Chapter Twenty-One
Mila
I have to laugh as I scroll through Friday morning’s Landing Pad. Penises drawn in sidewalk chalk. Competitive pie baking. Obsessing over the mayor’s personal life.
Hart’s Landing at its best.
I suppose that last one should make me a little angry, since it involved a lot of eyes on me as well (and I suspect two of them belonged to Vera Pratt), but it’s hard to feel anything but happy as I sip my coffee and admire the roses on my work table.
Everett brought them over last night as a thank you for the artwork I did for the Founder’s Day poster. He knocked on the door around seven, and I invited him in, but he couldn’t stay.
“I’m late for an emergency meeting of the Concerned Citizens Brigade,” he said with a grimace.
“Oh my. The graffiti?”
“First a stoplight, and now this.” Everett shook his head. “Hart’s Landing is nothing but a den of vice.”
I pat his broad chest. “If anyone can save us, you can.”
“I’m going to try. Talk tomorrow?”
“Sure. Thanks again for the flowers. And good luck finding Dickelangelo.”
He laughed and jogged to his truck while I stood in the doorway and watched him go, wishing for things I couldn’t have.
After teaching my classes on Friday morning, I discover a new email in my inbox.
To: Mila@
From: Harts_Landing_Bartok@
Subject: Interview for Diner Detectives
Dear Ms. Ferguson,
I hope this email finds you well. My name is Daniel Bartok, and I’m the president of a true crime club in Hart’s Landing called Diner Detectives. We enjoy taking a look at local mysteries and cold cases in our town and seeing if we can crack them!
As you know, the fire at Tart and Soul remains one of this town’s most dramatic and mysterious events.
Since this year marks the tenth anniversary, we thought it would be interesting to see if we can discover what actually happened that night.
New evidence has come to light that we think you’ll be interested in.
After all, it could clear your name!
Please let me know if there’s a time we can talk.
Sincerely,
Daniel Bartok
I read over the email several times. Is this guy serious? What could possibly clear my name? I was the employee on the closing shift. I was responsible for ensuring all the equipment was off. I should have been more mindful of the flour dust when I swept.
I shouldn’t have burned that letter.
I delete the email and close my laptop.
But it nags at me for the next few hours.
What if somehow there was evidence that I did my job right—that the fire wasn’t my fault? I’ve spent ten years agonizing over my actions that night. Swimming in guilt. Drowning in shame. Do I owe it to myself to hear what Daniel has to say?
After lunch, I head out for a walk. When I reach the river, I sit cross-legged on the bank, pull out my phone, and call Everett.
He picks up fast. “Hey you.”
I smile at the sound of his voice. “Hi.”
“How’s your day?”
“Pretty good. How was your meeting with the Concerned Citizens Brigade?”
“Unproductive. I mostly just listened to them fuss about the ‘moral turpitude’ of Hart’s Landing and try to avoid saying the word ‘dick.’”
Laughing, I pluck a blade of grass and play with it. “What did they say instead?”
“All kinds of things. Willy. Member. Ding-dong. Vera Pratt lowered her voice to a whisper and spelled P-E-N-I-S. I almost choked trying not to laugh.”
“That sounds just like her.” I lean onto one elbow and stretch out my legs. “So I want to ask you about something.”
“Shoot.”
I tell him about the email I got from Daniel Bartok. “My gut reaction was to trash the email and leave the past in the past. But… I can’t stop thinking about it. What if there is something that could clear my name?”
“So meet with him. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Going from wrongly accused to knowing for sure I’m guilty. “I don’t know. I’ll give it some thought.”
“Looking forward to your night out tonight?”
“Yes. Getting out of my house for a few hours is going to feel so good.” I watch a fishing boat coast down the river toward the lake. “What are you up to?”
“The usual. Hanging out with the guys at the pub. Practicing my throw.”
“I’ll be right next door at Novel Vine. Maybe we’ll run into each other.”
“If I’m lucky.”
I smile. “You make me want to break all my rules, you know.”
“Say the word, Freckles. I’ll smash those rules to pieces for you.”
My stomach flips. “I’ll remember that.”
We hang up, and I lie down on my back, staring up at the sky. I’ve got a tele-therapy session this afternoon. Should I tell my therapist about Everett? My mind wanders to my last session, when I told Hugo about my no-dating rule.
He wasn’t thrilled.
