Fences: Smith Mountain Lake Series - Book Three

by Inglath Cooper

  “Of course I didn’t!”

  Poppy holds up a perfectly manicured hand. “Whoa. Just teasing, hon.”

  “It’s not funny. This must be somebody’s idea of a sick joke,” Angela says, her hands suddenly shaky.

  “It couldn’t be doing anything for Tate’s new career.”

  Angela, of course, knows of Tate’s success. He’d become the lake’s poster boy for wrong-side-of-the-tracks makes it to the big time.

  She glances at the article again. Who would dig all this up?

  Jillie? She doesn’t think so. Jillie has her own cracked heart to deal with where Tate Callahan is concerned.

  So, who? And why?

  She runs a hand through her hair. “What if my mother sees this?”

  “She’ll have a heart attack,” Poppy says. “But then maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing?”

  Angela shoots her friend a sharp glance. Sometimes, it is hard to tell when Poppy is joking and when she isn’t.

  Needing a moment to herself, Angela says, “Be right back,” then heads for the ladies’ room.

  For once, it is empty. She stands before the white bowl sink, studying herself in the mirror. She looks shell-shocked, her eyes wide and alarmed, her cheeks flushed with color.

  She turns on the faucet, leans over and splashes cold water on her face. The shock feels good. She reaches for a paper towel, dabs her skin dry, then anchors one hand to the sink, as if without it she might topple over.

  Do old sins really come back to haunt?

  The question is one she doesn’t want to know the answer to. She wheels around and flies out of the bathroom, crashing head on into a wide chest.

  “Whoa there.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, embarrassment heating her face.

  “No problem.”

  The amused voice belongs to a thirty-something man with blond hair that touches the collar of his shirt, white cotton with a torn pocket. His eyes have crinkles at the corners, as if he laughs a lot. It occurs to her that he looks like a young Jon Bon Jovi.

  Angela takes a couple of steps back, her gaze still snagging with his.

  “You gonna hang around?” he asks. “We’re getting ready to play.”

  “Oh. You’re with—”

  “The band,” he finishes, smiling again.

  “I, yes,” she says, feeling a sudden flush of color. “Probably.”

  “That’s good. Okay.”

  The smile that accompanies the statement belongs to a guy who knows his way around girls. The kind of girls who know how to flirt back, get a seat up front where he can sing directly to them. Angela isn’t one of those girls, never has been, most likely never will be. Too bad Poppy isn’t the one bumping into him.

  She’d know what to do with a guy like this.

  Angela drops her gaze, runs a hand through her hair. “I’d better get back to my table.”

  “I’ll be looking for you,” he says, and disappears inside the men’s room.

  Angela feels the heat of his smile all the way to the table.

  “What’s with the look?” Poppy says.

  “What look?” Angela shakes her head, trying to sound clueless.

  “Like you just got caught in a pair of headlights.”

  “Just some guy on the way out of the bathroom.”

  “Must have been hot,” Poppy says.

  “Too hot for me.”

  “Sounds like exactly what you need.”

  “I’ll leave that to you.”

  Just then, the band members start gathering on stage. The drummer taps a snare, doing a practice roll. Two guys with guitars and shoulder-length hair strum a warm-up.

  The young Bon Jovi joins them, and Angela feels a catch in her chest just looking at him. He is gorgeous, young, and fit, with muscles that ripple beneath his white T-shirt. Faded blue jeans encase well-shaped legs, and it occurs to her that she has never been out with someone like him before.

  Her dates are the country-club type, khaki pants and golf shirts, all Judith preapproved.

  Thirty-six years old, and she has never been out with anyone who doesn’t meet her mother’s stamp of standard.

  Poppy leans forward, putting a hand on Angela’s arm. “Is that the guy?”

  Angela pulls her gaze from the stage, taking a sip of her now watery gin and tonic. “Yeah. No big deal.”

