“Wow, four. Your husband’s from around here?”
Kate huffs out a laugh. “No husband.”
I remember Kate the night of my sixteenth birthday, the way she hung on Cooper, desperate for his attention, chasing after a boy who made no secret of his disdain for her. It doesn’t surprise me at all to find out she’s already had four kids. Each one living proof that for at least a single night someone chose her.
“I still can’t believe Allegra never married Tommy,” she says. “Guy like him wanted me…shew, I’d be on that like white on rice. Good job, nice-looking, sweet.” She shakes her head. “And the way he followed after her. Good Lord, you’d think she walked on water. Never could do any wrong. Cheated on him, treated him like shit, and poor guy always came back for more.”
“She didn’t cheat on him,” I say. At least not in the way Kate means.
“Well, came pretty damn close then,” Kate says. “Disappearing all the time, doing stuff.”
I’m not going to waste my breath arguing with her. The summer I lived here Allegra might’ve been a lot of things, but a two-timer wasn’t one of them. She was always a one-man woman, God help her. “Tommy loved her,” I say.
“Yeah.” The way Kate says the word makes clear her opinion on the usefulness of love. We walk a few beats in silence. “And she had that thing, you know, whatever it is makes men stupid over you,” Kate says. “Like moths to a flame.” Out of the corner of my eye I see her look at me. “You’ve got it, too.”
“I seriously doubt it.” Sweat slithers down my neck, staining the top of my T-shirt.
“No, you do. I remember when you moved here. Cooper Sullivan had never had any trouble taking what I offered, but then you showed up and it was like nobody else existed. I could have taped a Free Ride sign to my vagina and he still wouldn’t have gone for it.”
I laugh, a shocked squawk, and Tommy turns around to glance at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
Kate gives me a sly once-over. “Sure you do.”
We stop talking after that, wilting under the brutal sun. According to Kate, it hasn’t rained in Osage Flats in weeks, since long before I returned, and the dust we kick up settles in my throat, a fine gauze of dirt lacing across my tongue. My mouth tastes like dead things, barren and dry.
We walk for hours, but we don’t find any evidence Allegra ever came this way. Our searching eyes uncover not a single sign of her.
—
After the fruitless search, I’m heading back to my car when Tommy jogs up beside me. “You up for a late lunch?” he asks. “Taco Tuesday at The Eat. Cooper usually comes, but he can’t make it. He’s got a car that has to be fixed by this afternoon.”
I ignore the way my stomach flips at the mention of Cooper’s name. “Sure. I’ll meet you there.”
The Eat looks exactly the same as it always has—beer-stained tablecloths and dusty plastic flowers on every table. A string of fairy lights, half of them burned out, rings the front window. Someone’s sad idea of romance. Once upon a time this place had a real name, but no one can remember it now. I’m sure there are still a few people around town willing to engage in pointless argument over what it used to be called. For everybody else the giant neon EAT sign outside is good enough.
When I arrive, Tommy’s already at a table against the wall, his back to the room where he can watch the entrance. I don’t know if that’s a cop reflex or if he wants to be able to spot me as soon as I walk in the door.
“Tacos?” I ask, pulling my chair over the scuffed wood floor. “This town’s going cosmopolitan on me.”
“You know Osage Flats,” Tommy says. “Always up on the latest trends.”
The waitress approaches our table with a smile for Tommy, made bigger with the liberal application of plum-colored lipstick. Her auburn hair is pulled into a loose bun, stray tendrils sticking to her neck. Her name tag, embroidered on her uniform shirt in dark green thread, reads BRANDI. She eyes me with curiosity and something close to disappointment. “The usual?” she asks.
“Yeah and a Coke,” Tommy says.
Brandi glances at me again. “Where’s Cooper?”
“He’s busy today. Said he’d be here next week.”
“Well, tell him I said hi.”
“I’ll have a taco and a beer,” I butt in, not waiting for her to ask.
“It’s Taco Tuesday.” She says the words slowly, like I’m short a few brain cells.
I look at Tommy for an explanation. “It’s buy one, get one free.”
