“Hi, um, Mrs. Wilkins?” Laurel ventures. She is standing by Faye’s elbow, annoyingly close. Faye can smell the determination on her like alcohol on a barfly.
Faye raises her eyes to look at Laurel, trying to reconcile this girl with the one who went to high school with Annie. She recalls that in high school, Laurel made her mother, Glynnis, take her all the way to Greenville to get her hair done because “no one in Ludlow can do it right.” Faye is every bit the hairstylist of anyone in Greenville, but Laurel never gave her a chance to prove it. It’s hard not to hold a grudge.
“Did you want an appointment? If so, she can help you,” Faye says, and points to Kelsey, perched on a stool at the front desk, her face in her phone as usual. No matter how many times she’s asked that girl not to be on her phone during work hours, Kelsey doesn’t listen. Kelsey replaced Clary when it was clear that daughter working for mother wasn’t going to work out. Clary may not’ve liked Faye’s rules, but at least she had grudgingly abided by them.
“Kelsey!” Faye hollers across the room. Laurel jumps a little when she does. When Kelsey looks up, the expression on Faye’s face makes Kelsey put down her phone. She all but drops it.
“No—I—” Laurel blanches and fumbles for her words, leaving Faye to wonder just how good a reporter she is. Glynnis has told Faye that Laurel has been “let go” from several papers who “had to downsize.” Glynnis blames this on the state of the newspaper industry, but perhaps it’s the girl herself. Faye studies her, recalling what a go-getter she was in high school. Faye doubts she has slipped that much in the intervening years. Newspapers are failing, and Laurel is probably just a victim of that.
No matter what caused her return, Laurel has moved back to Ludlow and is now a reporter for the Ludlow Ledger, the town paper run by one of Faye’s least favorite people, Tad Collins. When she first got to Ludlow, Tad took her out for drinks, ostensibly to welcome her to town. Faye, grieving and in shock, had accepted his invitation, then proceeded to quickly drink two drinks on a day she’d barely eaten a thing and get just tipsy enough to confide in him about Lydia’s murder, foolishly believing he was being a friend. This, she often reminded herself after that, is why she shouldn’t drink. Everything she said ended up on the front page of the paper the next day. The two have hardly spoken since.
“I was wondering if you could answer some questions about Annie’s upcoming wedding,” Laurel says. Though she gets all the words out this time, Faye can hear the nerves in her voice. She decides to use this to her advantage.
“I think those would be questions for Annie, don’t you?” Faye stops sweeping and strikes an imperious pose, the broom in her hand notwithstanding. “What you should do is speak directly to her.”
“Well, see, um, that’s the problem. I can’t seem to get ahold of her.”
Join the club, Faye thinks but doesn’t say. Instead she raises her eyebrows. “Well, I guess you should keep trying,” she says. She’s heard that she can be intimidating and is hoping that’s true right now. “Surely you’ll catch up with her eventually.”
“But the paper is running a story on it tomorrow,” Laurel says. “I really just need a quote or something now.” She looks at Faye and straightens her back as she holds her gaze. Faye watches as the young woman finds the extra bit of courage she needs. “This wedding matters to the town. I mean, Travis Dove is returning to perform the ceremony, and of course this town loves Annie.”
Faye hears the way Laurel’s voice changes as she speaks of how the town loves Annie. She’s right. It does. Its citizens rallied around the orphaned child, rooted for her to move forward and do well after her mother’s death. Ludlow isn’t a town where murders happen, and Lydia’s altered it forever. The town needed a happy ending to come out of it, and this wedding is what they’ve been waiting for. Annie is Cinderella, and the town is her fairy godmother, only too happy to escort her into the arms of her waiting prince. Faye looks at Laurel, who is more like the jealous stepsister in the scenario—one who has been forced to chronicle the blessed event.
“Tell you what,” Faye says. “If—I mean, when—I talk to her, I’ll tell her to call you right away. I’ll make sure she knows time is of the essence.” She smiles sweetly at Laurel and feels the tiniest bit sorry for her. It must be hard, coming back here a failure, settling for working for a small-town newspaper when once you had dreams of the New York Times. Faye understands this better than most, how life can surprise—and disappoint—you.
