The Corner of Forever and Always

by Lia Riley

  Tuesday glanced around the group, her friends and coworkers. Even Pepper and Rhett stood on the edge of the crowd. This was a nightmare, one where you walk into a public place and realize you’re naked. That was a sweet dream compared to this moment.

  “I also agree.” Beau’s voice was unwavering. “Whatever our differences, I vouch for her.”

  Horror sank into her bones. He vouched for her.

  Even when she couldn’t give him what he wanted, he stood by her.

  And that’s why letting him down hurt so much.

  She met his gaze one last time, wanting to memorize the expression there, one not tinged with bitter judgment and anger. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. It took a moment for those two little words to find their mark.

  Then he registered their meaning and the park exploded.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Some days deserve to be erased from memory. After Tuesday dropped her bombshell, the Everland Plaza exploded. Turned out she wasn’t lying about being a terrible cook either. Note to self, if a woman shares a fact, believe her.

  The trouble started right before noon, with Angie Robert saying she didn’t feel well enough to continue judging the pie competition. Miss Ida May, Phaedra, and Lucille followed suit.

  “It was the flying pie.” Miss Ida May slumped beside a tree. Her purple hat with the net trim had gone cockeyed, and her floral-print dress hiked above the thick bands of her knee-high stockings. Two women from the quilting bee fanned her as she pressed a lace-trimmed hankie to her mouth. “Tuesday’s pie did this.”

  “Or whatever her name is.” Lucille moaned from a few feet away.

  Beau passed around bottles of water as the sick waited for friends or family to see them safely home. He passed Toots and Mean Gene, assembled with other Happily Ever After Land staff, in a solemn half circle around Mr. Wilcox. “I’d never have believed she would do something like that, never in a million years,” the older man was saying. “Not our princess.”

  “An affair with a married man, or poisoning the pies?” Gene quipped before Toots smacked him in the chest.

  Donna passed into view, leading a hunched-over Angie in the direction of the Hill House B&B, where they were spending the night. Beau swallowed a groan, his shoulders stiff. Goddammit. Looked like Everland could kiss the Coastal Jewel designation good-bye and settle for Coastal Contamination. But the pain in Tuesday’s eyes as she’d fled had cut deep. As much as he was angry at the situation, he couldn’t find the heart to be angry with her. He raked a hand over his head and barked a frustrated laugh.

  Tuesday Knight had him tied up in knots as usual.

  “Can I interest you in some hand sanitizer, Mayor?” Lettie Sue popped in front of him waving a gallon-sized bottle under his nose. “There have been norovirus outbreaks all over the county lately. Can’t be too careful.”

  He gave an absent nod and stuck out a palm for a dollop. Too bad he couldn’t cleanse away the whole morning. All he’d wanted was a low-drama, quiet affair. An easy relationship. Instead, he’d gotten mixed up with a big-city adulteress who’d gotten half the town sick.

  “The crisis has inspired me to do armchair research on preventative folk remedies. It appears as though elderberry can make a difference. Know where to get any of those?”

  “Elderberries? Not outside of a Monty Python sketch,” he quipped.

  She stared blankly.

  “Oh, come on. You know what I’m talking about. ‘Your mother smells of hamsters and—’”

  “I’ll thank you not to bring my mama into this. I was only trying to be of help.” She flounced off without a backward look.

  Once those infected were cleared from the park and the nonsick sanitized, thanks to Lettie Sue (who kept shooting him dirty looks), there was nothing left to do but get on his bike and ride home to Belle Mont.

  After parking next to his parents’ rental car, he checked his phone. Three new text messages waited from Discount-Mart. Their offer—a lowball—on the Happily Ever After Land property was their last and best offer. They hadn’t wasted time.

  “We won’t be as generous tomorrow,” the last note had hinted ominously.

  Tomorrow. After the pie news got out.

  No new e-mails except for a Google Alert connected to his name. His stomach sank. The Back Fence already had a headline: THE PRODIGAL PIE: A PESTIFEROUS PRANK OF POISON AND POOR TASTE.

