“Are you coming to Eby’s party?” Kate asked as she stood. She called for Devin to wait by the door.
“I’ll be there,” he said.
“So will most of the town, apparently. It’s snowballed into something bigger than Bulahdeen expected.”
“I can come out later today, if you’d like. I can help get the place ready.”
“I think everyone would be grateful for that,” Kate said.
“Mom, come on!”
Kate smiled as she walked away. “I’ll see you then.”
“Does she know you’re a part of this development deal, the one that’s going to take Eby’s property?” Grady asked, his timing perfect as he poked his head out of the kitchen the moment Kate and Devin left.
Wes shrugged. “Unless Eby has told her, no.”
Grady hooted. “You’re going to be in hot water when she finds out.”
“Why?”
“Has it really been that long?” Grady shook his head. “I keep telling you, you need to date more, son.”
“I date enough.”
“Going bowling with me doesn’t constitute dating. You never even buy me dinner.”
Wes grabbed a wipe from under the counter. He paused, then asked, “What makes you think I’m even interested in Kate?”
“That right there, what just happened, is called attraction. A-trak-shee-un. Look it up in the dictionary.”
Wes smiled and turned to buss the counter. Grady knew that Wes had had girlfriends in the past. Not that they’d ever lasted very long. Everyone his age always seemed to be in such a hurry to leave. His longest relationship had lasted two years. He and Anika had fallen in love their senior year in high school. But not long after graduation, Anika had started making plans for them to leave. They had jobs that could travel, she’d said. He could fix anything, and she could waitress anywhere. His foster mother Daphne had encouraged him to do whatever his heart told him to. The problem with that was that his heart didn’t belong to Anika. Not all of it, anyway. A big part, sure. He did love her. But he also loved Daphne and Eby and the town. And Billy.
It really all came down to Billy.
If he left this place, he would have to leave his brother. And he couldn’t do that. He and Billy had been inseparable. Wes had never minded changing his diapers or teaching him to swim or walking through the woods with him to the lake every morning. Everything Wes did, Billy did. Everything Wes liked, Billy liked. Wes had almost died trying to find him in that burning house. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t find him. Maybe he was still looking for him. Maybe he always would be.
There had never been a single force, a single person, who could compete with that memory, with that place in his heart. Except Kate. She’d made him want to leave all those years ago. Even then, he’d been planning to take Billy with him. But even she couldn’t make him leave now. Not that that would ever happen. No matter what Grady said, what he and Kate had now was just a memory of something good.
It, and she, would be gone before he knew it.
9
The groceries were ready when Kate and Devin walked back to the Fresh Mart, and Kate tipped the bag boy who helped load Lisette’s boxes into the Subaru. Devin had already buckled herself in, and Kate was about to get behind the wheel when she heard voices coming from inside the store. A window cleaner on a ladder was squeegeeing the glass above the door, leaving the doors open.
“Why do you keep coming in here? He’s married.” Kate recognized that voice. It was the young woman with the ponytail at the business counter—Brittany.
“I don’t see your father complaining,” Selma said as she walked out. She didn’t see Kate standing there. Her skirt swished with agitation, and her heels clicked so hard on the sidewalk that they sparked and made black burn marks on the concrete. The air around her was charged with a bright red electricity that every woman recognized. So did every man, but for entirely different reasons.
“What’s the matter with Selma?” Devin asked.
“Nothing,” Kate said, climbing into the car. “She’s just in a bad mood.”
“The alligator likes her.”
“Does he?” Kate asked absently as she started the car.
“He likes everyone. I think he’s upset that he might not see them again. He doesn’t want them to leave.”
“Even Selma?”
“He thinks she’s pretty.”
Kate turned to back out of the space. “Well, that means he’s definitely a he.”
They were a few minutes ahead of Selma in arriving back at Lost Lake. When Selma arrived, she got out of her red sedan and walked to her cabin without a word.
Kate and Devin had just started unloading the groceries when Kate heard Selma call, “Kate! Oh, Ka-ate!”
With a box full of vegetables in her hands, Kate turned to see Selma now standing on the front stoop of her cabin. “Yes?”
“I want to take a long bath and I don’t have any clean towels.”
Kate nodded to the main house. “I’m sure Eby has some in the laundry room.”
“I’ll wait here,” Selma said. “You said you were helping Eby, right? Eby usually does this.”
Kate and Devin took the first load of groceries inside. “I’ll be right back with the rest,” Kate said to Lisette. “I have to run some towels over to Selma first. What is it with women like that?”
Lisette shook her head slowly and wrote something on her notepad. She is lonely.
“She doesn’t act lonely.”
Lisette smiled and wrote, None of us do. Not even you.
Minutes later, Kate knocked on Selma’s door. Selma called for her to come in. When Kate entered, she saw that Selma had already changed into a Chinese dressing gown and was lying on the couch, reading a magazine. The cabin seemed hazy but not by smoke. The haze had a scent, like a perfume.
Scarves were draped over lampshades. High-heeled shoes lined the hearth of the fireplace. There were open hat boxes strewn around, but they didn’t contain hats. One contained candy; another, hundreds of tiny makeup samples; another, inexplicably, bottle caps. Kate stood at the door and held out the towels.
Selma tossed the magazine aside in a truly impressive show of ennui. “Just put them in the bathroom. And take the old towels with you.”
Kate went to the bathroom, set the new towels on the sink, and came back out with the used towels, which were covered in makeup. She walked to the front door, about to leave, but then stopped and turned. “I saw you at the Fresh Mart today. You were having an argument with the girl there.”
Selma sighed. “She doesn’t like me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I flirt with her father. The man who owns the store. He’s married. It’s what I do. All my husbands were married when I met them.” She rubbed her bare ring finger distractedly. “But she doesn’t have anything to worry about. If I’d wanted him, I’d have used my last charm to get him by now.”
Kate opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally she had to ask, “All of your husbands were married?”
“Strange, isn’t it? But those are the rules,” Selma said.
“You have rules?”
“I didn’t make them. They’ve been there since time immemorial.”
“So why didn’t you stay married to any of them? You obviously went to a lot of trouble to get them.”
Selma frowned, then stood. “It’s never what I think it’s going to be.” She gestured to seven picture frames on the mantle, some large, some small, each photo of a smiling man. The youngest was an old photo of a man in his twenties, the oldest was a recent photo of an elderly man. “Those are my husbands,” Selma said. “I keep them around to remind me what not to look for the next time.”