Small Town Hearts

by Lillie Vale

  I began to move toward him. “That’s okay, I’ll go with y—”

  Penny grabbed my arm. “Wine, please. Right to the top.”

  He looked at me.

  With my friend’s arm manacled around mine, there was nothing I could do except shrug. “Beer, please.”

  “I’ll be back,” said Levi.

  Penny waited until he was out of earshot, edging between grinding bodies, a pucker etching deeply into his brow. Then, “Babe, what’s going on?” Her voice dropped. “You’re with a summer boy?” She made a soft, strangled noise.

  I shifted uncomfortably. “These people are mostly your friends, not mine. Without Chad here … I just didn’t want to be hanging around by myself while you did whatever you were doing. I didn’t want it to be weird.”

  “For you?” Her face scrunched.

  “Well, yeah.” I shifted my weight, looking at the polished wood below my feet.

  “I don’t get why.”

  Because you wrecked my perfect summer when you broke up with Chad! I wanted to shout. Because he kissed me, and even though it would never have gone any further, I still feel like I’m betraying you! Because I don’t know how to talk to you about all these changes—about any of this!

  My stomach surged and crashed like waves against a rock. It had nothing do with the cloying smell of weed or the swaying of the boat.

  I closed my eyes. Before it all changed, things hadn’t been simple, but there was a consistency to life. Chad. Penny. Me. Hysteria bubbled up. What had I been thinking, getting attached to Levi? What good was attraction when everything else was falling apart?

  I stared out across the water. The sun was low in the sky, almost within reach of the grasping mortals below. It reflected red and yellow on the water, rippling like molten gold. The salt air and the heat made for a heady combination, more intoxicating than any perfume.

  In the elongated silence that followed, Penny repeated, “I don’t get why.” This time, it was said with a hardened edge.

  “Don’t you?” I whispered.

  Penny’s face softened. “Did something happen?” She touched my shoulder. “Whose ass am I kicking?”

  In one sentence, she reminded me what a good friend she could be. But before I could say a word, Levi was back.

  Penny pressed her lips to the glass immediately. When she pulled away, her pale lips were stained merlot.

  “Thanks,” I said, accepting the ice-cold beer. I wrapped my fingers around the neck, knowing that I felt too sick to take even a sip.

  “No problem.” Levi’s fingers toyed with the bottom of his shirt, eyes carefully looking everywhere but at me.

  Did he catch any of that? I watched his expression, unable to gauge what, if anything, he’d overheard.

  Coming here was a mistake. Even with Levi acting as my buffer, my life raft, I felt out of place. Like maybe it wasn’t my world that was different, but me.

  The realization scraped across me, steel wool against tender innards. The awkward silence was broken by the off-kilter twangs of a guitar and someone’s tinny voice attempting a rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

  “Oh, and Chad is here, by the way,” said Penny, cutting the awkwardness with an airy hostess voice. “Hey, cool to meet you, Levi.” Someone dancing jostled her arm, and her wine sloshed.

  It felt like the world was braking. Not slow and gentle, but screeching to a stop, burning rubber. My nose tingled and I sucked in a shaky breath. “Wait!” I must have heard her wrong, because there was no way he would be here, not after—

  Penny met my gaze. Her eyebrows knit in concern. “Yeah?”

  “Chad?” I swung my gaze wildly, people blurring in my vision.

  “Um, so I forgot to tell you, but”—she dropped her voice conspiratorially—“we got back together.”

  “But—”

  “Later, B! You’re staying until the end of the night, right? We’ll catch up then!” She blew an air kiss at Levi. “Enjoy the party. See you at the center on Monday!” she called over her shoulder as she swept away.

  “Hey, can you just give me a minute?” My fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle. “I have to catch up with her really quick.”

  His lips parted like he was about to ask if everything was okay, but he swallowed hard and said, “Yeah, sure.”

  I dashed after Penny. She was disappearing into her bedroom at the back of the houseboat. I pushed my way past everyone, ignoring their greetings. I got to her bedroom door before she pushed it shut. “Penny,” I said breathlessly.

