Hello, Summer
Page 48
The shed itself had yielded up a few useful things: a kerosene lantern, a half-full red tin of Prince Albert chewing tobacco, a five-gallon galvanized bucket that when overturned made a perfect table, and a wooden peach crate that served as storage.
“Nedra?” Winnie searched her sister’s face. “Found it where?”
“None of your beeswax.” The older girl reached up and turned on the radio, which they’d hung from a nail on the wall by the door. Tinny music flooded the shack. “‘Hound Dog’!” Nedra yelled, singing along and breaking into an impromptu jig. “Elvis forever!”
“He is the coolest,” Winnie said dreamily.
The song ended, and a commercial for Family Tire came on. “Come on,” Nedra said. “Let’s fix lunch.” She grabbed the skillet from the nail beside the radio and took the can of Spam from the makeshift cupboard, loading everything into the big bucket. “Bring the can opener. And the plates,” she called to her sister, as she hurried out the door.
* * *
Winnie caught up with Nedra by the lake. Winnie knew it wasn’t a real lake. Just a drainage pond that had always been there, dug by railroad workers a long, long time ago. The Gulf Coast of Florida was a green, leafy place, but nothing flourished in this spot. Tall, long-leaf pines that ringed the pond’s circumference were dead and blackened, and even the kudzu vines were brown and sickly. Ditches leached out from the pond and wound their way throughout their neighborhood, Plattesville—or Flattsville, as locals from the richer part of town called it. The pond water was the color of murky coffee, with an evil smell that reminded her of rotten eggs. Nedra and some of the older kids would swim in the ditches when rainwater spilled over the grassy banks, but not Winnie.
“Go get some more sticks,” Nedra ordered. She’d already begun scraping out a hole in the gravel and cinders strewn atop the hard-packed dirt embankment, and was busily filling it with bits of dried weeds and scrap wood.
“What for?”
“So we can cook the damn Spam, dummy,” her sister retorted.
“Like, on a fire? You know what Mama said, Nedra. If she finds out you’ve been messin’ with fire again…”
“It’s not messing. It’s cooking. And Mama’s not gonna find out, unless you tattle, ya little chickenshit.” Nedra squatted by the pit she’d made.
Winnie knew better than to argue. Anyway, breakfast had been a long time ago and she was getting hungry. She gathered an armload of pine cones and dried-out branches and dumped them on the ground beside the pit.
In the meantime, Nedra had opened the can of Spam, cut it into thick slices with the pocket knife she always carried, and laid them in the bottom of the skillet, which she set atop the upended bucket. She held the lighter up against a bundle of dried weeds and clicked. An orange flame licked at the weeds and a thin plume of white smoke hung in the still air for only a matter of seconds before flickering out.
“Huh.” Nedra grabbed a handful of pinecones and dumped them into the fire pit, then added a layer of dried weeds. Squatting on her haunches, she held the lighter up to a strand of dried grass, which caught, then went out.
The older girl swore under her breath. Winnie swatted at a mosquito that landed on her forearm. Sweat was dripping down the side of her face, and her ankles were scratched and bleeding from the blackberry brambles.
“Be careful,” she begged.
“‘Be careful,’” Nedra said in a hateful, mocking sneer.
Winnie ignored the taunt. She moved the skillet, then took the bucket and dipped it into the pond until it was nearly full, then dragged it back to the fire pit, setting it a few feet away.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
“Fire safety. We learned it in Girl Scouts.”
“Girl Scouts! Bunch of sissies. If you wanna help, go fetch me that lantern from the clubhouse,” Nedra said.
Winnie knew better than to ask why. A moment later she trotted back with the lantern.
Nedra used the hem of her T-shirt, working at the rusted-out cap on the base of the lantern until she managed to unscrew it. She upended the lantern and fuel spilled out and onto the kindling.
“Cool.” Nedra was grinning up at her sister when an orange flame shot three feet into the air, startling her so badly that she sprawled backwards, onto her butt.
Winnie stared at her sister in horror. Her pale blond bangs and eyelashes were singed. A patch of her cheek was already bright red.
“Nedra,” she screamed. Her sister’s eyes widened in shock, but she didn’t move. The flames leapt out of the fire pit, engulfing the stack of pinecones and dried kindling inches from her sister’s faded red Keds.
“Come on,” Winnie urged, grabbing her sister’s hand, jerking her to her feet. The two stumbled backwards, away from the fire.
