Chapter 14
The sound of Traci’s voice—the recently acquired creamy, nuanced accent of a card-carrying country club Junior Leaguer—triggered something in Shannon.
“We need to talk,” she said abruptly.
“So talk. I’m listening.”
“I meant in person. Livvy’s in the next room. She’s already pissed at me for interfering.”
“Shannon, I’ve had a long, brutal day. I just want to take off my bra, run a bath, and get in bed with a book. I frankly don’t see what difference—”
“You owe me this much,” Shannon said, cutting her off. “Meet me at Pour Willy’s. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
Traci let out a long, aggrieved sigh. “I need twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes. Back booth,” Shannon said, and she disconnected.
Shannon hadn’t been back to their old hangout in years. Not much had changed. Loud tunes blared from the jukebox. The same old neon Pabst Blue Ribbon signs blinked in the windows. It was a weeknight, so no bouncer met her at the door. Or maybe they didn’t have bouncers now? The floor was still sticky; probably hadn’t been mopped since the last time she was here. She hadn’t been to any bars since she quit drinking, but as soon as she pushed open the heavy wooden door at Pour Willy’s, Shannon found herself craving a beer.
“You don’t really want a drink,” she scolded herself as she shouldered through the throngs of young people standing three deep at the bar, waving away the haze of cigarette smoke. The county had adopted a ban on indoor smoking years earlier, but the news had apparently escaped the crowd here.
The back booth, their booth—the one just past the jukebox, closest to the bathroom—was occupied by a gaggle of college girls with a table full of sickly-sweet-looking parasol drinks. Back in her day, you’d have been bounced out of the place if you’d asked for anything other than a shot or a beer. These chicks were all sloppy drunk and definitely underaged.
Shannon fixed the kid seated at the near edge of the booth with an icy stare. The girl’s makeup was smeared and her eyes were glassy. She looked up at the stranger with a goofy grin.
“Heyyyy. What’s up?”
“I need to see some ID,” Shannon said, holding out her hand.
“You’re not a cop,” one of the girls piped up. “If you’re a cop, show us your badge.”
This one had dyed red hair cut short to the scalp with half a dozen visible piercings—nose, upper lip, ears, and God knows where else. Shannon reached over and grabbed the girl’s arm, deliberately spilling her drink.
“Heyyyy!” the girl protested, yanking her arm away.
“Damn straight I’m not a cop. I’m from the county beverage control board. I need to see a valid ID from every one of you little juvenile delinquents. Then I’m going to call the cops, who’ll arrest all of y’all for being minors in possession,” Shannon announced.
“You can’t do that,” the mouthy redhead shot back. She pointed her cell phone at Shannon, but Shannon was quicker and plucked it out of her hand.
“Oh, look,” Shannon said. “I just did it.” She tossed the phone into the pool of booze.
“Shut up, Marlee,” a blond girl at the other side of the booth said. “Come on, y’all. Let’s go. If I get caught drinking again my dad will never let me off restriction.”
One by one, the girls scooted out of the booth. Marlee took her own sweet time. When she stood, she deliberately bumped against Shannon. “See you next Tuesday,” she said loudly.
A woman’s voice whispered in her ear. “Nicely done, Shan.”
She whirled around. Traci was standing beside the bathroom door, laughing as the teenagers filed past.
She was dressed in a pale pink tank top that displayed tanned, trim arms; white leggings; and those pricey Jack Rogers sandals that showed off a French pedicure. Her streaky blond hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and her makeup was flawless.
Shannon, on the other hand, was squeezed into a pair of shredded jeans, a Mumford Sons concert tee, and flip-flops. Her right-outta-the-box auburn hair color needed touching up, and the only makeup she wore was some Carmex lip balm.
Traci set two beers on the table the girls had just vacated and sat down at the booth.
Shannon sat on the opposite side, but pushed one of the beers away. “I don’t drink.”
“Since when?” Traci took a sip of her beer.
“None of your business. Just so you know, this isn’t a reunion, and it’s not a social call. I just need you to un-hire my kid.”
“Un-hire. That’s a novel concept. Just out of curiosity, why would I do that?”
“Why would you hire her to work at the Saint? Did you wake up this week and just decide to push my buttons, after all these years?”
