Chapter Two
She felt someone touch her shoulder and her eyes opened to see Terrence Wester kneeling beside her.
A scratching loop was throbbing through her headphones like a heartbeat. The needle had reached the end of the album while she’d slept, and hadn’t returned to the start. She sat up and pulled the headphones off, then reached over to turn the player off.
Terrence stood and took a step back, giving her space. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
But she wasn’t startled. His very presence was like waking up in a sunbeam, warm and completely predictable.
“I knocked first. Your grandmother sent me up to get you for dinner.”
“Shit,” Wills said. “Okay. I need to change.”
He nodded and started to leave.
“No, just turn around. If you go downstairs first, she’ll know I wasn’t ready.”
As soon as he faced the door, she took off her gauchos and shirt, then put on a short pink floral dress. “Okay, let’s go,” she said, grabbing the loafers that pinched her toes and leading the way to the staircase.
Gram was seated at the head of the table when they entered the formal dining room. Terrence pulled out Wills’s chair for her, then took a seat beside her.
Gram liked entertaining. The cocktail parties she’d hosted as a young woman were still talked about, how she’d decorated with fringed bunting and served tiny stuffed tomatoes on toothpicks.
But Terrence was her only excuse these days.
She’d done her job intimidating people a little too well and no one enjoyed themselves when she invited them over now, so she’d eventually stopped.
“Mrs. Orr made frosted meat loaf tonight,” she said with a flourish.
Wills and Terrence exchanged glances. Frosted meat loaf sounded horrible.
Gram reached behind her and took a small, avocado-green plastic box from the sideboard.
It contained the Betty Crocker photo recipe cards she got on subscription every month, which she thought was the epitome of elegance.
She forced Mrs. Orr to make a different recipe every week for dinner when Terrence visited.
It was yet another way Gram brought the outside world to her, because Hen Town had no good restaurants, and certainly no fast food.
Wills was going to change that when she inherited the Wester assets.
New businesses needed to be allowed here.
And new people needed to move here. A kingdom had to be populated, it had to have attractions, otherwise what was the point?
Wills would eventually have nothing to rule over if she went by Gram’s playbook.
“Here’s a preview of coming attractions,” Gram said, handing Terrence the recipe card.
Wills leaned over, and she was as relieved as he looked that the photo on the card showed the meat loaf wasn’t actually iced with sugary cake frosting. The square loaf was iced with mashed potatoes, making it look like a crusty white brick.
“That looks fascinating, Alice,” he said, handing the card back to her.
“I hope it will be good. I wish Mrs. Orr were more proficient in the kitchen.”
This was timed just as Mrs. Orr came out of the kitchen with the platter. She set it on the table with a clatter, then left the room without a word.
After dinner, as she usually did, Gram told Wills and Terrence to go for a walk to give them some time alone.
“Another adventurous meal,” Terrence said when they reached the sidewalk and headed east.
Wills laughed. “When Gram is gone, Mrs. Orr will be out of here faster than you can say boo.”
“Do you like to cook?”
Wills thought about it. “I don’t know. I’ve never really tried. But I wish there were more places to eat out here.”
“Our housekeeper taught me how to cook when I was a boy, a skill that saved me in college.”
Terrence’s father had died when he was a baby.
Wills had met his mother once, and she was definitely a cold fish.
Wills had always wondered how she’d managed to raise this sweet man.
But maybe she hadn’t. Maybe the housekeeper had.
She didn’t actually know very much about him.
They were third or fourth cousins, so far removed that calling themselves family was a stretch.
After a flurry of correspondence with people she knew, Gram had landed on him as a suitable candidate to marry Wills, partly for his disposition, but mostly because his name was Wester.
Gram didn’t want her direct line to lose their name.
He’d been raised in Charlotte, but had gone to college in Chapel Hill.
He’d graduated last year and now worked in a bank.
The first time Wills met him, she felt nothing at all.
Gram said that was exactly what she’d intended.
She believed that when a man made you feel too much of anything, it changed something inside you.
And women already did too much changing in relationships.
She once said, Even if everyone says you’re special, the wrong man will make you doubt it.
Wills had the feeling Gram had been married to one such man. She never talked about him.
They’d just rounded the block and Wills had taken off her uncomfortable loafers when she caught sight of Jani’s car heading toward them. Jani slowed to a stop and reached across the seat to roll down the passenger-side window.
“You got your Datsun running,” Wills said.
“Yeah. My dad did something to it when he got home from work,” Jani responded vaguely. “I’ll pick you and Dorothy up for school like usual tomorrow. Hello, Terrence.”
“Good to see you, Jani.”
“You better put on your shoes, Wills. This may be a dead zone, but your grandmother would have a fit if she knew you were barefoot in public.” Jani then took off, breezing through the stop sign at the corner.
“What did she mean by dead zone?” Terrence asked.
“Nothing.” Terrence nodded and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, not pressing her.
That made Wills sigh. “Gram has a way of finding out if I’m doing something she doesn’t approve of, even if it’s just going barefoot on the sidewalk.
So ever since I was little, I’ve cataloged places she hasn’t found me out.
This street is one of those places. Piece Goods Shop downtown is another.
So are the school auditorium, the student parking lot, and the east field of the Holloway farm. ”
“Places where you can breathe,” Terrence remarked, and she was surprised he understood.
“If I had a car, I could probably figure out more. But I don’t mind too much.”
“I won’t say a word to your grandmother.”
And because it was Terrence, she knew that was true. He was safe. She could trust him.
There had to be something wrong with her. He was smart and handsome and probably the most decent person she’d ever met. Why wasn’t she attracted to him? She’d been more attracted to that young man in the band today, even though he was clearly not suitable, and maybe even a little bit dangerous.