  She wasn’t alone.

  “Babe?” Chad stood in the center of the room, face mirroring my shock. Guilt fanned across his cheeks in a flaming streak of red as he looked between us, mouth agape.

  I shut the door. “You guys really got back together.” I swallowed. “When did you two—”

  “Not long. I texted him before the party,” Penny said quickly. She flicked her eyes to Chad. “We’ve been together so long. It was silly to end it over nothing.”

  I could have told her that.

  Actually, I was pretty sure I did tell her that.

  I fastened my eyes on Chad. “I didn’t think you’d be here,” I said.

  Tension squirmed in my belly. He didn’t owe me anything, but I couldn’t believe he’d just gone back to Penny. Anger replaced the confusion. He’d kissed me on a whim. I’d been right after all. He was scared to be alone, scared to find out who Chad Ainswick was without Penny Wang in his life. And I’d been … convenient. I’d been there when she wasn’t.

  He’d jeopardized what should have been the best summer of our lives just because he was scared.

  Chad looked cornered. He glanced between us, gnawing on his lip.

  “You’re both freaking me out.” Penny put her hands on her hips. “Chad, what did you want to tell me?”

  He shot me a look that was filled with a thousand things. I didn’t have time to decipher them all before he said, “I tried to tell you earlier but you were too busy. It’s okay, I can just tell you later.”

  The music faded. The world slowed. I knew what he was going to say next. Why he’d called her in here. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I was supposed to tell her—it had to come from me. I kicked myself for waiting so long. I’d had days to tell Penny what had happened, but I’d been a coward and let it slide.

  “Tell me what?” asked Penny. She flounced down on the bed and patted either side of her. “Sit down, guys.”

  Chad sat.

  I couldn’t. I felt like a prisoner at my own trial, hands and legs manacled to prevent movement, escape. My mouth tasted like ash.

  I sent Chad an entreaty with my eyes. Don’t. Please don’t.

  “I can’t do this again with a secret between us,” said Chad. He was still looking at me, but his words were for her. “We’ve always been honest with each other. All three of us.”

  Something in Penny’s face shifted. It was like she knew what was coming.

  Chad went for the death blow. “When you sent Babe to meet me that day … I was a mess. I was angry and sad and missing you, and—” It wasn’t the end of the story. “We kissed.”

  “You what?” Penny’s voice was inscrutable.

  “It happened so fast, we didn’t mean for it to,” said Chad. He reached out for Penny’s hand, and a second later, she gave it. “She didn’t start it. It was my fault. It was nothing, it didn’t mean anything.”

  The kiss was nothing. That foolishness was a wisp of nostalgia that I’d already brushed away. I didn’t want to be with Chad. I just wanted this summer, and both my best friends. The kiss was nothing, but our friendship was everything. It was years of togetherness, of having each other’s backs. We’d shared so much. We’d shared each other. Penny would understand, wouldn’t she? This was Penny. My best friend.

  But when she looked at me, there was no sign of the girl who I had spent my life with. The girl whose Easy-Bake Oven I’d learned my love of b
aking from, the girl who let me cry until snot bubbles burst when Elodie left, the girl who used to leave Post-it doodles in my school textbooks to encourage me before a test.

  “You kissed my boyfriend.” Penny’s voice wobbled. She pressed a fist to her mouth, then pulled it away. “My boyfriend and my best friend.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I whispered. “I wanted to—”

  “This is unbelievable.” Penny’s voice was undone, shrill and hysterical. “Seriously? You … do you have any idea…” She pulled her hands from Chad before rearing back. Her palm arced through the air, making contact with his cheek.

  His face swung to the side, redder than before.

  She looked as shocked as I felt. I didn’t think she meant to do it.

  “There’s nothing between us,” I said. The sound of her flesh meeting his echoed in the room, the slap sounding about ten times louder. “I swear to you, Pen.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Penny shot to her feet. “This is my fault. I … I invited you to everything. I wanted to make sure that you never felt left out, especially after Elodie left. But you … you just took advantage of that, didn’t you? You took advantage of me.”

