Chapter Three Noel
Chapter Three
Noel
Fade In
Interior—Grocery Store—Evening
We find a man and a woman standing in the liquor aisle of a dimly lit local grocery, Jill’s Bait & Tackle. The store doesn’t sell bait or tackle and isn’t owned by anyone named Jill.
Noel Carter, a man fresh off a plane and a three-hour drive, who is in desperate need of something alcoholic to drink, stands poised and ready to grab a bottle of booze.
Parker Pruitt, a messy-haired woman wearing paint-stained overalls and carrying a reusable grocery bag that’s certainly seen better days, is Noel Carter’s former best friend. She clutches two bottles of wine to her chest and stares up at Noel with wide eyes.
If I were reading a script, that’s precisely what it would say about my current predicament.
After my stellar improvised performance, David trusted me to do more of that for the rest of the shoot, which led to us wrapping two days early.
Usually, I’d take that time to rest and recuperate, maybe catch up with friends, have a fancy dinner, or hit up my favorite theater in LA that only shows old movies. I certainly would have had time to prepare for returning to my hometown. But one call from my grandmother with the promise of banana nut bread, and I knew I was going back to Emerald Grove early.
I know it’s a small town—entirely too fucking small, if you ask me—and our seeing each other was inevitable, but the last thing I expected on my very first night back was this.
Parker stumbles backward, her mouth agape, and reflexively, I reach out to steady her. My fingers curl around her bare arms, and we’re standing so close that the scent of freshly brewed coffee the owner always keeps going is long gone. All that’s hitting my senses now is her perfume—a mix of honey and wildflowers.
Her hazel eyes, which I haven’t seen in so long yet still feel so familiar, seem darker and brighter all at once, and that smattering of freckles across her nose is more pronounced than it was all those years ago. There are a few traces of aging, a new line here and there, and an air of wisdom has replaced that innocence she always carried. Her cheeks are less full, and she no longer wears those damn Mickey Mouse earrings she never took off. Her auburn hair is as haphazard as ever, in a chaotic bun atop her head, and she’s in the same overalls that I swear were a staple when we were teens.
Despite all that and the years that have passed, she still looks like the same Parker she’s always been.
It’s like I’ve been sucked back in time and we’re standing in the halls of our high school by our lockers, and she’s telling me about the latest mean thing Axel Cooke has said or how she swears she’s going to fail her math test, even though she always had the highest grade in the class.
“Dick.”
The word tumbles from her lips so smoothly, like she’s said it a thousand times before, and it takes me a moment to catch up.
Did Parker, the woman I have never, ever heard cuss before, call me a dick ?
More than that, how am I the dick in this situation? Last I remembered, she was the one who turned me down, not the other way around.
I open my mouth to remind her, to let all the words I’ve been holding over the years finally tumble free, when a shadow falls over us.
“Good evening, Parker. How are you?”
I’d know that rumbling voice anywhere.
I turn and look right into the eyes of my old high school principal.
Parker wasn’t calling me a dick. She was talking to him. Relief floods through me at the realization.
“Mr. Dick. I mean, Dick. I mean, Principal McMichaels.” I stumble over my words.
Christ. It really is like I’m back in high school.
Parker snickers beside me, and I ignore her, straightening my back and tipping my chin up.
The old principal laughs, waving his hand. “Please, Noel. Dick is fine. You’re not my student anymore. But wow. This sure gives me flashbacks, seeing the two of you together like this again. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.” He drops his eyes to the space between us. “I’d always hoped you’d find your way back together.”
I follow his gaze, and only then do I realize I’m still holding on to Parker.
I didn’t even notice I was still touching her, and I don’t want to think about why I didn’t notice.
Instead, I drop her arm, putting as much space between us as possible, even knocking into the next shelf in my haste to get away.
If Dick notices, he doesn’t say anything.
“How is Mrs. McMichaels doing?” Parker asks, her voice as sugary as the maple syrup she loves to drown her waffles in.
“Oh, you know my wife. Can’t keep her down for long, not even for a knee replacement. I meant to tell you how much we appreciated the cupcakes you sent. They were incredible. Very kind of you.”
“Bah. It’s nothing. And really, it was all my partner’s doing, not mine. I just sat by and snuck about six cupcakes as he made them.”