  Poppy tips her head, giving him a thorough perusal. “Oh, I’d have to disagree with that. He’s a big deal.”

  “Not my type.”

  “Maybe you ought to change your type,” Poppy says.

  The singer picks up the mike, says hello to the audience. People begin clapping, whistling. He smiles and tucks into a number that brings couples crowding to the dance floor.

  He turns then, looks directly at Angela, and winks. For a moment, she is sure he must have intended that for Poppy. But he is looking at her. Straight on. She thinks about what Poppy said and wishes suddenly that she could do exactly that. Change her type.

  Unfortunately, like everything else in her life, it has been chosen for her.

  16

  Poppy

  POPPY STAYS LONG after Angela leaves. Ridiculous for a thirty-six year-old woman to have a curfew, but under Judith Taylor’s roof, rules are rules.

  Poppy leans back in the booth, summons a waitress for the drink she refused when Angela was here.

  A firm believer in staying on her toes, Poppy never drinks when she has a mission to carry out. And tonight’s mission had gone beautifully. The look on Angela’s face at the sight of that rag paper. What she would have given for a snapshot.

  A guy in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt and black jeans approaches her table. “Hey,” he says.

  She looks up at him, does a quick appraisal. “Hey, yourself.”

  “You all by your lonesome?”

  “By choice,” she says, tapping a nail on the table.

  “Any chance I could get a shot at changing your mind?”

  He is better than passably good-looking, black hair, blue eyes, but unfortunately, that and that alone won’t do. Poppy has standards, and anything that falls short of them, well, she isn’t interested.

  She learned a long time ago that there is only one way someone like her gets ahead in life. Chart a course, and don’t deviate.

  “Thanks,” she says, “but what would be the point?”

  His eyes widen at the question. “I can think of a few points.”

  “I’m sure you can,” she says. “Not interested.”

  He raises a hand, backs away.

  Poppy watches him walk to the bar, shake his head at something another guy nursing a beer says to him.

  Too bad. In some ways, she’s just like Angela. Someone her age shouldn’t have to live such a restricted life. But there is too much to be lost by a wrong choice.

  The band gears up for its last set. The lead singer glances at her table, flashing a look of disappointment at Angela’s empty seat. How sweet, Poppy thinks. Maybe she’ll just have to cheer him up.

  Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have given a guy in a band a second look, but then Angela had preapproved him, after all.

  And anything Angela wants, well, Poppy wants it more.

  Elementary School

  POPPY SULLIVAN WAS born Prudence Elizabeth to parents who barely had two nickels to rub together.

  Her father served as the pastor at Second Baptist Church in a poor part of the county, where most of the houses had broken-down cars in the front yards as lawn ornamentation. The parsonage in which they lived was a cleaned-up version of that, a smaller-than-small brick ranch within spitting distance of the church itself.

  Like the house, her parents were plainer than plain. Early on, Poppy understood that there was something unusual about a child who looked like her, being born to people who looked like her parents. The more discreet members of her father’s congregation declared him a man blessed by God to have such a lovely daughter. Less than tactful members, like Lillian Overstreet
, whom no one wanted to sit behind on Sundays because of her haystack hairdo, asked if she was adopted.

  For the first few years of her life, Poppy was a happy child: content was the word her mother used to describe her. Poppy thought of those years as the ones during which she hadn’t known how the rest of the world lived.

  All that changed at age seven when she received an invitation to Angela Taylor’s birthday party.

  Poppy’s birthdays had been celebrated with a cake her mother made and a present or two selected from the wide array of plastic available at the Dollar General store.

  “There are children in this world who will never have a toy, Poppy,” her mother always said. “I think it’s a far better thing for you to have a less-expensive present and give the rest to the Lottie Moon offering. Down the road, you’ll feel so much more gratification for having done that than you would for another doll to sit on your bed.”

  Poppy disagreed, but her mother was a woman of strong convictions, and once she made up her mind about something, it did little good to try to change it.