“But now I’ve got a customer waiting for me,” she says, and points to the waiting area where Myra McGuirt sits with an untouched back issue of Southern Living on her lap, watching them. She waves Myra over, ending the conversation so that Laurel has no choice but to show herself out.
Myra is far overdue because of Willie dying, but Faye says nothing about the shape her hair is in. She just fusses over her, then listens as Myra recounts the story about Clary’s dove flying back in the funeral tent and looking at her one last time before flying off, as if Willie himself were saying one last goodbye. Faye blinks back tears as she listens, incredulous. Faye wonders if that bird is the one that never came back. Clary hasn’t told her. Clary, she suspects, has given up on the missing dove. Maybe, Faye thinks, that bird really did fly up to heaven with Willie and just decided not to come back.
“I’m sorry to go on and on,” Myra says. “I’m sure you already heard all about it from Clary.” The tears in Myra’s eyes threaten to spill over, so Faye surreptitiously hands her a tissue.
“She didn’t tell me a thing,” Faye says, her eyes focused on Myra’s hair and not her face. “You know how kids can be.”
“Well, I’m just so glad I had her do the release. It was . . . unforgettable. She’s got a gift with those birds, I tell you.” Faye has never considered what Clary does with the doves as a gift. She paid to put in that loft for the birds and patted herself on the back for having done so. Other than a stray comment here and there, or the sound of the back door opening and shutting as Clary goes out to tend to them, the birds don’t cross her mind much. She should ask more questions, take more interest. Maybe Clary does have a gift, and she’s missed it.
Somehow, bless her, Myra knows to change the subject. “So, how are wedding plans coming? What’s it now? A few days away? I can’t believe you’re here working!”
“Well, you know my regulars would kill me if I didn’t figure a way to keep up. Today’s my last day, though. Tomorrow we have the bridesmaids’ luncheon. Then the rehearsal the next day, and then the big event is Saturday!”
“You’re a good one to hang in there this long. I’ve been the mother of the bride before, though that was many years ago. Weddings are so much more a to-do now than when my Robin got married.”
Faye does not correct Myra, does not say that she’s not the mother of the bride. Not really. She just agrees with Myra about how much work it is, then tells her how much work Annie has done herself. She does not say that, once again, Annie has gone MIA. The thought makes Faye’s blood pressure rise. The insensitivity!
On the counter, Faye’s phone buzzes, and she hopes that, once she’s done with Myra and can check it, it will be Annie finally making contact.
“Any nerves for the bride?” Myra asks, as if reading Faye’s thoughts.
“Oh no,” Faye lies to Myra McGuirt, the recent widow. “She can’t wait. This is the happiest time of her life.” The truth is Annie hasn’t been herself ever since all the Cordell Lewis business started up, ever since Glynnis’s daughter started sniffing around for a story, ever since her last disappearing act. Faye feels certain that if she were to go right now to the place in the park where Lydia was found, she would find her niece. But she has not done that. Even though Annie thinks it’s a secret, Faye knows Annie goes there, rather than to the cemetery, to feel close to her mother. And she’s never impinged on that. But if Annie doesn’t surface soon, she might be forced to.
“So no doubts about moving away from here? That’s a big
change for her,” Myra observes. Faye does not want to talk about Annie moving away, but Myra is forcing her to with all her questions. Because Myra is newly widowed, Faye makes herself be gracious.
“We’ve talked a lot about it. But she says she’s sure.” Faye can hear the earnestness in her voice, as if Myra isn’t the only one she’s trying to convince. The truth is, whenever Faye has tried to broach the subject of Annie moving with Scott, Annie has argued with her, then quickly changed the subject. “She seems to think that a new town, a fresh start, will be good for her.”
“Well, I imagine with that man out and roaming the streets . . .” Myra lowers her voice. The subject of Cordell Lewis’s innocence or guilt is a hot topic of debate in town these days, and Myra has the good sense not to invite other customers into the debate. “What I’m saying is, she might feel safer somewhere else.”
