Chapter Two
T hey say hair holds memories, so Brooke cut hers off. She did a cheeky little spin next to the marble-topped kitchen island. This would steam up her mother hotter than the coffee in her hand. Years of learning had taught her that it was a better strategy to hit her mother in the face with what she’d done instead of trying to pass it off quietly. Cornelia’s anger lasted longer when she thought someone was trying to trick her.
Just like the split ends and bleached blond mistakes that currently lay on the floor of a nearby salon, Brooke’s old life was a thing of the past. Her new life of being genuinely sweet and lovely to everyone was about to begin. Her hair sat blunt above her shoulders instead of tangling down to the small of her back, and already she felt wiser, more mature. All she needed was to wash in a box of brown dye to match her outgrown roots, and she’d be a whole new person.
Brooke’s mother was less than thrilled that her daughter had moved back home, and the new hairstyle served to make it worse. If Cornelia didn’t have a mouth full of hot coffee, she might’ve said a curse word. Those, of course, were to be saved for the most extreme situations. It had always been that way—anything unsavory in Cornelia Callaway Warter’s life was to be pointedly ignored. Therefore, she continued to sip at the spot on her mug where her lipstick stained the rim, and refused to look at her daughter. Cornelia firmly believed that girls with blue eyes must have blond hair. She’d been paying to have her daughter’s hair professionally highlighted since the tender age of four.
“It’s much better now, isn’t it, Cornelia?” Brooke said. “Don’t I look classy?” Brooke would never tell her that one of the reasons she’d gone to the salon was because she hadn’t washed her hair for a week—unless rinsing it in ocean water counted as clean.
Her mother said nothing, but her lips were pursed with wrinkles appearing all around them like a sunburst.
Finally, after Brooke ate an entire biscuit, egg, and sausage breakfast in silence, Cornelia spoke up. “You fixed the sheets on the guest bed?” Almost everything the woman said sounded like a question that should end in right ?
“Yes, Cornelia. I made the bed.” The same bed she’d slept in for eighteen of her twenty-three years was now the guest bed. Instead of a frilly pink comforter and stuffed animals piled in the corner, every piece of her childhood, including her collectible concert posters and school awards, had been taken off the walls and replaced with watercolors of magnolia flowers that perfectly matched the green-and-white bedcover.
Brooke walked out of the kitchen, past the double staircase, toward the extra tall and wide front door. There was no Have a good first day of work , or It’s so nice to have you home. Brooke yelled “Goodbye” because she knew she’d be in trouble if she didn’t. There was no answer. It was just as it always was with Cornelia—orders and judgment. All the time.
If she’d had a choice, Brooke would have happily stayed a two-hour drive away in Savannah. But since she’d abruptly left her job, her apartment, and Gates, that was no longer an option. Her little white Audi was parked by the front door where she’d left it when she arrived last night. It was still filled to the top with everything she owned, right down to the bathroom trash can. It had all been festering and stinking in there for a week. A week she took for herself. A week she didn’t plan to tell anyone about.
There was no guessing how long her parents, Cornelia and Trigger, would let her stay. But none of that mattered now; all of her focus needed to be on her new job at one of the only businesses on the island aside from Salty Dot’s food truck and Fred’s old gas station. The Saltwater Winery had been open only a few years and was already a big draw for tourists in their rental cars, driving all the way across Goose Island to the very tip by the oyster beds. A retired couple had planted grape vines years ago, and there’d been pushback ever since. The locals would call her a traitor, but she needed a job, she wanted to be near Jessa, and the Saltwater Winery was hiring.
She’d driven about twenty yards down the long driveway when she spotted a white-haired woman in a blue bathrobe moving barefoot and apparition-like among the Spanish moss-draped oaks. Brooke rolled down her window and waved. “Nana!”
Nana had always been spry. She practically skipped over to the car. She may have been in a bathrobe, but her eyebrows were drawn on and her cottony hair was pulled back into her signature black-ribboned short ponytail. “Who are you?” she asked, leaning down to look Brooke square in the face.
“You know who I am, Nana.”
“I don’t believe I do.”
“I’m your granddaughter—Brooke.”
“Hmm. Let me get a good look at you.” She squinted in at her, while Brooke smiled sweetly. “Yes, you do have a familiar face.”
Brooke shook her head. Nana was not truly forgetful, she was just having the time of her life pretending. “I’ll see you at supper, Nana. I’ve got to get to work now.”
“Well, all right, then. Welcome home, sweetheart.” Nana reached in and touched a small, misshapen hand to Brooke’s shoulder. “It’s meatloaf night.”
Even though her best friend was the manager, Brooke was still shaky with nerves as she walked past the wooden picnic tables and cornhole games to the low-slung tin-roofed building of the Saltwater Winery. She wore her best jeans and a tank top, knowing that she’d be given a branded winery T-shirt. Today she was supposed to shadow a coworker and learn the different types of wines. With a deep breath, she knocked on the locked front door. It was nine A.M. and they didn’t open until ten. No one came to the door, so she knocked again, wondering if she was supposed to find an employee entrance around the back somewhere. A male voice yelled, “We’re closed!”
