by Haley Cass
The huddle of gossip hounds outside of Cafferty’s on the regular: check.
The whisper of said gossip present everywhere Taylor went: check.
Ben mostly avoiding her despite the fact that she’d been staying with him for almost a week: check.
The same little cliques that formed, lines drawn between who was friends with whom: check.
Town square looking exactly the same – granted, all right, actually modernized and updated a bit, but still: check.
Being spotted and cornered and questioned no less than eleven times during her short and deliberately timed for low traffic trips out of the house? Some – a few of Savannah’s friends – more fond interactions than others. Namely, than those who dropped by under the guise of a friendly chat when she could tell all they were doing was snooping around or making derisive comments about her bohemian lifestyle: unfortunately, check.
Taylor had only been back in town for six days, but she could already see that Faircombe was the same old Faircombe. And she wasn’t really all that surprised.
Six days in and –
All possible manual updates to her website: done.
A new blog update: posted.
Final deals with Michelle for her photos: complete. All by the end of her second day in town.
Celebrating – secretly – Savannah’s pregnancy over a girl’s night her third night in: absolutely.
Picking up a color wheel of paint and some samples for the nursery: yup, on her fourth day.
Tossing out potential baby names with Savannah: constantly, and she was sure to throw in ridiculous choices to make her sister laugh. Peanut, that one had stuck as the baby’s current nickname. For the record, Savannah had tried to make “Flour” work, but it had gotten far too confusing when she was baking, and had resulted in them speaking in double entendres until they’d both burst out laughing. Peanut it was.
Sitting down with Jo and her friends, regaling mostly age-appropriate stories at her niece’s prompting: all of the previous last night, in spite of her brother’s annoyance in the background.
Getting Savannah started on yoga: just this morning.
Brooke seeming to avoid the hell out of Ben’s house, to the point that Taylor hadn’t been able to figure out any way to sneak back her pants and necklace: sadly, true.
Feeling antsy less than a week back in Faircombe: without a single doubt.
***
Really, if Taylor had been asked if she’d wind up at the Faircombe Fall Festival even just three weeks ago, she would have laughed.
Because she hadn’t attended the Faircombe Fall Festival in twenty-five years. Her two-to-three day long trips back to town in the last few decades were typically planned without any regard to events and were usually short, sweet, and dedicated to a deliberate purpose.
She’d deliberately chosen to avoid event-weekends, in order to avoid the influx of people.
Which was kind of ironic, because she was – resoundingly – a people person. Overwhelmingly so, she often thought. She loved meeting new people, she didn’t ever get sick of being in small, close settings or large gatherings. Her chosen life would have been difficult, given that she’d spent her entire adulthood meeting and surrounding herself with all different people, all over the world. They didn’t even have to speak the same language for her to embrace spending time with them, to just be.
But it was different, in Faircombe.
Still, here she was.
The Faircombe Fall Festival was in full swing. The second Saturday of October, without fail, found town square full of tables and booths set up from all sorts of businesses, with games and snacks everywhere you looked. Savannah’s bakery had one of the biggest and most popular booths, located near the dead center of the festival. It filled Taylor with an unexpected sense of pride.
“You know, I didn’t expect you to come and help me man the booth. Not that I’m not grateful for your company,” Savannah commented, a question in her voice as she gave Taylor a sidelong glance.
Was Taylor feeling a little listless after only a week in town? Yes. But did she want Savannah to know that and feel guilty? Definitely not. No matter what, she’d been able to clearly see the anxiety that often entered her baby sister’s eyes when she got a little too much in her head in the last few days. The anxiety that made it clear what Taylor had come here for.
Taylor deliberately arched a teasing eyebrow toward her. “Oh, so now I’m good company, but earlier, I’m a rude ass?”
Savannah poked her bottom lip into a pout, looking very much like the younger sister Taylor remembered from her childhood. “Yes, because you are almost ten years older than I am and you were way more flexible when we did yoga, and that is not fair.”
Taylor snorted.
