Chapter Three
G ates Lancaster was the best-looking guy in all of Camp Dogwood. Even in the fourth grade, there were distinguishing features that set him apart. The way he carried himself was probably the biggest. He didn’t have to worry about sitting alone at lunch because people clamored to be near him. He was chosen first for every team, every skit, every outing, and every girl’s crush. His parents redshirted him to give him an advantage in his youth soccer career, so he was a year older and three inches taller than everyone else, but he would have been the leader either way.
Brooke knew that leaving him and coming back home would be difficult, but she thought the hard part would be her parents. She hadn’t accounted for the memories that kept infiltrating her brain like a computer virus. She’d been the quiet girl, the under-the-radar camper, picked somewhere in the middle for sports teams, and completely dependent on her one friend, Jessa, to be her life preserver. When Gates Lancaster chose her, it was like Elvis Presley choosing a random fan from the audience. Out of a hundred girls at camp, she was the lucky one.
Brooke pulled into the long driveway, keeping an eye out for a sprightly old woman in a blue bathrobe. Nana very well might run out in front of the car. She’d done it before. The curtains were wide open in the dining room, and she could see her mother setting the table. Cornelia was of the generation that considered it rude to have your drapes drawn. Even setting the table was a show, whether someone was watching or not. People should be allowed to see into your home from the street. It was simply the gracious and neighborly thing to do. Brooke sighed and put her car into park. It was so much work to pretend like things were perfect all the time—exhausting to act like they had nothing to hide.
“Anna Brooke! Are your shoes on in this house?” Cornelia yelled when Brooke opened the front door. “And do not leave them by the door. Take them with you to the guest room.” The guest room—Cornelia’s code for communicating to Brooke that she was not allowed to overstay her welcome. It was an emotional sting every time she said it. “Wash up and come straight downstairs.”
The only people who still called her by both names were from her childhood. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She’d ditched the name Anna back in the sixth grade when she learned it was given to her in honor of one of her daddy’s many ex-girlfriends. Cornelia only allowed it, and then held on to it, to be a martyr. Brooke renewed her decision to leave all of her belongings in her car. She wouldn’t be staying long.
Nana traipsed her way to the main house from her backyard cottage promptly at six P.M. She wore a pink terrycloth house dress and bright pink lipstick to match. “Nana,” Cornelia said with a tone of surprise, “you look very nice tonight.” It was a definite improvement from some of her other ensembles.
Nana sat at the table and pulled the rubber band from her hair. “The elastic in this hairband is shot.” She threw it and its corresponding white hairs onto the middle of the beautifully set table. Her thin hair now stuck straight out on the sides like she’d used an entire can of hairspray.
Brooke knew from Cornelia’s tight expression that she was hoping no one could see her mother-in-law’s hair from the street. Brooke grabbed the rubber band and stuck it in her pocket. Dinner was the usual stilted questions about Trig’s day at work with surface-level answers and too much silence. Every now and then, after a small and well-chewed bite of meatloaf, Cornelia would look toward the front window and smile widely in case someone happened to be looking in. No one seemed to remember that Brooke had a day at work that she might like to talk about too.
It didn’t matter that she was surrounded by family or that she had Jessa nearby, Brooke was alone. And it was going to be her first summer alone in seven years. After clearing the table and doing the dishes, she left Cornelia, Trig, and Nana in the den with their cocktails and evening news. “I’m going to Jessa’s,” she said. Cornelia flinched but didn’t make eye contact.
Trig gave her the thumbs-up.
“Bring me back a tub of Dottie’s tomato gravy,” Nana said. “I’ll have it on my biscuits tomorrow morning.”
“I think the food truck is closed, Nana.”
“I thought you said you were going to her house,” Cornelia piped in.
“Yes, but I’m not going to ask for tomato gravy when she’s not working. I’m just going to visit Jessa.”
“In all of these years—” Cornelia shook her head and took a self-righteous sip of her gin and tonic. “Twenty-three years and have you learned one thing?”
“Please don’t start with me.”
“Get your grandmother that gravy. It doesn’t matter one lick if you inconvenience Dottie Boone .” She said it like the woman’s name was a swear word.
It was a fight Brooke knew she couldn’t win. “Yes, ma’am.”
Nana waited until the conversation was over before saying, “I don’t believe I want that gravy after all. I’ll have myself some blueberry pancakes instead. See to it, Cornelia.”
Cornelia’s face went stone cold. She stared daggers at Trig, like he’d done this to her. Which, in a way, he had. Trigger, named for Roy Roger’s horse, was Nana’s oldest child and therefore in charge of her well-being whether his wife liked it or not. He also happened to be the wealthiest. And, he had only one child—Brooke—unlike his other two brothers who had four children each. Nana had been his responsibility since his daddy died going on eight years ago.
Brooke remembered when Nana moved in. Those were the days when Brooke would go straight over to Jessa’s house after school. The tension at her own home was too much. Cornelia didn’t take well to having her mother-in-law under the same roof. It took less than a year for Trig to build Nana a house out back. After all, it was his responsibility to keep Cornelia happy too.
