The Sisters Hemingway

by Annie England Noblin

  When she first met Travis, she’d been eighteen years old. He’d been one of the celebrity judges on Nashville Talent, a contest in which unknown singers and songwriters could get their first shot at fame. She hadn’t survived past the second round, and thus never made it onto television, but Travis made sure to get her phone number before she was booted off of the program. He’d called her about a week later, and the rest was history. He’d helped her find an agent and a record deal, and in exchange, he’d gotten writing credit on the album, even though Martha had written all of the songs herself. From then on, they were a duo. Nothing she’d tried to do since the divorce had been a success, and now there were whispers around Nashville that she never wrote any of her own songs. Travis, for his part, didn’t seem to be doing much to quash the gossip. She’d been nobody before him, and she was beginning to feel like she was becoming nobody after him, too.

  “Do we want to stop somewhere for lunch?” Martha asked. “I’m not sure what we’ll fix if we don’t.”

  “We all need to make a trip to the grocery story if we’re going to stay,” Hadley replied.

  “I’m starving,” Pfeiffer said. “Let’s go ahead and stop at a restaurant. We can go to the grocery store after.”

  “Let’s go to Cranwell Station,” Martha suggested.

  Both of her sisters stared back at her in horror. “Why would we go there?” Hadley wanted to know. “That’s not a restaurant. It’s probably not even still open.”

  “I heard someone at the funeral mention it—it’s reopened. It’s a gas station and deli. They said it was pretty good,” Martha replied. “It’s not that far from the house.”

  “I’m not eating at a gas station,” Hadley said.

  Ignoring her, Martha flipped her blinker and turned down the road that led toward the river. “Pfeiffer, I bet they’ve got pastrami on rye.”

  “I’m in,” Pfeiffer replied without missing a beat. “Come on, Hadley, you can’t pretend you’re too good for a gas station. You used to eat fried okra from a stand on the side of the road during the summertime until you were fifteen.”

  “And it gave me food poisoning.”

  Martha rolled her eyes. “It did not give you food poisoning. Don’t try to pretend that you were sick that whole week because of okra. Pfeiffer and I both know you were off drinking Wild Turkey with Brody until all hours of the morning, and that’s why you were sick. If anything, you had alcohol poisoning.”

  “You two don’t know anything about it!” Hadley protested.

  “We know all about it,” Martha continued. “Amanda told me Brody threw up for days and his whole face was green.”

  With that, Hadley began to laugh. “He never could hold his liquor.”

  Martha pulled up to a small building whose parking lot was teeming with cars. “This can’t be it,” she said. “There’s nowhere to park.”

  “It has to be it,” Pfeiffer replied, swiveling around in the backseat. “Look, there’s the bait shop across the road.”

  “The food must be good,” Hadley replied, looking not a little relieved. “It doesn’t look like a gas station at all.”

  In fact, Cranwell Station didn’t look anything like a gas station. It was set up more like a 1950s-style diner, complete with a neon sign out front. People streamed in and out—some of them in bathing suits and flip-flops, and some of them dressed in work clothes and on their lunch breaks. It was an interesting mix of people, and Martha couldn’t help but smile. Only in Cold River.

  “It smells delicious,” Pfeiffer said. “I can’t believe we didn’t smell it all the way out at the farm.”

  “Welcome!” said a woman standing at the door as the sisters entered. She had bright blue eyes and blond curls. She was smiling from ear to ear. “Give us just a minute to get a booth cleared out for y’all.”

  Martha took a moment to look around. The larger part of the building was dedicated to the deli, and there were several booths set up, all around a large glass counter full of meat, behind which stood a tall man with close-cropped dark hair. The other, smaller part looked like a general store, and out past it were several old-time gas pumps.

  “My name is Ava Dawn, and I’ll be takin’ care of ya today,” the woman said, motioning for them to sit down at a now-gleaming booth.

  Hadley squinted at the woman, cocking her head to the side slightly. “Ava Dawn?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Ava Dawn O’Conner?”

  “Well, it was.”

