Chapter 9 #2
When she notices my attention, she says, “Yeah, I know. Kid blows my mind regularly.” She looks back to Jameson and adds, “You’re welcome to spend time with him any time you want to grace us all with your presence?—”
“I thought you were running late,” Tommy says to her. “Go. I got him.” Waving her off, he looks at Nash. “Want to help me in the workshop? I’ve got a project I need to finish and could use another set of hands.”
She drums her fingers on the counter and says, “Alright, Nashie baby, I’m off to make the world a greater place.”
Jameson makes a sound that has her casually flipping him off as she rushes out the door after kissing Nash’s head.
“Julian, want to join us?” Tommy asks. “There’re some tools you might know a little something about. Belonged to an old friend, hasn’t been here in a while, but you might put them to use. If you’re going to be here a bit longer, that is.”
I pour out the rest of the coffee in the sink and place the ceramic mug into the dishwasher.
“I’ll be here a bit longer,” I say to him.
“I’m going to stop in town, see if I can get my hands on some materials.
” My inbox and missed calls from galleries had been piling up for a while, but I haven’t felt inspired to do anything original for a long while now.
My creative well dried up when my father passed, then ten months ago, I walked into a bar and met a woman.
And it woke up something in me again. I’ve been so focused on finishing out the favors owed from the cleaning business that making something beautiful has been the last thing on my mind.
And then I woke up this morning and thought maybe it’s time to shift focus again.
The bed-and-breakfast isn’t far from the main strip of what’s considered downtown Rumor.
Tommy advised that I take a walk instead of drive.
The way my shirt is sticking to me as sweat slicks my back, I know that from now on, late August in Tennessee means that I drive.
I glance at the dark-green train car and the gold lettering along its side: Moonie’s Coffee and Pies.
The bell on the door chimes loudly, and an older man calls out, “Take any seat that’s open.
” When I move to a seat at the end of the counter, he does a double take.
“You look just like your father,” the man with the gray handlebar mustache says from behind the counter.
His hunter-green polo shirt with the popped collar and Moonie’s scrolled across the left side matches the small space.
I look around me, because I know he can’t be talking to me.
My father had clearly been to Rumor a few times, but he never would’ve lingered long enough to be seen somewhere like this.
He’s probably rolling in whatever afterlife he’s in right now, watching me stick around for over twenty-four hours after a job.
I run my hand along the back of my neck and tug at the length at my nape.
“I don’t think you’re talking about me or my father, friend. ”
“Sure I am. Last name is Colton, right?” He flips over a coffee mug in front of me and holds up the freshly brewed pot.
I pause, before giving him a nod, signaling for him to pour. The name Mickey is embroidered in cursive along the left chest of his shirt.
“Oh, I never forget a name or a face.” He nods slowly.
“Yeah, your dad was an early morning customer. I was never sure if he was coming or going. Took him a while to say much, but he mentioned you a few times. A son who had more talent on his worst day than he ever had on his prolific ones,” he says, pointing at me.
“I always assumed he was here for someone instead of something,” he says, shrugging a shoulder.
“But rumors stayed mostly quiet about him.”
What the fuck, Dad?
Mickey doesn’t need to know the real reason my father was here, but it was always for someone.
Specifically, someone who was killed, and whomever did it needed him to clean it up.
I never knew the origin of most of my father’s or grandfather’s colleagues; how they determined the acceptability of lines being crossed.
At the core of it, our family chose the idea that the lines of right and wrong would always be deeply gray and widely blurred.
It was how the jewelry business began—my grandfather would sometimes do a favor for a favor, but often he’d need to be paid for his “expertise.” Fine jewelry became his currency.
And the Colton men learned how to flip what we were given into something different, sell it, and live comfortably.
A few people have taken seats around the small counter as the man comes back, interrupting my thoughts. “People don’t come to Rumor for very long. They tend to either grow up here and stay or simply pass through. And once they leave, rarely do they come back.”
A bald man with round eyeglasses chimes in. “Except the oldest Crowne girl. She came back, alright.”
Wyn.
“Where was she?” I ask, despite knowing exactly where she was.
“Dead, apparently,” Mickey answers.