“Stop laughing at me,” Savannah attempted to sound menacing, but the giggle that escaped her gave her away. “Laughing at me is,” she glanced around to make sure no one was around before she whispered, “Bad for the peanut.”
Taylor rolled her eyes, chuckling. “What, are you going to use that excuse for everything?”
“Nope,” her sister stuck her tongue out. “Only the true things.”
“You tried telling me that you weren’t able to hold the natarajasana pose today because of the peanut and not because of your honestly worrisome balance,” she shot back, sticking out her own tongue.
“Taylor Vandenberg, look at you! I’d heard you were back in town, but I had to see it with my own two eyes.”
The voice to her left surprised Taylor – it was no big shock she couldn’t hear someone approaching amidst the sounds of the festival, but still. She recognized it in an instant, her playful mood dipping.
She barely held in a sigh as she turned to give Mrs. Hibbard a tight smile. “Hi, Mrs. Hibbard. You’re looking well.”
She was, too. Taylor didn’t know how old Mrs. Hibbard or any of the old gossips were, really. Maybe around her dad’s age, she guessed. They were just always around, even when she’d been younger. Always ready to stick their noses in other people’s business.
Given that Taylor had been a very big source of that gossip during her adolescence, she’d formed a distaste for that posse very early in her life. Though she didn’t feel as strong a vitriol for them now that she’d grown up and had so much space and time from this place, that little unpleasant kernel was still there.
“Did I hear you say marijuana just now?” Mrs. Hibbard dipped her voice as if she were getting juicy information, her eyes gleaming in excitement. “That’s still illegal here in Tennessee, you know.”
Taylor dropped her mouth open in faux-surprise. “You don’t say. Down here in the liberal south? Here I was, planning to smoke up the residents of Faircombe right from the bakery booth. Lacing up some baked goods and all, you know how it is.”
Savannah pushed her shoulder when Mrs. Hibbard’s eyes widened, and Taylor couldn’t contain her laugh, glad that this sort of entertainment never failed. Playing right into these expectations in her youth had made the gossip almost tolerable. And, if she did say so herself, gave her excellent coping skills.
“She’s joking, Mrs. Hibbard. I swear it,” Savannah added when Mrs. Hibbard started eyeing the brownies.
There was skepticism written all over the old woman’s face as she turned to eye Taylor, who made no attempt to hide her grin.
Until Savannah shot her a look. Because both of them knew just how quickly it could spread that Savannah’s baked goods were laced with pot. As if that would be such a nightmare.
“I am kidding,” Taylor conceded. “The word I said was natarajasana. The dancer’s pose, from yoga. You do yoga, Mrs. Hibbard? You still look… spry.”
Somehow, she did. Maybe she drew her power from meddling into other people’s business. Got her youth from sucking the gossip out of others. The thought made Taylor bite her lip against a snicker.
Mrs. Hibbard laughed Taylor off. “Oh, please, child. As if I could. Now tell me,” she leaned into the bo
oth. “You come back here because you’re in some sort of trouble? You know you can tell me true.”
Taylor’s smile froze to her face.
It was so stupid, she reminded herself, to be wrapped up in stuff that happened decades ago. She was way beyond that.
With that in mind, Taylor shook her head and blew out a low breath as she forced a laugh. “No trouble now, unless you count surrounding myself with Savannah’s baked goods far too often.”
Unsurprisingly, it was as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“’Cuz you know, we can help, if you are.” Mrs. Hibbard leaned in farther, almost halfway across the counter, as if proximity would make Taylor want to confess every secret she’d ever had to the woman. Her voice was a conspiratorial hush, “That Taylor Trouble ain’t nothing we can’t handle.”
At the nickname, Taylor unexpectedly felt her stomach clench and her smile twitched with it. Her sister must have sensed it. “Mrs. Hibbard, come on over here and let me package you up a few cookies. I saw your grandkids over here just a few minutes ago, you can surprise them.”