“I’m Brooke Warter,” she said into the crack between the double front doors. “I’m the new employee.”
The door opened and an unsmiling older man said, “I don’t know where Jessa’s at.”
Brooke didn’t ask his name. He didn’t seem open to conversation. “Is it okay if I come in?”
He left the door open and walked away. That did not bode well. Jessa failed to mention that they would be working with a rude, unfriendly grump. Brooke stood in the middle of the gift shop in the dark. The man had disappeared so fast, she didn’t see which way he went.
“Jessa?” Brooke called, walking past a huge metal tree with empty Saltwater wine bottles slid onto each limb. Against the rustic wooden walls were shelves lined with bottle openers, T-shirts, and charcuterie boards. It smelled musty, with a lingering light floral aroma of women’s perfume. Had it come from the grouchy man wearing dirty jeans and a ball cap? She’d caught a whiff of honeysuckle, or maybe jasmine, as soon as he walked away.
“Jessa?” she called again, her voice more urgent. There was no answer. Not one piece of her wanted to walk farther into that building where she might be confronted with the old man again, so she turned around and walked back out the front door.
Jessa had told her that their coworkers were great, that they’d all be friends, and that they were going to have an epic summer working together. It was supposed to be the adult version of their old days at Camp Dogwood, where fun was planned from sunup to sundown. The winery even had cats roaming around, which was a reminder that it was a more casual, farm-like winery, not the kind that refused entrance without a coat and tie or at least a platinum American Express card. Outside, there was a large sign with a photo of people holding wineglasses and dancing under the stars. It was pasted to the side of the building inviting everyone to Music Among the Vines every Friday night. To the left of the building, swings hung in the old oaks just barely longer than the airy moss draping the limbs, and wine-barrel cocktail tables dotted the grounds next to picnic tables and an assortment of tall, colorful metal bottle trees. There was cornhole, bocce, little slant-roofed outhouses, and even an overflowing fenced-off garden with a sign above the gate that said Amelia’s Patch of Happiness . The grounds had grown and blossomed since she’d last been there, as if the place were getting comfortable with itself.
The more Brooke looked around, the more she forgot about the rude man who smelled like flowers.
As she neared the corner of the large, low building, Jessa’s voice rang out. “Watch out, here they come!”
What was coming? Guests? She didn’t even have her Saltwater Winery T-shirt yet. She heard the scratchy scuttle followed by a cacophony of clucking. From the backside of the building, running at full speed, came a brood of the fluffiest Silkie chickens she’d ever seen. It was a chatty blur of feathery feet and crested heads as they ran right past her to their favorite pecking grounds and immediately went to work. Jessa wasn’t far behind.
“Oh, good! You’re here!” Brooke ran up and gave her old friend a hug.
Jessa had always been the pretty one. Carolina Jessamine was her name, after the South Carolina state flower. She could have won any state beauty pageant and, if there was a contest for sweet, she could’ve won that too. To look at her was to believe she had it all. But Brooke knew better. If it weren’t for the fact that Jessa didn’t, in fact, have it all, Brooke would probably hate her.
“I’m gonna introduce you to Skip and June before we get started with the wines,” Jessa said, leading the way toward the acres of vineyards.
“Is Skip the guy who opened the door for me?” Brooke asked.
“Is he missing a leg?” Jessa asked, laughing. “He does get in every now and then.”
“No, I don’t think so. He wasn’t very friendly—”
Jessa chuckled. “Was he black and white?”
They were almost to a white-fenced area where Brooke saw clearly what Jessa was talking about. A handmade wooden sign on the gate said Skip and June , and inside were two friendly goats. One was black and white and missing a front leg. “That must be Skip,” Brooke said.
“Yep.”
“So, who was the grumpy guy who opened the door for me?”
“Had to be Duke,” Jessa said. “You haven’t met him before? He’s the owner. But don’t worry, we usually don’t see him. He tries to leave before the guests arrive.”
Brooke leaned against the fence. The place was beautiful, but it was—a lot. “Jess. I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Aw, honey. You’re just pouring wine for guests. It’s easy. All you have to do is smile and pour.” Jessa put a skinny arm across Brooke’s shoulders. “And in between, we’ll have fun. Just like our old camp days.”
Brooke left Camp Dogwood, or as they liked to call it “The Dog,” long ago, taking with her the one thing she should have left there. Gates Lancaster. She had no business trying to go back in time. But the truth was, she hated being alone. Since she left Savannah, she’d been weepy and filled with regret. So what if Gates didn’t feel like the man she should spend her life with? At least he’d stuck with her. He might have even loved her. Maybe that’s what love and marriage was—simply choosing someone who was willing. The whole idea of soulmates might very well be a hoax.