“Yes,” is all Faye says. Finished with Myra’s hair, she spins her around in the chair to see her reflection in the mirror.
“Oh, I look so much better!” Myra exclaims. But then a look comes over the older woman’s face, her mouth crumpling slightly. “But I don’t know for who now,” she adds quietly. Faye thinks again about Clary’s dove coming back to look at Myra one last time.
“For yourself,” she says, and gives Myra’s shoulder a little squeeze. She winks at her in the mirror before sending Myra to pay up front. Faye turns to her phone to see who called. It wasn’t Annie. It was Scott. She hits “Redial” as fast as she can.
“Scott?” she asks as soon as she hears his voice. “Is she with you?” It is only when she hears the desperate tone in her voice that she realizes just how worried she really is. She’s tried all morning to tell herself otherwise.
“N-no,” Scott says. “I, uh, I was trying to find out if maybe she was with you.” Scott’s voice sounds different. Strained, uncertain. Far from the confident young man with the world by the tail he usually is, at least around her.
“Scott,” Faye says, making her voice sound even and measured, restraining it from launching into the louder, higher pitch that threatens. She has customers in the store, all only too happy to pick up on some good gossip. She turns her back to the salon. “When was the last time you heard from Annie?”
“It was, uh, yesterday afternoon? Evening? Before she went to Tracy’s. She said she probably wouldn’t be answering her phone because she, uh, wanted some girl time.”
This was the same thing Annie had told Faye and Clary. Faye sensed that Clary was hurt that she wasn’t included in the “girl time,” but she hadn’t pushed Clary to admit it.
“Do you think she really went to Tracy’s last night?” Scott asks, and in his voice is not concern but barely restrained jealousy. “Do you think she was somewhere else?”
This is exactly what Faye is thinking, but she doesn’t tell Scott that. No sense fueling his jealousy, though what that boy would have to be jealous about she doesn’t know. He’s the total package, which is exactly how Annie described him before she brought him home the first time. Faye can still picture the two of them standing in the den, holding hands, Annie gazing up at him adoringly. They already looked like they belonged on top of a wedding cake.
“I just thought, you know, if she was going to tell anyone the truth, it would be you,” he continues.
Faye is flattered, no matter how untrue his statement is.
“If you know something, Faye, please tell me,” he says.
“I don’t,” she breathes. “I wish I did, but I don’t.” She grasps at something she can say, something . . . productive. “What you should do is maybe call some of her work friends or just the girls she runs around with who I don’t know very well. Anyone you can think of—okay?”
“Of course, sure,” Scott says.
“I’ll call Tracy right now. And I’ll try Clary,” she says, because she doesn’t know anything else to say. And then she thinks of someone else she should call, someone she’d like to see right about now. Someone who always knows what to say to reassure her. “I’ll call Hal York, too,” she says, more to herself than to him.
“The sheriff?” Scott’s voice goes up a notch on the word sheriff, making him sound like a boy whose voice is changing. “You really think that’s necessary?”
“He’s an old friend,” she explains. “He’ll know what to do.”
She hopes she’s right.
Laurel
After being dismissed by Faye Wilkins, Laurel walks down Main Street in a huff, making her way back to the Ledger’s office. She stands for a moment in front of the building that houses the paper before going in. The nondescript one-story beige rectangle looks more like the site of some government office than a newspaper office. If not for the sign outside stating that it’s the town paper, no one would ever guess. When she’d walked in for her first “interview” (though her employment had already been prearranged between her parents and Tad Collins before she even arrived in town), she’d hoped that the bland exterior hid a bustling, vibrant interior, like the newsrooms she was used to. Instead, it housed a small, beleaguered staff and the lingering smell of burned coffee.
Still, she’s doing what she can, for her part, to raise the Ledger’s profile, to make it more like a real paper. She’s created them a Facebook page, put them on Twitter, and nosed out any hope of real news in this town. Never mind that the closest she’s gotten to going viral is more than a thousand views of a video she posted of Dewey, the office cat, and several hundred shares of her article on Pearl Bost, a local resident who became the oldest living resident of South Carolina when she celebrated her recent birthday at 114 years old.
