Chapter Nine Boise, ID Present Day #2
“You’re right, of course. You always are.
” Scarlett winked at River as though all of this was no more than a show for her entertainment.
“You should thank your lucky stars, kid. The day Christina Thomas walked into your salon will end up being the best one of your life. You can trust me on this one.”
And that was it. With an energy that matched her own, Scarlett swept through the room, packing up their things and making sure to look inside drawers and under the bed so they didn’t forget anything. Within ten minutes, they were on the road and on their way.
“Is it okay if I sleep a little?” River asked from the back seat of the RAV4, where she sat with her battered yellow suitcase tucked carefully between her knees. “I haven’t gone to bed yet, so I’m beat.”
“You sleep as long and as hard as you want,” Chrissie said from behind the wheel.
She cast a sidelong look at Scarlett, whom she also suspected of not getting a single wink.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Many a childhood sleepover had turned into a horror show when she’d woken up to find Scarlett sitting upright, watching over her with an intensity usually reserved for serial killers and women who liked to take romance writers hostage in the woods. “In fact, I think you both should.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Scarlett said, the same way she had as a child. “For now, let’s just enjoy the ride.”
* * *
By the time they reached the Idaho-Wyoming border, Scarlett and River were the best of friends.
“I don’t care what you say, Chrissie. We’re stopping at Cokeville for lunch, and I won’t take no for an answer.
” Scarlett glanced over her shoulder at River with a grin that could only be called conspiratorial.
“The two of us made a rule before we started. We have to stop at every weird piece of Americana we come across on the road, and we especially have to stop if a town has a hilarious name. Cokeville demands its due.”
Chrissie fought the urge to roll her eyes—and to release the fiftieth yawn that had overtaken her in the past hour. “Fine. We should probably switch drivers anyway. I don’t understand how you aren’t dead in your seat.”
“I can take the next shift,” River offered.
When Chrissie’s response to this was to lurch on the brakes, she added, “I’m a good driver, I promise.
My dad used to take me out on his combine back when I could barely walk.
I even drove one during the summer in middle school.
They let you do that on farms, you know.
It’s one of the few places where they love child labor. ”
Scarlett snorted. “All places love child labor. Every corporation on earth would tap into the sweet well of innocence if they could find a way to do it without breaking the law. Is it true they hold demolition derbies on those combine things? I read about it in a book once—all the massive machines crashing and tearing into each other like mechanical dinosaurs. It seems fun, in a rugged-cowboy-without-a-shirt-on sort of way.”
“Yeah, actually. The town where I grew up used to hold one every spring to kick off the planting season. Rural America is so weird. Drinking and breaking things are their two favorite pastimes.”
Chrissie took the turnoff for the town of Cokeville—population 500—with mixed feelings.
River might be unaware of what Scarlett was doing, but Chrissie had seen her friend do this kind of thing before.
She was trying to figure out where River hailed from, and to do it in a way that lifted no red flags.
Because she was curious? Because she genuinely wanted to help? Or, as was most likely the case, because she knew it would annoy Chrissie?
“Well, it’s not much to look at, is it?” Chrissie asked as she found a small outdoor café that appeared to be the only place short of a truck stop to find something to eat.
It was only ten in the morning, but they’d been on the road for so long that her stomach was starting to cramp up with hunger.
“Lemme check my messages real quick, and then we’ll—Oh! ”
Her phone started buzzing as she turned the notifications on. Then it kept buzzing until half the battery must have drained away.
Scarlett peeked over her shoulder. “What is it this time? More dick picks from Walsh?”
Chrissie didn’t even bother to honor this with a response. She was already dialing Kat.
“Is everything okay, honey?” she asked the moment she heard her daughter’s “Finally” on the other end of the line. “What’s wrong? I’ve been driving so I had my phone on silent.”
“You’re driving?” came the hot retort.
Chrissie blinked at the vehemence in her daughter’s tone. Kat was given to emotional extremes most of the time, but this seemed a bit much, even for her.
“Well, yes. Aunt Scarlett and I are on a road trip, remember?”
“I know you’re on a road trip. One you said I wasn’t invited to join. Even though I apologized for the stupid vaping—which wasn’t even my fault, since I was only in the bathroom with the other girls for, like, two minutes—and begged you not to abandon me.”