“Avoidance doesn’t build skills, Mila. If you want to learn healthy boundaries in a relationship, wouldn’t it be better to practice within the context of a relationship? A quarterback doesn’t improve his passing plays off the field without a receiver.”
Hugo loves a sports metaphor.
“It’s not forever,” I argued. “Just for a year. And I’m already halfway through. I only have six more months to go.”
He also disliked my arbitrary timeline. “So all you’re doing is waiting out the clock? That’s not building skills, either. Healing won’t happen in isolation, Mila. Give it some thought.”
I gave it some thought, and I concluded that the rule made sense. It was nice and clean. It was hard and fast. Wasn’t that sort of like a boundary?
Now I realize how much easier it was to stick to that rule when Everett McKean wasn’t offering to smash it.
You sure we can’t see where this goes? Because I feel like we could have a lot of fun together, Freckles. No strings attached.
He makes it sound so easy.
But am I capable of that? I never met a string I didn’t want to tie around my finger. In a double knot. I know “friends with benefits” situations work for other people, but would one work for me?
I’m just not sure.
Nowhere in my mother’s house offers complete privacy. So, when it’s time for my session, I go out to the driveway and sit in the car.
“Hey, Mila.” Hugo greets me from behind his desk, the glare of his screen reflecting in his glasses. “How are things going?”
“Pretty good,” I say. “My mom’s surgery went well, and she’s back home now. She’s pretty miserable and cranky, but I expected that.”
A slight smile. “And how are you?”
“Fine.” My default answer for so many years, it comes out instinctively.
“And things between the two of you?”
“About the same. She hasn’t changed.” Immediately, I add, “It’s hard because she needs me so much right now. She’s dependent on me for everything, from getting dressed to using the bathroom to making meals.”
“Remember that it’s okay to say no to minor requests.
If something is medically necessary, of course you should do it.
But if there are non-medical tasks she’s asking you to do, or if she’s simply trying to monopolize your time so that you have none for yourself, those are good opportunities to practice ‘no.’”
I nod slowly. “We’ve had some nice talks,” I say. “She told me my father was an artist. I never knew that before.” Characterizing that conversation as a “nice talk” is a stretch, but I don’t want to be too negative.
“That’s interesting.” Hugo resettles in his chair. “How do you feel learning that?”
“At first, I was shocked. Then sort of fascinated, because it means my artistic talent has roots. I wanted to know more, but that’s all she would tell me. I had to let it go. But it really bothers me that she never told me before.”
“Can you say that to her?”
“I could, but I know what she’d say.”
“What?”
“That it upsets her to talk about him. That she just wants to forget him. That he was a liar who abandoned us, so what difference would it make if he was Pablo Picasso?” I glance out the window and watch a pair of little brown house sparrows hop around on the grass. “And I guess she’s right.”
“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to let her know that you’re upset about the deception, as long as you don’t expect her to take any accountability for hurting you,” Hugo says firmly. “Because she won’t.”
“I know.”
“And look at it this way. Now that you know about this connection to your heritage, it belongs to you. She’s not part of it, and she can’t take it away.”
“That’s true.” I sit up a little taller. “I like that idea.”
“Good.” He pauses. “So what else is going on?”
I take a deep breath and tuck my hair behind my ear. “I went to dinner with someone. It was sort of a date.”
“Oh?” Hugo’s bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows rise above his glasses. “Did you have a good time?”
“I had a great time. But now I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Our connection feels…intense. I guess I’m afraid of repeating my usual patterns. Getting sucked in too fast.”
“This is someone you just met?”
“No. It’s someone I grew up with. The older brother of one of my childhood best friends.”
“So it’s someone you already know and trust.”
“To a point. I mean, he seems trustworthy, but I haven’t seen him in ten years. Yet I find myself telling him very personal things. It seems like it should be concerning behavior, doesn’t it?” Part of me wants him to say yes. To tell me to put on the brakes.
“Not necessarily.” He shrugs. “You have a spark. You find him easy to talk to. Those are good things.”
“I really like him,” I confess. “I can’t stop thinking about him. But I made that no-dating rule for a reason.”
“So maybe you just slow down a little instead of pushing him away completely. You don’t have to swing for the fences every time you’re at the plate. A single is good, too. Even a walk gets you on base.”
I smile at the metaphor. I never played baseball, but I know exactly what he means.
I also know myself. And I have a feeling there will be no walking around the bases if Everett McKean is pitching.
I’ll probably just charge the mound.