Dick laughs. I don’t.
I don’t because all I can focus on are two words.
Partner. He.
She has a partner . She has a he . She has someone to bake her cupcakes.
Parker continues talking to Dick, but I don’t hear a word of it. All I can do is stare at her, watching her full lips move, the way they stretch when she smiles with nothing but sincerity, the way her hands wave wildly as she chats, the way she tosses her head back on a laugh, and how her eyes shine brightly, despite the gloomy lighting hanging overhead.
Once again, I’m struck by how familiar it feels, while being so different.
I guess that’s what happens when you haven’t seen someone since they were a teenager and now they’re nearing thirty. Things stay the same and change all at once.
“Well, I’d better stop yammering and get this milk back to the house before my wife hobbles down here to find me.”
The older man turns toward me with a smile, but it’s not warm. It’s reserved, never reaching his eyes, and his lips hardly moving. Odd, because I was never on his shit list as a student. I was a model kid, except for that one fight with Axel.
He extends his hand to me. “It was great seeing you, Noel. It seems like you’ve made a successful life outside of Emerald Grove.”
It sounds like a compliment, but it feels awfully like an accusation.
He’s upset I left, and a part of me gets it.
The people who leave Emerald Grove come back. Always. I can count on one hand the number of people who have left and not returned, including me. Once I had my diploma, my plan to head to LA was in full motion, and my career is all I’ve focused on since. Sure, I’ve seen my grandmother over the last ten years, but I always flew her out to me and never came back here. All other ties to this place were cut. People who were once such major parts of my life just stopped existing in it. I’m sure to the townspeople it feels like I abandoned them, even when I didn’t mean to. I was just a kid with one thing on his mind—making his dreams come true.
I slide my palm against my old principal’s, and instantly, he grips my hand with a strength you’d never expect from a man his age. “Thank you. It was great seeing you again, Dick.”
“Try not to stay away so long next time, huh?” He gives my hand another hard squeeze and shoots Parker one last genuine smile before leaving.
If a director or producer had done that to me, I’d have squeezed back just as hard and stared them down, letting them know I wasn’t going to take their shit. But getting into a pissing match with an eighty-year-old man isn’t exactly my style.
Parker’s shoes squeak against the floor as she shifts, and I’m all too aware that we’re alone again.
We haven’t been alone since ...
I clench my jaw, not letting myself think about it. I’ve done a good job of pretending it never happened, and I don’t want to ruin that streak now.
“Well, this is incredibly awkward.”
A smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it. Parker always did like getting straight to the point.
And she’s right. This is awkward.
It’s not that I didn’t plan to see her while I was here. I had no doubt she’d be at the ceremony on Friday as they break ground on the new theater. But I didn’t anticipate running into her this soon on the trip. Or for this long. Or standing so close to her.
I turn toward her. We may as well get this over with now.
I clear my throat, running a hand through my hair just because I can. There are no hair-and-makeup teams here to yell at me not to. “How are you, Parker?”
She blinks up at me. Once. Twice. Three rapid ones.
“How . . . am I?”
I shrug. “Yeah. Like, how are things with you?”
Another blink.
She rolls her tongue over her bottom lip, the one I know tastes like peppermint all year long. “I ...”
She shakes her head, stopping herself, and laughs lightly, then again, and again until suddenly, it’s not light anymore. It’s loud, obnoxious, and scathing. Can a laugh even be scathing?
She tosses her head back, grabbing at her belly as she continues to cackle.
I look around the small store, thankful there’s nobody around to witness this except Peggy behind the front counter. But her nose is glued to the tiny TV she keeps back there with her, and she is paying us absolutely no attention.
Which means it’s up to me to get Parker to stop ... well, whatever this is.
“Uh, Parker?”
She either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care that I’ve said anything. She simply continues to laugh.
I shuffle closer. “Parker?”
Still laughing.
“Park?”
Still. Fucking. Laughing.
It’s gone past scathing and has landed safely in the infuriating category. Is this some trick to chase me away? To get me to leave? Because that’s exactly what I’m about to do.