  It was also Angela’s birthday party that opened her eyes to the fact that other children weren’t donating their presents to Lottie Moon.

  Her dad drove her to the Taylor house, a mansion by any standards Poppy could imagine. It looked like something out of those Southern Living magazines her mother checked out of the library to copy recipes she wanted to try.

  Her dad let her out at the front door and waited while Poppy rang the bell. When a large woman in a black and white maid’s uniform opened the door and beckoned her in with a smile, he drove away.

  The woman led her down an enormous hallway and through a kitchen bigger than Poppy’s whole house. Just outside lay a beautiful pool with water so blue it didn’t look real. A dozen or more kids jumped off the diving board, throwing a beach ball back and forth.

  Poppy looked down at the frilly, pink dress her mother had made her, felt her cheeks flame as bright as her hair.

  She hadn’t known she was supposed to bring a swimsuit.

  Just then Angela got out of the pool and trotted over. They were in first grade together, but they’d never actually said much to each other.

  “I like your dress,” Angela said.

  Poppy tried to smile, unable to decide whether Angela was being kind or cruel. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Did you bring a bathing suit?”

  Poppy shook her head.

  “I bet you could wear one of mine. Come on,” she said, taking Poppy by the hand and tugging her toward a gazebo that turned out to be a changing room.

  No fewer than ten bathing suits hung on a rack, some with the tags still on.

  “Which one do you like?” Angela asked.

  Poppy studied them, then pointed to a green one. “Is that one okay?”

  “Sure. And it’ll look great with your hair.”

  They went outside, and Angela jumped back in the pool, waving for Poppy to join her. Her father had taught her to swim last summer at the YMCA. She was now grateful for those lessons.

  Angela stuck by Poppy’s side for the rest of the party. Maybe she felt sorry for her. If so, it didn’t matter. Poppy wanted to know everything there was to know about her. What it was like to live in a house like this every day of your life. How amazing it must be to have your own pool and invite friends over any time you wanted to.

  When it was time to go, all the children lined up at the front door. Mrs. Taylor stood beside them and spoke to each of the parents as they picked up their child. Suddenly, Poppy was aware of how much older her father’s car was than the other cars there. She could see him several vehicles back in line, and she wished suddenly that she could have caught a ride with one of the other families.

  Finally, it was her turn, and her father’s old Nova pulled up to the door. It had a huge rust spot on the passenger side, and the muffler made an awful, rattling sound, smoke pouring from it.

  Poppy’s cheeks burned as she got in, feeling the eyes of the other children on her.

  They drove down the driveway, and Poppy turned to look back at the big house. Angela stood at the door, waving at her, as if she were truly sorry to see her go.

  “Did you have fun, honey?” her father asked.

  “It was nice,” she said, unable to quit thinking about everything she’d seen. The enormous rooms, so many of them they couldn’t possibly be used all the time. The swimming pool in the backyard. The lady in the black and white maid’s uniform who had served them lemonade and cookies.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “Why don’t we have a big house like the Taylors?”

  Her father didn’t answer for a moment, as if he were looking for exactly the right thing to say. “God has been good to them, Poppy; but He’s been good to us too.”

  Poppy wondered if her dad really believed that. If that was why it had taken him so long to answer. She stared out the window. Couldn’t he see how much better God had been to the Taylors? She wanted to ask him why, but didn’t. Maybe why didn’t matter. But from that moment, there was one thing she did know. She wasn’t willing to accept her father’s lot in life.

  A person could be something other than what they were born into.

  Poppy had every intention of proving it.

  17

  Tate

  I CAN’T SLEEP.

  It’s after four o’clock, and I’ve yet to close my eyes. I get out of bed and pull a bottle of water from the mini-bar next to the TV.

  My laptop sits on the desk by the window, the lid closed. I flip it open, sit down, and stare at the screen until dawn ducks into the room, the rising sun throwing light across the hotel’s carpeted floor.

