Chapter 3
Chapter Three
NOAH
I knead the dough tenderly, just like they do on the bake-off. That show’s one of my guilty pleasures, and watching it always makes me hungry. I’m no gifted baker, but somehow I’ve learned to make edible bread—and the rosemary garlic is my favorite.
Now that I finally have a day off and zero obligations, I’m prepared to bake this loaf, open a new bottle of my favorite bourbon, and watch the sunset over the inlet behind my house. I’ve spent the last two weeks doing last-minute planning for this year’s summer camps, and the first one starts on Monday.
Today might be the last day off I have until September, so I plan to make it count.
I turn up the stereo because it’s the Stones and “Sweet Virginia” is best sung at top volume, loud enough to rattle the glasses in the cabinet. Just as Mick and I hit the chorus, there’s a pounding on the back door by the patio. I brush my hands off on my apron, leaving my loaf to proof one last time, and open the door.
My sister Hannah freezes, her hand poised to pound on the door once more. Her brown curly hair is wild from the humidity, her blue eyes wide. Her cheeks are flushed, like she’s been running. It’s already hit ninety degrees in Charleston, which is a record for us.
“Hi,” I say, but it comes out like a question.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she says.
“Kind of have my hands full.”
She narrows her eyes, taking in my tee shirt and beat-up jeans, the fine dusting of flour that covers most of my skin.
“I need a favor,” she says, just as her dog bursts through the door, nearly knocking me over as she tears through the kitchen, dragging her bright pink leash behind her. “Opal, sit!” Hannah hollers, and the big black and white sheepadoodle skids to a halt, teetering backward on her haunches as she stares at me, tongue lolling.
“Hannah, if you?—”
“Jason and I had a fight,” she says, “and I can’t stay in that apartment one more minute. Can I please crash with you? Just for a day or two until these murderous thoughts pass and he gets his act together.”
“Sure,” I say, because I can never say no to my little sister. Even when she’s still wasting her time with this Jason person, who always finds new ways to disappoint her.
Hannah’s a genius coder, and she can obviously do so much better than this idiot just by randomly picking someone out of line down at the Music Farm one Friday night. But this is not my decision to make.
“Thank you,” she says. “You really are the best. Is that bread you’re baking?”
I turn just as she yells, “Opal, no! Down!”
Paws on the counter, Opal noses around the pastry mat toward a pile of chopped rosemary and half a garlic bulb that she would desperately like to taste. She stretches her tongue as far as she can to reach a stick of butter as Hannah claps her hands and rushes over to intervene.
“I’ll just grab a few things from the car,” she says, getting all four dog paws back on the floor before heading back out through the living room. Opal follows her, and when the front door slams shut, she comes racing back into the kitchen with my hiking boot in her mouth.
“Give me that,” I say. She huffs and runs back into the living room, tail wagging.
Chase is her favorite game.
When I turn down the stereo, I hear my cell ringing. Roxy’s name flashes on the screen, and I pick up just as I see the string of missed text messages, mostly from Hannah. My boss doesn’t make a habit of calling me on weekends—except when camp season starts. Then all bets are off. There’s always a last-minute crisis of some kind.
“Hey,” I answer. “How’s it going?”
“Good news,” she says. “I found a replacement for the astronomy camp.”
“Oh great,” I answer. Probably a college kid with this short notice, but that’s okay. Roxy’s a good judge of character, and most of our college staff have worked out just fine.
The front door slams. From the living room, Hannah yells, “Opal, drop it! Now!”
“Have they done a camp with us before?” I ask.
“No,” Roxy says. “But I know her, and I think you two will get along great. We go way back, actually. She’s awesome.”
Opal’s claws clack on the hardwood as she flies through the kitchen, carrying my ruby ficus plant by the trunk, dirt falling in clumps behind her. She’s yanked it right out of the pot and is delighted to show me.
“No!” I yell, lunging for the dog as the plant drops a leaf.
“What?” Roxy says.
“Sorry, not you,” I say. Then I cover the speaker and yell, “Hannah, come handle your beast!”
I try to corner her as I tell Roxy, “Doodle drama. You were saying?”
“Her name’s Victoria,” Roxy says, just as I close in on Opal. She snorts with glee and darts under the kitchen table, dirt clods falling all around her. “She and I have been friends for years, and she was thinking of applying to this other job in admin. But she missed the deadline, so I talked her into filling in for Maura to get her on board. She’d be excellent to have with us full time, but for right now, we have her at the Blue Ridge site.”
“Sounds good,” I say, lunging for the dog. She gives a playful bark and skitters past me, my poor ficus wobbling in her teeth. I raised that plant from a sprig, and now it’s about to be snapped in half by the world’s cutest tornado.
“She’s a great fit,” Roxy says. “You’ll like her.”
Another crash comes from around the corner. “Sure thing,” I tell her as I head into the living room, dreading what I’ll find. Opal’s just over a year old and tries to eat everything she can get her mouth on—the last time Hannah brought her over here, she ate two of my wool socks, three bananas, the first two chapters of The Shining, and half of my leather belt.
It made for an unpleasant evening.
“I’ll let you go,” Roxy says. “Just wanted to let you know you now have a full staff again.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “I appreciate you doing that. Sophie and I would have managed, but having three makes everything so much easier.” I tiptoe toward Opal, who’s now lying on her back on my sofa, chewing on my boot while she gives me some overly dramatic side-eye. The ficus lies at her feet, a heap of soil on the sofa and another on the rug. The front door opens, and Hannah comes in with a rolling suitcase and a laptop bag, her eyes widening as I wave my arms at her and point to the disaster unfolding a few feet away.
“Of course,” Roxy says. “I wouldn’t leave you high and dry. Talk soon, okay?”
“You got it.”
When I hang up, Hannah cringes. “Sorry,” she says. “We did zoomies before we came in the house. I thought she’d just flop down and take a nap.”
From the sofa, there’s a loud urp. That doesn’t bode well.
I rake my fingers through my hair and head back into the kitchen to open that top-shelf bourbon. And then I realize what Roxy said:
Victoria.
An old friend of mine.
It has to be a coincidence, right? This couldn’t possibly be my Victoria.
Well. Not that she was ever really mine. We were best friends in college, but then I managed to wreck that beyond repair. So I never had the chance to tell her that I was completely in love with her. I shake my head to clear the thought because as often as I considered bumping into Victoria Griffin again, the odds of it being at a camp in the middle of nowhere are less than zero.
She’s not a second chance I’ll ever have.