  Hadley broke out in a wide grin. “Ava Dawn, it’s me! Hadley Hemingway . . . well, it used to be Hemingway, anyway. Don’t you remember me?”

  “Oh my good lord!” the woman squealed. “I almost didn’t recognize you! Your hair ain’t as long as it used to be! Them highlights you’ve got look nice!” She turned around from the sisters and called, “Caroline! Caroline, come here! Our old babysitter is in the deli!”

  “Well, I don’t know how I feel about the ‘old’ part,” Hadley muttered.

  Another woman emerged from behind the deli counter, pausing briefly to smile over at the man with close-cropped hair. He smiled back and gave her a peck on the cheek before she made her way over to the booth where the sisters sat.

  “Caroline!” Hadley exclaimed, standing up. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You too,” Caroline said, her reply muffled by Hadley’s hug. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Is this your place?” Hadley wanted to know. “Yours and Ava Dawn’s?”

  “Oh, shoot no,” Ava Dawn replied. “I just fill in here and there when Noah needs me.” She pointed to the man behind the counter, and then whispered, “He belongs to Caroline, but this place belongs to him.”

  Caroline visibly blushed, but gave the women a Cheshire cat–like grin. “We’ve been open about a year,” she said. “I don’t think Noah ever imagined the deli would be so popular. We’ve had to expand twice.”

  “I can’t believe the Cranwells sold this place,” Pfeiffer said. “And let you keep the name.”

  “They didn’t sell it, exactly,” Caroline said. “Noah is a Cranwell.”

  Hadley, Pfeiffer, and Martha all craned their necks to get a better look at the man behind the counter.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Martha said.

  “I was real sorry about your aunt,” Caroline said. “My dad said it was a beautiful service.”

  “We sent potato salad to the potluck,” Ava Dawn offered. “Noah’s special recipe from Jersey.”

  Martha smiled. She was glad to see Caroline and Ava Dawn all grown up and doing well—Ava Dawn, especially. She’d just been eleven or twelve when Hadley babysat for them, usually together, since the girls were cousins, but she knew enough to remember that Ava Dawn had a rough go of it as a kid. She’d been as rough-and-tumble as they came, and nobody could match her in a fistfight.

  “Thank you,” Hadley replied. “And I think I had some of that potato salad. It was wonderful.”

  “It was,” Pfeiffer agreed. “I think I ate two platefuls.”

  “We’ll send some home with you,” Ava Dawn said.

  “How are your folks?” Hadley asked. “I didn’t get a chance to speak to your dad at the funeral, Caroline, but I saw him there.”

  Caroline’s smile faltered ever so slightly. “They’re good. Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few years ago, so, you know, there are good days and bad days.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Hadley said. “I hadn’t heard.”

  “Okay, I know you’ll probably think I’m a stalker or something,” Ava Dawn blurted. “But, Martha, could I get my picture with you? I just want to post it to my Instagram account.”

  Caroline shot Ava Dawn a quizzical look tinged with, what looked like, relief for changing the subject. “You have an Instagram account?” she asked Ava Dawn.

  “Of course,” Ava Dawn replied with a snort. “I ain’t behind the times like you are with your damn flip phone.”

  Caroline rolled her eyes. �
�Well, excuse me.”

  Martha glanced around the deli. All around her, people were pointing and whispering in her direction. She tried to ignore it. She already knew what they were probably saying. She could both see and feel camera flashes from phones going off around her, and she wished that she’d taken the time to make herself look better.

  Realizing that Ava Dawn was staring expectantly down at her, she said, “Scoot over,” shoving at Pfeiffer with her elbow. “Let Ava Dawn in here so we can take a picture.”

  Pfeiffer obliged, looking only slightly annoyed. “And then could we order?” she asked. “I’m starving.”

  “Oh lord, I’m sorry,” Ava Dawn replied. “Let me get you menus.”

  As soon as Ava Dawn walked away, Pfeiffer whispered, “I can’t believe that a Cranwell actually exists outside of Cranwell Corner.”

  “He’s a good-looking Cranwell, too,” Martha commented. “Real good-looking.”

