by Cat Johnson
I’d grab something quick to eat later. For now, I brushed the sawdust off my jeans and shirt and hopped up into the cab of my truck.
I might have slowed a bit to check out Agnes’s house as I drove by but it was still daylight so there weren’t even any lights for me to see in the windows. Maybe on the way home.
Hitting the accelerator I sped to the Community House and parked along the road. There was the usual number of cars for a zoning board meeting. Less than for the town meetings. More than for the library board meetings.
I considered that this town sure did have a lot of meetings as I sprinted up the few stairs and pushed open the door to the building. I slipped into the meeting room and stood in my usual spot, in the back near the door.
“There’s been an interesting development. It’s not on the agenda since it literally happened this afternoon,” the head of the zoning board began. “Someone put in an offer on the old train depot. Asking price.”
“Who?” I asked, probably speaking out of turn but as my stomach clenched with dread I couldn’t stop myself.
“Out of towner,” the local real estate agent said. She stood and turned to address the room. “It was a New York City area code that I faxed the contract to.”
I mouthed a curse and shook my head. “They’re going to tear it down,” I mumbled, mostly to myself.
A few people nearby nodded, grumbling right along with me.
“Now, we don’t know that,” the mayor, also up on the dais, said.
Apparently I’d spoken louder than I thought. But what he said didn’t change my opinion. I’d seen it happen before, all too often.
Just like Harper had said as she took all her pictures, that train depot was an architectural gem. A throwback to a long gone era. And now it would be just that—gone. As soon as this city person closed on that contract of sale.
I scowled my way through the rest of the meeting, not wanting to stay, but afraid to leave lest I miss something important.
True to Boone’s prediction I arrived home pissed off and wound up enough to build a dozen pumpkin scaffolds by myself.
I knocked out the rest of what was on the to-do list from Dad, finishing well after dark. I showered quick and fell into bed exhausted but with my mind still racing.
At least I knew my bad mood and Dad’s list hadn’t cost me a night of hot sex with Harper. When I’d driven past on the way home after dark the attic was all lit up. I could picture her up there covered in dust and buried in books.
Of course, I had managed to distract her from those journals before. I had no doubt I could do it again.
Maybe tomorrow. Even thoughts of Harper didn’t fix my bad mood or calm me down.
I should have put in an offer on the train depot myself.
Maybe I could have convinced my parents it would be good to have a stand in town. A long shot but I should have at least tried.
Now, it was too late. Some outsider was going to tear it down. Just like they were gonna tear down the old silo.
Slowly my town was being ripped apart all around me.
Fucking city people.
From the Journal of Rose Van de Berg
MUDVILLE INQUISITOR
1980
Bad times for the Bishop Hotel when a triple killing took place in the parking lot on Thursday, May 15, over a dispute in a card game. Bennet Johnsen, 32, was sentenced to an indeterminate fifteen years-to-life sentence at Attica State Prison for the murder of the three Sidney men. Reports say after the three men were gunned down, Johnsen went back into the bar, ordered another drink and waited for police.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Harper
“Oh my God.” Red had said that exact phrase a good dozen times over the course of three hours, two bottles of wine and one large cheese pizza.
“What?” I asked, not for the first time during our second night of pawing through Rose’s journals.
The craziest part was, every time had been such a mind-blowing revelation that it had Bethany and I stopping in our own searches to absorb it.
Red and Bethany were even more shocked than me since they knew the players personally. They had grown up with them. But even if I didn’t know the cast of characters as well, I had been right, these journals had it all.
If you could measure by the pound the value of the potential blackmail and gossip these journals contained on nearly everyone in this town, we were sitting on a couple of hundred pounds of pure gold.
“Roger had an affair!” Red announced.
“What?” Bethany’s eyes widened. “With who?”
“That visiting pastor from South Africa. Remember him?”
“Yes!” Bethany echoed. “Oh my God.”
“Wait. Background, please,” I said, needing an explanation to fully grasp their excitement.
“Roger is the asshole on the Library board.”
“Oh.” My own eyes widened. “The one who thinks romance novels are immoral.”
“That’s the one.” Red nodded.
“Hypocrite.” Bethany scowled and continued, “And more background. He’s married with three kids. His wife was never allowed to work, even after the kids were all out of the house, because he liked her to stay home and take care of the house and him.”
Red did some counting on her fingers. “According to the dates, this affair would have happened when the kids were still little.”
“Humph. So running around on your wife while she’s locked at home raising your children isn’t immoral, but my books are.” I didn’t even need to mention the fact he was cheating with a priest. God knew what he’d done.
Red leveled her gaze on me. “I told you not to listen to what those library people say.”
“I agree.” Bethany nodded and took another sip of her wine.
“So, let’s review.” Red picked up a notebook and read. “So far just today we’ve found three cheating husbands, one cheating wife, and two possibly illegitimate children. That doesn’t take into account what we found yesterday.”
“I can’t believe you’re taking notes.” Bethany shook her head.