Hell, it’s what I should do after the way she ended things between us all those years ago, casting me aside like I never meant anything to her, especially after I told her how I truly felt about her. Her rejection was painful enough, but what came next—her throwing away our friendship—was even worse.
I step away, ready to turn, but I can’t leave. Why can’t I leave?
Is it because I want to know why she thinks this is so funny? Or is it because it’s Parker, and I haven’t been this close to her in ten years?
I don’t know the answer, but I know I’m tired of this.
“Dammit, Peter, would you stop?”
I don’t know why I say that or where it comes from. I haven’t said that nickname since I left this town.
But that doesn’t matter because it works.
Parker goes silent, and I instantly miss her hysterical, slightly terrifying laughter.
Because this version of her? It’s much scarier than the laughing.
Her back is ramrod straight, and her gold-speckled eyes narrow, losing that lively sparkle they’ve always had. She takes a step toward me. Then another. Again.
My back hits the shelf behind me, the liquor bottles rattling. Why the hell does this tiny town have two full aisles of booze? Oh, right. Probably because there’s nothing else to do here than drink to help cope with the fact you live in the middle of nowhere.
“Don’t.”
It’s one word, but it says so much.
“You don’t have that right anymore.”
Then she turns on her heel, leaving me in the middle of Jill’s Bait & Tackle, my mind reeling and my heart hammering.
What the hell just happened?
“Noel? Is that you, bub?”
“I sure as shit hope so, or else we’re going to have a serious talk about who you’re leaving your door unlocked for, Lou Lou.”
“Boy, I swear ...,” I hear her mutter. She hates it when I call her Lou Lou, so I do it as often as possible.
I smile for the first time since Parker walked out of the grocery store.
There are so many reasons I never want to return to Emerald Grove, but my grandmother, Louise Hutton, or just Gran as everyone calls her, has never been one of them.
I take off my shoes, listening as she slowly rounds the corner from the kitchen, where, I have no doubt, she’s been cooking all day. My stomach growls at the thought of her warm, buttery banana nut bread. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten since this morning, which feels like forever ago at this point.
When she finally comes into view, I get a glimpse of her for the first time in six months, and my smile slips before I can catch it.
Has she always looked this frail? So tiny? So ... breakable?
I can’t remember a single time in the years I spent living with her that she’s ever looked as fragile as she does now, and that includes the time she broke her foot hiking and spent weeks in a cast. Not even that slowed her down.
But seeing her now ... She looks brittle. So ... well, old . I know that’s what happens to us all, but it’s hard to reconcile that the woman before me is my grandmother, with her back hunched over just slightly and her winter-white hair that, up until now, she’s always kept colored.
If someone said the word grandmother , this is what I would imagine. It’s funny, because yes, even though she’s always been my grandma, she’s never looked like a grandma until now.
She winces ever so slightly as she hobbles closer, but I don’t dare bring it up. She’s sensitive about these things, and I don’t want to piss her off when I only just got here.
“Well? What the hell are you staring for? Get over here and hug me already.”
And just like that, my smile is back.
Oh, yeah, this is definitely her.
I cross the tiny entryway and sweep my seventy-eight-year-old grandmother into my arms, hugging her small frame tight, never wanting to let go. Much like she has for my entire life, she smells like fresh-baked sweets with just a hint of that damned aloe vera rub she swears can cure any ache or pain. Even though I think she’s a little ridiculous for rubbing it on so often, I don’t think it’s a scent I’ll ever tire of.
I hold on to her longer, not just because I’ve missed the hell out of her, but because I’m not so sure I want this to end just yet. I’m more than aware that my time with my grandmother is dwindling, and I don’t know how many of these hugs I have left.
“Dang, bub, I know you missed me, but you want to let me go before your Kitchen Sink Cookies burn?”
“Shit. Why didn’t you say so before?” I release her, nodding toward the kitchen. “Quick. Get back in there.”
She swats at me with a roll of her eyes before following my instructions. I stay hot on her heels, tagging along, eager to get my hands on my favorite cookie.
I step into the kitchen that’s been the same since I moved in when I was seven, and my jaw drops. “What the fuck?”
“Noel Benjamin Carter!” my grandmother admonishes. “I haven’t added chocolate chips to this zucchini bread yet, and I swear I’ll make ’em right out of that dish soap over there.”
