Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Summer
Two Weeks Later…
The Roscoe is quieter than I’ve ever seen it, but then I’ve rarely seen it in daylight before. It was a nice surprise to find it was still in business, an even nicer surprise to discover that it serves good coffee when it’s not filled with the evening crowd, four-deep at the bar.
“It’s so nice to have you home, sweetheart,” Dad kept saying last night, after I arrived back with three suitcases and my tail between my legs.
“It’ll be great to have you here for a good length of time for once; I can’t remember the last time you stayed for more than a couple of days,” Mom joined in, as if I’m just here for a vacation and haven’t been unceremoniously uprooted from life as I liked it.
Of course, by this morning, there was a copy of the Crown Hill Gazette on the kitchen island with a note on top that said: I’ve circled some jobs you might like – Mom.
I have it open in front of me now as I sip my coffee and stare out of the window at sleepy Main Street, a portal to the fifties. It’s almost jarring to see modern cars and trucks passing through, the storefronts vintage, all red brick and terracotta stucco, with striped awnings and old windows.
Although Crown Hill isn’t architecturally… consistent. I’ve always thought it looked like my hometown picked and chose some styles it liked and just threw them all together.
Just down the street is a building that looks like it was plucked straight from the French Quarter in New Orleans; the florist up the street reminds me of a quaint English cottage; the town hall is almost brutalist in its concrete design; the shops that bookend Main Street have an almost Victorian Gothic quality, while the movie theater directly opposite is distinctly Art Deco.
The homes that ripple outward from the town’s hub are much the same, each one unique, following no agreed-upon style whatsoever.
The bell above The Roscoe’s door jingles, snapping me out of my architectural digest.
“Summer Turner?” An excitable voice belonging to an older woman, who’s vaguely familiar but I can’t put a name to her, has me on edge in an instant. “I knew that was you! I was just on my way to the store when I spotted you in the window, and I thought to myself, that’s her!”
I put on a smile. “I guess sitting by a window isn’t the best place to go incognito.”
The woman frowns for a second… then bursts out laughing, waving a hand at me as she approaches.
“I should’ve known you’d be funny! Your books are.
” She hovers next to my table, as if waiting for an invitation to sit.
“We love you in our house. I’ve read all of your books, my daughter has read them, my granddaughter has read them. ”
I’m at that age where I don’t know if I’m closer to the daughter’s age or the granddaughter’s.
“Always pleased to meet a fan,” I say stiffly.
I’m terrible at meeting fans, not that they ever came up to me in New York.
In a big city, there are too many people to be able to pick out one author whose face you’ve only glimpsed on a cover sleeve.
In a small town, where my face has been in the window display of the Briar Patch Bookshop for years, I suppose I should have known better than to sit where people might see me.
“Sally’s story was my favorite,” the woman tells me, as if she’s given the right answer to a question I didn’t ask. “Then Lila’s, then Charlotte’s. I loved the novella about their mother, but I’m desperate to read about Amy and Payton!”
So am I.
“Well, that’s–”
She dives back in before I can finish. “We’re all so proud of you, Summer, a Crown Hill girl making it in the big city.
Making it onto the New York Times bestseller list, no less!
My Angela couldn’t believe it when she saw your name there; I think you were in AP History together.
She’s up in Tucson these days, and she tells anyone who’ll listen that she’s friends with a famous writer. ”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t remember any Angela, so I just nod along with a smile.
“Say, can I have a photo with you, to send to her?” the woman asks. “Oh, and I can’t leave without having you sign something! If it’s no trouble, I mean.”
I look exactly as you’d expect me to look after rushing to pack up my life and return to my hometown while fending off the storm clouds of an imminent depression, and only on my first coffee of the day. But she’s nice and she’s so enthusiastic and sweet that I can’t refuse.
“Of course, I’d be happy to,” I reply.
