“Well, I’ll be heading out,” she says after exhausting her current knowledge about all her friends and neighbors. “Got to help with one of the floats for the Christmas parade.”
We say our goodbyes and Mabel promises to stop by this week with a casserole.
Lexi warned me about the casseroles. Her instructions were to graciously receive them, refrigerate them for five days, thencovertly toss them—double-bagged for stealth. I’ve never seen her so serious as when she warned me not to get caught throwing one out.
Maybe I’ll just eat them. They can’t be that bad … Or maybe they can.
I stare out the window of Bean There Done That, sipping my latte and watching life move in slow motion down Main Street. People wave to one another—a lot. You’d think the whole town’s happily unemployed or retired, but most of them are under forty, so that can’t be right. No one seems to be in a hurry to get anywhere—on a Monday morning, no less.
“Anyone sitting here?” a woman asks from behind me.
I turn to see Ella Mae holding a bottled green drink.
“It’s open. Join me.”
“I’m glad I caught up with you after Saturday.” She smiles warmly. “We didn’t get to talk much before the moms in our group cut the night short.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you have kids. You don’t?”
“Chris and I want kids, but we’re waiting a few years. No one expected us to end up together—he blindsided me. We’re just enjoying the early years before we’re knee-deep in diapers and sniffles. Living here, you can’t really romanticize parenthood. We see what it takes, so we’re pacing ourselves.” She pauses, uncaps her drink, takes a swig and asks, “So, how about you?”
“Me?”
“Boyfriend? Fiance? Hopes for kids? Or … none of the above and I should mind my business?”
“Do people actually mind their own business around here?” I ask, smiling.
“I don’t know how it was where you come from, but here, if you sneeze, someone three blocks over’s going to say, ‘God bless you.’ Eyes everywhere. And they aren’t used to outsiders. Just take it all in stride. They’ll let you in—give it time. We’re like onebig, happy, dysfunctional family. I actually petitioned to have that engraved on the Welcome sign.”
I laugh. “Yeah. Okay. No boyfriend. Ex-fiance. Kids … one day, maybe. With the right man.”
“Definitely not with the wrong one!”
We both laugh.
Ella Mae asks me about leaving New York. We end up talking about her social media career. I’m impressed. By the end of our time together, I think I made an actual friend. The thought warms me more than my latte.
“Take it easy on Jesse,” she says as we stand and push in our chairs.
“Everyone acts like he’s fragile,” I say.
“In a way, he is. But maybe not as much as we think. He’s been the brunt of a lot of town jokes—I know how that goes. Once you’re pigeonholed in a small town, it’s hard to change how people see you. Give him a fresh slate—even if he did cuff you at first sight.”
“Cuff at first sight,” I mutter, laughing to myself.
Ella Mae and I say our goodbyes outside the coffee shop. People pass us and each one of them says, “Good morning.” Some even use our names. No one’s whispering now. Maybe surviving your own small-town scandal is as easy as laughing along in the aftermath.
I head home to unpack a few smaller boxes upstairs, then I change into my uniform. My house still smells faintly of maple and bacon from this morning. The normalcy of it settles something in me— a shred of evidence that life here might one day feel like home, even on a day when I’m still the new girl trying to find her bearings. I smooth a hand down my uniform and glance at the clock. It’s nearly time.
At one forty-five I’m sitting in the parking lot outside the police station staring at the glass double doors, only this time I’m not in the back seat of a cruiser against my will.
Chapter 4
Alex
I'm a cop at heart—it's in my blood.
~ David A. Clarke, Jr.
