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“And sixth hour was…?”
“Track.”
My heart sputters a bit. “Where you coached my dad?”
Mr. Bailey shakes his head. “Not then. At that point, your momma and daddy were getting ready to have you. If memory serves, I believe they were checked into the hospital already. I remember Paul telling me they were there because he was my assistant coach at the time.”
That name again, Paul. I don’t like the way hearing it makes me feel.
“And Paul is…?”
Mr. Bailey frowns. “Your daddy’s best friend. Didn’t they keep in touch over the years?” Even Billi’s eyebrows push together as she studies us.
I shake my head. “Not to my knowledge. Yesterday was the first time I ever heard his name when you mentioned him at the hotel.”
“Well, that don’t make sense,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Although I guess the three of you did move away to Texas the week after you were born. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. Though I never dreamed that would happen to your daddy and Paul.”
Now I’m the one frowning because he has his timeline wrong. We moved the summer before my third birthday. According to my parents, I started crying the moment we left the driveway, whining about missing my grandparents and never seeing them again. So, two hours down the road, they bought me a twelve-inch-high strawberry ice cream cone with a cherry on top from a bus stop gas station just to get the crying to stop. The shock of the ice cream worked, the crying quit, and my grandparents visited that very next week. Moved right along with us the next year.
According to my parents.
Right now, I’m wondering if the story was real.
“I’m afraid they didn’t keep in touch with Paul, or if they did, I never met him.”
“Well after what happened with Sally, I guess I can’t pretend to be surprised…”
There’s that name again: Sally. Just like last night, my stomach does a weird flip and drops like it might if I saw a car barreling toward me down the highway with no time to brace myself for impact. Except there’s no car, no danger in front of me, all entirely a work of imagination. The reaction is involuntary and rather pointless. There’s no reason for it to keep happening.
“What happened with Sally?” I ask, the reporter in me genuinely wanting to know.
Billi inserts an impatient sigh into the mix. “What hasn’t happened with Sally?” she asks. “That woman is crazy as the day is long, has been her whole life from what I’ve been told. She lives out there in that house all by herself and won’t speak to anyone in town; she even comes into the hotel for coffee every day and night but doesn’t say a word, just fills her mug and wanders out like an enigma.”
The memory of the woman last night clicks in place like the first two pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle. A start, but the big picture is impossible to see.
Mr. Bailey huffs. “Of course, she’s an enigma. You would be too if you’d been forced to grow up the way she did. But the only thing that made her crazy is this town,” he says like he’s delivering a stern lecture to a child. “If you had three thousand people always hitting you with the same mean nickname everywhere you went, how do you think you’d turn out? Not to mention some of the rowdier kids actually hitting her with bricks.”
“No kid ever hit her with bricks,” Billi half-shouts, surprising me with that defense. Her passion against the underdog seems out of character until the next words come out of her mouth. “That story was never proven true, and my brother denied ever doing it.” Ah, family. To the death, as the saying goes.
“Well, he admitted to hitting her house, didn’t he? Sailed that brick straight through her window and barely missed her head. If you ask me, it’s nearly the same thing.”
“Not exactly the same thing,” Billi mutters. “Plus, he apologized. And since when do you talk to Sally?”
“He stuck a letter in her mailbox and addressed her with that crude name. A half-brained apology if I ever heard one. Plus, your daddy swept it under the rug so fast, so I doubt you even know the whole story. And as far as talking to her goes, I do whenever I see her. I’ve known Sally longer than you’ve been alive.”
It’s a trump card. When Billi doesn’t respond, I know Mr. Bailey has her cornered. There seem to be a lot of childhoods being shaken to the core today. Misery must indeed love company. Still, even though this woman has nothing to do with my story, I’m curious. We’re barely making any headway through all this arguing, but before I push forward, I’ve got to know.
“What’s her nickname? What do people around here call her?”
Billi studies her lap, looking very embarrassed. “For the record, I’ve never called her that,” she mutters, a pink stain climbing up her neck.
“And I know good and well you wouldn’t,” Mr. Bailey says with an apologetic pat on Billi’s knee. “Billi here is pretty defensive of her family, but she wouldn’t hurt a soul, and I’ve never been one to believe in guilt by association. The sins of the father don’t have to visit the children, at least not all of them.”
It’s a dig at her brother, plain as day. Billi looks away while I do my best to keep us on topic.
“The nickname?”
Mr. Bailey looks at me, a decade’s worth of sadness weighing his expression.
