As soon as Ryan left, I started texting Maggie and Layla and Gracie. We decided to meet up at Cecil’s, the bar and grill that Luke’s family owned. I felt a fizz of excitement at getting to dress up and go out and see the girls. Sure, they’d stopped by the house to say hi when I’d got back to town, but there hadn’t been a lot of free time to see them since then.
I was in grad school to be a landscape architect and working at a greenhouse part-time when my dad had a heart attack. There was no question of staying at school. I dropped out and came right home, although we were calling it ‘taking a semester off’ for my dad’s sake.
My mom died when I was in high school, and he’d never remarried. Best I could tell, he’d never even considered it. So it was just him alone in that old house unless I came to take care of him. I cleaned and cooked and made sure he got his medications and went to his cardiac rehab and physical therapy appointments and his doctor visits. And I was running the lumberyard. He would’ve given his left foot if Ryan would’ve come and taken it over, but Ryan was white-collar all the way. He’d been promoted to a project manager at the bank in the next town over, so taking time off to run the lumberyard wasn’t an option for him.
So, there I was, back home at twenty-four, just short of a Master’s degree and operating the poor man’s Home Depot in our little backwater town and listening to my more successful brother bitch about his divorce. I needed a night out with friends because I was getting resentful, and that was not a road I wanted to be on.
I finished up with the receipts and started sweeping up. I’d let my part-time worker from the high school have the evening off because she had a chemistry midterm to study for. So, I got the broom and swept methodically down the walkways inside. It was like a trip into my past, the fresh, sweet sawdust smell and the slow whoosh of the broom bristles along the floor. Some girls liked French perfume and rose bouquets. I grew up loving the sharp, almost sugary smell of planed lumber and the warm, slightly musty scent of sawdust. I’d take it over perfume any day.
At the house, I showered, cursing the trickle of water that came out of the showerhead in the upstairs bathroom. I missed my rainfall showerhead in my apartment back at school. After what seemed like forever rinsing the conditioner out of my hair, I hopped out and dried off, grabbing my blow dryer from under the sink.
My old room was a maze of plastic storage bins and trash bags that held my belongings. It had been a sudden relocation, and the state of my packing reflected the panic I’d been in at the time.
I put on the cute jeans I used to save for going out when I lived in the city. My ballet flats looked alien to me after two weeks of discount store steel-toed work boots. I put on a black top with the shoulders cut out and left my hair down and dug my silver hoop earrings out of the bottom of my purse. I put on actual makeup, including lip gloss. I felt like a million bucks just being cleaned up and knowing I had a few free hours ahead of me. My shoulders were still tense and achy, but I always got like that when I was stressed. My mama used to joke I was wound so tight that my shoulders would be up around my ears when I had a math test to take.
I met the girls at Cecil’s—Maggie with her pretty red hair in a messy bun looked stunning as any Instagram model, and Layla in her overalls. Layla had worn overalls in some form ever since she moved to town sophomore year.
“Welcome home, babe,” Maggie said.
“Thank you. I’m so glad to see you guys,” I said.
“Like them? They’re new. Got them at the feed store yesterday,” Layla joked, indicating her overalls. They were actually cute gray ones that she’d cuffed and wore with booties and looked like an outfit from some catalog. I squeezed her.
“I talked to Cat earlier, and she said to give you a hug,” Maggie said, “So this one’s from her.” She hugged me again.
“Gracie can’t make it either; she’s got some big deal at work,” I said sadly.
We hurried into Cecil’s. It wasn’t the same as I remembered. There was a new bar of beautiful polished wood, and pewter dishes of nuts and olives lined the bar along with a steady stream of patrons. The old vinyl booths had been replaced with luxurious burgundy velveteen. There were counter-height tables scattered throughout the room and a single long table by one of the large flat-screen TVs bolted to the far wall.