  My chest felt stretched tighter than a rubber band. Any second, I expected myself to snap and fly off. “I didn’t.” I gestured toward Chad. My breathing was shallow and my breath caught. “We didn’t.”

  “Vince said it was weird, the three of us always being together. That sooner or later, you and he…” She pointed to Chad. “That you couldn’t just be friends,” she said with a sneer.

  “Why the hell are you listening to what Vince says?” I asked, remembering the goon who had stuffed my cookies into his face.

  Penny, voice growing louder, kept talking like I hadn’t said anything. “He wasn’t the only one who thought I was making a mistake. But I said you weren’t like that. I stood up for you.”

  Was that what she thought? That I’d been eyeing Chad ever since the start? I thought of all those people outside, most of whom I knew and some of whom I didn’t. People who showed up at Penny’s parties every week. Her friends. Who didn’t like me. Who mistrusted me.

  And I had proved them right, hadn’t I?

  Hopelessness reached a crescendo inside me, and I wanted to throw myself at her, beg and cry for her forgiveness, if that was what it took. Anything to make her stop looking at me like that.

  “You don’t know me at all if you think I’d do anything to hurt you,” I said.

  “You just did!” Penny almost screamed.

  “Hey,” Chad started to say, but she quelled him with a slicing look over her shoulder.

  When she turned back to me, her voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it before. “Get out.” All trace of her tears was gone. The shattered porcelain had sharpened into steel.

  “Penny—”

  “You are uninvited. I don’t want to see you here anymore. I don’t want to see you at all.” She laughed, all kinds of brittle. The sound shredded my heart. “In fact,” Penny whispered, “the next time you see me? We don’t know each other.”

  My ears were hot. Everything pounded. My vision blurred. The memory of Elodie crossing the street to avoid me flashed into my mind. Only now her face was replaced with Penny’s. “Let’s talk about this,” I said. “Please, let’s—”

  Penny opened the door. “What are you waiting for?” Her voice cut straight through me.

  I fled, not caring who I jostled on my way through her tiny living room, past the kitchen, and finally onto the deck. There was nowhere here where I could breathe. I put the bottle I was somehow still holding to my lips. The now-warm beer tasted disgusting, but I swallowed it down.

  “Hey, you okay?” Levi was at my side.

  I could only imagine how I looked. Pale. Shaken. Unhinged.

  “I’m fine,” I said, my voice louder than I’d intended. It seemed magnified to my own ears. “I just … can we get out of here? Go to the beach. Anywhere else.”

  I could see his concern from the way his eyes crinkled. But, to my relief, he didn’t press me on it. “Yeah, of course,” he said.

  The journey there seemed to take an eternity, or maybe it only felt like it because I was reliving the memory of Penny’s cold words and colder eyes. Over and over I heard her clear voice say, Get out get out get out. I’d barely had any beer, but the world still looked dizzying. I sank my bare feet into the sand, trying to hold back the tidal wave of emotion that threatened to take me under. “Here’s good,” I said.

  We sat next to each other on the beach, backs resting against a log. When I looked at Levi, I didn’t know what he saw in my face.

  He gave me a crooked smile. “Shall we?” he asked, nodding toward our beers.

  Wordlessly, I nodded.

  “To summer,” he said, tipping his bottle toward me. “And new friends.”

  And to losing old ones.

  Our bottles made a satisfying clink when they met.

  I could sense him looking at me, so I wasn’t surprised when he asked, ever so carefully, “What happened back there?”

  Oh, you know, just an implosion of a decade-long friendship.

  I shook my head. “It’s just better out here.”

  Levi didn’t break the silence with another question. Silently, we sipped our beers—well, he sipped, I just tightly clung to the neck—and watched the waves foam and recede. We sat like that for minutes, until I heard him inhale. He put the bottle on the sand between his legs, then met my eyes. “Can I say something?”

  Warily, I asked, “Is it about the party?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” I nodded for him to continue.

