4. Dolly
4
DOLLY
Whoever said that the more things change, the more they stay the same, wasn’t kidding.
They should also be shot.
Because, seriously, the more things change, the more they stay the fucking same—making today like any other morning. And not the day that I should be returning to town as a married woman.
Ding!
“Order up!”
Nico’s voice covers the fading trill of the bell, the harsh metallic sound still ringing in my ears, cutting through my thoughts. Pity party, actually. Because despite the fact that it’s been nine days since my wedding that wasn’t, I’m not over it. Which I think is fair.
I did get left at the altar.
If Jeff really had been thinking that I wasn’t “wife material,” he could have brought it up a lot sooner than twenty minutes after I was supposed to be walking down the aisle.
Still, the world seems to have moved on without a care. Oh wait, that’s right, they did. Simply moved on about their business. Which is why I’m right back here with all my regulars. Because the town ROMEOs—Retired Old Men Eating Out—certainly weren’t going to eat their breakfast at home. And God forbid the Sunshine Seekers—the group of twenty-something female townies that walk in to start gossiping the second I flip the open sign—have to find another meeting place.
Plus, then how would they be the first to find out the real reason behind my botched wedding?
I suppose maybe not everyone has moved on without a care. The rumor mill is still moving at quite a pace.
Grabbing the order Nico pushes through the small window, I glance down at it, knowing without looking at the tab next to it who it belongs to. Three eggs sunny side up—extra sunny—with fried onions, ham, home fries, and rye toast. There is only one person in this town who wants his eggs all but raw. Thank goodness.
I shudder, trying not to think about the grossness on the plate I’m carrying, grabbing a bottle of hot sauce as I round the corner of the diner counter, knowing he’ll want that too. This man’s love of Cholula borderlines adultery, and I can’t help but wonder what his wife thinks about it.
“Mr. Hovland,” I greet, slinging the plate in front of him, pretending I don’t see both the yolks and the whites jiggle. “Are you officially a ROMEO now? You’ve been here an awful lot lately…”
Sitting up straighter in his chair, our retiring town pharmacist beams, the impish gleam in his eye not offsetting the fact that he resembles Elmer Fudd—short, balding, and round in the middle.
“Well, now that Brenna has taken over the store, I have some more flexibility,” he explains. “Finally get to join the boys on a more regular basis.”
Right…
I nod, perfectly able to read between the lines. Having run Hickory Hills Drug for all my life, Mr. Hovland solidified himself as a major cog in the gossip mill, and this is his new source. Because the old men of this town talk just as much as the old women. Maybe more.
“I’m sure the boys are happy you’re here,” I comment, catching Judge Robinson nodding out of the corner of my eye as I turn to go. That’s enough small talk for now.
“I’m so sorry to hear about your wedding,” he adds, sucking me back in.
Fuck…
I turn back, forcing my most polite people smile. The one my grandmother, the OG Dolly herself, taught me.
“Thank you.”
“I just can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now. What’s going through your head. A girl your age, still unmarried…”
Thank you for the reminder…
“…for your sake, my dear, I sure hope he explained himself…”
Oh, he did…
I inhale deeply, forcing my smile even harder, channeling all the wild mix of emotions still stirring in me thinking about my ex and his “explanation.”
“Can I get you anything else this morning, Mr. Hovland?” I ask, pointedly putting an end to his fishing expedition. I am not about to give him anything more than I already have. Which is exactly nothing.
He shakes his head, still looking a little too smug for my liking. As if he’s sitting there thinking that I may have won the battle, but he will win the war. Only, he won’t. I’ve suffered enough humiliation this last week; I don’t need to pile on top of it with the real reason for my botched wedding becoming the next headline.
Making my way back to the counter, I give my small diner a once-over to make sure that nothing else is needed. We’re busy this morning, but everything is under control. So I slide back to my normal spot, discreetly pulling out my phone from my back pocket and clicking over to my texts.
I don’t know why I feel the need to look at it. The exceptionally short thread is burned in my mind for the rest of time. Word for word, the bubble images so crystal clear it’s amazing I see anything past it when I close my eyes.
Not to mention the searing pain that rips straight through me with each one of my ex’s words.
My text to him last Monday morning when I had finally stopped eating my feelings long enough to form a semi-rational thought—and found my phone that Hux had hidden—was a tad more rage filled than intended. I didn’t quite channel my inner Alanis Morissette from the mid-90s, but the four words I chose made it clear that I wasn’t crying in a corner either.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
It was his response that sent me reeling though. As if that quickly scribbled message on a hotel notepad wasn’t bad enough, each of his rapid-fire replies inflicted a new wound.