I can’t help but laugh at that. I take a sip of my coffee, but when I look back up around the counter at each of them, their faces are dead serious. It tracks with her being in Hideaway.
Mickey shakes his head and runs his fingers through his handlebar ’stache.
“That’s not an exaggeration. Her family didn’t believe she was gone for good, but the town held a vigil for her along the green.
She was a missing person, and then most assumed she was dead.
That all happened over the course of a year, maybe.
And then two more after that, she shows up . . . not dead.”
Pieces are starting to make more sense, but with it comes a whole new host of questions.
I needed to see Wyn, but I really needed answers from Birdie.
She had been expecting my father, and truthfully, I needed to understand how often he was coming out this way.
Repeat jobs were one thing, but for someone to recognize me because of my father is a whole other story.
A small round cake covered in strawberries and a thick cream slides in front of me.
“That right there is an original Moonie’s pie,” a woman with a slicked-back black bun says just before she stalks through the swinging doors to the kitchen. Luna is embroidered along her shirt.
“Thank you, ma’am. Looks delicious,” I say, digging right into it.
“Not to be confused with the disaster that is known as the Moon Pie. Heathens stole our thunder . . .” she calls out. “It’s not even a pie; it’s a glorified s’more.”
The bald man at the end of the bar mumbles, “Here we go . . .” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Y’all don’t need to shit all over a Tennessee legacy. They didn’t steal nothin’—”
“Fuck off, Fred,” the other two say in unison.
They remind me of the banter at the bar in Montana, and that has me thinking about the woman who smiled to herself every time her friends volleyed their conversations.
“I’m just telling my new friend . . .” Luna pops her head out from the kitchen. She leaves an opening for me to add my name, and before I think better of it, I say, “Julian.”
“Julian has never been here, which means the man deserves a little bit of an education.”
Mickey’s mustache shakes in amusement before he says, “My sister is passionate about our legacy. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“I know a few things about family legacies,” I say before taking another bite.
Mickey tosses a dish towel over his shoulder and says, “Family legacies are important. My family had its ugly bits, but I don’t regret a single day standing by my sister and running this place with her.”
“You can’t still be stuck on Moon Pies now, can you?
” A woman with a watered-down New York accent sidles up to the counter next to me.
“You’re new.” She crosses her hands on the counter and adds, “I’ll have a mimosa, Mickey.
” Holding up her fingers, she pinches them together. “Just a splash of juice in this one.”
The mustache tips up to one side as he pulls out the same ceramic mug that I have and pours her a cup of regular coffee. “Cora,” he says. “Regular or decaf?”
I run my hand along my mouth, stifling the smile.
“Prosecco or Moscato,” she breathes out. “Either will do.”
A moment later, a small dish of individually packed creamers slides in front of her, along with sugar packets. “Cora Billings, we’re fresh out of mimosas.”
“Bloody Mary?” she asks hopefully, and the lightheartedness of it is entertaining.
Mickey crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head.
“Fucking small towns,” she mumbles under her breath, and a part of me can absolutely agree. “I hope you’re not planning to stay in this one too long. The brunch beverage selection is bullshit.”
“Cora, are you drunk?”
She holds her hand up in front of her mouth, opening her eyes wide. “Drunk brunch is the only way to brunch.”
I turn to her and say, “What was your name again?” I’m almost positive Mickey said her last name is Billings. The “missing” cop’s wife.
As if on cue, she hiccups, then smiles at me. “I think it can be whatever you’d like for it to be, handsome.”
Jesus Christ.
“Do you want me to call Stan?” Mickey asks.
“Stan will not be coming to the phone right now. Thank goddesses.” She shifts closer to me. Yellow splotches peek out from beneath her right eye, like a bruise is finishing healing. “Plus, my new friend was just about to tell me his name, weren’t you?”
I shift on my stool and flash her a smile. “Julian Colton,” I tell her.
She pats my forearm. I can imagine there’s more to this woman’s story. The fading bruises and mid-day inebriation could all have innocent origins, but I know now that the body I erased, the reason Birdie and Lu Crowne brought me here, was not just a cop, but also this woman’s husband.
“Well, Julian Colton, I’m Cora Billings. Now tell me, what brings you to our small town?”