  He lowered the phone, unable to read past the heavy-handed alliteration. Miss Ida May might be ill, but that hadn’t subdued her indignation.

  As mayor he possessed the executive authority to condemn the amusement park. The idea made him want to hit something, but people in this town needed jobs and opportunities closer to home. He couldn’t put dinner on the tables or shoes on kids’ feet. But his policies could.

  “Drink?” The Belle Mont screen door slammed, and his mom came down the front stairs and handed him a beer.

  “You’ve heard?”

  “This is Everland,” she said with a small smile.

  “Of course.” He scrubbed his face. “Why’d I bother asking?”

  “Feeling okay?”

  “I haven’t gotten sick since that time Rhett gave me chicken pox in the third grade. Don’t intend to start today.”

  Mama cocked her head. “That’s not what I mean. The girl at the center of this, she’s the one, isn’t she? Miss Fanny Floss.”

  “Mama.”

  She pressed a hand to her neck. “Rats. Too bad I haven’t worn your grandma’s string of pearls for a decade. I’d be tempted to clutch them.”

  “It wasn’t like you thought.” He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a beer, and came back out.

  She waited until he popped the cap. “I’m curious. What do you think I think?”

  “Is this a trick question to get me to talk about my feelings?”

  “Maybe.” Mama arched her brows. “Lord knows I have to get crafty to get a clue what goes on in that handsome head of yours.”

  “Trust me. You wouldn’t understand.” He flopped onto the step and loosened his tie. “You and Dad have had it easy when it comes to love.”

  “Have we, now?”

  “No drama.”

  “Give me a sip of that.” She plucked the beer out of his hands and took a long swallow. Then she handed it back and slapped him upside the head.

  “Ow.” He rubbed his hot ear. “What was that for?”

  “Your father and I didn’t raise you to be a fool.” She walked down onto the grass. “Come on, walk with me.” She took off at a fast clip, and he had no choice but to follow.

  “Charlie and I had it easy, huh?” She veered off the driveway onto the lawn, walking toward Seaview Hill, the highest point for miles on the eastern edge of the property. “No drama?”

  “How can I answer without you hitting me again?”

  “I owe you an apology.”

  That was unexpected. “What for?”

  “Beau Marino, I’m your mama. That means that even though I’m fifty-five, I still see you as my little boy. But I’ve protected you long enough. And sometimes the past deserves to be ancient history and bygones become bygones because there’s no sense doing anything else but moving on, and if there is one thing I am good at, it’s moving on.”

  “Did all the women in my life join forces today and decide to become cryptic?”

  “How old was I when I had you?”

  “Twenty?”

  “Twenty years old. And just how proud do you think that made my mama and father? Their only daughter unmarried and pregnant before becoming a full-fledged adult?”

  He’d always known Mama had had him young. That’s part of what made her Mama. But it was a minor detail. She was also fun, up for anything.

  “I’d gone sailing alone and gotten myself knocked up by a Bermudan bartender. An Afro-Bermudan bartender.” She paused as the words sank in.

  “Grandma and Grandpa didn’t approve of Dad?” He couldn’t remember much about his mother’s
parents. They’d retired to the Blue Ridge Mountains before he started school and he’d seen little of them after. He’d never wondered why. That was just how they were. Old. Frowning. Disinterested. His daddy’s parents, on the other hand, were loving and high-energy enough that it paled out anything else.

  “That’s the G-rated version.”

  “They didn’t like that I wasn’t pure lily-white,” he said slowly. The full weight of his statement hit hard and heavy.

  “Honey, you were never half of anything. Just wholly you. Perfect. Beautiful. So I chose to redefine my family.” Mama didn’t move a muscle, but he felt enveloped in a hug. “You and Charlie are my people. And his beautiful sisters and your late grandparents, bless their souls. I wanted more children, but that wasn’t meant to be, and you were enough.” She gave a rueful grin. “But the world isn’t black-and-white. And neither was the situation. I didn’t want any of that ugliness rubbing off on you. I had to follow my heart and be with the man who made me happy regardless of my family’s approval. But when you say there was no drama with your father and me, I have to laugh, because when people refer to World War III as something down the road, they don’t realize that it happened right here, in that big house, when I made it clear that I intended to raise my son in my hometown, head held high.”