Jeff
It’s for the best.
You are not wife material. Something I think that even you can’t deny.
You’re too independent, headstrong, focused on your own stuff. Don’t even get me started on your wild side…
I take responsibility for my failures here, but this is for the best.
I responded the most mature way I knew how. With a gif of Adam Sandler from The Wedding Singer screaming, “Things that could have been brought to my attention yesterday!”
That was when Hux confiscated my phone back, something that really was for the best. Before I moved into Alanis territory—or worse, upgraded to something else. Like sending him a package of dick-shaped confetti.
Actually, I still might do that. Serves him right.
The moving image plays on a loop as I stare at the thread, Jeff’s list of my “sins” creating a new little papercut-like slice in me over and over. My “wild side.” Psssh…that man knows nothing about my wild side. All he’s ever heard is stories about the stuff Hux and I pulled as teenagers.
And too independent? Too focused on my own stuff? I run a business for crying out loud. Exactly what does he?—
“Please tell me that’s just Hux checking in and not the text I think it is.”
I startle, quickly hitting the power button to hide that it is the offending thread, and look up, doing my best not to look guilty. Mission not accomplished.
Standing across the counter are four very accusatory faces. Like they know me or something.
To be fair, Alice Evans, Emily Barrowcliff—my cousin—and Rose Adler have known me since basically birth. The fourth, Margeaux Finnegan, is new to our group, but slipped in so easily you’d never know.
“Hmmm?” Alice follows up, her statement still hanging in the air.
I could lie to them. Tell them that yes, it’s Hux checking in before he heads to Munch—short for Monday lunch, the weekly meeting of Hayes executives, a.k.a. him and his siblings, where they talk about whatever one talks about at that kind of thing—just like he always does. Except Margeaux works at the legal department at Hayes and is the girlfriend of Gus, Hux’s oldest brother, so she knows damn well that meeting doesn’t start for another two hours.
“Good morning to you too.”
Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I grab four coffee cups, lining them up in front of each of the girls and filling them up, leaving room for cream in everyone but Margeaux’s.
“Sugar?” Em asks.
Rose passes her the caddy with packets, while I reach under the counter to grab more, knowing that a refill is going to be required once Em is done with it.
“Your teeth don’t vibrate after that much sugar?” Margeaux asks, watching wide-eyed.
“I don’t actually want to taste the coffee,” Em replies. “Not that Dolly makes bad coffee! No offense, Dolly. It’s just that it’s coffee, and it’s gross, so…”
“None taken. Although I do have tea and soda, should you ever decide on a different form of caffeine.”
I say this, knowing it’s useless. We’ve had this conversation since we were teenagers, and still, every morning Emily makes a cup of coffee and pours enough cream and sugar into that I’m not sure it technically qualifies as coffee anymore.
“Busy this morning,” Rose comments.
“Because you’d pass up the chance at seeing this train wreck up close and personal?”
“You were here last week.”
I shrug. Rose has a point—anyone paying attention would have heard I had already returned to work after the “unfortunate incident,” as my mother has started outwardly referring to it. She is a lot more polite than I am. It’s also undeniable that I’ve seen an uptick in business since then. My bank account won’t complain though.
“Originally I was returning from the honeymoon today, so maybe…” I trail off, not sure how to finish that thought.
“Any more on whether or not you can get some kind of credit from the resort?” Alice asks.
“Yeah, actually. I got an email from the Indigo Royal’s owner over the weekend letting me know that they would be fully refunding my trip. I need to send them the ACH information, but once they have it, the money should be back in my account in about two to three business days. Thank you, Huxley Adams Hayes.”
“You don’t know that it was him,” Alice tells me.
I glare at her. “I do. One—because the itemized breakdown of the refund that was included in the email listed a spa treatment that I know I didn’t add to the reservation, and the only person on this planet who knew that I secretly wanted to do that while I was down there…is Hux. I was waiting to mention it to Jeff until we were on-site, because I knew he would have to see the spa and how incredible it is before he’d be willing to be open to it.”
“Oh.”
“And two, while we were unpacking my apartment last week, he went in the other room to take a call, something that is very un-Hux. And he thought I couldn’t hear him, but he’s not quiet, and my apartment isn’t that big. It was Dalton Sutherland.”
“Ohhhh,” all three of my bridesmaids say in unison.
“Who?” Margeaux asks.
“The Sutherlands own Southland Holdings, and are old family friends of the Hayeses,” I explain. The Sutherlands, like the Hayeses, are one of the big old Southern money families here in Georgia and have run in the same circles for decades. Something that is easy to forget since none of the Hayes kids fit the mold. “Dalton and his sister run the company now, but Dalton worked at the Indigo Royal for a bit while he was ‘finding himself’ or something.”
