Yet night after night, I come by Donegal’s and approach everyone I see, ask them all about themselves, and take meticulous mental notes so that they’ll feel seen and remembered by me. And every night, I feel the same deep sting of humiliation and rejection that turns my stomach sour.
This pain has a purpose, I tell myself as Mayor Kent studies me like he would spoiled meat. This effort is like … exercising or putting hydrogen peroxide on a cut. Necessary pain.
I hope.
“I’m not throwin’ out the first pitch, Miss Carville, and that’s final,” the mayor says as he walks away from me.
He has that classic, Orville Redenbacher, sweet old man look.
And like everyone else in town, he hates me.
When he walks off, I spot my next victims.
Ha! Let’s be honest, babe: you’re their victim.
It’s the church ladies.
“Good evening,” I say with a smile when I approach the table whereLively LorettaandUnique Euniceare sitting. “How are you both?”
Loretta eyes me like I’m selling something. “We’re fine. Just talking about the covered dish Sunday.”
“Your pie was such an interesting choice,” Eunice says, referring to a dessert I brought to the last “covered dish” (aka church potluck). Everyone is still talking about it. My pie, not the potluck.
I ordered the thing from a luxury bakery in Napa Valley that my best friend—nope,exbest friend—introduced me to.
My ex best friend …
Stop it, you’re fine.
The point is, the bakery uses twenty-year aged port in the filling and tops it with edible gold leaf, for heaven’s sake, and they act like I found it in a compost bin.
“I thought it would be nice,” I say, trying to keep the helplessness out of my voice. “Heritage Port Pies are world-famous.”
“Yes, well, Mullet Ridge doesn’t care so much about being worldly,” Loretta says.
“But what an … effort you made,” Eunice says, and I almost wonder if she’s playing a part, reciting what was said to her when she was a young woman. But then she doubles down. “I’m sure that matters where you’re from.”
I’m from Atlanta,I want to shout.
No, don’t be tacky.
I can’t let myself be hurtful. These women live by a code that matters to them. It’s not their fault I don’t know it.
But boy, I’m getting tired of having that thrown in my face night after night. And tonight is no different.
Defeat drops on me like a weight as they make more thinly veiled comments about me, and I stand here, towering awkwardly over them while I smile and take it.
Maybe I should quit.
Not just for the night, but altogether. Coming here every night, trying to show the town that I care, that I want to be here, has accomplished nothing. I’d say it’s the fact that I’m drinking club soda at a bar, but the bakery and coffee shop already rejected me. And even though I paid for every little league team’s uniforms, when I showed up to the first night of games a few weeks ago, everyone looked at me like I was a witch planning to curse everyone.
I won’t make any hasty decisions, but I can’t take more self-inflicted pain tonight, especially not after the conversation with Aldridge and Gordon today. Just thinking about it makes me queasy and wrung out.
“Thanks for taking the time—” I start, already spinning away when a hand finds my elbow.
“Pardon me,” a low voice drawls. I glance away from Eunice and Loretta to see a well-kempt grizzly bear of a man.
With a mullet.
