by Lucy Score
“Youth is wasted on the young.” Carolina Rae sighed. “If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t let separate bedrooms hold me back.”
The other ladies nodded and rocked vigorously in agreement.
“I’m not here to find myself a boyfriend,” I reminded them. “I’m here to learn why it is that the residents of Bootleg Springs work so well together. You’ve got people of all ages and backgrounds banding together for a common cause, and you succeeded spectacularly.”
“Shelby, there’s no secret there,” Mrs. Varney insisted. “We’re neighbors. That makes us family.”
In nearly every other part of the country that was not true. I remembered the next-door neighbors we had growing up in Charlotte. They blared rock music until 2 a.m. and got in loud arguments over who was going to clean up the dog poop in the backyard. My parents ended up building a ten-foot-tall privacy fence and threw a party when the couple divorced and sold the house.
In Pittsburgh, I knew some of my neighbors’ names. At least their last names according to labels above their mailboxes. But living together didn’t automatically foster any sense of community.
“Let’s talk about the history of Bootleg Springs,” I said, changing the subject. Perhaps their heritage played an important role in why residents felt like they all belonged here.
“Well, you can’t talk about Bootleg Springs history and not talk about Jedidiah Bodine,” Myrt cackled.
“Oh, that Jedidiah was a handsome one,” Mrs. Varney said, fanning herself with her paper plate.
“You aren’t that old, Ethel,” Carolina Rae pointed out.
“Old enough to remember him tearin’ through town in his hot rod the day before he up and keeled over from a heart attack.”
“May he rest in peace,” the women chorused.
They launched into Volume One of Jedidiah Bodine’s colorful history, and I scribbled furiously trying to keep up with their back and forth. I was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t hear Jonah until his foot hit the first porch step.
“Ladies,” he said. He didn’t sound happy.
He was sweaty from his personal training session. I liked the idea that he worked out with his clients, suffered with them, not just told them what to do. I had to force my gaze away from that sweaty patch over his chest.
“Why, Jonah Bodine. You’re looking handsomer every time I lay eyes on you,” Mrs. Varney said flirtatiously.
“Thank you, Mrs. Varney,” he said. He was probably used to the embarrassing attention by now.
“We were just telling Shelby here all about your great-granddad Jedidiah,” Myrt cut in. “I bet you’d like to know a thing or two about him, seein’s how you grew up fatherless thanks to that no-good Jonah Bodine Sr., may he rest in peace.”
“May he rest in peace,” the ladies echoed.
“It’s so nice to see you ladies,” Jonah said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he were warding off a headache. “Shelby, can I have a word with you inside?”
“Ladies, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to go pour Jonah a nice glass of sweet tea,” I said, climbing gingerly to my feet.
He grabbed my wrist with his sweaty hand and dragged me into the house. He opened his mouth to start in on me then and there, but I shushed him and pointed to the screen door where four ladies had their ears wide open.
“I don’t like sweet tea,” he snapped when I pushed him into the kitchen.
“Preaching to the choir on that one,” I said, filling a glass from the tap. “Why not just eat seventeen packets of sugar instead?”
I handed him the glass. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before chugging it.
“Thank you for the water,” he said. “But I don’t like you bringing my clients to my house to grill them about my family. I’m trying to make this ridiculous living situation work, but you’re making it impossible, Shelby.”
I got goosebumps when he said my name.
He sounded a little close to the breaking point. “I asked them about the history of the town. Apparently, you Bodines are a big part of that story,” I explained.
He set the empty glass down with a hard click. “Stop asking questions about my family.”
I’d had just about enough of the Jonah Hates Shelby show. “Oh for Pete’s sake—”
“June said that you cornered some senior citizen at Yee Haw Yarn and Coffee and demanded they tell you everything there was to know about Callie Kendall. Then I heard through Jameson that you threatened the mayor with a Freedom of Information Act request to get your hands on the police records. And then your own brother starts telling me today in the middle of his workout how you’re thinking about producing a documentary.”
His voice wasn’t calm or annoyed right now. He was bright, blazing mad.
“And no one but me seems to give a damn!”
I laughed out a sigh. “Jonah, they’re teasing you.”
He was too mad for my words of wisdom to sink in.
“I don’t know what your game is or why my sister thought it was a good idea to have us live together, but if you’re stupid enough to think you can take advantage of me—”
“I’m not a reporter, you mule-headed moron!” I shouted. It took a lot to get me going. Calling me stupid was one of those triggers, and Jonah had just pulled it. Unfortunately for him, there was no safety.
“The entire town knows that I’m not a reporter. Yes—” I held up a hand when he tried to speak. “I write freelance articles for scientific publications and research pieces for academic journals. I could care less what happened to Callie Kendall or whether or not your father had anything to do with it. I’m here to write my dissertation for my Ph-freaking-D and find out how an entire town banded together to evict a bunch of journalists who were making their lives miserable.”
He blinked, then frowned.