“Don’t worry. I’m not letting her leave with them. What secrets we learn from Rose’s diaries in the attic, stay in the attic,” I warned.
“I know. I know. But somebody needs to keep a record so we don’t forget,” Red defended.
I let out a breath, taking in the stack of what we’d already done, and comparing it to the stack we hadn’t touched yet.
“What we haven’t found yet is what I was looking for to begin with. A will naming Patience as Rose’s heir.”
“We’ll keep looking,” Bethany said. The more I got to know the quiet baker, the more I realized she was as sweet as her culinary confections.
“I remember when Patience was taking care of Rose,” Red began. “She’d take her out for walks around town. I never saw any of Rose’s relatives visit her even once.”
“That’s what Joe said.” But it was nice to hear confirmation from Red.
“So,” Bethany sat back on her heels to put one book down and pick up the next. “I heard you and Stone are getting pretty serious.”
I rolled my eyes. “That seems to be the rumor around town. It seems the only person who doesn’t know for sure if we’re serious is me.” I let out a snort. “And maybe Stone too. Hell, I don’t know.”
“Mmm.” Red nodded. “Honestly that doesn’t surprise me. Stone tends to take things slow.”
“Glacial is more like it,” Bethany corrected. “I mean, the man’s never had a long term adult relationship.”
“Wait. What? Never?” I put down the book I’d been holding to frown at Bethany.
She shook her head. “Nope. Not that I know of. Right, Red?”
“Yeah. He dated a few girls in high school. A month here, three months there. But after that . . . Nope. Nothing serious or long term,” Red agreed.
“Wow.” This put a whole knew light on things between us.
And not for the better.
“How old is he?” I asked.
Red wrinkled her freckled nose in thought. “Um. He graduated two years before Cash. And Cash and I graduated the same year. So that makes Stone going on thirty-two.”
I drew in a breath and realized my chest felt tight. A man who reached the age of thirty-two and never had a serious relationship did not suddenly get serious. Especially with a woman who didn’t even live locally.
So that was it. I had my answer. We were just fuck buddies.
Really, I was fine with that. After all, what did I expect anyway? That I’d pack up my entire life in Westchester County and move into Agnes’s guest room to live happily ever after in Mudville with my corn prince, Stone Morgan?
Of course not. That would be ridiculous. So why was I so disappointed?
Bethany sucked in a breath.
“Oh my God, what?” Red demanded of her.
Looking shocked, Bethany raised her gaze to glance from Red to me. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Red picked up her notebook and pen. “Lay it on me, sister. Which column gets a tick mark? Cheating husband, wife or illegitimate child?”
“All three,” she answered, eyes wide.
The story sounded juicy. I wished I could get excited about it. At the moment, I just couldn’t rally much enthusiasm for anything.
From the Journal of Rose Van de Berg
MUDVILLE INQUISITOR
1981
Catholics filed in to Mudville’s St. Mary’s Church on River Road throughout the day May 13 after Pope John Paul II was shot and critically wounded in Vatican City.
TWENTY-NINE
Stone
With all of the extended family at the farm for Fall Fest—even the ones who usually didn’t work with us—things got pretty chaotic. Before I knew it, the week had flown by.
I didn’t usually mark the passing of time in general, except as how it related to the seasons and the chores around the farm. And of course, for the weekly round robin of meetings in town.
It was a surprise when I cued up the last texts between Harper and me and discovered they were days old. I’d wanted to text to make sure she remembered Fall Fest was tomorrow.
I started typing a message then in a split second decision hit the screen to call instead.
It had been too long since we’d talked. Proof of how crazy-busy we’d all been.
I listened through the ringing. Finally, I heard Harper say, “Hi.”
Just the sound of her voice had me smiling. “Hi, yourself. I haven’t talked to you in a few days so I thought I’d call. What have you been up to? Keeping busy?”
“Yeah, I have been busy.”
“Rose’s diaries?” I guessed.
“Yes. And my book too. Deadlines wait for no man . . . or woman.”
“I guess not.” I laughed.
“So, uh, have you been busy?” she asked.
“Yeah. Dad’s been running all of us ragged. But Shalene’s back from school for the weekend so that’s an extra set of hands we can use to get ready for Fall Fest.”
“It’s Saturday, right?”
“Yes. Which is tomorrow. You know that, right?” I asked. “You didn’t lose track of days again working so hard, did you?”
“Um, maybe. But I had a reminder set so I wouldn’t have missed it. I’ll probably come over with Red and Bethany.”
“You’d better. I wouldn’t want you to miss the Pumpkin Pyramid. I’m told it’s very Instagrammable.” I let out a snort that I’d even uttered that word.
“Oh, well then I’ll make sure to post it on my Instagram.” She laughed and I realized it was the first time during our conversation. In fact she sounded really distracted. Almost out of it.
Once this Fall Fest was over I’d have to work harder to distract Harper in a good way so she didn’t fall back into being the uptight city girl she’d been when she first got here.
