Why my brother, Ian, and Nick got along so well was completely beyond my understanding. Ian was a long-haired college dropout who spent half his life with a guitar in his hands playing dimly lit bars from Indiana to the Upper Peninsula. Nick was a former high school star pitcher with near perfect standardized test scores, who earned a full ride to Vanderbilt University and joined one of the most successful architectural firms in the South. He was driven to succeed the same way Ian was compelled to loaf. Yet their friendship had lasted all these years.
“You know Ian. He had a gig in Grand Rapids last night and said he would help with the inn this weekend.” I didn’t add that we only had one guest booked tonight. The summer had been a struggle.
“Nick! It’s so good to see you,” said my mother, coming up behind us with Aunt Addie.
Aunt Addie squealed, “Nicholas Conrad! Look at you, dressed up in a suit like a fancy businessman.”
“Aunt Addie . . .” Nick started, before being swooped up in a sloppy bear hug.
“It’s been way too long since you were home, young man,” Aunt Addie said. “We can’t have you turning all soft and getting Southern on us, can we?”
She said it loud enough that a few people nearby frowned.
Nick cracked a smile. “Don’t worry, Aunt Addie. I still know how to fire a muzzle-loader and wrestle a four-wheeler.”
“Hmm,” she said, examining him closer.
“Darling, are these the people from your hometown you have told me so much about?” said a breathy voice followed by a sinewy bare arm that wrapped itself around Nick’s elbow.
Nick nodded to one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She had long black hair, perfect bone structure, and blue eyes framed by thick black lashes.
“Brittany, these are the Adlers. Virginia, Adelaide, and—”
“Annie,” I said, holding out my hand before he introduced me as Bump.
Brittany batted her eyelids and stared at Aunt Addie’s blue cabbage roses as if they were slightly out of focus. After a moment she looked toward me, leaning forward until my view was taken up by her generous cleavage. Her eyes traveled from my fake designer shoes to the top of my frizzy head. She shook my hand, turned to Nick and smiled. “You never told me how cute they are.”
Cute? Should we have put our hair in pigtails and painted freckles on our faces?
“How nice to meet you,” said my mother, ever aware of her hostess manners, even when she was away from the inn.
Aunt Addie’s gaze hadn’t moved from Brittany’s chest and I had to jab her with my elbow to get her to stop staring. Nick saw me and his mouth turned down at the corner. If I didn’t know him better I would think he was suppressing a smile. But Nick didn’t smile much, at least not at me.
The last time I’d seen Nick was several years ago, as he had stood beside his father’s grave. As long as I lived I would never forget how he had looked that cold April morning. His mother and sisters had clung to him, their breath coming out in billowing clouds of white and their gloved fingers clutching tissues as they failed to hold back tears. He had stood stoically in a gray wool overcoat, practically holding his family upright. His face had been pale, and his lips were compressed to thin lines. As if something had made him too angry to cry. I cried for all of them, and maybe a little bit for myself that day too. My own father’s grave was just a few rows away.
I realized that Nick was gazing intently at me. He stood with his head tilted and his hands in his pockets. Did he know what I was thinking about?
“Where’s your camera?” he asked. “I’m used to seeing you with a camera around your neck all the time.”
“She doesn’t do that as often anymore, Nick. Remember how much she loved it?” Aunt Addie interjected.
Explaining how I had given up photography for teaching wasn’t something I wanted to discuss. I had just been laid off from the local high school and didn’t want to elaborate on my apparent double failure.
Charlotte left Henry’s side and looped her arm in mine. “I can’t wait to introduce you to all my friends.”
Henry hailed a waiter and grabbed several drinks from his tray. “These are a house specialty. Gin, tequila, and a secret ingredient. You have to try them,” he said, handing them to us.
Aunt Addie’s eyes grew wide. “I love a good drink.”
Ian always watered down my mom’s and Aunt Addie’s drinks back at the inn. I started to caution them, but Charlotte grabbed my arm. “Let me introduce you to some of my friends.”