  Pfeiffer rolled her eyes, but didn’t contradict her sister. “The last time I saw this place, it was about to fall in,” she said. “Remember when Mom took us fishing that one time and Mary about got pulled down by the undertow, and Jep Cranwell saw us and had to pull her out?”

  Hadley nodded. “He was quick to tell us we were on his land.”

  “He was nice enough, though,” Pfeiffer replied. “Let us stay as long as we didn’t say anything to anybody about it, since Daddy worked at his store before he and Mama got married.”

  “Daddy always had a way of making people be nice even when they didn’t want to be,” Martha said.

  “So did Mary,” Pfeiffer added.

  The three sisters looked at each other for a moment, the happy memory suddenly tainted by the reality that neither their mother nor their sister was there to share it.

  Martha looked down at her menu, tears threatening to spill over. It had been a long time since she cried over her mother and sister—onstage, in fact, the night she won her first Country Music Award. She’d been just twenty-two years old, and when she went to thank her family, she realized at the end that she’d left her sister and mother out, and the feeling of loss and guilt was so overwhelming that she practically had to be carried offstage while the music played and they cut to a commercial. Travis was the only one to know the truth about what really happened, and the next day the Nashville papers all reported that Martha had been so overcome with her award that she was moved to tears and a dizzy spell.

  “Martha?”

  Martha looked up to see both of her sisters staring at her.

  “Are you okay?” Hadley asked. “Ava Dawn has asked you twice what you’d like to drink.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Martha replied, doing her best to smile up at Ava Dawn. “I’d like a sweet tea, please, and when you come back, we’ll get that picture.”

  “I know it’s hard,” Ava Dawn said, putting her hand on Martha’s shoulder.

  Martha looked up at her, confused. “What?”

  “The divorce,” Ava Dawn continued. “I know it’s hard. I just went through one myself.”

  Martha looked up at Ava Dawn. “Oh,” she said at last. “Yes, thank you.”

  “I mean, Roy wasn’t no Travis Tucker, but it still sucked,” Ava Dawn said, blowing a piece of her blond hair out of her eyes. “It was like all of Cold River knew before the ink was even dry.”

  “I found out Travis filed for divorce through Twitter,” Martha replied.

  “That’s awful,” Ava Dawn replied, her eyes wide, and then she winked. “Is that why you went to rehab?”

  Martha took a breath. “No,” she said. “I went to rehab because I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Oh,” Ava Dawn replied. “Yeah, my daddy tried that a few times. Never stuck.” She gave Martha a smile and headed off to grab their drinks.

  “Don’t you get tired of that?” Pfeiffer asked. “I can’t imagine how I’d react if people I don’t even know kept commenting on my personal life.”

  Martha shrugged. “I guess you get used to it after a while,” she said. “Besides, I know Ava Dawn. She’s not a stranger. I watched Hadley change her diapers.”

  “True,” Pfeiffer replied. “But still. I think I’d hate that.”

  “People are going to comment on your personal life whether you’re famous or not,” Hadley replied. “I have people I don’t even know stop me at the grocery store and ask me how I think my husband may vote on a certain bill, and then expect me to stand there and listen to them while they list all the reasons why their ideas are better than everyone else’s.”

  “That’s almost worse,” Pfeiffer replied.

  “How do you answer?” Martha asked.

  “I usually tell them we don’t talk about politics,” Hadley said.

  “But that’s Mark’s whole life!” Pfeiffer exclaimed. “How can you not talk about it?”

  “He doesn’t like to talk about work when he comes home,” Hadley replied.

  “So what do you talk about?” Pfeiffer wanted to know.

  Hadley was lost for a long moment, contemplating the question. “Other things,” she said.

  “Like what?” Pfeiffer pressed.

  “I don’t know,” Hadley said, throwing up her hands. “Regular things, I guess.”

  “Regular things?”

  Martha shot Pfeiffer a warning glance. “Leave it alone,” she said.

  “I just don’t understand,” Pfeiffer said. “Didn’t you and Travis talk about music?”

  “Of course,” Martha replied. “But music was basically the only thing we had in common.”

