“They look great,” Cassidy called, smiling at me, and I smiled back and made my movements bigger, my arms more dramatic. It was a little difficult to stay upright, and my feet hurt so much doing this shuffle thing. But I had years of practice with my facial expressions from the pageants I’d done so I kept up the smile. A happy face when your feet were killing you was par for the course.
Cassidy’s guy was leaning over to try to kiss her, but she avoided his lips and danced over to me. “Looks like Kayleigh is going to be busy tonight,” she said in my ear. I thought she was trying to whisper, but with the music so loud, she mostly screamed it.
I looked at our other cousin, who had now turned around and was grinding frontways with the man. His hands were clamped around her bottom, yanking up the skirt she’d worn so that a large portion of her thong was exposed. And also, a large portion of what the thong wasn’t covering was also visible to everyone on the dance floor.
“My word,” I muttered, and went over to pull on the fabric. I batted the man’s hands out of the way and managed to hide most of her skin, but neither of them paid me too much attention. Cassidy had gone back to dancing with her guy, but now she was holding her pocketbook as a spacer in between them so he couldn’t get too close.
“Come on, have fun, Aria!” she yelled when she saw me looking over, and did some of the cute moves that had helped her to earn the Junior Miss Rhythm “She Can Shake It!” Southeast Region title when she’d been eleven. I remembered her outfit, the coconut bra that we’d taped on very securely and the skirt that flew straight out when she did her spins, revealing the floral bikini bottom underneath. She’d been adorable and she really could shake it.
But someone telling you to have fun always seemed to guarantee that you wouldn’t. Why was that? I tried to keep shuffling and I definitely kept the smile on my face, but I wasn’t enjoying it much. Cassidy’s partner got tired of getting poked with her bag and invited her for a drink at the bar, and it looked like Kayleigh and her guy were going to be publicly baby-making soon and a small crowd had gathered to watch them. I really didn’t want to see it, so I went over to the bar also to order something to cool myself down. Cassidy had gotten right up to the front and I tried to wave at her, hoping she’d glance my way.
“Aria? Aria McCourt?”
I looked to my right to see who had spoken. Another guy in a silky shirt, but he did look familiar. “Is it…” I thought hard. “Jase?”
He smiled. “Yeah, Jase Meyer!” We’d had a study hall together when I was a freshman. I’d been there because I daydreamed through all my classes and was barely passing, and he’d had to sit through it because he was totally flunking math and wouldn’t have graduated that year without the enforced homework. “Wow, you look great,” he told me. His eyes swept up and down my body. “I wouldn’t have recognized you except for your hair.”
“Oh. Um, thanks.” I was never sure how to respond to remarks like those. My hair was notable, I guessed, and I had changed a lot.
“Yeah, of course. Hey, do you want to dance or something?”
I remembered Jase from that study hall and how he’d been sweet, even to me. “Sure,” I told him, and let him lead me out onto the floor again.
He was a good dancer, too. “Do you ever see anyone else from our town?” he asked me loudly.
I was enjoying watching him. “Sometimes,” I called. “Mostly just my family. Do you?”
He did, it turned out, and started on a string of names, some I knew and some I’d heard of. Most of them were strangers. “I didn’t know that many people,” I tried to explain, after I’d shaken my head to his twentieth “were y’all friends?” question. “I wasn’t allowed to go out that much. My mother was really strict.”
“What?”
“Really strict mama!” I said louder.
“Too bad!” he shouted.
Well, yes and no. Her rules had been tough on my pretty sisters, but they had worked ok for me. I’d mostly been with my cousins, and I liked them just fine.
Jase listed more people, more unfamiliar names, but then he mentioned someone I did know. “Cain Miller, but he was a lot older. He got kicked out of school so you may not—”
“I know him,” I broke in. He cupped his hand behind his ear and looked confused. “I know him!” I repeated. “He was my neighbor. Is he back in Tennessee?”
“Yeah, I saw him. He’s our big success story!”
I shuffled, wondering what the success story was, but Jase was doing some kind of cool spin. “What do you mean?” I asked when he was done.