“Wait. You know how Mom and Aunt Addie are with alcohol. Maybe I should warn them—”
“They’ll be fine,” Charlotte said, dragging me into the Governor’s Room.
With every hour, the party grew louder and the night stretched longer. The room was brimming, and I couldn’t even fathom how all these people knew Charlotte and Henry. I found myself introduced to dozens of relatives and friends of the Lowells. Names started running together and I was pretty sure we met more people than lived within the city limits of Truhart.
Several of Charlotte’s friends commented on her success and I tried not to brag. With help from Nick, she had landed an amazing job as a correspondent on The Morning Show last year. But it wasn’t easy. She worked long hours and everyone knew she had to deal with a difficult and demanding lead anchor. Scarlett Francis.
“So far, Charlotte has been able to avoid her tantrums. But we have a bet going on how long it will take before she gets her first tongue-lashing,” confided one of Charlotte’s coworkers.
“Is she really that bad?” someone asked.
A balding man leaned in and said, “Oh yeah.”
“We keep telling Charlotte to keep her head down and pretend she has connections on Capitol Hill. God forbid the woman finds out she is from the flyover zone,” said a red-faced man who waved down the waitress for another drink.
I couldn’t help myself. “Charlotte doesn’t need to justify herself. She has worked hard making a name for herself and it shouldn’t matter where she is from.”
The red-faced man grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray and looked beyond me. “Sure she works hard, but let’s be honest—she is young, blonde, and pretty . . . all the things that make her GATE material,” he said, mentioning the name of the network they all worked for.
“She was a weekend anchor on our local station by the time she was twenty-two, and was doing headline stories in Detroit before moving to Atlanta.”
“Dime a dozen,” the man said, guzzling half his glass as if it was water.
“She even won an award for her feature on abandoned houses in the city. That one put her right in the thick of some of the most violent neighborhoods in the nation.”
“If you say so,” he said, looking at the man next to him and winking.
I could feel heat rising to my face. My voice sounded shrill. “I suppose just because Charlotte is young and pretty people think she is only a piece of fluff, but I would like to see half the anchors on TV get out of the newsroom and actually visit the flyover zone . . . even Scarlett Francis.”
It took me a horrified moment to realize that everything was quiet and my comment practically echoed off the ceiling. I looked behind me and saw that everyone was holding their drinks in the air. June Lowell tapped on her glass and beckoned everyone to turn their attention to Henry and Charlotte in the center of the room.
I wanted to shrink into the carpet but instead smiled and raised my glass.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming,” Henry said. “I never thought I would meet someone who would make me as happy as Charlotte has . . .”
As he continued, any reservations I had about Charlotte making a hasty decision disappeared.
“And one last thank-you to my good friend Nick Conrad, for introducing me to Charlotte and being a constant source of support to both of us. Nick, thanks for everything and I am so glad you agreed to be my best man. With you nearby for moral support, nothing can go wrong.”
Nick extended one of his rare smiles to the couple and his gaze traveled the room. Our eyes met for a moment and his turned cold. I could practically hear him say, “Getting yourself in trouble again, Bump? Just like old times.” And then his gaze rested on a point beyond my shoulder and I turned to see what was there.
I recognized Scarlett Francis immediately. She was shorter in real life, but no less imposing than she seemed on TV. Her cropped red hair glowed in the light of the overhead chandeliers. Her severely cut green dress could have been made of silk, but on her it looked more reptilian. Her vivid green eyes narrowed on me like laser beams. Had she overheard my earlier comment? Judging by the disapproving expression on her face, I had to say the answer was a resounding yes.
I turned back to the center of the room and raised my glass higher as everyone around me finally said, “Here, here” at the end of Henry’s toast. Then I drank the entire glass in one gulp.
Behind me someone shouted, “Who is your maid of honor, Charlotte?”
“Why, my sister, of course!” she said without hesitating. “Annie!”
I choked up . . . literally, when the bubbles from the champagne flew up my nose.
