Chapter 4 #2
She isn’t wrong. I mean, the apartment is mine, at least for the next six months. And my other options appear to be sleeping in my car or driving forty-five minutes to a motel that is probably full.
“I suppose,” I say slowly. “It would be the practical choice.”
Mabel smiles like she has just solved world hunger. “That’s the spirit. And don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll send some of my blueberry muffins over with Pastor Dale’s wife. She’s heading your direction anyway.”
Before I can protest or ask why Pastor Dale’s wife would be heading toward a honky-tonk bar, Mabel is ushering me right out the door with promises of baked goods and assurances that everything will work out just fine.
I sit in my car for a long moment, staring at the facade of the bed and breakfast that has just evicted me. Then I pull out my phone and do something I have been avoiding since I arrived.
I call my best friend.
Cynthia answers on the second ring.
“Eleanor, finally! I’ve been dying to hear about this mysterious inheritance. Is it fabulous? Oh my gosh, please tell me it’s fabulous. Is it like a villa in Tuscany? Maybe a penthouse in Manhattan?”
“It’s a honky-tonk bar in the Blue Ridge Mountains with a giant neon boot outside.”
Silence.
Then, “Oh. I’m sorry. I think I misheard you. It sounded like you said—”
“Yes. A honky-tonk bar called The Rusty Spur, complete with a neon cowboy boot sign and a disco ball.”
More silence.
Then Cynthia starts laughing. Great, howling laughs that make me hold the phone away from my ear for fear of eardrum rupture.
“Oh my gosh,” she gasps. “Oh my gosh. Eleanor, your mother must be spinning in her grave.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Well, it’s a little funny.” She is still giggling. “Eleanor Whitfield, etiquette instructor to Atlanta’s elite, owner of a honky-tonk bar. You just can’t make this stuff up.”
“Oh, there’s more.” I take a breath. “I have to keep it for six months. Live here. Keep it operational. Or it goes to the local church.”
The laughter stops.
“Wait. You have to live there for six months?”
“That’s what the will says.”
“But what about the studio and your clients?”
I think about my three bored teenagers, my empty appointment book, and my pile of unpaid bills.
“I’ll figure something out.”
“Eleanor.” Cynthia’s voice has gone serious, which is a rarity. “Are you okay? This is a lot.”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically. “I’m just adjusting.”
“Adjusting to what? Country music and cowboy boots?”
“Something like that.”
I watch a pickup truck rumble past, its bed loaded with musical instrument cases.
“I’d better go. I need to move into my apartment.”
“Your apartment above the bar?”
“Yep.”
“The honky-tonk bar?”
“Yes, Cynthia.”
She is quiet for a moment.
“Call me tonight. I want to hear everything. And Eleanor?”
“What?”
“Maybe it isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen. I mean, maybe it’s what you need.”
She hangs up before I can ask her what she means.
* * *
The Rusty Spur looks very different in daylight, without the neon sign blazing and the parking lot full of trucks.
It is almost a peaceful place. The weathered wood of the building glows in the warm morning sun, and I can hear birds singing in the trees that border the property.
A creek, I am assuming Copper Creek, runs behind the building, its gentle burbling audible in the quiet.
I park my Lexus in the empty lot and sit for a minute, trying to gather my courage.
I grab my overnight bag and head for the side entrance Wyatt showed me yesterday, the one that leads directly to the apartment stairs.
The door is unlocked, because of course it is.
I am learning that locked doors are apparently an optional thing in Copper Creek.
I called Cynthia again this morning, and she will be mailing some of my belongings to me. Just enough to get through six months. I won’t need all of my things because the odds of my staying here are slim to none.
I climb the stairs slowly, my heels clicking on the wooden steps. At the top, I pause with my hand on the doorknob, suddenly feeling a rush of reluctance to enter. This was Mavis’s space, her home. Walking in feels like I am trespassing, even though I technically own it now.
I push open the door anyway.
The apartment is just as I remember it from my brief visit, eclectic, colorful, and utterly unlike anything I have ever lived in. The turquoise velvet sofa looks even more inviting in daylight, piled with throw pillows in various patterns that really should not work together, but somehow do.
I set my bag down and start to explore properly.
The kitchen is small but well-equipped, with copper pots hanging over a rack that I vaguely remember from my first visit.