“They’re all just messing with you because you’re showing signs of that world-famous Bodine stubbornness. Do I look like I would hold a senior citizen hostage with a knitting needle? Do I act like I’m writing a crime-of-the-century article on your damn father?” I gave a bitter laugh and didn’t even care that all four of my guests were pressed up against the screen door catching every word.
“Here’s a news bulletin for you, Jonah Bodine: I’m not interested in you. Or your family. I’m here for this town. And if you don’t believe me, well, then you can just go bless your own little heart!”
“Close enough,” Myrt called approvingly through the screen.
The ladies on the porch erupted into applause.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to my friends who have been kind and welcoming unlike some other people in this house,” I shouted.
* * *
Q. How do you most often communicate with your neighbors?
Cheyenne Hastings: I just holler out my window! Sooner or later everyone in town walks by.
10
Jonah
Shelby stomped out of the kitchen, her long dark hair swinging in its ponytail, leaving me staring after her.
I couldn’t trust her explanation… could I? Not when she’d waltzed into town under false pretenses. Not when my entire family had tales to tell about her. They wouldn’t set me up like that. Would they?
I pulled out my phone and called the one person I was sure wouldn’t lie to me.
“Hello, sir,” Devlin said. “How can I help you?” He had his business professional voice on. I’d probably interrupted him in the middle of being a lawyer.
“Is Shelby really a reporter? Or is she a student working on some kind of degree?” I demanded.
He sighed into the phone. “In this case, it would be the latter,” he said.
I tipped my head back and stared up at the ceiling. “And everyone knows except me?”
“That is accurate.”
“Well, fuck.” I swiped the sweat out of my eyes.
“I think a jury would certainly understand those sentiments,” Devlin said mildly. I he
ard a door close on his end. “Okay, Scarlett can’t hear me now.”
“Are you hiding from my sister?”
“She’s chasing me around with tile samples. Then when I have an opinion on one, she tells me I’m wrong.”
I laughed despite myself. “That sounds about right.”
“You should have heard her when I suggested we hire a designer.”
“I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“Sorry for the tirade. No, Shelby isn’t a reporter. She freelances for publications in her field. Psychology or social work, along those lines. She’s studying the town, not the Bodines. And from what I gather, everyone really likes her except—”
“Me.” I sighed.
“Yes. It’s been a bit of a running gag since she explained her situation to Scarlett and Scarlett decided to play matchmaker.”
I leaned against the fridge and closed my eyes.
“Her heart’s in the right place,” he said preemptively.
“I’ve been incredibly rude to this woman for days now because someone thought it would be funny to keep me in the dark?”
“If it makes you feel any better, Shelby was in on it.”
“No. That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“It wouldn’t make me feel better either, but now you have all the information.”
“My own brothers, my sister, this whole damn town.” I was the butt of the joke. The odd man out. And I hated how I sank into those long-dormant feelings of not belonging. The kid with no dad.
“Do you want me to let Scarlett know that you know, or would you prefer to administer your own Bootleg Justice?”
* * *
I took a shower and stayed under the water hoping it would wash away the anger and embarrassment I was feeling. I heard Mrs. Varney’s muffler-less sedan fire up and drive away. Undoubtedly to spread the word to the rest of town that I’d gotten into a screaming match with my roommate.
There’d be more laughs at my expense, I thought. Resigned myself to the fact that even after a year, I was still nothing more than an outsider to them. And why did that bother me?
Hadn’t I healed those wounds into tough scars?
I twisted the faucet off, frowning at the cheerful, sky blue tiles and sliding the flowered shower curtain aside. The room was “charming” and “fanciful,” and I was feeling pissed off enough to be annoyed by it.
The anger was familiar. An old friend from long ago. When a teenage kid started noticing what other guys his age had. Fathers who showed up for their games and took them fishing or bowling or sat through chess tournaments and poetry readings. Men who talked to their sons about girls and school. Taught them to drive and swing a golf club. To mow the lawn and make waffles.
I’d had my mother. A woman who had changed her entire life because of me, for me. But what choice did she have since he hadn’t been there for either of us?
Now I was in my father’s hometown, trying to forge connections, and I was still left out in the cold. It chafed enough that I was embarrassed by it.
I stepped out of the shower stall and swiped a towel over the mirror. I looked like him. That, too, annoyed me. For a brief, temperamental stage in high school, maybe I’d acted a bit like him.
But I was my own man now. I didn’t have to prove my worth to anyone, least of all the family I hadn’t known I had.
I probably owed Shelby an apology. I’d been rude at best. An asshole more realistically.
But she’d played a role, hadn’t been an innocent victim.
I wrapped the towel around my waist and headed into the hallway.
And ran right into her.
“Holy mother of pizza,” she shrieked as she stumbled backward. Her eyes widened behind her glasses. I caught her before she could take a header down the steps.
“Calm down before you throw yourself down the stairs.”
“Before I throw myself down the stairs?” she scoffed.
Apparently, she was still mad. Good. So was I.
She seemed to notice my lack of clothing and made a sound like a balloon deflating, her eyes going wide.