While I sputtered and my eyes watered, everyone clapped politely. Then I felt a solid hand pat my back. I looked up at Nick through wet eyes.
“She is really touched, isn’t she, Charlotte?” he said loudly. Everyone laughed and went back to their conversations.
Except me and Nick. He stared at me, that unnerving expression plastered on his face. He reached for my glass and put it on the table next to him.
“Can we have some water here?” he asked a passing waiter.
“I’m okay,” I assured him.
“Are you?” he said, sounding like he didn’t want an answer. Before I could say anything, he put his arm around me and practically pushed me toward an oversized potted plant at the side of the room.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“I’m just saving your hide from getting ripped open, Bump.”
“What—”
I looked back to see Scarlett Francis waylaid by an older woman.
“You had better hope she forgets that little comment you made, or else you will be speared and roasted over an open fire.”
“Are you suggesting I’m like a pig on a spit?”
Nick frowned, looking me up and down. “No. You definitely don’t look like a pig . . .” I could have taken it for a compliment, but I knew better. “Did you even get a chance to eat something?”
“Yes, I did. I had a bite of the fish paste on a miniature piece of bread . . . Oh, I mean the salmon pâté.” I bent my wrist daintily for emphasis and grinned.
“You’re not that out of place and you know it.”
“You’re right. But someone forgot to tell a few of these people.”
“Charlotte seems to enjoy it here, and she’s made a lot of friends.”
He ruined my fun. I knew I was being childish. “Well, I have to admit, I like Henry a lot. You met him in school?”
“Studying for our statistics final, freshman year.”
I imagined Nick diligently working away in the library, surrounded by textbooks and friends. But that was where my imagination stopped. I knew so little about him since he’d left Truhart.
“How are things back home?” Nick asked, changing the subject.
I couldn’t help but notice he said home, not Truhart. It made my heart beat just a little faster. But I had to stop myself. He hadn’t said it deliberately. Since his father’s death, Nick seemed to avoid Truhart like the plague. Sometimes I wondered if he was ever coming home again.
I couldn’t think of anything dramatic to say that would make us more interesting than this fancy hotel and his globe-trotting friends. So instead of trying to compete, I tucked my hair behind my ear and gave him Aunt Addie–style news.
“We are having a beautiful summer. A little dry, but at least the temperature has stayed in the eighties. Echo Lake has been full of boats since Memorial Day weekend. Ian caught a pike last month that came in second in the Truhart Fishing Derby. The Timberfest is starting in a week, and I hear the planning committee is splurging on a giant bouncy slide this year. That might bring in the younger crowd! And . . . oh, we have a new bakery next to Ike’s Hardware.”
His brown eyes flickered in the dim light from a nearby sconce and he smiled. I loved it when he smiled. It made me proud to know I had caused it.
“Are you coming home anytime soon?” I couldn’t help asking.
“I’d love to, but we’re in the middle of a big project right now.”
“Oh.” I looked down at the glass in my hand and tried not to let him see my feelings. “How are Jenny and Melissa?” Nick’s sisters were old friends of mine. He smiled for the second time. I was on a roll.
“Once in a while there is a little drama with a boyfriend, but they manage to stay out of trouble these days.”
“They never were in much trouble. You made sure of that.”
“Not always. I seem to recall a few occasions where they landed in a hornet’s nest or two, Bump,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, irritated at the mention of an incident I would rather have forgotten. “That was a long time ago. Thanks so much for bringing it up, Nick. And you know very well that I was the only one who landed in the nest.”
“That was your punishment for spying.”
“We weren’t spying.”
“Really? You and my sisters were just passing through and you happened to see some of us guys swimming?” Nick crossed his arms and tilted his head again. His dark gaze made me feel like he could read my mind.
“Exactly.” Well, I guess we had been curious. The summer before high school, Melissa and I decided that big, hairy seventeen-year-olds were a major point of fascination for us girls. While they swam in the tiny lake behind our golf course, we prowled around them, ducking from tree to tree, trying not to let the boys hear us giggling.