“Oh, then two tacos, I guess.” I’d rather have two beers, skip the food altogether, but I manage to keep that thought to myself.
“How’s it going out at Roanoke?” Tommy asks, once Brandi’s left the table.
“It’s like being in the Twilight Zone,” I tell him. “Like I never left. Which is scary as hell.”
Tommy looks down at the table. “I tried to get Allegra to move into town. Thought maybe I’d have a better chance at convincing her to marry me if she wasn’t living there. But she wouldn’t even consider it.” He glances up at me. “She says Roanoke is in her blood.”
“It’s in all our blood,” I say. “Like an infection.” My laugh sounds more like a sob, and I drop my eyes, a blush sweeping across my face.
Brandi comes back with our drinks, sloshing a small puddle of Coke across the worn tablecloth as she sets them down. My beer is barely cold, but I don’t complain. Tommy slurps down half his Coke before he even unwraps his straw. “Goddamn, I hope this caffeine works fast,” he mutters.
“Been working long hours?”
“Yeah. On Allegra’s case. And then yesterday, on top of everything else, I had to call Family Services to take custody of some kids. Mom let her new boyfriend use them as punching bags.” He rubs at his temples with one hand, thumb and middle finger stretched wide. “I don’t get it. How a mother can choose some man over her own children? Yesterday wasn’t even terrible in the scheme of things. Some bruises, a black eye. But you wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve seen, Lane. The things mothers let men do to their kids. The things mothers will turn a blind eye to.” He shakes his head, blows out a long breath.
It takes work to keep my face impassive, my tone light. “Oh, you might be surprised at what I’d believe.”
“Okay, enough,” Tommy says, slapping the table with both palms. “I’m depressing myself.” He peels the paper off his straw. “You seen Cooper again since the other night?”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Very subtle. And no, I haven’t.”
“You oughta talk to him, Lane. After you left, he—”
“Stay out of it, Tommy. It’s none of your business.”
Tommy’s eyes frost over. “The hell it isn’t. You’re the one who dragged me into it. If he ever found out—”
I hunch forward, lower my voice. “I’m not going to tell him. Are you?”
“Hell, no,” Tommy says. “I’d like to keep my best friend and my face intact, too.”
“Then stay out of it,” I repeat. “Besides, Cooper and I stopped having anything to talk about a long time ago.”
Tommy’s gaze is sad, like I’m a child who’s disappointed him. “If you really believe that, Lane, you’re kidding yourself.”
I gulp down my beer, eyes on the ceiling. Tommy stirs his Coke with his straw, ice rattling against the glass. I grasp desperately for a change of subject. “Did you find out anything on the receipt I brought in?”
Tommy shakes his head. “Not yet. One of the clerks working that day thought maybe she remembered Allegra, but couldn’t provide any details. They have surveillance tape, though. They’re pulling it and sending it to us, and we’ll go through it, see what we can find.”
Brandi returns for a second time with our plates balanced on one arm, so quickly I know the food came straight from a microwave. Four tacos for Tommy, two for me, served with a soupy glop of beans. With one glance I know I’m not going to be able to eat it. It doesn’t see
m to bother Tommy, who digs in with gusto, his first bite of taco littering his plate with cheese and wilted lettuce.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up, though,” he says, “about the receipt. It’s probably nothing.”
I take a bite of taco. The shell is cold and stale, the meat gummy with tomato paste. I chew and chew until I can manage to swallow without gagging. “I know,” I say finally. “But it’s worth a shot. I owe her. I can’t go back to California and forget about her.” I’ve done that once already.
Tommy’s eyes narrow, his brow furrows. “Owe her for what?”
A vision of Allegra, hands clutching mine, her face streaked with tears—don’t leave me don’t leave me—flashes across my mind. I close my eyes. My feelings for Allegra were never complicated. It didn’t matter if she acted crazy or made me angry or smothered me with devotion. In my whole life, she was the only person I simply loved. And I left her anyway.
“For everything,” I say. My bite of taco sits in my stomach like a piece of jagged glass. For being the one who got away.
