Place Setting

by Claudia Mayrant

  “Hey, Penny, you know that expression you’re not the boss of me?”

  She grimaced like Cameron was about to tell her off. “Yeah?”

  “Well you are, in fact, the boss of me, so while I would really enjoy the banana bread, you don’t have to bribe me with snacks to do stuff.”

  Penny laughed. “Well, getting gossip isn’t technically part of the job description. But at least the calories don’t count if I make it for you.”

  “Ah! That was your nefarious plan all along. I’m game, though. Later I’ve got to show that house that we had to cancel during the weather, but you have anything else for me besides ‘get the gossip’?”

  “Drive by Maple and see if the lawn guys came about taking that branch that came down in the storm? And maybe check up on the Hatton cottage before tomorrow morning. We have a new tenant coming.” She tossed him the key ring on her desk.

  Cameron picked up the keys and saluted. “I’ll report back as soon as I have the intel.”

  Cam generally enjoyed these errands, but it was especially pleasant this time of year. Early spring in Summer Corners was the perfect time to drive with the windows down: warm enough when the sun was out and enough breeze before it became summer-sticky and still. Trees and shrubs were starting to bloom, and everything looked cheerful after the Lowcountry winters that were often drippy and dreary, if not frigid. The whole spring rebirth and renewal analogy was kind of hokey, but there was some truth in it, at least for Cameron. He had been doing a lot of thinking, even before he’d had any idea about Penny teaching that class this summer. He’d spent the better part of the past year halfheartedly searching job postings and apartments online—in Charleston, Columbia, even Charlotte. Halfhearted because he felt like it was something he should be doing even if he didn’t really want to. He wanted to stay in Summer Corners even if that meant giving up the chance for other things.

  The house on Maple looked neat and clean, the lawn freshly mown and the broken branch from the tall walnut tree hauled away. Maple was a split-level ranch in good shape, though not terribly charming. It was near the town’s main street, so it stayed rented constantly. The area surrounding Summer Corners was mostly agriculture, but just outside town was the golf club, which hosted a tour event and brought in some tourists. Then there was the plant that made tractor parts and the paper mill a few miles down the highway. A lot of the people at the plant and the mill lived in Summerville or Charleston, but a few who liked small-town living stayed in Summer Corners, which had let Penny’s dad build up a good business over the years, managing houses and a few small apartment buildings.

  There was one place that was never rented, but it was Cameron’s favorite. Whenever he could, he drove out of his way—though in Summer Corners, “out of his way” wasn’t very far. He took the turn between the old but still functional gas station—with signs that proudly, if somewhat datedly, proclaimed Yes we take credit cards but y’all need to come inside to pay—and Miller’s Feed and Seed, which sold everything from livestock supplies to gardening tools, Moon Pies, and RC Cola in an ancient cooler by the register.

  The street didn’t even have a sign, a sure clue that it was at the edge of what the locals considered “town” and “country.” After a quarter mile the blacktop gave way to gravel, and then a little farther, the gravel ran out to packed dirt. Moss-draped trees arched overhead, and brambles threatened to encroach on the road. In a few weeks the wisteria would be out, perfuming the air and littering the dirt with pale purple petals. It was a rustic country sort of road rather than a grand avenue, but it felt perfectly home to Cameron in the best way, especially when the building at the end came into view.

  He pulled up in the clearing and parked in front of the wooden barn. Rustic was the best word to describe it too, although Cameron had to admit that without some serious TLC in the next few years, rustic would give way to dilapidated. It was old, with faded timbers and a tin roof; the front section had walls only half-high, so it looked like the barn was trying to have a verandah.

  Cameron got out of the car to walk around the building. He didn’t know how old it was, but it had looked old when Penny’s dad had bought it and the surrounding land when Cameron was in college. Mr. Parry had told him he’d purchased it with the notion that he might raise some livestock when he retired. When there hadn’t been much else to do, he’d ask Cameron to go out and check up on it, which meant mow the grass, pick up any litter that had been dumped nearby, and take the rest of the afternoon off. Not surprisingly, Cameron had developed an affection for the place, at first because he associated it with lazy summer afternoons and then later because he used it as a quiet place to think.