“I know Southland Holdings. We worked with them while I was at Sulonen.”
“So, I owe Hux a thank you for calling in that favor. Jeff is out all the money for the ceremony and reception, but at least I’ll get the money back on the honeymoon. Which I won’t be sharing.”
Truthfully, I owe Hux more than a thank you for all he’s done for me this past week, helping me put my life back together. The bigger question is how. He’s been my best friend since we were kids, ready and willing to do whatever I needed, without complaint. I know that no matter what I try to do, he won’t hear of it.
Best friend a girl could ever ask for.
“Everything unpacked?” Rose asks, taking a long sip of her coffee.
“It’s all out of boxes, if that’s what you mean by unpacked,” I say. “Did y’all want food?”
They shake their heads as my tummy gurgles, so I disappear into the kitchen, grabbing the tray of cinnamon rolls I pulled out of the oven shortly before they arrived. I bring the entire tray with me to the front, cutting into the gooey goodness to separate the buns.
“I’ll get it all put away and the stuff back on the walls eventually. It’s just…depressing. I mean, I’m already humiliated enough that this all happened, so to have to reput everything back in its place is just…I dunno, a slap in the face?”
“Dolly!”
The exasperated voice of my great-aunt cuts through the air like a whiffle ball—loud, obnoxious, and announcing its arrival long before you see it. I ignore her, handing out a cinnamon roll to each one of my friends, hoping that she’ll take the hint.
She doesn’t. She never does.
“Emily, sit up straight,” she scolds as she descends upon us. “And don’t just shove that whole thing in your mouth. It’s unladylike.”
As if it were a dare, Emily opens wide, taking the biggest bite she can. Aunt Hattie recoils in horror, and I bite my lip to stop myself from laughing.
“Aunt Hattie, how can I help you this morning?”
“Why are you here?” she hisses.
“Here? As in at my job? The business that I run?” I do my best to keep the snark out of my voice. But it’s tough. Really, really tough.
“You should be at home. People are talking. You bouncing back to work like this is going to make them think that you are not heartbroken.”
Because I’m not…
That little fact hasn’t changed. I’m a lot of things—pissed off, embarrassed, and oddly horny, weirdly enough—but heartbroken is not one of them. Something I still haven’t admitted out loud.
I almost told Hux more times than I can count last week, but didn’t. Because admitting that you are fully aware that you didn’t love the man you were about to marry, but were about to do it anyway because he would have provided an “okay-ish” life, and then at least you would have been married, is maybe more embarrassing than actually being dumped by said man.
“Tina Snider just asked me if it was true that Jeff left you for another man,” Aunt Hattie whispers. Although it’s not much of a whisper.
“Oh, I hadn’t heard that one yet.”
Pursing her lips, my aunt straightens up. My answer clearly was not what she wanted. Let’s not lie here—what she really wants is for me to tell her exactly what went down so she can be the one in control of the rumors. And not for the right reasons. We all know how she is.
“Consider how this looks, young lady.”
A curt nod and she turns on her heel, heading straight toward the ROMEOs, no doubt to give them a piece of her mind. For crying out loud.
“Yeah, consider how this looks, young lady,” Emily mimics.
“At least it was a new rumor.”
“How many are you up to?” Rose asks. “I assume there’s the basic ‘he cheated, you cheated’…but what else?”
“I discovered that he had a secret love child, he’s getting back together with an ex—which I’m categorizing differently than the generic he cheated —and apparently now it’s another man.”
“Someone asked yesterday if it was because you discovered he has a gambling problem,” Alice reminds me.
“Oh yes! Surprisingly no one has brought up drugs though.”
“At least no one has mentioned Hux,” Emily adds.
“They know better,” Alice says.
“Do they though?” Rose comments.
They do. At least, they should. Nearly three decades of friendship solidified by a pinky promise that we would never be the couple this town was trying to turn us into. That’s what they get when they conspire to plan the future wedding of a pair of nine-year-olds, just because we were “cute” playing opposite each other in the class play.
I need a change of topic though. Enough about Jeff and the wedding and the rumor mill. I want to focus on the future. My fresh start. And sitting here rehashing it all won’t do that.
“Want to see what I’m thinking of making for the Reel Madness welcome party on Friday?” I ask, hoping the mention of the charity fishing tournament this weekend is all the hint they’ll need that we are done talking about my situation.
Thankfully, they all do, a resounding yes following my question.
Now, if I could only turn my thoughts off that easily.