Her hands were shaking with excitement. It took her three tries to get the soft pink lipstick on her mouth without smearing it. She blew out an unsteady exhale, debated pinning her hair up versus leaving it down, long and dark around her shoulders. The only thing she was one hundred percent sure about was the nightgown. White and sheer and innocent-looking. It was too long, dragging along the floor when she walked, but that only made it more romantic.
She’d been working up her nerve for the last week. Ever since he’d kissed her in the kitchen, his strong hand cupping the back of her head. She’d been shocked; who expects their first real kiss to be from their thirty-two-year-old uncle? But she’d kissed back once she’d felt the curl of heat in her belly, his fingers sifting through her hair. It had been so exciting. Forbidden and sexy, like something in one of the romance novels Sharon was always reading. Way better than the sloppy half-kiss she’d gotten from John Perkins on the last day of school.
Uncle Yates had been the one to pull away first, voice rough and breathless. He’d told her they probably shouldn’t, even as his lips moved against her neck. But in the end he’d left it up to her, traced the line of her cheekbone with his index finger and told her she had to make the choice. He was her favorite person in the entire world—what choice was there to make?
And tonight was the night. She knew he was down in his study, and Aunt Lillian had gone to bed early with a migraine. Eleanor and Camilla were occupied up in the turret room, giving each other makeovers. They’d invited Penelope to join them, but she’d told them she was too old for that baby stuff. Pissing them off guaranteed they’d leave her alone for the night. Besides, it was true. She was fourteen now. Time to grow up.
She dabbed Love’s Baby Soft perfume behind her ears the way she’d seen Aunt Lillian do with her bottle of Chanel. One more deep breath and she slipped out of her bedroom into the dark hallway. She didn’t turn on the light, liked the way the moon from the window lit her up, catching on the ends of her hair. Her heart surged, lips and fingertips almost numb with nerves. She didn’t bother to lift up the nightgown as she raced down the steps, white cotton swirling around her toes.
“Brake, girl, brake!” my granddad yelled, throwing a hand forward to catch himself against the dashboard of his truck as I slammed my foot down and we shuddered to a stop.
“Sorry,” I said. “Oh my God, I’m never going to be able to do this.”
My granddad laughed, wiped his brow theatrically. “That was a close one. Thought that fence had seen its last day.” He reached over and patted my knee. “Takes practice is all, Laney-girl. You’ll get it. Go on now, try again.”
Granddad had insisted that I needed to learn to drive a stick shift, said once I had that mastered an automatic would be a cakewalk. But he probably already regretted it as we bucked and stalled out along the old cattle road behind Roanoke. We both might need neck braces by the time we were done.
“Did Allegra have this much trouble?” I asked. Allegra was not yet sixteen, but it turned out everyone in Kansas learned to drive early. Not like in New York City, where half the adult population barely knew how to drive a car.
Granddad shook his head, chuckled low in his throat. “Let’s just say there’s a reason this truck has a brand-new front end. Girl can’t drive to save her damn life. Always in such a hurry to get where she’s going, she never keeps her eyes on what’s right in front of her. Told her she had to wait a few months before we give it another go. Otherwise, I might have a full-blown heart attack.”
I laughed and pressed down too hard on the gas, sending us lurching forward. “Ease up, girl,” Granddad said. “You ain’t stomping a killer spider. Wanna be gentle with it.”
I managed to drive a few miles going progressively faster, switching from first to second, second to third, without stalling out. “I’m doing good!” I crowed. The smile stretching across my face felt unfamiliar to me, like my skin belonged to a different girl.
My granddad looked over at me, grinning. “You sure are. Now eyes on the road, speed demon.”
When we reached a gate across the road, Granddad told me to stop, and we both hopped out to open it. “So,” he said, as we worked together to pull the gate clear, a small plume of dust boiling up at our feet, “you and Allegra been going into town a lot.”
It didn’t sound like a question, so I didn’t say anything. “You’re not in any trouble, Lane,” Granddad said. “I know it can get pretty boring out here. You girls need a little excitement.” He pointed at me. “Just not too much excitement.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding.