The woman manning the counter of the café-bar gives us a funny look as I pose for a picture and hastily sign a napkin for the older woman, whose name is dancing on the tip of my tongue. I feel like she used to work at the bank.
Pocketing the napkin and tapping diligently on her phone, the woman leans in. “So, when is the next book coming out? Will it be out in time for the summer? Or Christmas? Oh, I’d love a Christmas one!” She clasps her phone to her chest, sighing. “A romance in the snow.”
Even though Christmas is ten months away, I highly doubt it. But I don’t tell her that. That would mean admitting that I’m a failure and another Redwood Sisters novel is never going to see the light of day again.
“You know how publishing can be,” I murmur, heat rushing into my cheeks. The wound of having my contract cancelled is still raw, but she doesn’t know she’s rubbing salt in. “What’s been happening around here while I’ve been away? I bet there’s more gossip here than any you can get in New York.”
The older woman beams with hometown pride, clearly delighted by the suggestion that little old Crown Hill can beat the big city in something. “Well, I don’t know about that, but there’s been talk of our hotshots getting an accolade from the White House for their tireless work this summer.”
She gestures out to the street. “The mayor honored them back in September; there was a big ceremony at the town hall. A pity you didn’t come back earlier, or you could have been there.
” She gasps, her eyes widening. “You could have written a story about them! Oh, that would be perfect; I would love to see Payton with a firefighter.”
Hotshot. One innocent word, and it's like I’ve swallowed a hornet’s nest. My lungs tighten, heart thudding out of my chest, stomach writhing, throat closing, head buzzing with the memories that chased me out of this town in the first place.
I miss you. I guess that’s why I’ve usually avoided returning here for longer than a couple of days at Thanksgiving or Christmas; it’ll never be a true homecoming without my brother here, grinning and teasing, to welcome me back.
“Sorry I’m late!” A breezy voice calms the hornets, Paige Reed rushing into the bar with the same urgency I imagine she has in the disinfected hallways of the hospital wards. “Code brown, right before I was about to clock out for lunch. Afternoon, Mrs. Oakley. How’s your husband doing?”
Mrs. Oakley. That’s her name. Still can’t remember an Angela Oakley, though.
“Oh, you know, causing the same trouble,” Mrs. Oakley replies, with the sigh of a long-suffering wife. “Won’t take his medicine, thinks he’ll survive on willpower and stubbornness alone.”
Paige laughs brightly. “Hey, I’ve seen it happen. But you make sure and tell him that Nurse Reed will have to start making house calls if he doesn’t behave.”
“I’ll try.” Mrs. Oakley smiles fondly at us, as if seeing us in a bygone past, the high school girls we once were. “Anyway, I’ll get out of your hair. Thank you for the photograph; Angela will be thrilled!”
As the older woman departs, Paige slides into the seat opposite, peels off at least three layers though it’s only in the mid-thirties outside, and calls out to the woman at the counter for one of what I’m having, with a side of apple cake to share.
I consider protesting, but I’ve been eyeing the cakes since I sat down.
“What am I doing?” Paige jumps up again and holds out her arms.
Chuckling, I get up and walk into the fierce sort of hug that I’ve desperately needed.
It’s not quite the same with my parents; their hugs come with a hearty helping of concern, my mom surreptitiously feeling my spine to make sure I haven’t lost any weight, my dad sighing the sigh of a father who’s spent too many sleepless nights worrying about his daughter.
“God, it’s good to see you,” Paige says, giving me an extra squeeze.
I squeeze her back. “Same to you.”
“Let me get a good look at you.” Paige steps out of the embrace and assesses me with her warm, brown eyes. “How is it possible that you get better with age, while the rest of us are doomed to become old hags?”
“Bullshit,” I laugh. “You’re the one aging like fine wine, while I’m like apple juice you’ve had open for a couple of weeks: probably still okay but a little funky.”