“How was I to know there was a hornet’s nest next to the lake?” I asked.
Unfortunately, one wrong step on my part blew our cover and had us screaming like babies as the angry swarm stormed the shore. While most of the boys laughed, Melissa and Jenny ran far from the emerging swarm and joined the boys by the opposite bank. But I couldn’t see because I’d closed my eyes in a panic. I heard a deep voice yelling nearby, but my mind didn’t register the words. The next thing I knew someone tall and strong hauled me up and ran with me, away from the buzzing mass. My rescuer and I hit the water hard. I came out of my panic in Nick’s arms as he unleashed four-letter words I had never heard him say before. After a few terror-stricken moments, while Nick repeatedly dunked my head under the surface, the hornets dispersed. Then he carried me, sniveling and shaking, out of the lake. As soon as my feet touched the grassy shore I began to weep in his arms, feeling the first effects of the stings. Poor Nick, I’m sure he was absolutely horrified to have such a pitiful soggy mess on his hands. He quickly passed me off to Ian, who dragged me, bawling like a baby, all the way home.
Miraculously, like the demigod he was, Nick wasn’t stung at all.
Unfortunately, I had not been so lucky.
“Poor Bump. At least you suffered no real harm.”
I rolled my eyes. “I started high school three days later,” I said, grinning despite myself. “I have never been so mortified in my life.”
“No lasting damage,” Nick said as he scrutinized my face for bumps.
“Are you kidding? There I was on the first day of high school with three calamine-covered welts right in the middle of my face. I suffered an indignity beyond description. Everyone laughed at me.”
“No, they didn’t,” Nick said.
Well, that was true. Every time I passed one of my brother’s friends they pointed at me and made faces. But not Nick. He just frowned. I used to fool myself into believing that Nick cared. And now as he stood in front of me, I almost could believe it was true.
&nbs
p; “There you are!” came a familiar cloying drawl. Brittany and her D-cups had arrived. “You are missing all the fun tucked away in this little corner, Nicholas. I have someone I must introduce you to.” She paused for a moment, looking at me through her overly long eyelashes. “Oh, and you can come too, if you want, Anne.”
“Oh no, thank you. Nick and I were just talking about the new septic tank in our trailer park . . .”
She blinked at me, not sure if I was joking or not.
Nick tilted his head and pressed his lips together. Then he gave me a quick, impersonal peck on the cheek. “It was great seeing you,” he said before leading Brittany away.
“Bye, Nick,” I said quietly, resisting the urge to cradle my hand over the spot his lips had touched. My cheek throbbed as much as those hornet stings all those years ago.
Later that night Charlotte and I sat on the balcony of her midtown apartment. Aunt Addie and Mom had staggered and giggled the whole way up to Charlotte’s floor. Now, Aunt Addie snored happily from the sofa, and Mom slept in Charlotte’s bed. We propped our feet up on the railing and enjoyed the view overlooking Piedmont Park. From eight stories up the city at night looked like a string of fireflies and neon sparklers being waved around in midair. The lights were so bright they crowded out the stars that filled the night sky back home. I lifted my camera and took a picture, mourning the fact that I had left my vintage Canon at home.
The great love of my life—besides Nick, of course—was an old 35 mm film camera that my father gave me when I was ten. I took that camera with me everywhere, shooting pictures of an embarrassing number of flowers, dogs, and sunsets on the lake. That first camera started something inside me that grew way beyond those blurry photos from the early years. It led me out of Truhart to New York, where I followed my dream of studying photography. It stayed with me during the difficult times when my father was sick and I drove home almost every weekend. And it made the final trip with me when I left school early and returned home.
The camera I now held was digital. Like Nick, the old film camera didn’t have a place in my life anymore.
Charlotte let out a deep breath and I lowered the camera. She said, “Sorry about the party tonight. It really did start small. But before we knew it we had almost a hundred people coming.”
A Wedding in Truhart Page 2