“You’d better post it since I had to build the damn thing,” I joked but I’d build it all over again just to make Harper smile. “Oh, and it’s Friday today. Petunia’s got a game.”
I’d been teasing her about being forgetful but I’d just remembered myself about the away football game.
“She’s already at the school. The football team came and got her personally. I guess they didn’t trust me either.”
“I trust you . . . to remember to set an alarm at least.” I cracked the lame joke for a lack of anything else to say. “So did I tell you there’s going to a band at Fall Fest?”
“That sounds fun.”
I was a grown man. Why did I feel like a teenaged boy trying to ask a girl to the school dance?
This was ridiculous. Why was I beating around the bush? Making small talk. I should just ask her to come with me to the Fall Fest.
But, did I really have to ask her? I’d be there working. She said she’d be there with Red and Bethany. We might end up dancing, or we might not. I’d let the mood guide me. There really was no invitation needed.
Happy with that scenario, I said, “So, I guess I’ll see you at the festival then.”
“Yup.”
Not satisfied with her one word answer, I decided to elaborate. “It starts at eleven in the morning but it’s going until eight at night so I’m not sure when you’ll want to come. I have to be here the whole time so . . .”
“I’ll see what Red and Bethany’s schedules look like.”
“Okay, yeah. Good. That sounds good.” Jesus, whatever cool I used to have with women had apparently flown out the window with this one. “So I’ll see you there then.”
And now I was repeating myself . . .
“Yup. I’ll see you,” she said.
“Okay. Yeah. All right. Bye.”
“Bye,” she said.
With no more ideas for inane conversation, I disconnected the call and sighed.
“What the fuck was that?” Cash stood against the wall, arms folded, watching me from beneath eyebrows drawn low.
I couldn’t deny it. He’d witnessed my painful, awkward conversation.
I shook my head. “Hell if I know.”
“I’ve seen smoother moves on our little cousin. And he’s seven.” Cash pushed off the wall and sauntered over to me to gloat close up.
“I know. I know. Just shut up.”
He was grinning, which just annoyed me more. “You like her.”
“Of course I like her. You do too. She’s nice. What’s not to like?”
“You like-like her.”
Now I really did feel like I was in middle school. But Cash wasn’t wrong. “It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s not sticking around once Agnes gets back.”
Cash lifted a brow. “She tell you that?”
“No, but—”
“Bro, why are you assuming shit? If she told you that’s one thing, but she didn’t.”
I didn’t want Cash’s fucked up philosophy getting in my head and giving me hope. The only thing worse than Harper eventually leaving would be me letting myself get attached because I believed she might stay.
I shook my head, refusing to respond to him. Instead, I moved to the workbench and began sanding the seat for one of the rope swings we were hanging in the trees for the kids.
“You’ll see. I’m right. She’s gonna stay.”
Finally, I couldn’t hold my tongue. “And what makes you so sure?”
Cash shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t trust Cash’s hunch when he told me to bet against my favorite team in last year’s playoffs and I’d been right. I wasn’t going to trust it now.
“And,” he continued. “Red told me Harper says she really loves it here.”
That bit of info I might trust a little more. Red and Harper had gotten pretty tight. Bethany too. So maybe . . .
Fuck. There was that spark of hope again. I batted it out before it took hold and turned into a full-fledged flame.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said.
“All rig
ht. We’ll see.” Cash, looking cocky as ever, turned to leave.
“Hold on a minute there. Where do you think you’re going?”
“Me? I promised Mom I’d pick apples. She and the aunts and cousins are baking a fuck ton of pies to sell to raise money for the Grange.”
I scowled. I couldn’t fight him on that and he knew it. “All right.”
He grinned wide, enjoying his victory.
Not letting him win, I yelled after him, “Don’t get stung.” The subtext of that wish being I really hoped he got stung.
With all the fallen apples on the ground, the yellow jackets were getting aggressive so there was a good chance I’d get my wish.
Cash raised his arm and I saw the single middle finger raised. Yup, he’d gotten the message all right.
Smiling, I went back to sanding the seat. Tomorrow night this Fall Fest would be over and life would get back to normal.
More importantly, tomorrow I’d get to see Harper again.
From the Journal of Rose Van de Berg
MUDVILLE INQUISITOR
1983
A threat against President Ronald Reagan was found scrawled in a book borrowed from the Mudville Library. Local resident Thomas Currie has been arrested. President Reagan was shot during an assassination attempt in 1981.
THIRTY
Harper
I might not know much about a lot of things, but there was a good chance I’d cracked the key to social media engagement success.
Small town America.
Post a picture or a meme of a cute kitten and I’d get a bunch of comments and likes on Instagram. But post a picture of everyday life in Mudville and I got more than double that.
I’d like to think it was my witty captions and my smart use of hashtags. Or my photographic finesse behind the lens of my cell phone camera.
Hell, I’d really like to think it was the triple cameras in my new iPhone 11 so I could justify getting it when my old cell was still perfectly fine.
But I had a feeling it was Mudville itself.