She gives me a stern glare that has me holding my hands up in surrender.
“Sorry, sorry. It’s just ... What the hell— heck —happened in here?”
“What?” She waves her hand around the room. “You don’t like it?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just ... It’s different.”
She lifts a shoulder, and I try not to notice how much of her bone I can see stretching against her shirt with the gesture. “Sometimes change is nice.”
For my entire life, this kitchen has had bright-yellow walls, the cabinets have always been chestnut, and her fridge was a white retro style. Only it wasn’t just a style, it was authentically retro, and she had to have someone out to fix it at least once a year.
But now those once too-vivid walls have been painted a subdued light gray, the cabinets repainted white, and the old fridge has been swapped for a sparkling new modern one. Hell, even the rooster-print hand towels that used to hang off the stove are gone.
I understand change happens, maybe more than most, but it almost feels like a part of my childhood has died with the makeover.
“It looks great, Lou Lou.”
With lightning-quick reflexes, like I didn’t just watch her shuffle down the hall with a grimace, she whips her hand towel at me, and I catch it as effortlessly as she’s thrown it.
She holds out her hand. “Now give it back.”
I laugh, handing it back to her, then make my way over to the kitchen table, which is thankfully still the same, and settle into the chair. It creaks the same way it always has, bringing me even more comfort.
“There was no way I was getting rid of that table—too many memories,” she says, almost reading my mind as she continues folding in the ingredients for her zucchini bread.
It’s always like this when I see her. The last time she came to my apartment in LA, she baked for six hours straight, and when she left, I had a counter full of sweets. And when I flew her out to that set in Vancouver, she wandered off and worked in the craft services department for half a day before I found her. Got her name in the credits for that one. “And we kept the stove too,” she continues. “My recipes are fine-tuned to that old lug. I’m old enough to know not to mess with a good thing.”
Oh, but you did. The kitchen was perfect before.
“It was a good kitchen that served me well for many years, but I figured I’d give it a chance at a new life. We all need chances sometimes.”
I don’t miss the true meaning of her words. Her comments are directed at my leaving Emerald Grove for LA. In her own way, she is telling me to get over the change like she got over me leaving.
“Well, it looks great. Really. I like the color on the walls.”
“Thanks. We had a lot of fun picking that out.”
I let my eyes roll over the kitchen, looking at every detail and trying to discern what’s different and what’s stayed the same. The eclectic signs she once had littering the far wall are gone save for a handful of them, and they’re now artfully arranged instead of squeezed wherever they’d fit. The bird clock that used to chirp insufferably every hour is now gone—one change I am definitely not mad about—and has been replaced by a simpler, less noisy design.
“Do you want Cornflake Cookies too?” she asks out of nowhere, though I shouldn’t be surprised. She’d always had a one-track mind when I lived here, and that’s what she can bake next for me. I know she’s going all out now because she’s missed me. It’s how she shows her love, and I’ll gladly accept, especially since I never get home-baked goods like this back in LA.
I chuckle. “You’ve already made banana bread, Kitchen Sink Cookies, and zucchini bread.”
She peeks at me over her shoulder. “So ...?”
“So of course I want Cornflake Cookies too.”
She winks. “That’s my boy.”
“Do you want any help?” I ask, rising from my chair. I’m already pulling my sleeves up, ready to dive in.
“Not a chance, bub. You came all the way out here and even flew in early for little old me. Let me spoil my only grandbaby.”
I resume my spot with a grin, not even bothering to fight her about calling me a baby when I’m pushing thirty. How can I when she’s clearly so happy to have me here, even whistling that old, comforting tune she always has? I have no idea what it is, but she’s done it for as long as I can remember.
I watch her work, and she asks me about the movie I just wrapped filming, so I fill her in on the plot.
“Do you like it?” she asks after I’ve finished, her hands busy pouring the zucchini-bread batter into the loaf pan.
“If you’d have asked me that a few days ago, I’d have been on the fence about a good portion of it.”
“I sense a but in there ...”
“But after the director let me take a few liberties with the dialogue, I loved every minute.” Honestly, Bridget’s advice to pull from past heartache might have been a little too good. Because after that, it was like this whole new side of me was tapped into, and the words that spewed from me came a bit too easily. That, in turn, opened some old wounds I’d much rather leave closed.