“Ari, we have to go.” My cousin Cassidy stepped between us. “Kayleigh,” she explained loudly, and rolled her eyes. “Or, I could take her by myself, if you might get busy?” She looked over her shoulder at the guy I was dancing with and then raised her eyebrows at me, questioning.
“No, it’s fine! I’ll come with you,” I said. Nothing was going to happen between me and Jase. I linked my arm through hers so I could move faster without falling. “It was nice to see you, Jase!” I called back to him, and he waved. But he had already turned to another girl who actually could use her feet and dance because of more comfortable shoes, I supposed.
It was lucky that I came because it did take both of us to get Kayleigh up from where she was lying on the bathroom floor. “This is so gross,” Cassidy moaned, and I had to agree. “How much does she weigh?”
Kayleigh was a stick compared to some people, but it was hard to move a dead weight. Not dead, just passed out! “Kayleigh, why do you do this?” I asked her. She was so sweaty that I struggled to get a grip on her arms. “Is it only liquor?” I asked Cass.
“I think so,” she said, but she really didn’t sound too sure.
Kayleigh suddenly picked up her head and laughed, hiccupping mostly. “I took a pill he gave me, but I puked it up over there,” she slurred, and pointed to the corner of the bathroom.
Cassidy and I exchanged a look of despair. “Makes me want to puke, too,” she grumbled, and again, I agreed.
“You know what I heard? Cain Miller is home! Oof,” I grunted, as Kayleigh’s full weight tilted my way and put more pressure on my feet. Maybe I’d have to take off the shoes, but I hated to do it in this bathroom.
“Cain? Was he the one whose brother played basketball for the Mocs? No, his name was Chase. Cain Miller?” she repeated, then nodded hard. “I do remember him!” she exclaimed, and thankfully took some of Kayleigh from my shoulders. “He lived next door to you with his aunt. He was the kid who broke into the elementary school and tore up the principal’s office. Wasn’t your sister in his class?”
“Bree is a few years younger. I think the problem in the principal’s office got him kicked over to a special school somewhere,” I agreed. “Kayleigh, try to walk! He came back to regular middle school again but then he left for the second time, I think for…you know, I’m not sure why exactly. But I remember that there was a lot going on. My daddy used to go over to his Aunt Liddy’s house to help her with him.”
“Your daddy was a good man,” Cassidy said, and she was right. He really had been, and he’d always helped everyone in that way. “Cain Miller. His name sounds familiar, and not just because he was your neighbor.”
“He went to California years ago,” I said. “He’s doing something there now, that’s what I heard last from Mama.” Maybe something criminal, she’d said, but I didn’t repeat that. “You know how she still keeps up with the gossip from our old neighborhood. But that guy I was just dancing with, he said Cain Miller was a success story. Is that why you recognize his name?” I thought that Cass shrugged, but it was hard to tell since she was practically wearing our other cousin like a shawl.
By this point, we’d reached the exit and the bouncer moved out of the way to allow the three of us to pass. “Good night, ladies. Good luck,” he told us. We had to walk down the sidewalk next to a line of people who were still waiting to get into the club, and they all had something to say about Kayleigh�
��s condition, some of it joking but some of it concerned. I looked down at her face as her head lolled with each of our steps. Her eyes were closed and there was vomit smeared around her mouth.
“Cass, should we take her to the doctor or something? She’s in bad shape.”
My cousin also looked more closely. “Let’s get her to the car and see if she wakes up a little. And if not, I guess we should go to the emergency room.” She sounded uncertain. Neither of us wanted to get Kayleigh in trouble, and her parents would have absolutely killed her if they knew that she was getting drunk in bars already—she was only twenty, still, and they didn’t have a clue that this had been going on for years.
Like when the three of us girls had taken a vacation to New Orleans, Kayleigh had told them that it was because we were interested in the old cemeteries there, but she’d spent almost the entire time on Bourbon Street (and actually, had tried to cheat me and Cassidy out of money so she’d have more to buy drinks). Even when we’d gone to Orlando, only Cass and I had visited the theme parks. Kayleigh had been more interested in the clubs.