“Whoa, there,” Chrissie interrupted before her daughter collapsed from asphyxiation. She hadn’t taken a breath in the entirety of that tirade. “Slow down. What’s this about? Did something happen between you and Lily? Or—Oh, no. It’s Rufio, isn’t it? What did he pee on? Was it very expensive?”
“Mom! Stop trying to change the subject. I saw the TikTok. The one of you playing piano.”
“Oh. You did?” Her first feeling was one of delight that her daughter had seen the video and been moved enough to actually call—a thing teenagers only did on major holidays and when their bank accounts were low.
Her second feeling was more anxious than anything else.
“What did you think of it? I’m a little rusty, obviously, but—”
“Who is that girl?”
Chrissie glanced over at River and Scarlett before she even realized what she was doing.
The pair of them were taking a selfie in front of a Welcome to Cokeville sign, a white substance powdered liberally under their noses.
Her motherly instincts recognized it on sight as eye shadow, but that didn’t make her appreciate the joke any more.
“Her name is River. She’s quite the singer, isn’t she?”
“Mom.”
“Kat,” she replied. It was the exact wrong thing to say.
“Do you have any idea how unfair this is?” Kat practically screeched. “I never get to go anywhere, especially with Aunt Scarlett. It’s such a scam. All the other kids have dads and grandparents and hordes of fun relatives, but all I have is you.”
As this was very much on trend with Kat’s mood lately, and Chrissie had promised herself that she would give her daughter as much space as she needed to experience said moods, she let this remark pass.
At least, she let it pass on the phone. The truth of it still stung.
“I can tell you’re upset, honey, but you have to understand my position—”
“No, Mom. You have to understand my position. You have no idea what it’s like being your daughter. I swear, I sometimes think the only reason you had a kid was so you’d have one person in your life who couldn’t leave you. Everyone else goes the second they can get free of you.”
That one stung even more. “Kat—”
“I’m not done yet,” Kat said through her teeth. “Not only did you refuse to take me on vacation with you the one time you actually do something interesting, but now you’re playing the piano with some random girl. How do you think that makes me feel? When you basically abandoned me?”
Chrissie knew it behooved her to tread warily.
Her relationship with Kat was already strained to the breaking point, their battles growing more and more pitched with every passing day.
The fact that she’d invoked Chrissie’s solitary state was clear proof of that.
Those accusations only came out when she was really hurting, and when her mean-girl streak saw no recourse but to lash out in the one way she knew would hurt Chrissie the most.
Still. She couldn’t help the next words from leaving her mouth. Apparently she was developing something of a mean streak herself.
“Sorry, kiddo, but you can’t call me boring in one breath and then demand my company in the other. You’re going to have to pick a lane.”
The scream this elicited was cut short by a low, soothing murmur in the background that calmed Chrissie by proximity. And when a voice returned to the other end of the line, it didn’t belong to her daughter.
“I tried to get her to wait and call you once she’d cooled down a little, but you know Kat,” Walsh said with a chuckle. “She’s fire and ice, that girl. I’ve never known anyone to throw herself wholeheartedly into life the way she does.”
Chrissie glanced over at her friend again. Scarlett and River had given up on their cocaine photos and had moved on to ordering what looked to be every single item on the menu offered by the outdoor café.
“I know someone else exactly like that,” she said, sighing.
“I’m sorry. I could’ve handled that a lot better.
My only excuse is that I’m operating on about three hours of sleep right now.
Other than my daughter adding one more item to the list of things to hold against me for the rest of my life, how’s it going? How are you?”
Walsh’s rich chuckle sounded again. Chrissie wasn’t sure why, but that sound was the only thing keeping her from breaking into exhausted, bitter tears right now.
“If you ignore the part where I share Kat’s outrage about not knowing what a phenomenal piano player you are, I’m fine.
I hope you don’t mind, but I bought Rufio one of those little Astroturf rugs they sell at Costco.
We’re working on changing our bathroom preference from my living room rug to the plastic grass.
So far, we’re at about a negative 3 percent success rate. ”
There were several things in that statement requiring Chrissie’s attention, but as was almost always the case where this man was concerned, she latched onto the wrong one.