There is a collection of cast-iron skillets that look older than I am.
The refrigerator is empty except for a box of baking soda and a bottle of hot sauce, but the pantry is actually stocked with basics like flour, sugar, and spices in mismatched jars.
The bathroom is a riot of turquoise tile and vintage fixtures, including a big clawfoot tub that makes me want to take a bath right now, even though I showered this morning.
Fluffy towels in sunset hues hang from brass hooks, and a collection of bath products on a shelf smells of lavender and honey.
The bedroom stops me in my tracks.
It is dominated by a queen-sized bed with an iron frame, its quilt homemade-looking. Handmade. Intricate patterns in deep reds and blues and golds stitched together with such obvious care.
For a moment, it reminds me that my mother would never have done such a thing. Make a quilt? Absolutely not.
There are more pillows, more colors, more personality than my entire Atlanta apartment combined.
But what catches my attention is the wall above the bed.
It is covered in photographs.
There are dozens of them, maybe hundreds, arranged in an overlapping collage that takes over the entire wall.
Photos of people laughing, dancing, and hugging.
Photos of the bar through the years. I can see it evolving from a rough roadhouse into the welcoming space it is today.
Photos of Mavis herself at various ages, surrounded by people, always smiling.
It strikes me for a moment how little I ever saw my mother or grandmother smile.
Why were they so different from Mavis?
I step closer and study the faces. There is Dolly looking younger, with the same impressive hair. Boone is slightly less massive but has the same gentle eyes. And Wyatt, in what looks like some kind of military uniform, is standing stiff and serious next to a beaming Mavis.
Then, in the corner, almost hidden among the others, I see a photo I recognize.
It’s me.
Maybe eight years old, in a pink dress with a white collar, my hair in pigtails, standing in front of a Christmas tree, holding a wrapped present, and smiling at the camera with gap-toothed enthusiasm.
I do not recall this photo being taken. I certainly do not remember sending it to anyone.
But somehow, Mavis has it.
Somehow, she kept it all these years, displayed among her most treasured memories.
My throat tightens, so I reach out and touch the edge of the photo, feeling the slight curl of the aged paper.
She knew me. Not personally, and not really, but she knew me. She watched me grow up from a distance, collected evidence of my existence, and cared enough to keep a photo of a great-niece she had never been allowed to know.
And I never even knew her name until a week ago.
The guilt is sudden and overwhelming.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, staring at the wall of memories, and feel the weight of everything I missed. Every birthday card my mother threw away. Every connection severed before it could even form. Every chance to know this woman who apparently loved me anyway.
“She started that wall the year she bought the bar.”
I spin around, heart hammering in my chest, and see Wyatt standing in the doorway of the bedroom, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“I knocked,” he says. “Downstairs. You didn’t answer.”
“I was… distracted.” I gesture vaguely at the wall.
He nods and steps into the room, but keeps a respectful distance.
“She added to it every year. Said it helped her remember why she did what she did. All those people, all those moments, that’s what the bar was really about.”
“There’s a photo of me.” My voice comes out strange and thick. “I didn’t know she had it. I don’t remember it.”
“She had a lot of things.” Wyatt moves to stand beside me, looking at the wall.
“Letters. Photos. Newspaper clippings. She kept track of you best she could. Your graduations. Your engagement announcement. Your mother’s obituary.
”He pauses. “She cried when your mom died. Even after everything, she cried.”
“They never spoke. My mother and Mavis. Not once in all the years I was alive, that I know of.”
“No, but that didn’t mean Mavis stopped loving her or you. Mavis had more love in her heart than anyone I’ve ever known. If you take away nothing else from this experience, just know what a phenomenal human she was.”
He turns to look at me, and his expression is softer than I have seen it.
“She talked about you sometimes. Wondered what you were like and if you were happy. She worried about you.”
“She didn’t even know me.”
“She knew enough.” Wyatt shrugs. “You see, Mavis had this gift for seeing people. Like really seeing them. Not just what they showed the world. She saw something in you that made her believe you needed to be here.”
I think about what Dolly said last night. What Harlan said. What everyone keeps saying. That Mavis believed in me. That she thought I belonged here. That she was never wrong about people.
“What if she was wrong this time?” I ask quietly. “Like, what if I’m not what she thought I was?”
Wyatt is quiet for a long moment.
Then he says, “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”