  “What did they do?” His heart ached for her.

  “Moved full-time to their condo in Boco.” But her laugh still carried a twinge of pain. “It was their quiet way out of having to love my husband and child. They said they tried their best, but you know what? It wasn’t enough. In fact, it was nowhere near enough. You and Charlie aren’t someone to be tolerated; you are the loves of my life.”

  “Get over here.” He grabbed his tiny mother and squeezed her tight.

  She clung back, fierce and strong, before sniffing loudly and pushing him back. “My. That’s quite enough of all that, now. What I want to know is what is happening with that girl, Miss—”

  “Please don’t say her name. I’m sure you have read the Back Fence by now, and everything that happened at the Harvest Festival after you left. She was with a married man? How can I be with someone like that? Not after…”

  His mother gave him an MRI-level stare, taking in everything he’d never admit. “She’s like Jacqueline, then?” Only Mama wasn’t afraid to say his dead wife’s name to his face.

  He kicked at the ground. “She’s blond.”

  “So was I before all this gray.” She ran a hand over her hair. “What else you got…?”

  “Apparently a cheater,” he said weakly.

  “Have you asked her?”

  “No.” He glanced at his beer, already empty.

  “Son, are you saying you’re taking the word of Miss Ida May and the Biddy Brigade at face value? Bless their hearts, if those women ran their feet as hard as their mouths, they’d be winning every marathon on the Eastern Seaboard.”

  “It’s not easy between me and Tuesday,” he protested. “We aren’t that much alike.”

  “And love has to be easy in your mind?” She smacked him upside the head again.

  “Ow, Mama. You keep doing that and I’m going to end up in the emergency room with a concussion.”

  “Then let’s get on home so I can clean out your ears. Love is work, every day a worksite, and you build it together, brick by brick.”

  “What?”

  “A life.”

  Beau stared out at the line of blue in the distance. The horizon. The ocean. The possibilities stretching.

  “If you feel as strongly about the girl as I sense you do, then don’t be a dummy. Go for it. See if she’s worth the fuss.” She touched the center of his back, twirling her fingers in small concentric circles the way she used to do when he was a small boy and afraid of monsters under the bed. “I don’t know all that went on between you and Jacqueline behind closed doors, but remember you don’t know what goes on behind anyone else’s doors. What you see on the outside isn’t always what’s real. It’s scary to try again, but there’s a bright side.”

  “There is?”

  She blew a kiss in the direction of his skeptical scowl. “I didn’t raise a coward.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” Tuesday mumbled into her pillow.

  “How did you know I’d come in?” Pepper peeked beneath the elaborate blanket fort taking up most of the living room. “I let myself in through the kitchen.”

  “I’m gifted with omniscient psychic powers. Oh wait. If that were true then I’d never have gotten out of bed today. You stepped on one of J. K. Growling’s squeaky toys in the backyard.”

  Pepper crawled inside. “You plan on hiding here all day?”

  “All day?” Tuesday sniffed. “That’s for amateurs. I’m an expert at avoidance. I’ve got enough food to survive a week. After that I might scoop my life savings from the change jar and see if I can afford a bus ticket to Phoenix. Catch up with Dad’s road trip. I can stand on sidewalks around the country and sing in front of a hat, busk for Airstream gas money. I’d be an asset.”

  “I don’t think Dad’s that hard up. And I don’t think they really want a third wheel. You know they’re hitting up the nudist colonies in every state, right?”

  Tuesday gagged. “Not my favorite kind of full moon.”

  Pepper shuddered. “I am a little sad that I even went there. The mental image…it burns. It burns.”

  “Let me replace it with another one.” Tuesday rolled over and used a movie trailer announcer’s exaggeratedly deep voice. “It looked like an average Southern small town. Quiet. Peaceful. Uneventful. Until the day she moved in.”

  “Knock it off.”

