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Ruby sniffed. “That’s because you never read the classics. It’s close enough to Heathcliff to appeal to me greatly.”
“But not when there were European adventures to see to.”
“I didn’t think it was fair to either of us. Anyway, he went away to school too.”
“And he is also back,” Marianne said.
Ruby shrugged. “Good for Heath.”
“Are you too busy for Heath?” Dahlia asked.
“Well, I report to Dana starting next Monday. So yes. I’m going to be pretty busy. There hasn’t been an actual archivist at the Pear Blossom historical society for years. And I think most of...everything has just been kind of left in boxes.”
Marianne grimaced. “I’m not sure why you’re subjecting yourself to working with Dana Groves.”
“IlikeDana,” Ruby said. “Anyway. She’s sad. People shouldn’t be so mean.”
“She’s mean,” Marianne said.
“People are mean to her,” Dahlia said.
She was not one to see the best in people, but she and Ruby had worked with Dana at the museum, where she coordinated living history programs around town.
Dahlia was notorious for her defense of Dana, and that wasn’t even an exaggeration.
Every town, she supposed, had that madwoman who was accused of witchcraft by gangs of young children and ostracized by the sort of people who had neatly kept lawns and kept all their personal business carefully concealed—the better to make their neighbors envy them.
In Pear Blossom, that woman was Dana Groves.
Dahlia couldn’t explain how Dana had gone from object of pity to one of scorn and distrust. At least, she couldn’t identify the stages of it. Except that the town had moved on from her tragedy, and she had not.
Coupled with the fact that if something happened to a woman or girl, and it might involve sex, then she was seen as to blame in some way.
And by extension, the mother was absolutely to blame.
Dana had been a single mother, and the fact her daughter had disappeared—and her daughter’s boyfriend was most certainly responsible—had eventually been laid at her feet.
The problem was, by the time Dahlia was in high school, Caitlin’s disappearance wasn’t what people thought of when they thought of Dana, not specifically.
She was the hag that lived on the corner, the museum troll.
Dahlia had never seen her that way. Dahlia hadn’t forgotten her sadness.
But it was like Pear Blossom had been determined to blot out Dana’s sadness with the joy of finding Ruby, and Dahlia had never seen how that canceled out a tragedy.
But then, she was the one who had always seen something quite tragic in Ruby.
Dahlia’s reputation was firmly linked to Dana. Since Dahlia had once screamed down the entire football team for throwing rocks at Dana’s windows, and had, in fact, thrown a rock that had hit the star fullback in the shoulder and told the “pack of pricks” where they could shove their rocks.
That had done nothing to boost Dahlia’s popularity, oddly.
“I don’t see how everyone can be so mean about her,” Ruby said. “How can you not look at her and think about everything she’s lost?”
Dahlia felt kinship with Ruby just then. While Dahlia didn’t feel like her compassion for Dana came from kindness, she knew Ruby’s did.
“You went to school with Caitlin,” Ruby said to Marianne. “Wasn’t she only like a year ahead of you?”
Marianne looked ashamed. “I know. It’s hard to remember from before. I don’t usually... Consciously connect the two things. I know I should. Caitlin was... I mean, I didn’t really know her. She was always busy with her boyfriend.”
