Thirty-Nine
L auren had closed the bakery early, but only an hour and only after Elizabeth arrived. Her friend looked around at the miserable faces and quickly flipped the sign in the window from open to closed. They’d spent the rest of the few hours talking about everything except Scott.
“Are you happier?”
Until now.
“No. But I will be.” Lauren glared at Elizabeth. Her friends were supposed to be eating cookie dough and comforting her. Not reminding her how stupid she was. “Besides, he had work things he has to take care of. He said he was leaving.”
“For good?” Melody asked.
“I don’t know.”
“No.”
Lauren and Olivia answered at the same time.
Everyone turned to Olivia.
“How do you know?”
“You can’t get mad.”
“I’m not mad at you Olivia.”
“Not at me. You can’t get mad at Scott.”
“What does it matter now? It’s not like there’s a chance he’s going to agree to me saying, ‘let’s pretend I didn’t say any of those stupid things at the hospital.’”
“Whatever.” Olivia rolled her eyes, not buying Lauren’s observation at all. “You know how we couldn’t figure out how all those sales and transfers happened without anyone knowing about them?”
Lauren nodded.
“Scott’s dad was probably taking bribes. He’s still unraveling it, but it looks like this all goes back to the new owners of the mine.”
“Are you serious!” Lauren didn’t think things could get much worse, and she didn’t want to be worried about the town. She wanted to be miserable with her friends. And Olivia. But now all she could think about was Dan Brandonson killing Iron Creek.
“Scott always thought his dad was an asshole. But now he knows. And he’s trying to fix it. But how do you fix the slow destruction of a town? So maybe him not fighting wasn’t about giving up on you but giving up on fixing his dad’s mistakes.”
Lauren jumped to her feet and paced the floor in front of the counter.
“Olivia’s not allowed to be this introspective. Quick someone come up with something.” Elizabeth stared at Olivia with a little bit of awe.
“Sit down.” Olivia’s gaze followed Lauren’s movement around the room.
She plopped back down in her chair at the table. Lauren attributed her quick acceptance of Olivia’s command to the horrible, no-good, very bad day she was having.
Lauren bit down on the inside of her lip. She wouldn’t cry. She glanced at the other two women before turning her attention to Olivia.
Olivia stared back at her. “You need to promise whatever you learn tonight stays here.”
She felt like Olivia was about to pull her into some kind of secret society, and Lauren was about ready to find herself in the middle of a conspiracy where psychotic monks chased after her.
“Just tell me already.” She placed her hands on the table prepared to restart her pacing.
Olivia looked away for a few seconds. Lauren felt an ache deep in her stomach she didn’t want to admit to.
“When Scott went away to school, he thought it was on a scholarship.”
She didn’t want to smile but couldn’t help herself. No one expected Scott to get a scholarship, not even Scott, and the rumors ran rampant about what he might have done to get that scholarship. He swore to Jake and to her that he hadn’t done anything, and they believed him. They always believed him.
At least until he left them for good.
He told them he was coming back, but after he graduated college, they never heard from him again. Apparently, her dad had heard about Scott from his mom, although he never shared that information with her.
“Wait. Thought? He thought he got a scholarship? What does that mean?” Lauren forgot about standing up again.
She needed to work on hiding my emotions better because Scott cracked a smile and nodded.
“Yes, thought.”
“So, he didn’t get one?” Her befuddlement grew exponentially. Nothing made sense, especially considering what Olivia had said about keeping things secret.
“No. It was orchestrated to look like one, but he didn’t find out until two weeks ago that the scholarship was more or less part of a bribe.”
How? Everyone stared at her, expecting her to say something and she realized she hadn’t asked her question aloud. “OK. How?”
“The scholarship came from a company that started the year of his graduation. But it doesn’t have any kind of footprint. Scott never would have thought anything about it, but it had a musical name, similar to other companies paying his father. Companies that all seem to lead back to the new owner of the mine.”
“But how?” Lauren wasn’t sure she wanted to know more.