  “She brought with her bad morals, and that’s not all…” She dropped the voice and groaned loud and long. “Somehow the pie was infected with norovirus. How did that even happen? I swear I washed my hands. I’m like patient zero here.”

  “Norovirus is so contagious. You could have picked it up around the park.”

  “There hasn’t been a single case here until today.”

  “No, I know. But we were bound to get it. I heard it had gotten as far as Hogg Jaw.” Pepper’s brow furrowed. “Huh. Hogg Jaw.”

  “You know you sound like Velma from Scooby-Doo right now.”

  “Very funny, Shaggy. It’s just Hogg Jaw is in the finals to become a Coastal Jewel, too, right?”

  “Apparently. It’s a little weird because it’s not as close to the ocean, but whatever.” She stretched and burrowed back into her pillow. “It’s upriver, though I guess it’s close enough. Back to my hibernation. Wake me when the town quits hating my guts.”

  “Hogg Jaw might be desperate.”

  “What are you saying? Bioterrorism?”

  “That town has a reputation for sabotage.” Pepper shrugged. “Remember how Judge Hogg tried to pry off the Davy Jones statue this summer?”

  “That was crazy. He wouldn’t be back for more, though, would he?”

  “I don’t think so. Like I said, it must have just been something you picked up at work, or maybe you bought bad fruit.”

  Tuesday frowned. “I didn’t buy the fruit.”

  “You picked the apples? I didn’t even know there were orchards outside of North Georgia.”

  She sat up, wide-eyed. “I didn’t pick them. They were left in a basket at my front door.”

  “By who?”

  “Who knows? I assumed it was some do-gooder. One of those random acts of small-town kindness, like sharing cups of sugar and stuff.”

  “Can you run this past me again?”

  “Someone left me a basket of apples and I baked them into a pie and…” The bottom fell out of her stomach. “Holy crap. Was I set up?”

  “Who’d have reason?” Pepper tapped her bottom lip, deep in thought. “Miss Ida May seems like she was gunning for you.”

  “She doesn’t think I belong with Beau, but it couldn’t have been her. After I accidentally threw the pie in
her face, she got sick. So did the other Back Fence ladies. They wouldn’t have wanted to ruin the pie competition.”

  “Who would?”

  “The Georgia Tourism Commission were guest judging and—”

  “If they made the contest look bad…Hogg Jaw would win.”

  They traded uneasy stares. “I could ask Beau. Oh wait, scratch that. He hates me.”

  “Stop being so dramatic. Beau Marino is head-over-heels crazy about you.”

  “Correction.” Tuesday shook her head. “I make him crazy. But it’s a two-way street. He makes me crazy, too. You should have heard him trying to boss me about working at the Roxy.”

  “The closed-down theater?”

  “He was trying to secure funding to open it back up and thought I should run it. Me, in charge.”

  “That doesn’t sound the least bit bossy. It sounds like he knows you perfectly.”

  “Me, in charge?” She feigned a laugh. “I’d make it a disaster. Plus, I’m not sure a town of our size could support regular productions. It might be better suited as a half-time education-extension program. Then you could pair up with dance teachers, and music teachers, make it a hub for creative kids’ stuff.”

  “Um, did you hear yourself? That idea was genius. A kids’ creative art center? The entire area would get behind that! I’ve been chasing grants for the shelter for months now, and do you know how many opportunities there are for kids’ education? Lots. I could help you. The Knight sisters, we’d be unstoppable.”

  “Except the part where I said no. Turned him down flat.”

  Pepper’s brows mashed together. “You what?”

  She covered her face with her hands. What had she done? “I really am an idiot.”

  “In this case, I am not arguing. You have to go find him. Tell him your idea. It doesn’t sound like he was trying to boss you. He just knew that you could take the place and run with it, and I know you could if you’d just believe in yourself.”

  “But you heard those terrible things Miss Ida May accused me of.”

  Pepper blinked. “I did.”

  “And it was true.” The words tasted bitter, made it hard to swallow. “I did have an affair with a married man. She wasn’t lying.”