  Cameron still came out every few weeks to check up on it, though it almost never needed anything but a little sweeping and, in the summer, a little weed whacking. Penny had never bothered to put it up for rent, and Cameron could kind of see why. It was clean, had plumbing that was kept in working order, and there was power, but there wasn’t much in the way of anything else other than some empty stalls and storerooms. It was a shame the place was empty, but the plumbing was only serviceable, there wasn’t any AC, and since the phone and cable company hadn’t seen fit to run anything out to it, it probably wouldn’t even go over as a shabby-chic hipster apartment, even if Summer Corners had a hipster population to market it to. Cameron had considered it might make a cute shop, maybe antiques or crafts, but he doubted the off-the-beaten-path location would be viable.

  There was an empty caretaker’s cabin out back made of cinder blocks with just a couple of plain whitewashed rooms, but they’d still be good for something too, if only Cameron could think of it. It was funny, but at the same time as he felt a little jealous of his quiet spot, he wanted someone else to appreciate it too.

  “You deserve better,” Cam said out loud before he got back to the car, promising like he did every visit that he’d think on it some more.

  WHEN A glance at his phone showed him he’d spent too much time in thought, he drove over to the Hatton cottage, Parry’s newest property and one of several that were being rented out now that their aging owners were moving in with family or into retirement communities, like his great-aunt Lucy had. Hatton was like Cameron’s house, a two-story Craftsman with a wide front porch. The two stories were a big part of the reason Aunt Lucy had decided to move. “Too many stairs,” she’d said, “and besides, all my friends are doing it too. What do you call it, peer pressure?” She’d also strongly hinted that Cameron might want the house to himself soon in case he wanted to start a family.

  He was grateful for the generosity and the support. Aunt Lucy had raised him since his parents died, and she had always encouraged and believed in him, whether it was his first soccer game or coming out or graduating from the university’s local satellite campus. She was also far more optimistic than he was himself about his chances of finding a serious relationship. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested—he very much was—but the local prospects were pretty nonexistent and always had been. He’d had crushes since high school—impossible ones like Paul Depuis, the vivacious drama club president, and Grayson Callahan, the school baseball star—but he hadn’t dated until college. The boyfriends he’d had were, well, fine, but each and every one was either determined to get the hell out of South Carolina or to return to their own hometowns, where Cameron would feel like he was right at home except without the actual advantages of people and places he knew and loved. He’d probably be best off driving down to Charleston on the weekends—he had a few friends there who’d love to set him up—but that sounded like a lot of effort for a semi-long-distance situation where Cameron would end up slowly moving away by inches in the event he did find a guy he liked.

  He wondered if it was a young family renting the Hatton cottage. It would be good for that, being on a quiet street with a nice yard. He was sentimental about houses, a little. To him each one had its own personality. Maple was solid and safe; Cameron imagined it was an accountant,
dressed in a pressed shirt and slacks. Hatton was inviting, a welcoming host of a home. He hoped it would soon be home to someone who liked to entertain. He even thought up personalities for houses that Parry didn’t manage, from the inexpensive but cheerful manufactured houses west of the main street to the haughty but shallow McMansions studding the golf course and, of course, the stately historic homes that ranged from the gracious to the imperious.

  Among the most gracious was Cameron’s next stop. It wasn’t a house, really, but it was a home, and whoever had designed Summerbrooke Retirement Community had done very nice work making a long, low set of buildings look inviting. They’d been designed with an eye to their surroundings, so there were touches like a wide front porch on the main building and faux shutters, deep Charleston green against the plank facade. Even the roofs were terra-cotta-colored metal, a nod to the rusted tin roofs that still dotted the county.

  He found Aunt Lucy in her usual after-church spot, sitting in a sunny lounge, assembling a jigsaw puzzle and sipping a glass of iced tea. Cam waved a greeting, smiling at the seemingly wholesome tableau, but as he got close enough to see the image on the puzzle box, his eyes went wide.