Nedra seemed transfixed by the flames. “Shitfire and save matches. Let’s get out of here, before somebody from the railroad catches us.” But she was rooted to the spot where she stood.
“We need to try to put it out,” Winnie said. Nedra shrugged, still didn’t move.
Winnie hesitated, then darted forward. She grabbed the bucket and lifted. Pond water slopped over the side, onto her shoes. She could only lift it knee-high, and her hands were shaking with fear, but somehow, she swung the bucket forward, sending a stream of water onto the fire.
A column of flame erupted with a monstrous roar. Oily black smoke filled the air.
Winnie screamed, and she heard her sister’s scream join hers. The force of the explosion knocked her off her feet, and for a moment she blacked out.
When she regained consciousness, Nedra was grasping her by her forearms, dragging her in the direction of the shed. “Stand up,” Nedra begged, bending down to face her. Tears streamed down her soot-blackened cheeks. “Come on, baby. You gotta stand up. I can’t carry you.”
Winnie nodded dumbly. “What happened?”
Nedra pointed toward the embankment, where orange and crimson flames flared skyward. “It’s real bad. We set the lake on fire.” She yanked her sister forcibly upward, until she was standing on her feet. “Come on, now. We gotta get out of here.” She ran toward the fence, not stopping until she’d slung one leg through the jagged hole in the boards. Then she looked back and realized she was alone. “Winnie,” she hollered. “Come on. Or I will by God leave you right here.”
A minute passed. Nedra covered her nose and mouth with her hand as the acrid black smoke filled the air. She coughed and spat. “Winifred Lee! I swear to God, I don’t care if you get burned to a cinder. I’m going.”
Winnie stumbled away from the clubhouse and toward the fence. “Wait for me!” Her hair and eyelashes were singed too, her pink blouse and green cotton pedal pushers smeared with blood and soot. Her sneakers were gone and she was barefoot. She clutched something tightly in her right hand as she crawled through the rotted fence. As she emerged on the other side, into the blackberry brambles, she held it up for her sister to see. It was the turquoise transistor radio.
Nedra rolled her eyes. “All right then. Let’s go. But you better not say a word about this to anybody. You hear me?”
“We oughta tell somebody,” Winnie protested. “Like the sheriff. Or the fire department. What if that fire keeps coming? What if somebody’s house gets burned?”
Her sister grabbed a handful of Winnie’s shirt. “Are you crazy? The sheriff? You wanna get put in the jailhouse for being a firebug?”
Winnie shook her head slowly. “Nnnno.”
“Okay then. You just keep your trap shut. You don’t know nothing about a fire.”
Also by Mary Kay Andrews
Sunset Beach
The High Tide Club
The Beach House Cookbook
The Weekenders
Beach Town
Save the Date
Christmas Bliss
Ladies’ Night
Spring Fever
Summer Rental
The Fixer Upper
Deep Dish
Sa
vannah Breeze
Blue Christmas
Hissy Fit
Little Bitty Lies
Savannah Blues
About the Author
MARY KAY ANDREWS is the New York Times bestselling author of Sunset Beach, The High Tide Club, The Beach House Cookbook, The Weekenders, Beach Town, Save the Date, Ladies’ Night, Christmas Bliss, Spring Fever, Summer Rental, The Fixer Upper, Deep Dish, Blue Christmas, Savannah Breeze, Hissy Fit, Little Bitty Lies, and Savannah Blues. A former journalist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Visit www.marykayandrews.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
A Letter from Mary Kay Andrews
Also by Mary Kay Andrews
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
HELLO, SUMMER. Copyright © 2020 by Whodunnit, Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address the St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Michael Storrings
Cover photographs: beach © CAP53/Getty Images; bird (right) © Lisa Lyn /Getty Images; bird (left) © Ed Reschke/Getty Images; dust © xpixel/Shutterstock.com; sandals by Herman Estevez; sandal detail © Passakorn sakulphan/Shutterstock.com; sandal buckle © Shutter-Man/Shutterstock.com; sandal design © raresirimie/ Shutterstock.com; writing © Senee sriyota/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Andrews, Mary Kay, 1954– author.
Title: Hello, summer / Mary Kay Andrews.
Description: First U.S. edition. | New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020006746 | ISBN 9781250256928 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250272195 (international, sold outside the U.S., subject to rights availability) | ISBN 9781250273642 (signed) | ISBN 9781250256898 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3570.R587 H45 2020 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006746
eISBN 9781250256898
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First U.S. Edition: May 2020
First International Edition: May 2020