By the end of the day, Brooke had learned to describe the varieties of muscadine and scuppernong wines by their intended purposes: Porch Pounders, BBQ wines, picnic wines, dinner wines, and dessert wines. Just like the grapes, the scuppernongs were white and the muscadines were red, but it was going to take forever to learn the details—which wines paired best with warm brie and pears, or lamb, venison, or pheasant, which had notes of caramel and butterscotch or dark cherry, vanilla, violet, elderberry, or loquat. It wasn’t long before her new white T-shirt had splash stains of red, as did her formerly clean tennis shoes. But at least she’d survived. Watching people enjoy themselves on that early summer day had been a great distraction. She wasn’t on her phone looking back on photos of Gates Lancaster from the past seven years or stalking his newly cleaned up Instagram page—the one that no longer included photos of her.
“You wanna come eat supper at the truck with me?” Jessa asked. “Mama parked out by the Baptist church today.”
“Can’t. It’s meatloaf night. Cornelia would kill me.” They were walking to the dirt parking lot together, her feet throbbing from a day spent standing. Even though it meant sitting down, she still dreaded getting back into her overstuffed car. She couldn’t be bothered to unload everything when she’d just have to pack it up as soon as she found an alternate place to stay.
“You know my mama is dying to see you,” Jessa said. “She’s been talking up a storm. Said she had a vision of you as a hot dog. That woman has officially lost her mind.”
Brooke stopped walking. “Dottie saw me as a hot dog?”
“Street meat is actually what she said.”
“Jessa.” Brooke shivered. “I dressed up as a hot dog for Halloween.” It had been a mistake, one of her many regrets. “I thought I was being funny. I didn’t want to be a sexy nurse or devil or, you know. Anyway, Gates hated it. Said I embarrassed him.”
“Do you think that’s why he broke up with you?”
“He didn’t break up with me, Jess. We both ended it. Well, me more than him, but it was still mutual.”
Jessa looked back toward the winery, like she was checking to make sure no one else was around. “What happened?”
“I had a surprise birthday party for him.” Brooke was tired of thinking about it. “He knew about it, and he didn’t come home. He left me there to be humiliated.”
“Who was the girl?”
“There wasn’t a girl. He just didn’t want to spend his birthday with me. He was literally sitting alone at a bar.”
“I have trouble believing that.”
“It makes sense to me, Jess. We didn’t want to be together anymore.” The loneliness that had been living like a brick in her chest moved to her stomach with a nauseating shift. Who was she, if not Gates Lancaster’s girlfriend?
“It’s sad,” Jessa said. “I thought y’all were it since The Dog days. Figured I’d be carrying flowers at your wedding.”
“Well, I guess I’ll be carrying flowers at yours.”
“Very funny. You know I hate men.”
“Still?”
“What I have is a lifelong affliction.” Jessa motored on, leaving Brooke standing there. “You can’t trust any of them. Not one.”
Brooke knew she’d hit a nerve. Jessa had a daddy-shaped hole in her heart that would never heal. Not only did she not know who her father was, her sister, Tulip, didn’t either. Dottie made no secret about the fact that she chose her baby daddies based on what kind of kids she wanted—Carolina Jessamine was born to be beautiful, and Tulip was born to be smart. Brooke feared that Dottie didn’t even realize that she got so much more. Her daughters were not just smart and beautiful, they had the kind of grit that comes from knowing on a cellular level that the only person they could truly count on was themselves. They had Dottie, each other, and several years ago, they gained their uncle Fred when he moved to the island. But that was it. And, having only three family members in all of the world probably felt like one big wind could knock them over.
“Thanks for giving me this job, Jess,” Brooke said. “I mean it.”
“You know, if Libby wasn’t working marketing, I’d have given you that job. But with only a week’s notice, I didn’t have much available.”
“I’m just happy to have a paycheck.” Brooke had been using her social media management degree back in Savannah. She shook her head at the irony. She was great at crisis management until it came to her own life. “Hold up. Jess, did you say Libby ? Please tell me you’re not talking about Libby Trotter.”
Jessa nodded, opening the door to her car. “Y’all are good now, right?”
“I mean, I haven’t seen her in like ten years.”
“Well, she’s still Libby, but not as bad as she used to be.”
Brooke walked two cars over to her jam-packed Audi, spewing words under her breath that would make her mother faint clean away.
“I just can’t fathom that she’d bug you anymore,” Jessa said. “Y’all are grown-ups now.”
Ah, but there were no real grown-ups. People over the age of eighteen were just varying levels of child/adult hybrids. With just the mention of Libby Trotter, all the feelings of a bullied little girl came rushing back. “Right. Okay.” She climbed into her car. “See you tomorrow.” She hoped she’d sounded sweet as she sat in stunned silence.
So, Libby Trotter was back in her life. If she’d known that was going to be the case, she might have fought to stay with Gates.