Her hair was still in that long tail. The color of chestnuts and copper pennies. She was wearing those glasses, the thick, tortoiseshell ones in blue. She had more than a dusting of freckles on her fair skin, I realized. And those eyes, even bigger than usual, looked just like the browns and greens of the forest.
She had a small scar on her chest, peeking out of the scoop neck of her tee and a fading bruise in the crook of her elbow. I felt like I was seeing her for the first time. I recalled seeing her at the Black Friday Boot Camp, thinking she was cute, bubbly, attractive.
Maybe now I was seeing her for the second time. And maybe that first impression wasn’t so off, after all.
“What are you looking at?” she grumbled, stepping out of my grip.
“You.”
“I liked it better when you acted like I was invisible.”
Feisty. Mean. And a little hurt. Maybe I did owe her that apology after all.
“Don’t even think about apologizing,” Shelby sniffed as if reading my mind. “I don’t want to hear it.”
She paused, bit her lip.
“Also, I’m not sure I deserve it since I was a willing participant,” she confessed.
“Let’s agree to not apologize and to move on,” I suggested.
“Fine,” she said crisply. Her gaze traveled my chest and torso and seemed to get stuck somewhere around the towel. “I’d offer to shake on it, but I don’t want you to lose your terrycloth.”
As a show of good faith, and maybe to tease her just a little, I took my hand away from the towel and offered it to her.
She shook it slowly, fighting to drag her gaze to my face.
“You’re still mad,” I noted, seeing the flash in her green and brown eyes.
“Yeah, well, so are you.”
“It’s our own fault.” I’d been too busy feeling hurt to get to the truth.
“That’s part of what I’m mad about,” she said. We were still shaking hands, but now we weren’t glaring at each other. In fact, that looked like the beginnings of a smile touching the corners of her rosy lips.
“Do you want to tell me about your dissertation?” I asked.
“No. I don’t want your pity interest.” She pulled her hand out of my grip. “Just because we’re not enemies doesn’t mean we have to be friends.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed.
“I’ll have you know that I’m a very nice person,” she insisted, stepping around me to get to her room. “It’s not my fault that you had the wrong idea about me.”
“No, but it is your fault that you let me continue to believe the wrong idea.”
“I don’t know about you,” she said. “But I’m really looking forward to the end of this month.”
* * *
Mrs. Varney: Woooo Weee! Sparks are a flyin’ at the Little Yellow House!
Estelle: Dang it! I can’t believe Louisa and I missed it! Catch us up!
Myrt: Don’t know what all the fuss is. Shelby still hasn’t seen that boy naked.
Carolina Rae: But the way they hollered at each other? Either love is in the air or there’s gonna be a crime of passion in Bootleg Springs!
11
Shelby
I should have picked a different athletic endeavor. Like curling. Or badminton. Or literally anything other than a triathlon. My swim that morning had been okay. I hadn’t drowned. So that was a plus. But a fish did touch my leg, and I didn’t much care for that. Also, I got a cramp in the arch of my foot and went down like a ton of bricks.
Now I was running or, more accurately, plodding my way through the woods while gasping for air.
I prayed that any bears in the vicinity would decide today was not the day to eat a person. I doubted my self-defense classes would be of much help against a bear. Besides, if one lumbered out of the woods into my path, I’d probably just lay down on the ground and wait for the m
auling. I was that tired.
I wheezed, sucking in a breath and something that felt like a bug.
I spit it all out and cursed the $300 registration fee I’d already paid. It was a lot of money for a grad student. A grad student without an actual job lined up yet. A grad student whose half-finished dissertation and new medical diagnosis battled each other for priority.
“I hate everything,” I proclaimed to the majestic trees lining the path. “Every damn thing.”
I should stop talking. I needed oxygen for things other than complaining to nature.
I heard footfalls behind me and whirled around, hands up.
“Not a bear. I promise.” Jonah jogged toward me. The man was bare-chested and more majestic than any of this nature stuff.
I turned my back on his sweaty glory and made a good show of jogging. Until my foot caught on a tree root.
He caught me by the elbow.
The guy kept catching me.
And while the squealy teenage girl inside me thought that was worth a journal entry, the adult female felt like I should be graceful enough to not need catching. I’d been in this body thirty years. I should know how to operate it by now.
“Hi,” I said, continuing my awkward lumber. I was so winded I sounded like a phone sex operator with a serious smoking habit.
Please keep running, I silently begged him. Just run right past me, give me a glimpse of your sweaty back musculature, and I’ll go back to thinking about bear maulings.
But Jonah fell into step with me. He could have walked faster than I was running right now. I wanted to kick him.
“How’s your morning?” he asked, annoyingly unwinded.
“’S great. Fabulous,” I gasped. Spots danced in front of my eyes. “Oh for Pete’s sake.” I gave up all pretense, stopped, and bent at the waist.
“You okay?”
“No! I’m not okay. I’m dying. I’m going to hyperventilate and die right here and then be eaten by bears or skunks or timber rattlers.”
His feet came into my line of sight.
“Go on. Leave me here. I’ll crawl home,” I heaved dramatically.