Taylor Trouble was the nickname the gossip hounds had coined for her when she’d been growing up, and she hadn’t heard it in over twenty years.
She cleared her throat, shaking her head as she rolled her shoulders. It was stupid to let it bother her, she told herself again.
Taylor Trouble skipped school again – all over town before the school day was even out.
Taylor Trouble got into a fight with a football player – before she could even tell her parents herself.
Taylor Trouble was smoking out behind the grocery store parking lot!
Taylor Trouble was so disrespectful at the Miss Faircombe Pageant, did you hear her rant about sexism toward the judges?
Taylor Trouble is gay now, did y’all hear? A lesbian.
Taylor Trouble, she’s just like her troublemaking mother – and they didn’t mean her mom; they didn’t mean Amy. But the biological one, the one that had taken off before Taylor had even hit her first birthday.
Faircombe hadn’t changed a bit, she thought again, a huff of exasperated laughter caught in her throat. Nope, it was all just the very same.
“Come on over if you want to get those bones moving in some yoga classes,” Taylor called with a teasing shout, smiling with as much innocence as possible.
Still, Mrs. Hibbard only laughed as she walked away.
Savannah hip-checked her, even as she giggled. “You are such a menace.”
Taylor shrugged, running her hands through her hair as her nerves settled. Oddly keyed up from the interaction; then again, that had been one of the prime interactions she’d aimed to avoid for years.
“Back to what I was saying before though,” Savannah’s voice was quieter, the sincerity of it pulling at Taylor, as soon as Mrs. Hibbard was out of view. “I thought maybe you’d want to ease into being here or something.”
Incredulous, she turned to look at her sister. “Ease back? Into Faircombe? We both know there is no such thing; you either get all of Faircombe at once or you get nothing.” It was mostly why she’d chosen nothing for so long. “And I’ve been laying low for a few days, so I might as well jump in.” She shrugged before she added, “And I can’t keep toiling away at Ben’s.”
The truth of that statement threaded through her.
It had been just shy of a week, and she was already going out of her mind trying to remain so… still. Taylor was meant to be doing something with her time, with herself. A day or two of downtime here or there in between activities, that was fine. A little refresher.
Faircombe gossips or not, she couldn’t sit around anymore and go stir-crazy.
“Besides, you know I’ve always liked Fall Fest.” She cast her gaze around the town again, taking in everything she could see from behind the booth.
Faircombe was full of events – food drives, the dance-a-thon, the knit-a-thon. About a dozen other inconsequential a-thons. Miss Faircombe pageants, Spring Fling Night, the Winter Wonderland Holiday Celebration. The Founder’s Day Ball, Founder’s Day Anniversary, around ten thousand other Founder’s Day days – to name only a few. They were all catalogued into her mind, it seemed, even after not living here for the later half of her life.
She and her mom used to tease her dad when she’d been growing up that there was always an event in Faircombe. When your dad was the mayor and the face of the town, who actually enjoyed spending facetime with the people, it made for a lot of time and energy going into these things.
But the festival was always fun.
“Well, Ben and Jo are coming out tonight. You could have come with them; you don’t have to stay here with me. That’s what I meant.” Savannah bit her lip.
Taylor gave her a questioning look. “You think Ben wanted me to hang out with him and Jo?”
Her brother seemed to not only avoid her, but shot a look at her when she was spending time with her niece, as well. Not like he wanted to stop it from happening, but as if he wanted to monitor it. Not that it would stop her; Jo and her bright mind was one of her favorite things.
Savannah shrugged, making herself busy as she rearranged some of the cookies yet again. “I don’t know; did you ask?”
Shooting her sister a weird look, because there was just something in her tone – her eyes caught on someone in the crowd, and she gaped in surprise, a jolt of… something, something not quite so easily definable shooting through her at the sight of the older man, in his late sixties by now, at the booth across from them.
It wasn’t easily definable, but it was very much the opposite of good. Anger mixed with resentment, twisted around with the sour taste of bad memories that easily slammed into the forefront of her mind. Even more so than they had with Mrs. Hibbard. Or maybe because she’d just been primed by Mrs. Hibbard.