Paige always has been and always will be one of the most beautiful women in Crown Hill, standing literally head and shoulders above the rest. Tall and slim, with thick red hair that I’ve envied since we met at thirteen, she’s gained some curves that her scrubs refuse to hide.
It suits her, though I can tell she’s self-conscious as she pulls her light cardigan over her stomach.
“Not a chance. I’ve aged about a decade in six months,” she tells me, sitting back down as the coffee and cake arrive. “No one tells you when you have a kid that they’ll literally suck the life out of you, and you’ll be too tired and too hopelessly in love to mind.”
Those hornets are back, stinging at my chest. “How is he?”
“Adorable, allergic to sleep, changing so fast it makes my head spin,” she replies with a glimmer in her eyes.
I’m not the only one who’s had a bad year, but hers has been considerably worse than mine.
I’ve been there for her after her husband died and her son, Noah, was born—as much as I could be with her in Arizona and me in New York, but I know I could’ve visited more.
Should have visited more. Once wasn’t close to enough.
“You’ll have to come by and meet him properly,” Paige says with a pointed look. “He was just a little smush when you saw him last, and I wasn’t in any state to have visitors. Mom will be pleased to see you. She hasn’t stopped talking about your grand return.”
I grimace. “Nothing grand about getting kicked to the curb.” I gesture to the Gazette with a wry smile. “But I see Foxy’s Fun Factory is hiring, so things are looking up. Who knows, maybe they’ll let me wear the mascot suit, really cement my fall from grace.”
“There’s a few positions going at the hospital,” she tells me. “Could put in a good word for you? Doesn’t pay much, though. We can’t even afford new equipment without having to throw a fundraiser, much less actual staff.”
I shrug. “Couldn’t hurt. I don’t have anything else lined up.”
“What happened, huh?” Paige sits back and sips her coffee, eyeing me with the scrutiny of a best friend who’s deciding whether to dish out some tough love.
“You used to write non-stop. I’ve known you to churn out thousands of words in one sitting.
How is it possible that, in three years, you wrote nothing? ”
I’ve already filled her in on the details of my eviction from New York, but this is the first time we’ve discussed it in person. I sort of wish we were texting instead; it’s easier to form my thoughts into words when I don’t have to answer immediately.
“I wrote some stuff, it was just god-awful,” I reply. “And I figured that if I couldn’t bear to read it, my readers wouldn’t either.”
“But you’ve kept writing through, like, the darkest friggin’ days of your life,” she continues. “What happened that you just suddenly couldn’t anymore? It doesn’t make sense to me.”
I shake my head and give her an imploring look. “Let’s not talk about it right now. I’ve only got you for half an hour; I want to hear about Noah. I want to hear about you.”
She frowns, takes a thoughtful sip of her coffee, then slides me a fork and replies, “Well then, where do I start?”
* * *
Exactly half an hour later, Paige brushes cake crumbs off her mouth, slides back out of her seat, and smiles. “I’ll see you at the fundraiser?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I reply, feeling a little lighter, a little calmer. Paige has that effect; I just wish she didn’t have to rush back to work.
“I know it’s not what you planned, but it is good to have you back for a while,” she says, pausing. “It won’t be forever, I know it won’t, so I’m going to make the most of it.” She leans in to hug me, and I hug her back, clinging onto these last seconds of companionship.
Then, she’s gone, out the door with a chirpy “see you later,” and I’m alone again with an empty coffee cup and a job to find.
Well, I was alone again, until the bell above the door jingles wildly, the Roscoe’s floodgates opening as a stream of men pours in, laughing and calling out their lunch orders.
Men in uniform: bluish-black short-sleeved shirts and pants, the American flag on one arm, the Crown Hill patch on the other, heavy-duty boots thudding on the old timber floors.
Hotshots. Firefighters. Station 59.
I leave everything but my purse and coat, running out of there as if I’m the one who’s late for work, trying to escape the hornet’s nest of memory that’s buzzing straight for the heart.