  In frustration, I shrug into running clothes and head out of the building, across the parking lot and onto a two-lane road. I follow it to the edge of Westlake, running three miles or so along the road and then doubling back.

  On mile four, I start to break a good sweat. I kick up the pace of the fifth mile, slowing to cool down just as I reach Westlake again.

  New businesses are interspersed with the old ones I remember. A new dry cleaners sits next to the old bakery. The smells drifting from the open front door of the bakery make my mouth water.

  Just down from there, a cupcake place and a hardware store have taken up residence. Kay’s Kafe sits a little farther down. When I lived here, it was the local place to go for a good homecooked meal. From the outside, it has changed little.

  By now, a cup of coffee sounds good. Inside, most of the tables are taken. I grab the morning paper and make my way to the far corner of the diner.

  A waitress in khaki pants and a white blouse approaches with a pot of coffee. She has tamed her curly, red hair into a ponytail and looks out at me over a pair of glasses that sit low on her nose. “Pour you a cup?”

  “Please,” I say.

  She leaves me with a menu and promises to be right back.

  I take a sip of the hot coffee and open the paper. It’s filled with small town news – chamber of commerce meeting the first Monday of the month, the local humane society to host a benefit on the following Saturday.

  I think of the borrowed apartment in Manhattan, the Airstream trailer I’ve been calling home the past couple of years.

  Something about it suddenly seems lacking to me now.

  I order the special: scrambled eggs and toast with a glass of orange juice. The plate arrives within minutes, and I tuck into it with an appetite I haven’t felt in a long time. I hear my name from a few tables away, look up to see three men staring at me.

  One of the men gets up, walks over. He’s wearing navy coveralls and a Reynolds’ Tire cap. “Well, well,” he says. “Never thought I’d see you around here again.”

  I recognize him then. Todd Bendermier is an older version of the boy I went to school with, the sneer on his face the most recognizable of his features. He’s put on thirty pounds, mostly around his midsection.

  “Sur
prised myself,” I say.

  “It must have taken a lot of courage to come back. Knowing you wouldn’t be welcome, I mean.”

  “Somebody make you the greeting committee?”

  Todd laughs an unamused laugh. “Unofficially.”

  “If it’s unofficial, I guess it doesn’t count.”

  “Still don’t know how to take a hint, do you, Callahan?”

  “You want to spell it out for me?”

  “Be glad to. We don’t like your kind around here. Didn’t when you came here before. Still don’t.”

  “I’ll be sure to file that under Important Stuff to Remember,” I say.

  Todd gives me a narrow glare, tips his hat, and walks back to his table.

  The group leaves a few minutes later, a clatter of boots on the restaurant’s wood floor.

  I finish looking at the paper, drink another cup of coffee. The waitress brings the check, telling me to stay as long as I like.

  But the encounter with Todd reminds me of what it is like to be an outsider, to live in a place where I don’t really belong. I drop a ten on the table, put the paper back on the front counter and leave.

  Outside, the sun has lifted higher in the sky, and the sounds of early morning fill the air. A big truck in the distance, a church bell tolling eight o’clock.

  I head back toward the hotel. Hearing footsteps behind me, I glance over my shoulder.

  They come at me at once, shoving me into a space between two brick buildings in a group tackle. My right shoulder hits the asphalt, taking the weight of the fall.

  I roll. A hard boot kicks me in the stomach. The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh. Another boot lands a blow to my shoulder. Blackness sucks at the light. I blink hard, try to stand.

  “You left here once. Shoulda kept it that way.”

  A fist connects with my jaw, hurling me backwards. I lie there on the pavement, my gaze locked on the strip of blue sky wedged between the buildings.

  Laughter ricochets like bullets. I raise my head and try to look at their faces, but can’t focus.

  The blue sky above me narrows to a thin line, then disappears altogether.