Of course, running into said old wound earlier this evening didn’t help either.
“Proud of you, kid. You’re doing good work.”
“Thanks. I wish everyone in town felt that way. It should make Friday pretty interesting.”
She slides the zucchini bread into the oven, then crosses her skin-and-bones arms and rests against the counter. I wish she’d take a proper break and sit with me, but I know her too well. She’s not going for it.
“What do you mean?”
I drag my hand through my hair. “It’s nothing.”
She laughs. “Oh, sweet boy. I’ve known you from the moment you tumbled out of your mother’s vagina—”
“For her sake, I really hope that’s not true.”
“—and for as long as I can remember, when you’re uncomfortable or nervous or don’t want to upset someone, you run your hand through your hair like you just did. So spill it. Not like I’m going to tell anyone your business.”
I laugh, barely stopping myself from doing it again, then fold my arms over my chest, mirroring her post. “Fine. I ran into Mr. McMichaels at Jill’s.”
“Dick?”
Oddly, hearing my grandmother say dick is less jarring than when Parker said it. Probably because even though she likes to get on me about cussing and often threatens me with washing my mouth out with soap, my grandmother is just as bad about it, especially in the right setting.
Parker, though ... Well, I’ve never heard her cuss. Ever. It was always as cute as it was frustrating.
“Yes, Dick. Feels weird calling my former principal Dick , doesn’t it?”
“If any of my old teachers were still kickin’ it, I’d likely call them Missus. Humans are weird.”
“Mm-hmm,” I agree.
“So what’d Dick say that upset you?” she continues.
“I wouldn’t say upset . It was just a vibe. Like he wasn’t so happy with me leaving Emerald Grove and not coming back.”
“Well, you have been away an awfully long time, and you know how the town feels about that sort of thing.”
My shoulders deflate, that bit of guilt I always feel about leaving my grandmother behind nagging at me. “I know.”
“Now, you know I don’t mind, so don’t go doing that whole sad-sack thing. I’m glad you went off and found something you love. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you. All your parents ever wanted for you.” She lifts her drawn-on brows pointedly. “And they’d be damn proud of you for doing it.”
I know she’s right. My parents would be proud of me. I can feel it to the depths of my soul, and I wish like hell they were still around to see me now, but they died way before acting was even an idea I had for my future.
Emotion climbs up my throat just thinking about them. Sure, they’ve been on my mind over the last ten years—and they always will be—but being back here reminds me even more of what I lost.
It was a simple trip to Seattle, one they’d made several times before. It was supposed to be a night of fun. Instead, it ended in tragedy, leaving their car wrapped around a tree on the winding road leading into town and me without the two most important people in my life.
Everything changed after that. Not only did I lose my parents and have to move across town and in with my grandmother, but I also lost a bit of my childhood too. I started to look at life—and Emerald Grove—a lot differently after that.
“So who gives a hoot what old Dick says,” Gran continues, pulling me back to the present. “They might be a little standoffish, but the people in this town still love you.”
“Not all of them.”
In a silent question, she tips her head to the side, and I sigh.
“Parker,” I explain.
And really, it’s all the explanation she needs. She’s more than aware of my history with the auburn-haired girl from down the street. We were practically attached at the hip from the moment Parker moved to town, and we kept that up until the night I left for LA.
Then ten years passed, and here we are—nothing but awkward encounters at the grocery store.
“Oh.” She says it so simply and definitively, and I’m thankful because the last thing I want to do tonight is rehash the horrible reunion from an hour ago.
Instead of pressuring me to talk, she lets it go, spinning on her heel and pulling items from various cabinets. I’ve watched her make them enough times to know she’s getting ready to make the Cornflake Cookies.
This time, no matter what she says, I am helping. It’s been too long since I’ve stood beside her in this kitchen, baking. We used to do it all the time, and I miss it far more than I realized until just now.
I rise from my seat, stepping next to her, towering over her tiny five-foot-two frame.
“All right, Gran. Put me to work.”
And that’s what we do for the next few hours—make cookies and have dinner before turning in for the night.
Maybe this trip back to Emerald Grove won’t be so bad after all.