  Aunt Lucy looked up at him with a sly grin. “Cameron, I thought you’d like this one!” She set a bright red piece into place, part of the suspenders stretching over the chest of a very handsome and very shirtless fireman.

  Cameron sat down across from Aunt Lucy, still staring at the puzzle. “I don’t think that’s good fire safety.”

  Aunt Lucy tossed back her head and laughed. “Isn’t it something? The ladies from St. Agnes bring in donated ones, but I think maybe they didn’t look at this batch very carefully!”

  “Or maybe they did,” Cameron joked.

  “Well, I’ve never seen a firefighter who looked quite like this,” Aunt Lucy admitted.

  “Me neither. If I had, I might’ve played with matches!”

  “Cameron!” Aunt Lucy smacked his hand playfully. “You would have done no such thing! You’re too shy by half. You don’t even much use that thing on your phone.”

  “What thing on my phone?”

  “You know, the thing where you stroke right or what have you.”

  “Swipe. Swipe right.” Cam coughed. “And uh, it’s okay I guess.” He really didn’t want to have this conversation, so it was time for a change of subject. “So, did you hear about the excitement this morning in town?”

  Aunt Lucy leaned in, crossing her arms on the table and thankfully covering up the distracting image. “I did! One of the girls in the cafeteria told us the whole sordid story.”

  “Sordid?”

  “There was a raid over at Leighside House. Thad and Patsy Leighton were arrested, and Thad Junior too.”

  “The Leightons?” Cameron would never have guessed that. The Leightons were one of the wealthiest families in town thanks to a rum-running ancestor back in Prohibition days. “What did they do?”

  “Drugs! Renee, that’s our cafeteria girl, said she heard their yacht down in Charleston was seized too.” Aunt Lucy shook her head. “Plenty of family money, and Patsy had that cute little cafe too. So well-off, but I reckon some people let their greed get ahead of them.”

  Cameron had played soccer with Thad Junior in high school, so he’d been to both their houses a few times. Their real house over at the golf club was sleek and modern and fashionable, the total opposite of the nearly century-old Leighside that the family rented out for events, including a few weddings Cameron had attended, not to mention his own lackluster senior prom.

  They didn’t have a chance to discuss it more, because one of Aunt Lucy’s friends joined them and the gossiping switched from Summer Corners at large to the surprisingly spicy goings-on at Summerbrooke. Cameron stayed for a glass of tea but finally excused himself to go back to work.

  It wasn’t out of his way to drive back past Leighside, so he did, trying to be nonchalant as he drove down the street that was much more crowded than usual with law enforcement and media. On the mansion’s lawn, a cameraman filmed a woman with a microphone, her yellow suit almost matching the police tape across the front gates. He’d have a lot of news to pass on to Penny.

  ON THE way back to the office, he showed a house to a young couple, then filled Penny in on the news, much to her glee. After that, the rest of Cameron’s day was a lot less eventful. Penny spent most of the afternoon on the phone and was still on a call when he left, so the talk would have to wait for another day. He got home in time to—well, to do most anything. He could even pull up the “stroke right” app on his phone—that was never not going to make him laugh—and see if there was anyone worth a drive. He doubted it. Cam was mostly content with his small-town life, but that lack of potential romantic partners was the single drawback that had led him to consider moving away. The last time he’d gone out was on a blind date with his friend Travis’s wife’s coworker’s neighbor from Columbia, who insisted they meet at a casual restaurant in Orangeburg so “we won’t see anybody we know.” Cameron didn’t fool himself—he knew some parts of the state were less than accepting even now, but he wasn’t about to be in a closeted relationship, especially one that meant sneaking around at an Applebee’s. He hadn’t had better luck online. So many guys wanted a lot more than coffee on the first—and only—meeting, so Cameron always had to choose between getting laid and getting to know someone when he’d ideally have both.