“Savannah, please tell me that Deputy McCord isn’t the Chief of Police now,” she pointed in his direction.
He wore his uniform even as he traversed the festival, so it was pretty unmistakable.
She guessed there were a few surprises in Faircombe.
Savannah grabbed her hand and pulled it down. “Can you stop pointing like a heathen? He is. Has been for eight years now.”
Taylor turned to face her, frowning tightly. “How in the hell did I not know about that?”
Savannah made a tsk sound. “Why would you know about it? It’s not like I’m going to waste our time talking about someone you hate. And he’s really mellowed in the last ten years.”
“Who does Auntie Taylor hate?” Jo’s voice reached them, as she walked up to the other side of the booth, Ben in tow.
“Chief McCord,” Savannah supplied.
Ben groaned. “Can you just let that go?”
No. The answer was immediate, but she tore her gaze off of the man, surprised at herself for the knee-jerk anger from decades ago.
“I didn’t say I hated him! He hated me.” Taylor defended. Only to pause a beat before she admitted, “I just reacted accordingly.”
Ben sighed, while Savannah giggled, “Okay, just because he was the first arresting officer on your rather illustrious rap sheet, doesn’t mean he hated you.”
“Oh, he hated me,” Taylor murmured with certainty. She knew.
“What’s a rap sheet?” Jo asked, as she hopped up and swiped a cookie in a move so smooth, it made a lighter feeling of pride break through the ugliness in Taylor’s stomach.
“A criminal record,” Savannah supplied, before she seemed to realize what she’d said, and shot their brother an apologetic look.
Which was appropriate, because he’d crossed his arms over his chest to give her a glare, tension radiating from his shoulders as he threw an exaggerated look at Jo. Taylor shook her head at him, but she knew the last thing he wanted to hear was her telling him that he couldn’t hide the real world from Jo forever. Something she’d very much picked up on in the last week.
He arched an eyebrow at Taylor, clenching his teeth. “And it is
not a good thing to have.”
Taylor winked at her niece, dropping her voice to a whisper, “Unless it’s for a good reason.”
Ben’s agitation multiplied in front of her eyes. “There is no good reason to get arrested.”
“Of course there is!” She turned to her brother, looking at him in disbelief. “Civil unrest. Protest. Fighting to be on the right side of history.”
Taylor held eye contact with her brother, waiting for him to disagree. At this point in their lives, this was old hat for them. A conversation born from a whole slew of emotions that ranged their complicated relationship.
“That is so cool.” Jo stared at her with something akin to amazement.
Taylor reached across the counter to fist bump with Jo. “Stick with me, Bug.”
“Yeah, all the way down to the station in a perp walk,” Ben muttered, shaking his head. “Seriously, Bug, do not listen to your Auntie Taylor.”
Jo rolled her eyes at him, utterly thirteen. “Dad, don’t call me Bug, anymore.” She heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Can I go hang out with my friends now?”
“Don’t leave the festival,” Ben told her, giving her a stern look.
Which made Jo sigh again. “It’s Faircombe,” she wrinkled her nose. “Where do you think I’m going to go?”
“True,” Taylor acknowledged.
Jo grinned brightly at her before giving them a wave and disappearing.
Taylor’s heart twinged in sympathy for both her niece and her brother. After staying with them for only a week, it was very easy to get a sense of the tension between them. And see how it very closely mirrored the tension between herself and her dad, back then.
Past experience, however, informed her that Ben would not be receptive to hearing that. Not from her, anyway.
“You call her Bug, and you’re the coolest person to walk the planet earth. I call her Bug and she wants to bite my head off,” he grumbled.
Giving him a small, joking smile, Taylor poked at his shoulder. “Maybe it’s all the tension here. You want to figure out something we can do to get arrested together? She might think you’re cool then.”
Ben narrowed his eyes, clearly unamused.