  “At least you had something in common,” Hadley muttered.

  Martha looked over at her sister from across the booth. “You and Mark don’t have anything in common?”

  “I don’t know,” Hadley admitted. “We used to. We used to have a lot in common. At least I thought we did. But I can’t remember the last time we talked about anything other than dinner plans or the name of an important diplomat’s wife I need to impress.”

  “Those are important things,” Martha said.

  “No, they aren’t,” Hadley replied, her voice rising slightly.

  “I’m sorry,” Pfeiffer said, her brow creased. “I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

  Hadley straightened in the booth. “You didn’t.”

  Martha shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t like it when Hadley was upset. For her entire life, especially since their mother died, Hadley had been the strong sister. Everyone knew that Pfeiffer hid behind her sarcasm and that Martha was more emotional than a grandmother going through menopause. But Hadley never seemed to be affected by anything. And now she looked like she might start crying—in public.

  “I’ve got those drinks,” Ava Dawn said, appearing in front of them. She set down three tall and frosty glasses on the table.

  “Thanks,” Hadley said, smiling her brave smile again.

  “You all right?” Ava Dawn asked, handing her a straw. “You look like my cousin Donny looked last week when he found out pro wrestlin’ was fake.”

  Pfeiffer laughed. “Is he gonna be all right?”

  Ava Dawn shrugged. “I don’t know. His wife had to give him some of her Xanax, and I ain’t seen him since.”

  Martha took a long drink of her sweet tea and then turned on her own brave smile for the flash of Ava Dawn’s phone.

  Chapter 15

  Martha

  EXHAUSTED, MARTHA PULLED INTO THE DRIVEWAY AT THE farm and put the car into park. Although shopping on a full stomach had probably been a good idea, it hadn’t done much except make her wish they’d gone straight home for a nap.

  “Well, at least we have food now,” Pfeiffer said. “I don’t know how long those rotting cabinets will hold it, but at least we have it.”

  “The cabinets aren’t rotting,” Martha said.

  “No, that’s the porch,” Hadley replied. “We are going to have to fix those boards before one of us falls through.”

  “There’s a lot around here that needs fixin�
�.” Crowley stood on the porch, one hand holding his tattered baseball cap and the other scratching his oily head. “Been knockin’ on the door.”

  “Didn’t you notice the car was gone?” Martha asked.

  “Nope.” He scuttled down the steps and took the bag from her hands. “Your aunt never had a car. I keep forgettin’ there ought to be one here.”

  “I forgot you drove her everywhere,” Pfeiffer said. “Like Driving Miss Daisy.”

  “Ain’t no backseat in a truck,” Crowley replied. “But purty much.”

  “Aunt Bea never had a license,” Hadley said. “I always wondered why.”

  “It were the arthritis,” Crowley replied. “She wouldn’t say it, of course, but that’s what it were.”

  “Aunt Bea had arthritis?” Pfeiffer wanted to know.

  Crowley nodded slowly and then looked around, as if he was afraid Beatrice James might jump out of the woods to scare him quiet. “She didn’t like to talk about it, but her hands would shake mighty fierce sometimes. Got worse as she got older.”

  “It can be hereditary,” Hadley offered. “I have it in my knees already.”

  “Mom and Dad never had it,” Martha replied.

  “That’s because they didn’t live long enough to get it,” Pfeiffer said.

  Crowley cleared his throat and started up the steps. “Did y’all know there was a dog inside?”

  “You went inside the house?” Pfeiffer wanted to know.

  “’Course not,” Crowley replied. “I heard it. I thought at first I was goin’ crazy.”

  “I guess it’s ours now,” Martha said.

  “Well, you ought to let it outside,” Crowley said.

  “I’ll let her outside,” Pfeiffer replied. “We just kept her inside while we were gone so she wouldn’t run off.”

  “You get some food for her?” Crowley wanted to know.

  “We did,” Martha replied. “Stopped on the way home.”

  “Home,” Crowley echoed. “So you’ll be here awhile?”

  “We’ll be here for at least a couple of weeks,” Hadley replied.