Traci laughed. “I know you might find this hard to believe, Shan, but not everything is about you. I happened to take my niece Parrish to lunch at BluePointe earlier this week. They’re obviously understaffed, like everybody I know in the hospitality business, and frankly, not very well managed. But our server was excellent. When she figured out the kitchen had screwed up our order, she apologized and tried to make things right. I offered her a job on the spot and didn’t figure out until she told me her name that she was your daughter.”
Shannon leaned against the back of the booth. “Livvy doesn’t want to work at the Saint. And she definitely doesn’t want to work for any member of the Eddings family.”
“She’s a grown-up. I think she can tell me that herself, if it’s true, which I doubt. She recognized my name as soon as I handed her my business card, so she knew who I was. She called me back that same night to accept the job, which was a huge relief.”
“Why are you doing this? There are hundreds of kids looking for jobs in this town. Hire one of them. Hire one of those little idiots I just chased outta here.”
Traci cocked one eyebrow. “Did Olivia tell you I’m paying her two dollars an hour more than her previous employer? Giving her a signing bonus? And providing her with free on-site housing? I’d think you’d be glad for her to have an opportunity like this.”
“An opportunity to be exploited? To be preyed on by assholes and jerks like your other employees, or even worse, your ‘member- guests’? And oh yeah, tell me about this posh ‘dorm situation’ you expect my kid to live in. I heard it’s actually the old golf cart barn.”
Shannon gripped the edge of the tabletop with both hands. She really, really wanted a beer, or any kind of a buzz that would help her calm down and resist the urge to lean across the table and pluck out Traci’s luxuriously long eyelashes one by one.
“So that’s what this is really about,” Traci said finally. “It’s not about Olivia at all. It’s about you, and your grievance with Hoke’s family. And me. Twenty-one years later, and you’re still pissed that you got fired instead of me after that little boy drowned, even though I tried to tell everyone who’d listen that it wasn’t your fault. I even went to Hoke’s dad and begged him to listen to me, but he’d already made up his mind.”
She leaned across the table. “Shan, we were best friends. Or, I thought we were. I told you everything that was going on in my life. About my dad losing his job and my mom’s breast cancer. I even told you about my dad’s affair—which I never told anybody about. My own husband never knew about it until years later! I told you the first time Hoke kissed me, and the first time we did it. But you? I didn’t even know you were dating anybody, let alone sneaking around and sleeping with some guy. You didn’t even tell me you were pregnant. You completely cut me out of your life.”
Traci’s blue eyes bored into hers.
“You wouldn’t have understood,” Shannon said. “I know you, Traci. You would have judged me. Or tried to talk me into getting rid of the baby. My life was complicated enough.”
“See!” Traci threw her hands into the air. “I would never have judged you. Never! I mean, neither of us were virgins. So what? Maybe if you’d trusted me, just a little…”
Shannon released her grip on the table and took a deep breath. “You’re wrong about this being about me. I want Liv to have better choices and make better decisions than me. Her going to work—and live—at the Saint, working for the Eddingses? No. Livvy doesn’t need that.”
“What is your deal with my in-laws?” Traci demanded.
“You crossed over to the dark side when you married into that family,” Shannon insisted. “What they did to me was totally unfair. That kid, Hudson? He was at the pool nearly every day that summer. He swam like a fish. So how did he suddenly drown? And why did I get the blame? I was doing my goddamn job, getting everyone out of that pool.”
“I don’t disagree,” Traci said quietly. “You got screwed over.”
“The old man paid off people to keep their mouths shut and look the other way after Hudson. There was no police investigation. It didn’t even make the news,” Shannon said.
Traci drained the last of her beer. “You’re still blaming me for something I had no control over. I’m not them, Shannon. Yes, I agree, the old man was and is a horrible person. And if it makes you feel any better, he’s dying and has nothing to do with the day-to-day at the Saint. Ric is also a piece of shit, but he’s on the real estate side of the business. He didn’t hire Olivia. I did. I’m the one running the Saint, and I’m the one that will see to it that Olivia and our other new hires, including Ric’s daughter Parrish, are treated fairly.”
“Riiiight,” Shannon drawled.
“Okay, I’m done here,” Traci said, standing up. She threw a ten-dollar bill onto the table. “By the way, if you want to check out the new dorm, be my guest. Gimme a heads-up and I’ll leave you a pass at the security gate.”
Shannon watched as Traci wove her way through the crowd of twenty- and thirtysomethings, still turning heads as she went. “See you next Tuesday,” she muttered.