The sole exception to all this rarefied tastefulness was a ramshackle log building at the bottom of Main Street, something called the Trading Post. The moment I saw it, I immediately remembered walking around inside with Mother and Aunt Zell, the three of us sharing a bag of licorice jelly beans. I also seemed to remember an enormous wooden Indian that had stood out front with a peace pipe in one hand and a tomahawk in the other. He was gone now, probably a victim of political correctness.
Inside were all the geegaws you’d expect to find in a mountain tourist town: Daniel Boone coonskin hats made of polyester plush, Indian war bonnets in neon-colored feathers, dozens of silly doodads labeled “Souvenir of Cedar Gap” or “High Country Heaven,” and plastic figurines of hillbillies shooting, fighting, whittling, and swilling moonshine. Part country store, it also carried jeans, bib overalls, work/hiking boots, washboards, kerosene lanterns, flashlights, and a hundred other necessities of bygone years and still useful today, I suppose, if you happened to live in a cabin at the far end of utility lines.
The store was surprisingly crowded. On one side of the front door was a hot dog stand where people stood in line while the lush fragrance of hot chili and onions swirled around them. On the other side, even more people were browsing through a candy section where small wooden nail kegs were filled with lemon drops, sassafras sticks, peanut brittle—every old-timey candy imaginable. Customers were encouraged to fill a plastic bag with any assortment they wanted because the price per ounce was the same for all, and yes, I did buy an ounce of licorice jelly beans for old time’s sake.
Back out in the cool evening air, the sidewalks were becoming less congested as twilight fell. Cars still jostled one another for parking spots, and couples dressed in resort-style chic converged on the restaurants. Old-fashioned streetlights glowed softly beneath the trees, and inconspicuous spotlights illuminated the bronze soldier in the middle of the traffic circle.
When I reached the circle on my return walk back up the street, I veered off to check out the courthouse. A small arrow pointed to public parking down a sloping drive to the rear. On the side, though, I saw slots reserved for the various court officials, including one for Judge Rawlings, the judge for whom I was subbing while he sat court down at the coast, where gray trout were supposed to be running this week.
According to Longmire, Rawlings had traded with a Beaufort judge whose wife wanted to see leaves. Unfortunately, it was discovered at the last minute that she needed major surgery, so he would be spending this week either sitting at her bedside or playing Mr. Mom to their two children. Because Rawlings had already rented a place on the beach and because the Beaufort judge needed a sub anyhow, the call had gone out about two hours before Minnie’s call for someone to replace Rawlings.
“Pure serendipity,” Longmire had said, and standing here on the traffic circle in a town where no one was likely to come up and burble at me, I couldn’t agree more.
I crossed the street, got in line at Roxie’s, and ordered a scoop of fudge ripple, which I savored all the way back to the condo.
Darkness had fallen completely now and those steep steps were poorly lit. Halfway up, I sat down on a ledge to finish the cone, and when I tilted my head back, I saw that the stars had come out, sharp and crisp against the deep blue. I know the mountains have been having trouble with air pollution, smog, and acid rain, but tonight was so clear that even the Milky Way swirled across the sky more brightly than I had seen in ages, despite a moon that would be full in another night or two.
Impulsively, I pulled out my cell phone and called up the menu for Dwight’s number. It rang twice, then a recording informed me that “The wireless customer you have called is not available. Please try your call later.”
I could call his pager, of course, but what was the point? Just to tell him I’d arrived safely? Or to ask him his hat size?
It wasn’t as if we’d be murmuring sweet nothings in each other’s ear, and he’d think I was crazy if I said the only reason I’d called was because the moon was making me lonesome for the sound of his voice.
When Dwight suggested that we get married, we had sensibly decided that long-standing friendship and newfound sex were all that we needed for a stable marriage. I told myself it would be childish and greedy if I started whining now because we didn’t have stardust and moonglow, too. Nevertheless, as I gathered my bags and trudged on up the steps, I couldn’t help sighing for all those times I’d been so deeply, desperately, insanely in love that I didn’t care whether or not the guy thought I was crazy for calling.
The minute I opened the condo door, I realized someone had been there in the two hours I was gone. Lights were on in every room.
“June?” I called. “May?”
No answer.
It seemed to me that there were now fewer jeans in the stacks piled atop the couch and chairs. Two more pairs of heels graced the cabinet that held the television and DVD player, and the empty hangers hooked over a floor lamp now held long black skirts and white blouses with ruffles around the neck and cuffs. It was as if the twins had come home from some dressy occasion, changed into play clothes, and gone off again.
On the dining table was a note: Deborah—Sorry about the mess. We’ll be back around 12. M & J.
Twelve? It was now only eight-thirty.
In my bedroom, a red light on the answering machine blinked for attention. “Would whoever gets this tell May or June to call Carla?”
I finished unpacking, took a long shower, then got into bed with a book, intending to read until they returned.
I think I lasted all of three pages.
The sound of the front door closing woke me. There was a moment of disorientation, and before I could clear my head, the bed was full of arms and legs, bear hugs and bounces.
“Welcome to the High Country!”
“You should’ve let us know.”
“We’d’ve straightened the place up.”
“Mom said—”
“We heard—”
“Are you really?”
One of them grabbed my left hand.
“Oh my God! It’s true!”
“Look at the size of that rock!”
“Mom said Christmas?”
“Can we be in the wedding?”
“Please?”
Laughing, I disentangled myself and sat up. And did an immediate double take.
All their lives, the twins had been so identical that even their own brother had trouble telling them apart. When they were five, though, May fell on a piece of broken glass and wound up with a tiny half-moon scar in front of her right earlobe that was so faint outsiders almost never noticed it. Family members were immensely grateful.
Their faces were still photocopies of each other, but their shoulder-length dark hair had undergone radical changes since last I saw them. Both heads were now covered in short curls. One was the color of a new penny, the other was a deep dark purple, almost the same shade as an eggplant.
They looked at each other and laughed at my reaction.
“We’ll dye it back if you let us be in the wedding,” Eggplant said with a grin.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I was having too much fun picturing Doris or Nadine’s reaction to vaguely punk bridesmaids. On a one-to-ten scale for mild acts of rebellion, with green or fuchsia Mohawks, three facial piercings, and two visible tattoos as a ten, this barely qualified as a one, but my prissy sisters-in-law would see it as the first banana peel down that slippery slope to depravity.
“You look darling,” I said, thinking again how the word “cute” must have been coined with these two in mind: small, compact bodies, upturned noses, the bubbly personality of cheerleaders, which indeed they’d been throughout high school. “Has y’all’s mother seen you yet?”
“No, and don’t tell her. Please? We want to surprise them when she and Dad come up next month.”