“His father’s always been shady. He locked himself away in his office at home and took calls from people at all hours. I used to think he was secretly a drug dealer, but chances are he was taking bribes.” Olivia folded the paper napkin in front of her, as though the distracting task would make what she was saying more palatable. “Over time, I’m guessing it got easier. So by the time the sale of the mine came up, even though he had to know they planned on laying everyone off, he probably didn’t question what he was doing.”
“He acted like he didn’t want Brand Mart or the mine sale though.”
Olivia nodded.
“He was the reason my dad lost his job.”
Olivia nodded again.
“And Scott didn’t know anything?”
“He probably suspected something was going on, but nothing like this. I think he thought his dad was having an affair.”
“So, his father was a corrupt ass.” Lauren couldn’t understand how any of this had anything to do with Scott.
“Lauren, he’s convinced you’ll hate him.”
Epiphanies were supposed to explain everything and make it all work out in the end. That didn’t happen for Lauren. She wanted it all to make sense and tied up with a nice bow, but she sat at the table more confused than she was when they started the confession.
“The sins of the father, Lauren.” Melody’s quiet voice came from across the table, but she didn’t look at Lauren. Instead, she stared at the top of the table.
“Lauren?” Olivia’s soft voice cut through the room.
She couldn’t look away from Melody’s despondent expression and wondered how something that happened well before her arrival bothered her so much.
“Lauren.” Olivia’s voice sharpened, and the tone jerked Lauren out of her thoughts and back into the room.
“What?”
“The only one who is at fault is his father. Scott has nothing to do with this and has been waiting for a reason not to have to tell you because he’s scared you’ll hate him. That’s why he let you push him away.”
“I don’t hate him.”
“Good, but we can’t say everyone else in Iron Creek will feel the same.”
“That’s why you want me to keep it a secret? Won’t they find out? You can’t be the only one who knows.”
“That’s a risk we’ll just have to take. Scott doesn’t agree, so when you finally get whatever’s going on between you fixed, you need to help keep his want to confess all in check. Eventually it will come out, but by then we’re hopeful enough time will have passed and have gotten some things back on track.”
“Who’s we?” Elizabeth asked.
“Dave, Mr. Somers, and me.” Olivia smiled. “We’re a self-appointed committee not currently opened to new members.”
“Good news is that with Arlen James in town, any of us could run down the street naked and no one would notice.” Melody added.
“They’d notice.” Olivia smirked. “They just might not care as much as they usually would.
After their laughter at Olivia’s observation died down, the four women sat silently in the room. Lauren didn’t know why anyone else wasn’t talking, but she was honestly at a loss for words.
“Lauren?”
She exhaled loudly, just short of a full-blown sigh, and looked over at Olivia.
“We still need to talk about Scott leaving.”
Of course they did. Why did she think the trip through disappointment was over?
“He’s not leaving because he wants to. He’s leaving because he doesn’t think you want him to stay.” Olivia offered an explanation.
After several seconds that felt like minutes, she finally found the right combination of words. Ones that wouldn’t reveal all of her feelings. “And now that he’s decided to leave?”
“He hasn’t left yet.”
“Oh my God. We are all so maudlin. Quick, someone lighten the mood. I’m begging you!”
“The boxes came today.” Melody attempted to satisfy Elizabeth’s request.
“They did?” The conversation with Scott about mail orders had slipped her mind with everything that had happened. He must have ordered the boxes right after they had spoken.
“They’re super cute too. Your logo right on the top.” She ran into the back room and returned a few seconds later with a box in hand. “We have to fold them, but that’s not too hard.”
Lauren took the box in her hands and stared at it. A cartoon version of Lauren holding a multi-tiered cake in her hand on the front of the box stared back at her. They were perfect. When Scott proposed the idea of mail orders to her, he had told her the same words he said about everything. ‘Trust me.’
“What? Of course we trust you.”
“No. Not me. That’s what Scott says to me. He’s always saying. ‘Trust me.’”
“You know, Scott’s dealing with everything his father’s done while trying to make you happy. I don’t know about you, but if Scott was doing all that for me, I’d shut the hell up and be happy. Not doing my best to push him away.” The sympathetic Olivia was gone, and the woman who wasn’t quite her friend but wasn’t her enemy was back.