“I’m fine,” Kayleigh told us, picking up her dirty face, and she laughed. “You two are old ladies.”
“You’re lucky we’re young and strong so we can pull you to the car!” I told her. Kind of strong, I should have said. I wasn’t getting to the gym as much as I should have, and it probably showed. With my free hand, I tugged on the bottom of my own skirt before I checked to see if my cousin was exposed again.
“Who was that guy you were dancing with, Ari? He was cute,” Cassidy encouraged me.
“Who, Jase? Just someone I knew from school.”
“Are you going to go out with him again?”
“No, probably not.” No, definitely not, since I’d forgotten to get any kind of information from him, like his number or handle on any social media thing. But it just showed that I didn’t care that much, and neither did he—he could have asked for mine, too. “We’re not compatible. He’s a much better dancer.”
“Aria, that is so stupid! You worry about the dumbest things…” Cassidy started her lecture about me and my pickiness. But wasn’t it good to be picky? If you weren’t, you ended up with your skirt hiked up and exposing your femininity to everyone at a club, like our drunk cousin! Kayleigh’s standard was only that a man had to have the necessary parts between his legs, but I had a lot of qualifications for my perfect guy. I just hadn’t found him yet.
It took some effort, but we did get Kayleigh to the car and she was talking better and was more alert by the time we got in, so we went home instead of to a clinic or the hospital. But it was still a long night, because she was sick a few more times and also got loud, singing in the carrying voice that had earned her Most Talented at several local pageants. I was glad by the time that morning came because she was asleep, but I didn’t look forward to seeing her parents and explaining why she wasn’t at church with the rest of us.
“She…she…she’s not feeling well,” I told my Aunt Jill, Kayleigh’s mama, later that morning as we gathered at my sister Aubree’s house after services. Aunt Jill got concerned about her daughter, and Cassidy had to step in with a story about Kayleigh ingesting something that hadn’t agreed with her. Cass just left out that it was alcohol and some kind of pill from a stranger, which skirted very close to a lie, so I had to excuse myself to talk to other relatives before I gave us away. I ended up next to my own mama, who was saying something to my Uncle Jed. Knowing her, it was juicy gossip, as juicy as she could find, anyway.
“I hope he helps, rather than hinders,” she was telling him. “What about when he…” She saw me and stopped. “Oh, Aria,” she said with a little sigh. Her hands went to my hair and mine did too, to tame down any fly-aways and smooth the curls I’d worked hard on that morning. It had been difficult to look my best since I was so tired, but I really had made an effort.
“Hi, Uncle Jed,” I said, and he told me good morning, and I was as pretty as a picture today.
“Thank you,” I answered promptly. “Who are you talking about, Mama?”
“Our old neighbor is in town,” she explained. “Do you remember Elodie Miller from next door to our house?” No matter that we’d moved away from it fifteen years before, it was always still “our house” to her. Having to leave the place that she and Daddy had bought and fixed up and loved had been terrible for my mama. We’d moved in with my memaw across town after his death.
“I remember Miss Liddy,” I agreed. “Is her nephew home? I heard that last night, too.”
Mama narrowed her eyes at me. “I hope you haven’t been with any of his old friends, Aria Louise.”
“Oh, Amber,” Uncle Jed said to her, “he wasn’t that bad. You act like the boy was the devil himself.”
“You didn’t have to live next door to him, Jed! When Dawson was working nights, I didn’t know what he and his friends would do. He put his aunt through hell. He really was a devil.”
“And he’s back?” I broke in. “He’s back to visit or something?”
“Miss Liddy has cancer, Aria, I know I told you that,” Mama informed me.
Had she? Mama always had a lot of information to relay about so many people, and sometimes, to my discredit, I wasn’t always listening very well. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t remember.”
“Your sisters have already been by her house to drop off meals,” she told me, and I felt worse. I would do something too, right away. “I just hope that boy is here to help her, after all she did for him, offering a home when his own mother…” She shook her head. “Liddy was a better woman than I would have been in that situation.”