  He put his palms together, tentlike. Now that he had the floor, he seemed a little shy. I held his gaze, waiting. He drew closer. “I hope this isn’t bad timing, but … I like you.”

  I glanced away, running my thumb across the lip of the bottle. It was almost like I’d been waiting for one of us to say it, and now it was finally out there. “It’s not bad timing. There’s nothing bad about it.”

  His eyes softened and he leaned back, looking relieved. “Good,” he said, voice a little rougher than before. “I’m glad.”

  So was I. But I wasn’t ready to say anything more about it. Because now I knew what good my attraction was—it was everything. It was a safe harbor before I was brave enough to head back into the storm.

  seven

  I tried to go back to Penny’s twice in the next week. She wouldn’t talk to me either time. I called her name, pounded on her door, even begged a little. But from her side, there was only silence. My very foundation seemed to wobble. The bricks of my life had been built with my friends, and without them, I’d never felt more unsteady.

  Even Chad, shamefaced, had ducked into Busy’s only long enough to say he was so sorry and would definitely speak to Penny, but thought that to keep the peace it would be better if we didn’t hang out for a while. I doubted he would have much better luck wearing her down than I did.

  Levi had continued to visit Busy’s, sometimes with his sketchbook, always with a smile. The breakup might have been unbearable if it wasn’t for him. The week after we’d toasted to new beginnings, he surprised me with an invitation to go out for dinner. A thank-you for the warm welcome to Oar’s Rest, he’d said, his treat. At first, seeing his number flash on my phone screen had set off alarm bells—had he run into a problem with the house? Washing machine conked out? Electricity on the fritz? Weird leaks?

  Instead, I was joining him for a meal.

  “It’s still a date; it totally counts,” Lucy insisted.

  “It’s really not,” I said. “It’s a return invitation. He’s being polite.”

  “He wouldn’t do that for third-wheeling on a party he wasn’t even invited to.” Lucy waved at the book club ladies who had just come in. “I’m telling you, it’s a date. Maybe it’s a date masquerading as a thank-you, but it’s still a date!” An
d with that, she swished off to take orders.

  I dwelled on Lucy’s words, replaying Levi’s invitation in my head until I’d talked myself into it. She was right, he’d never ask me to dinner just as a thank-you—it was Our First Date. Maybe. Probably.

  “Hey, Babe!”

  I froze. Ariel, who was supposed to have been here hours ago, had just entered.

  “Ugh.” She stalked behind the counter and grabbed her apron. A few drops of water landed on the floor. Everything about her was disheveled, from her wet hair to her rumpled clothing.

  “You’re late,” I pointed out. “Why didn’t you call in to say you wouldn’t be here?”

  “Sorry, I slept in. I’m here now.” Ariel cast me an irritated look. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  I blinked. “Ariel, this is … I mean, wow, okay. Do you even want this job? Because it seems like you’re doing everything to prove you don’t.”

  “I need the money,” said Ariel. “Of course I want to work here.” She had the temerity to scowl like I’d insulted her by asking.

  I hesitated. “Is everything okay?”

  “Stupid boyfriend drama. Sometimes I think you have the right idea about being anti-men. I’m swearing off guys, too.” Ariel reached out to grab one of the lemon bars I’d brought in this morning. “Hey, do you mind? I haven’t had breakfast.” She took a bite before I could answer. “This is amazing. You should bring these to the fish fry next month.”

  “I’m not anti-men,” I said stiffly.

  “I’ve never seen you with a guy.” She paused. “I mean, other than Chad.”

  Even her appreciation for my pastry didn’t shake my annoyance with her behavior. She’d been here a couple of months and she’d never put in an honest week’s work. She had a few good days, a few no-shows, but mostly she just drifted in and out like her job was an afterthought. I was tired of carrying her weight.

  “You haven’t dated anyone since I’ve been working here, right?” she asked, oblivious to my mounting anger.

  “That’s super none of your business,” I said.

  Lucy, returning with the book club orders, eyed Ariel. “Eight iced caramel frappes, one iced green tea, and one pot of lemon and hibiscus.”