On the way to Jessa’s house, Brooke visited Fred at the old gas station and bought a pack of bacon, an onion, and two cans of diced tomatoes. Fred’s name used to be DeWayne, but when he quit his job as a corporate lawyer and bought the falling-down station to be near his sister, Dottie, the former owner left behind a dark blue jumpsuit with a stitched-on nametag that said Fred . It became DeWayne’s new uniform. Somewhere underneath his beard, inside the baggy coveralls, and behind the toothpick he always kept in his mouth was a decent-looking middle-aged man. Most people never knew his real name. He was just Fred, the gas station owner, sandwich maker, secret-keeper, animal rescuer, and romantic target of every available older woman in two counties. He might live on a boat behind a store so old that it still had a faded Sunbeam Bread advertisement from the 1940s painted on the side, but the man was known to have money. He also had a hot plate behind the counter with warm cookies for whoever needed one.
Brooke always needed one.
Brooke was counting on Dottie to have some flour and seasonings. Maybe she and Jessa could whip up the gravy while they talked. Nana deserved to get her tomato gravy. Brooke passed Salty Dot’s bright yellow food truck and pulled into the overgrown driveway leading to Dottie’s brick ranch-style home. There were cats sitting in the front windows, just like there always were. The sight sent a rush of warm, grateful familiarity straight to her heart. She walked right in without knocking.
“Jess?”
There was laughter coming from the kitchen.
“Dottie? Tulip?”
She wound her way to the back of the house by the family room until she found Dottie, Jessa, and her sister, Tulip, who appeared to have colored her hair a strawberry blonde. This was not unusual for Tulip, who’d already gone through pink, purple, and rainbow hair. They were all laughing around the kitchen table. Everything was the same—the rust-orange couch, brown wood paneling on the walls, well-worn carpets, fading artwork, and metal diner-like table in the low-ceilinged house. It was comforting, right down to the smell of the cat box.
“Hey, y’all!” Brooke announced happily as she dropped her bag of groceries on the Formica kitchen counter. Dottie ambled over for a hug. She smelled like frying oil.
“Let me look at you.” Dottie wasn’t scrutinizing her to tell her she was pretty or as a happy reminder of her face. No, she was reading her. She squinted and pulled her bottom teeth up over her top lip. She was missing a tooth. When had that happened? Dottie shook her head. “Your frequency is as off as a derailed train.”
“I’m just going through a little something, Dottie. I’ll be okay.”
“I wasn’t born faraway.” She acted personally offended. “I know that.”
It was wistfully familiar the way Dottie always messed up phrases like born yesterday . Brooke looked past her to Jessa at the table. Her smile faded as she realized the other person was not Jessa’s little sister. No. It couldn’t be. Without warning? Why hadn’t Jessa told her? The girl sitting at the table was Libby Trotter. Brooke fought the urge to sprint out of the house. Instead, she did her best to paste the smile back on her face and press down the overwhelmingly big feelings.
“Be right back. Been holding it too long!” Brooke hoped to sound pert and nonplussed, but her voice came out shrill. She practically ran to the bathroom and shut the door. Dottie’s house was her safe place. She sat fully dressed on the closed toilet. She knew she would have to talk to Libby eventually, but she wasn’t ready. There was a knock at the door. Brooke didn’t trust her voice to answer.
“I’m coming in,” Jessa said. Dottie didn’t believe in locks, so nothing in the house was secure. Jessa closed the door behind her. “Don’t be mad at me.”
“Do you remember, Jess? Do you remember what she did to me? What she did to Nate?” Brooke’s face turned red-hot.
“That was a long time ago. We were kids.”
“Make this fast, Jess. I don’t want her to know she’s bothering me.”
“I mean, I’m in the bathroom with you,” Jessa pointed out. “It’s kind of obvious.”
“Dammit.” Brooke flushed the toilet.
“I’m sorry. I know she was horrible to you. But it’s probably time to move on.”
Brooke turned on the faucet to blast the sound of washing her hands. “I will never forgive her.” The last thing in all the world that she wanted to do was walk out of that bathroom and face Libby Trotter. Now that she didn’t have Gates, she was extra vulnerable. How should she act? Like nothing had happened? “What am I supposed to say to her?”
“Just start with hello,” Jessa said.
“I’m past this, Jess. I don’t want to go backward.”
“You’re not going anywhere but out of this bathroom.”
“Did she know I was coming?”
“Yes, I told her.”
Brooke shot her a look. “What’d she say?”
Jessa’s hand stopped on the doorknob. “I can’t remember. I think maybe she just laughed.”
“She laughed ?” Brooke caught sight of the horrified look on her own face in the mirror. Whereas she’d felt pretty all day with her new haircut and full face of makeup, the girl she saw in the mirror was much too familiar: alone.
“Actually, it was more like a chuckle,” Jessa said.