“Allegra still seeing that Tommy Kenning?” Granddad tilted his head up to the sky. It seemed like he was always watching the clouds, waiting for rain, which hardly ever arrived.
“I guess,” I said. “Yeah.”
“He’s a good enough kid,” Granddad said, as we climbed back into the truck. “Don’t know if he’s strong enough to handle Allegra, though. She needs someone ain’t gonna take her crap.”
“He’s really nice to her.” I felt protective of Tommy for some reason. Maybe his kind eyes, the way he always tried to include me, acted like I’d been at Roanoke all along instead of being a new addition to be regarded with a touch of small-town suspicion.
“I’m sure he is,” Granddad said, head angled toward the window, eyes still on the sky. “What about you?”
I inched the truck forward, proud when I didn’t grind the gears as I shifted. “What about me?”
“Nuh-uh, don’t do that. Don’t get smart.” It was the first time he’d used his stern voice with me, and although my heart stumbled in my chest, I felt a flash of defiance, too. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“I’m not dating anyone,” I said. “If that’s what you mean.” Granddad waited. “I kind of like Cooper Sullivan,” I admitted in a begrudging half-whisper, heat racing up my neck into my face. Like seemed a weak word for what I felt when I saw Cooper, at once both too childish and not big enough. He hadn’t touched me since that night at the park, but plenty of nights I’d touched myself in the heat of my bedroom, pretended my own slick fingers were his.
Granddad cracked out a laugh. “That little pissant? Jesus, girl, you sure know how to pick ’em.” He laughed again.
“What’s wrong with Cooper?” My hands tightened on the steering wheel. I sat up a little straighter, squared my jaw.
“Don’t go getting all het up now. Nothing wrong with the boy. But he’s a wild one, from what I hear. It’s not entirely his fault, though. He got stuck with a real jackass for a daddy. Man doesn’t know anything but beating the tar out of his own wife and kids. I heard Cooper whipped his ass, though, soon as he got big enough.” Granddad pointed to the left, indicating we should start heading back to the house. “Shows he’s got balls and a backbone. Two good things in a man. Guess you could do worse.”
I was quiet the rest of the drive, mulling over what Granddad had
said. Cooper never talked much about his family, other than an occasional mention of his younger sister, Holly. What would it have been like to grow up in a house where you had to tiptoe for fear of being hit? Other than the one time she’d tried to choke me, my mother had never hurt me. Not physically. Her hate didn’t burn hot; it was wholly indifferent. There were some days growing up when I’d have a moment of panic, wonder if I even existed because it had been so long since my mother had acknowledged my presence. The only time she paid attention to me was when she was slipping over the edge, scrabbling for someone to save her. But that wasn’t passion; it was only desperation. A part of me was jealous of Cooper’s injuries, craved the hard slaps and angry fists. The heat that caused such damage.
I pulled up in front of the garage and stopped smooth, letting out a tiny whoop of delight at the achievement. “Good job, Lane,” Granddad said. He patted my bare leg, gave my knee a warm squeeze.
“Thanks.”
As we walked to the house, the light changed, turning to the pale purple promise of evening. I glanced over at my granddad, and for a split second it didn’t even require the work of imagination to picture how he’d looked in that hotel lobby the day Gran first saw him, the moment when she knew he had to be hers. The setting sun silhouetted him, and his eyes glowed, his dark hair lit up in a golden halo. I smiled at him, and he winked, flashed me a quick grin.
“Lord Jesus,” he said, tugging on my ponytail, “the Roanokes sure do make some beautiful girls.”
I blushed, secretly pleased. I caught movement in an upstairs window, craned my neck and saw Allegra staring down at us. I waved up to her, grinning, still riding the high of my driving lesson. She looked at me with flat eyes, turned away without waving back.
—
When I went out on the screened porch after dinner, Charlie was sitting on the back steps, one of the hound dogs lying at his feet. “What are you doing?” I asked, sinking down beside him. I knew Allegra didn’t like Charlie, but I had no idea why. He wasn’t chatty, no one would ever mistake him for friendly, but he’d been kind to me so far.