She looks back at her car and debates what to do. Damon doesn’t expect her back. He expects her to interview Annie Taft’s aunt and then write up the interview and send it to him. But there’d been no interview. And the last thing she wants to do is go inside and admit to Damon Collins that she has failed at even this small task.
She still can’t believe that Damon Collins is her boss. She thinks of the time they were at the country club pool when she was thirteen and Damon was twelve. Their parents were sitting across the pool, drinking cocktails, gossiping, and ignoring their children. She hadn’t felt like swimming, sitting instead on a chaise longue reading a book, fully dressed, sipping a Shirley Temple. When she got up to go to the bathroom, Damon had pushed her in. She’d been dressed all in white, and everyone could see through her clothes when she emerged from the swimming pool dripping wet. She’d been wearing a training bra, which was now visible through her soaked clothes. Damon had pointed and laughed and not gotten in any trouble at all. Now Laurel is expected to forget all that and pretend that he is her superior.
Though his father has put him in charge of the paper to give him something to do (much the same as Laurel’s parents have insisted she work at the paper since she has come back to town), his father is the real boss, calling the shots from a golf cart at the same country club where Damon pushed her into the pool. Damon is still a brat—spoiled, entitled, and not the least bit interested in the news. He’s playing a game, placating his father and biding his time until he can make his move. Though Laurel can’t fathom what that move would be. Damon doesn’t seem to care about anything beyond reliving his fraternity days. Which were, according to him, epic.
She decides to go ahead and tell him Faye shut her out and walks toward the building. She tugs open the door with more force than necessary and marches past the other cubicles to Damon’s office, the only one with a door. But Damon never closes his door, so she is free to barge right in and get it over with. She pushes her sunglasses up on top of her head so he can see her eyes. But he doesn’t bother to look up at her.
“I’m actually busy here, Haines,” he says, his eyes on his laptop computer screen. She glances down to see what he’s busy with. Facebook. It figures. But of course not the Ledger’s Facebook page. He is on the page for his favorite hangout, Hops Haven. Which also figures. When he’s not at the office or sleepin
g, he’s at Hops Haven. Or just “Hops,” as he calls it. Damon could do so much with his life, but he is content to do the bare minimum. He has no dreams that she can see. Laurel, however, has lots of dreams, lists of them. Dreams that go far beyond this small town and this hardly-worthy-of-the-name newspaper. The fact that she’s ended up back in Ludlow is merely a small detour. That’s what she tells herself.
“Just wanted to update you: I got the brush-off from Faye Wilkins.”
Damon gives her the side-eye but lets it go. “I’m surprised you couldn’t sweet-talk her into talking, bat those pretty eyes at her.”
“She hardly looked at me long enough for me to bat my eyes,” Laurel retorts, ignoring his attempt at flirting. Like her parents, Damon seems to have forgotten how much they hated each other as kids. “She was too busy showing me the door,” she grouses.
Damon drops his eyes back to the computer. “All I ever hear from you is how you want to be this great investigative reporter, win the Pulitzer and shit. And you’re gonna let a hairstylist put you off? It’s not looking too good for you if that’s the case.”
She starts to argue, but then she realizes he’s right. Damon being right about something makes her angrier than being assigned a little story about this town’s answer to a society wedding. What she really wants to do is write more about Cordell Lewis’s release, which to her is a much bigger story than this stupid wedding. If she could talk to Annie, reestablish a relationship with her, she could write this book she’s been making notes about.
“Might want to find another angle,” Damon advises. “Someone other than the aunt, maybe?” He glances up from the computer long enough to wink at her, which makes her wonder if she could file for sexual harassment. Surely a male boss winking at a female employee is wrong. But who would she tell? It’s not like the Ledger has a human resources department.
“Fine,” she says, turns on her heel, and walks out, half expecting him to call out to her, but he doesn’t. She sits down at her desk, rests her palms on the cool surface, and takes a moment to recalibrate. She will prove she can do this. And maybe in the process, she’ll get information for her book.
Only Ever Her Page 7