There was a knock at the door, and Brooke flinched. “Y’all can come on out now.” It was Dottie. “Libby said to tell y’all goodbye. Said she’s meeting up with some kind of group that gets together to run marathons or some such nonsense. She’s got to get up at the butt crack of dawn tomorrow, so she can’t stay and play nice.”
Jessa opened the door and moved into the hall, but Dottie put an arm out so Brooke couldn’t pass. “That girl’s hiding something,” Dottie whispered so close to Brooke’s face that she could see the smattering of gray hairs in her eyebrows. “I feel it all through my nose.”
It had been a while, so Brooke needed a moment to remember. When Dottie felt things in her forehead, they were scary and must be taken seriously. When she felt them in her hands, it required action—something had to be done about it quickly. But when she felt them in her nose, Brooke remembered, “It might blow over as fast as a fart in the wind.”
“That’s right.” Dottie put her arm down and stepped back. “But I’m telling you, there’s something there.”
“Are you getting any premonitions?” Brooke couldn’t help but keep glancing down to Dottie’s missing tooth. How long had it been gone and why hadn’t she gotten it fixed? Dottie caught her looking.
“It’s just a tooth, Anna Brooke Warter. If it bothers you that a person is missing one, that is your problem. It don’t mean a danged thing to me.”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am. I think you look great.” Dottie’s face was wide, rugged, and beautifully familiar.
“Now, I can’t see a thing when it comes to Libby. But for you—” She stared square into Brooke’s face. “There’s a storm blowin’ in. Something from your past is about to come into your present.”
“Looks like she already did, and she just left,” Jessa said. She’d always been highly suspicious of her mother’s hit-or-miss psychic prognostications.
“Do you think it’s Gates?” Brooke asked.
“Oh, it’s definitely Gates. But there’s someone else. I see fireworks.”
“The literal kind or the love kind?” Jessa asked.
“I can’t tell.”
They made their way to the kitchen, where Dottie had already unpacked Brooke’s bag of groceries and set her cast-iron pan on the stove. “Looks like y’all want some tomato gravy.”
Brooke nodded and pulled the can opener out of the drawer. “Nana’s got a hankering.” She opened the lid of one can. “The fireworks—like, I might meet someone else? Someone who actually suits me?”
“Whoa, slow down there, Smelly,” Dottie said. “How long have you been single now? A week? Two? Your heart is in no shape to stick on anyone now. It’s as slick as an oil spill.”
The truth was, her heart had been empty for years. Not sticky, not slick, but an under-filled balloon with a slow leak.
“You don’t have to make the gravy, Mama,” Jessa said as Dottie sidled up to the stovetop. “I know you’ve had a long day.”
“I dipped her in corn syrup and rolled her in sugar when she was born,” Dottie said, kissing her daughter on the forehead. “That’s why she’s so sweet.” Brooke flinched. Dottie kissed Brooke’s forehead too. “I’ll take y’all up on that. I’m so tired, my brain is all cottony.”
Jessa laid the bacon in strips inside the pan, as Dottie, in her wide-rumped way, ambled down the hall. “So, do you think you and Gates will get back together?”
“If Cornelia got what she wanted, we would. But, no. I don’t think so.”
Jessa appeared deep in thought as she pressed the bacon down with a fork. “Would you rather talk about Gates or Libby? Which would be more helpful?”
“Is there anything you want to talk about, Jess? What’s going on in your life? I heard you’re building a house?”
“I’m fixing up that old one out by the marsh. Didn’t cost too much to buy. But that’s boring. I want to talk about you.” Jessa should’ve been a therapist with the way she listened to everyone else’s problems. Hers were never of any concern. She never complained. Ever.
“Jess, you’re the nicest person on the planet. I mean, the sweetest.” Brooke cut an onion in half and peeled off the outer layers. “Like, naturally sweet and caring. Which is why Libby freaking Trotter is now working with us.”
“She’s actually pretty good at the job.”
“Do you know what she’s good at?” Brooke chopped the onion into small squares. “She’s good at ruining lives. Like mine. And Nate’s. God, I don’t even want to talk about it.”
“Then don’t. If those onions don’t make you cry, he will.” She carefully flipped each hot, spitting piece of bacon. “I’m only saying this because I love you.” She paused. “But maybe Libby wouldn’t have the power to bother you if you didn’t let her.”
“I was a kid, Jess!”
“I’m talking about now.” She turned off the burner and put a dainty hand on Brooke’s shoulder just long enough to calm her down a little. “Anyway, Nathan probably has a wife and baby by now. Camp was a long time ago.” Carefully, she set the cooked bacon one by one on a paper towel.
Brooke shook her head, dropping the raw onions into the bacon grease. It’d always been frustrating to her that Nathan Daugherty wasn’t on social media. She couldn’t find him anywhere. Her phone buzzed in her back pocket, so she pulled it out and saw the name Gates Lancaster on the screen. She hesitated, then clicked decline. “You know what? I could probably let it go if it was all Libby’s fault. But you’re right. It wasn’t. It was mine. I never should have let her get away with what she did. I should have fought harder.”