Not that it mattered. He was long gone by now.
And she would always be here.
The next morning, Wills stood from the front steps when she saw Jani’s car come up the street. Gram always slept in, and she hated when Jani honked her horn.
She ran down the steep steps of the hill where the Wester House sat, and got to the sidewalk in time for Dorothy to get out of the passenger seat and hop in the back.
When Wills got in and Jani took off, Dorothy leaned forward and said, “You’ll never guess what Jani just told me.”
“What?” Wills turned to Jani.
Jani smiled, letting the tension stretch for a moment before she said, “So, you know how there was a catered lunch backstage for the band yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, my source told me—”
“What source?” Wills interrupted.
“Her aunt,” Dorothy said. Jani’s aunt was the school secretary.
“My source told me—”
“Told you, or your mother?” Wills asked.
“Jani secretly listened on the extension,” Dorothy explained.
Jani sighed and nearly sideswiped a car parked on the street. She was a terrible driver. Her next accident was going to bring down real trouble on her, and her parents’ insurance was already through the roof as it was. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
If only because she wanted them to get to school in one piece, Wills said, “Go on.”
“The band was drunk or high, or both. I don’t know.
But they were apparently pretty rowdy. During the lunch, Principal Penwell had to break up a fight between two of them, something about a student.
He never liked Andy Smooth anyway, back when he was the band director, so he told him he should leave.
Andy stormed out with the band. But here’s the good part.
A few minutes later, one of the band members walked back into the auditorium.
The fight had extended outside and Andy had taken all his things and thrown them from the van, then peeled out of the parking lot, leaving him.
And he’s still here. He’s staying with Principal Penwell. ”
“Who is it?” Wills asked, breathless, though she couldn’t understand why. None of this affected her personally. “Which band member?”
“The young one. Mustache. Dark hair. Big belt buckle.” Jani cut her eyes at Wills. “His name is Jack Vaughn.”
When they got to school and walked through the main entrance, there was an unexpected bottleneck where the school bulletin board was located. Students were gathered around two and three deep.
“What’s going on?” Jani asked, pushing forward in case it was something important the Feathers needed to be a part of. Wills and Dorothy followed in the path she made.
“The dude from the band is giving guitar lessons after school,” Wills heard someone say. She stopped short, but it was too late. They were now standing in front of him.
He didn’t look as rough as he did yesterday. His long hair was still damp from a shower, and he’d shaved and trimmed his mustache. He was wearing jeans and a camel-colored corduroy blazer, as if trying to blend into academia. It didn’t work.
“Do you ladies want to sign up?” he asked, using his thumb to indicate a sign-up sheet on the board. Despite the ruckus, there were only six names on it, probably because he was charging a fairly steep fee, for this area. “Limited-time offer, just until I make enough money to leave.”
“You and everybody else around here,” Jani said. “Except for Wills. She has money, but you’ll never see her leaving.”
“How about it?” he asked, meeting her eyes, and she literally took a step back, knocking into someone behind her.
“She plays piano, not guitar,” Jani immediately said, noticing something pass between them and obviously not liking it.
The warning bell for homeroom rang and everyone scattered like ants. Jani and Dorothy ran down the hallway, but Wills didn’t move. Jack leaned against the painted cinder block wall. “Wills,” he said. “I like that.”
“It’s Willamena to you.”
He grinned. “A rose by any other name.”
“You’re quoting Shakespeare?”
“Ouch. Don’t sound so surprised.” He lifted the pencil hanging on a string next to the sign-up sheet. He wiggled it as if trying to tempt her. She didn’t take it. “No? Shame.”
The pencil dropped and swung back and forth against the bulletin board like a clock pendulum. Time was running out, it seemed to say. She didn’t know what came over her, but she suddenly reached for it and put her name on the list before running down the hallway.
His laughter followed her.
How irritating. How wonderfully, intoxicatingly irritating.
Halfway down the hallway, she stopped and turned.
She walked backward for a few steps, watching him watch her.
She felt like a lake he’d thrown a pebble into, and the ripples were reverberating through every inch of her.
She finally gave him a small smile, then turned back around and ran into homeroom just as the final bell rang.
The moment Wills stepped through the door that afternoon, she heard Gram’s voice. “The school called. I understand you signed up for guitar lessons.”
Damn. She took a moment before walking into the living room. “There were only a few slots left. I was afraid they’d be filled by the time I could ask you.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to play guitar.” Gram indicated the grand piano across the room. “You don’t even sit at the piano anymore.”
Gram had arranged for CeCe Cecil to give lessons to Wills when she was seven, and they had lasted for six years.
CeCe wasn’t a piano teacher, but she played the church organ.
She’d declined at first, but Gram then invited her over and they had a long conversation.
Wills overheard something about Gram knowing about her stealing from the church coffers.
CeCe started giving Wills lessons the day after the black grand piano Gram ordered all the way from Atlanta was delivered.
CeCe was only allowed to stop when the arthritis in her knees made it hard for her to navigate the steep Wester House lawn steps. She quickly moved away after that.
“I love all music,” Wills said, hugging her books to her.
“I know you do.” It had been Gram, after all, who had coordinated and paid for Andy Smooth and the Silks to play at Hen Town High, after reading in the paper about him coming to play in Chapel Hill.
And she’d done it just for Wills, because Wills had once said she’d love to see a band live.
“But I don’t think this is appropriate.”
Wills hesitated, knowing she shouldn’t push. Gram gave her so much. It was greedy to want more. “The principal trusts him enough to let him give lessons in the auditorium after school, on the same days as band practice. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
“A guitar would give you calluses. And the days of Westers having callused hands are long gone,” Gram said, turning back to the television. “Your lovely hands are more suited to the piano.”
And that was that.