“Oh, Amber,” Uncle Jed said again, “I’m sure that’s not true. You’re the finest woman in Middle Tennessee.” He’d always been able to make her smile, and she did now, too. That didn’t make her forget to keep an eye on me, though.
“Help your sister serve the coffee,” she directed, and I went to find my sister Aubree. It was her turn to host, so we were all at her house today. Soon it would be Amory’s turn, but I didn’t have to take one myself. Cassidy, Kayleigh, and I were the last of the unmarried cousins and we didn’t have houses of our own like my sisters did to invite our big family over after church on Sundays. The three of us girls lived together in an apartment that was only half as big as it should have been for all our stuff, so no extra relative was going to fit in there.
But actually, I didn’t think Cass was going to stay unmarried for long. She flirted when we went out, sure, but her heart wasn’t in it. I smiled to myself as I watched her talking to Bo, her old boyfriend from high school, just like she did every time her mother “happened” to ask him over to visit with us. And just like always, they were smiling too, heads close together, leaning in, looking into each other’s eyes. Body language could tell you so much!
Cassidy went back to her childhood home with her parents as the party broke up, but I left to head to our apartment in Chattanooga, about forty-five minutes south and east. On the way, I drove through my old neighborhood, past my own childhood home. It did still feel like ours to me, too, even after all this time, even after the new owners had painted over the blue shutters that my mama had loved. Their brown color now looked kind of sad—kind of the color of poop, but I wouldn’t have said that out loud. It was still so familiar, even though the flowers that we had all tended were long gone from the beds in the front and only weeds sprouted there now. The driveway was grown over, too, and the glass in the front door was dirty. I looked at that door for a while, remembering how I’d opened it to the sheriff fifteen years before.
Miss Liddy’s house next to ours didn’t look much better. The grass was long in front and one of her shutters sagged some, giving the place a sleepy, confused look. I slowed and thought that maybe her nephew was back in town, but he surely wasn’t doing much to help his elderly aunt, just as my mama had suspected. So instead of going right home, I drove to the hardware store and bought two pots of chrysanthemums for her porch,
the same kind almost every other house on the block had to decorate for fall.
“Miss Liddy? It’s me, Aria McCourt. Your former neighbor,” I called when I returned to her house. I knocked softly, but I didn’t want to bother her if she was resting. I pulled the price tags off the flowers and put them on the porch where she’d see them, and then I thought that while I was there, maybe I could help with the yard a little. I plucked out a few weeds and made a pile, and found a broom and swept her walkway and her driveway clear. I fought through some shrubs to get to the shutter, wondering if I could push it back into place and make it stay until my Uncle Jed could stop by and fix it. He could fix anything.
“What are you doing?”
I turned at the sound of the voice and dropped the shutter I’d been shoving. It fell even more and looked worse. “Oh, my word! You startled me.” I smiled at the man. “I’m Aria McCourt. I’m Miss Liddy’s old neighbor, just stopping by to lend a hand.”
The man stared at me, stared really hard. “You’re Aria McCourt?” he asked, and I tilted my head, staring back.
“Cain?” I asked him. “Are you Cain Miller?”
I remembered him as a kid—but not like this. It hadn’t been too long after my father had passed that Cain had been sent away, again, and at the time, no one had told me where he’d gone except that it was because he was bad. He’d been a tall, skinny teenager with bad skin, long, blonde hair, and a big, scary scowl. He still had the scowl, that was true, but now he was a tall, broad-shouldered, short-haired, beautiful man. I blinked in surprise. My word! With those blue eyes and his cheekbones, he was as handsome as the devil!
And that was what my mama thought he was, so I nodded solemnly and put away the big smile I’d had on my face as I climbed from behind the bush. I held out my hand like I did for clients in the office where I worked. “It’s nice to see you again, Cain,” I told him.
He came down from the creaky step of Miss Liddy’s porch. “Aria. I wouldn’t have recognized you at all,” he said, which was what almost everyone else said to me also if we hadn’t met in a while.
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