"I just..." She tilts her head, the practiced kind, the one designed to make you think she's choosing her words carefully when really she rehearsed them in the mirror thatmorning. "I worry, sometimes, about people who are new here. They don't always know the whole picture."
I take another sip of my coffee, letting the silence stretch just long enough to be uncomfortable. "What picture is that?"
"Cal Holt."
My face does nothing. I've practiced keeping my face very still since approximately third grade, and I'm excellent at it.
"What about him, Cherry?"
"I just think..." Another head tilt, earnest now. Deeply, performatively earnest in a way that makes my teeth hurt.
"There are red flags, that's all. And sometimes when you're new somewhere, and young as you are, you don't see them."
I stop walking and face her directly, as if I would ever believe she's genuinely doing me a favor.
"Red flags, really?"
"He has a type." She shrugs, small and practiced. "He goes through women. Nothing ever goes anywhere." A pause, perfectly timed. "I'd hate for you to get hurt."
I study her for a long moment. This woman who has her fingers in more conversations than she's part of. Who has never once done anything that suggested she was motivated by anything other than her own interests dressed up as concern. Who smiles like butter wouldn't melt and leaves wreckage in her wake and calls it helping.
"Cherry," I say pleasantly, "you'll have to excuse me if I don't believe a word you say."
I turn and start walking again, hoping she'll take a hint, but I'm not that lucky.
"I would hate for you to find out the hard way that Cal is a walking, talking red flag," she calls after me, her voice still sweet as honey.
I glance back over my shoulder, letting my smile go just a little sharp at the edges. "Yeah? But have you seen the flagpole it comes with?”
Cherry blinks twice before schooling her shocked expression, and I keep mine perfectly open, as if I'd said something entirely reasonable.
"I'm just trying to help," she manages, her composure slipping just slightly.
"Thank you, you're such a doll, really." I give her my brightest smile. "Is that all?"
It's not all. I see it on her face, the shift from the script she'd prepared to whatever comes next.
"You know there's a rumor." Her voice drops slightly, conspiratorial. "About Cal and a woman seen leaving his house. Early morning. Not that long ago."
One perfect brow goes up, and I can feel Cherry's malice oozing from her fake smile like oil from a cracked engine.
I know about the rumor, alright. It had grated on me for months when I first heard it, wormed its way under my skin and stayed there despite my best efforts to dig it out.
Even though I wanted to ask Callahan about it, I decided against it. Technically we were nothing and had been nothing, so I suppressed the urge to ask if he really had stooped so low as to sleep with this snake standing in front of me.
"Is that so?"
"People talk in a small town," she says, and her smile is back in full force now.
"They really do."
"I just thought you should know."
I hold her gaze for another second, letting the silence do the work, and then I nod once.
"I also heard she was a lousy lay. Unhygienic, even."
I walk away before she can say anything else, keeping my pace easy, like I have all the time in the world and not a single worry on my mind. I make it around the corner and halfway down the next block before I stop.
