria vines grew around the door, and Paxton remembered thinking how wonderful it would be to walk in and out in the springtime, when the wisteria would be in full bloom. It would be like walking through a wedding arch every day.

  Kirsty unlocked the security box. Inside were cathedral ceilings and hardwood floors. Upstairs were three bedrooms. That had been one of the points of contention with her mother when Paxton had wanted to move out last year, before she turned thirty. Her mother had insisted Paxton didn’t need so much room.

  She thought about what Sebastian said about every life needing a little space, and how that leaves room for good things to enter it.

  She wished she had thought of that to say to her mother at the time.

  Paxton walked around the open living space. The cook’s kitchen off the living room was separated by a counter. She thought of how nice it would be to have friends over for dinner, idealizing things, of course, because the club members were married and that kind of girls’ night out didn’t seem to exist among them anymore. Or if it did, Paxton wasn’t included. If she had done this right out of college, maybe things would have been different, before all their lives got so complicated.

  “It’s as beautiful as I remembered,” Paxton said.

  Kirsty was standing by the front door. “I was counting on the commission from the sale of this place last year. When you decided not to buy it at the last minute, I was so upset with you.”

  Startled, Paxton turned to her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Kirsty shrugged.

  “I’m sorry. We used to be able to tell each other anything. When did that change?”

  “I don’t know.” Kirsty walked forward. “When you’re a teenager, your friends are your life. When you grow up, friendships seem to get pushed further and further back, until it seems like a luxury, a frivolity, like a bubble bath.”

  “You’re important to me, Kirsty,” Paxton said. “You always have been. For some reason I just stopped saying it, showing it.”

  “Wow, Pax, this is a side of you I haven’t seen in a while. What brought this on?”

  “With the gala coming up, I’ve been thinking about our grandmothers, about how their friendships lasted their whole lives. I always thought it would be like that for us.”

  Kirsty looked a little sad. “Me, too.”

  And that was it, Paxton supposed. The acknowledgment that things had changed but that no one was willing to do anything about it.

  “Okay. I want this place,” Paxton said. “As quickly as possible. I’m making an offer today.”

  “Paxton, come here,” her mother called from the living room as soon as Paxton got in. When Paxton entered, her mother and father were sitting on the couch, watching the evening news.

  “Your dress was brought back today,” Sophia said, indicating the large white box on the corner chair. “Be sure to try it on in case there are some last-minute alterations. I think you and your daddy and I should all go together, particularly since you don’t have a date.”

  Paxton walked over to the box and opened it, still feeling a little of that thrill she used to have at the thought of party dresses, the fantasy of it all. She smiled when she saw the shimmering pink material, the sparkling jewels at the neckline.

  “I have to be there early, so I’m driving myself.” She put the lid back on the box. “Mama, when did you move out of your parents’ house?”

  Sophia turned away from the television. “After college. I moved in with a few of my girlfriends. I was with them for about two years before I started dating your daddy. It was one of the best times of my life. When Donald asked me to marry him, I was thrilled, of course, but a little sad, too. It meant leaving my friends behind.”

  Paxton saw her father turn his head to look at Sophia when she said that.

  “Why?” Paxton asked. “Couldn’t you have still been friends?”

  “Surely you know this, Paxton. You make a choice. You’re not as close to your married friends as you once were, are you?”

  “No,” she said. “But I think that’s like saying I’m sorry I left the water on and flooded the house. At some point, you could have turned it off. It’s not like it had to happen.”

  Sophia suddenly frowned. “Why are you asking these things?”

  Paxton picked up the dress box and walked over to her mother. “Because I’m moving out.”

  Sophia waved that away with a flick of her wrist. “Oh, Paxton, we went over this last year. You’re much better off here. You don’t need a place of your own when Hickory Cottage has so much room.”

  “I’ve waited too long. I’ve put it off too long. You moved out right after college. All my friends did, too. I need to do this.” She took a deep breath. “I put in an offer on a townhouse this afternoon.”

  When it finally dawned on her that Paxton was serious, Sophia said, “Paxton! You didn’t!”

  “Yes, I did. You can come see me any time you want. And I’ll visit you here. But I’m decorating how I want to decorate. And I’m not giving you a set of keys. I’m thirty years old, Mama. I think you’ve forgotten.”

  “Donald!” Sophia said. “Say something.”

  Her father turned to her, with a sparkle she hadn’t seen in a while. “Would you like a down payment as a housewarming gift?”

  That made Paxton smile. “No thanks, Daddy.”

  “Donald!”

  “She’s leaving, Sophia. Maybe it’s time to try to work on just being you and me for a while.”

  As Paxton left, Sophia was looking at her husband as if he’d just come back from a very, very long trip—and she wasn’t sure whether she was glad to see him or not.

  When Paxton got to the pool house, she picked up the phone and called Willa. She wasn’t even sure why.

  “Hello?”

  Paxton hesitated a moment. “Hi. It’s Paxton.”

  “It’s your sister,” Willa said.

  “Colin is there?”

  “Yes. Do you want to talk to him?” Willa was in a good mood. Paxton could hear it in her voice.

  “No, I want to talk to you. But I’ll call back when you’re not busy,” Paxton rushed to say.

  “Don’t be silly.” Paxton heard the squeak of a screen door, then the pop as it closed. “Now I’m outside,” Willa said. “Your brother is trying to figure out my father’s coffee percolator. He says it should be in a museum.”
br />   Paxton picked up the dress box she’d left on the couch and took it to her room. “He drinks too much caffeine.”

  “I know. I bought him decaf.”

  “I noticed today that you still haven’t RSVPed for the gala. Will you come? Please? I won’t make you accept something on your grandmother’s behalf. I’d just like you to be there. And if Colin hasn’t asked you yet, be prepared, he’s about to.” Paxton took the pink sheath dress out of the box and put it on a padded hanger, then hung it on the closet door. “I think I’ve even managed to convince Nana Osgood to come. After all she told us, I think she’s coming just to see what a mockery this generation has made of the club.”

  “What’s wrong, Pax?” Willa asked, and Paxton realized it was the first time she’d used the shortened version of her name. “You sound melancholy.”

  “Not melancholy. Conflicted, I guess.” Paxton sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the dress. “I decided to buy a house today. I’m going to move out of Hickory Cottage.”

  “That’s great! Do you need help moving?”

  “Actually, I don’t have much to move. I’m going to have to buy a lot of stuff. I don’t even have a bed that’s mine. I’m going to carve out some time to go take measurements tomorrow.” She paused. “Do you want to come see the place?”

  “I’d love to,” Willa said immediately.

  “Don’t tell Colin yet. I’ll tell him when he gets here. He’s going to gloat.” Paxton leaned forward, an elbow on her knee, her head in her hand. “I’m a little scared, Willa,” she said softly, as though she was afraid to even say it.

  She heard another creak, as if Willa had just sat down. “Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.”

  Paxton was silent, letting that sink in.

  “Are you going to the gala with Sebastian?” Willa finally asked.

  “He hasn’t mentioned it. I think I’ll be going alone. And that’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It doesn’t feel the same with him. It doesn’t feel the same without him. Nothing is really broke, so it’s not like I can fix it. I just have to keep trying to find what I’m looking for.”