  “Your problem is that you’re a romantic,” Cameron chastised himself as he sat down on his couch with his microwaved frozen dinner and reached for the TV remote. “And until Mr. Right magically appears in Summer Corners, that’s going to mean a lot of quality time on weekends with the TV boyfriends.”

  He spent the evening catching up with his favorite detectives, who worked in a small British town not much larger than Summer Corners that apparently had a murder rate that would make most metropolises shudder. He stumbled off to bed after one too many episodes, his dreams peppered with mysterious strangers lurking in charming but empty houses.

  Cameron’s phone woke him up just after six, a tenant calling that her sprinklers were going haywire. He stumbled out of bed, grumbling about Mondays, and to her house, where he managed to get the out-of-control spray under control, but not without getting pretty damp in the process. Unfortunately, with his next appointment looming, he didn’t have time to go home to change. When he got to the office, Penny shoved a folder and a set of keys in his hand before he sprinted out to the Hatton cottage.

  Many of the houses were close enough to the golf course or the lake to get a lot of business, but Hatton was located between Summer Corners’ tiny downtown and the highway on a short street it shared with a dentist’s office.

  Penny had put the papers in a yellow folder, which in her own colorful organizational system meant a six-month lease. That was a weird length, especially in early spring. He wondered what kind of person would be living there, but seeing as Summer Corners had three traffic lights for a total stoppage time of less than ninety seconds, Cameron didn’t even have time to peek before he was there. An SUV, chock-full of boxes, was parked in the driveway. It had Pennsylvania plates.

  Cameron pulled in behind, and it was a good thing he’d already put his car in Park when the driver emerged from the SUV.

  He’d assumed it was some tourist coming south for an early spring, but it wasn’t.

  Oh boy, it definitely wasn’t.

  Cameron hadn’t seen the man waving hello for years, but he wasn’t going to forget that face or that body. Schoolboy crushes were like that, especially ridiculous ones like he’d had on Gray Callahan. Gray had been a senior when Cam had been a freshman, a star student athlete, and, Cameron assumed, straight. Cameron had definitely admired him, though, the handsome blond baseball star with the broad shoulders and the kind of tan Cameron had once heard described as “GBD—golden brown and delicious.” It was corny but accurate. Gray was still looking GBD as he leaned against his SUV, and Cam was looking like a
drowned rat in a damp polo and khakis.

  There wasn’t anything for it, so he just smiled broadly and held out his hand.

  “Hi, um, Mr. Parry?” Gray asked Cameron, taking off his ball cap and pushing his slightly sweaty blond hair back from his forehead. He clearly didn’t recognize Cameron, though really, why would he?

  “Mr. P. retired. I’m Cameron Dunlop, the property manager.” They shook hands. “And I’m pretty sure you’re Gray Callahan.”

  “Word gets around faster than I remembered.” He flushed a little, which was super cute, but Cameron fessed up.

  “Nah, my favorite booth at Don’s Diner happens to be under your, uh, is shrine too strong a word?”

  Gray’s bemused smile broke into a laugh. His teeth were white and very straight, probably like Gray himself, so Cameron really needed to stop gawking.

  “Don does take his local sports history very seriously,” Cameron said but decided to change the topic so Gray wouldn’t feel creeped out. “Although to be honest, there’s apparently much bigger news in town today.”

  To his surprise, Gray’s broad, handsome shoulders slumped and he leaned back against his car. “Don’t I know it.”

  “Not even settled in and you’ve caught up on the news already. Well done.”

  “Family’s been keeping me posted of the local news since I planned my trip. My sister’s getting married on the twelfth.” Gray made a face.

  “Oh my God, is she engaged to Thad Leighton?” Cameron blurted.

  Gray’s eyes went wide, and for a moment Cameron thought he had said exactly the wrong thing. He began spluttering an apology but cut himself off when Gray half doubled over laughing. “Oh thank fu—thank goodness, no. She’ll get a twisted laugh out of that, though. She was supposed to have the wedding and reception at Leighside.”