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Dale and Steven were another story. They broke up and got back together twice, then one day up and moved to Scotland. No one knew exactly why until three years later when they resurfaced on social media. Apparently, Steven’s father owned a large share of a distillery, and when he passed, Steven inherited it. They ran off to Scotland to take care of his affairs, then just stayed, living on a houseboat and becoming board members in the company. Now they were both investors, movers and shakers in the digital money field and impossibly rich.
And also invisible. They sent Tamara and me wonderful Christmas and birthday gifts every year, but they always came from some far-flung country where they were presumably staying at that moment.
It seemed like all three of them had the life they always dreamed of. Then there was me. In Murdock, living a life that I never thought I would have.
Still, I cherished this time with my friends, and when I got to the coffee shop, Tessa, Kat, and Simone, a girl that had moved to town while I was in New York and became my pseudo-replacement, ran over to give me a hug.
“You are not going tobelievewhat happened today,” Simone said as they led me to the booth in the corner of the nearly empty shop.
It was a curious thing, this coffee shop. Murdock wasn’t known for having shops like this until around when I moved back. Suddenly, an influx of small chains and mom-and-pop shops took over Broad Street, littering it with new places to go between the cheap used tire places and the three fast food chains that had been there since the sixties. The coffee shop, looking much like every other one I had visited in Brooklyn during my time there, seemed wildly out of place. But to the people of the town, it was perfect. A little taste of big-city life in their small town.
I slid into the booth and listened as they began the day’s tales. Some of it was wild, clearly untrue and unfounded rumors that would flitter away into nothingness in a day or two. Nothing mean or vindictive, but silly most of the time. I had to laugh and shake my head at it. We were officially ‘the grapevine’ that people heard things from.
Excusing myself to go get an actual coffee, I stood up and went to the counter. The girl behind it looked like she might be someone I recognized, but I couldn’t place her. She was young, probably twenty, and looked stressed and tired. As she turned to make my cup, I could see the round belly beginning to form under her apron.
“Must suck working in a coffee shop, huh?” I asked.
“Hmm?” she asked, turning around to look at me again. I gestured to her belly.
“Because… coffee. You can’t have it.”
“Oh,” she said. “Truth is, I don’t like coffee anyway. No big loss. The bigger change was stopping smoking.”
“Yeah, that’s a big no-no too,” I said. “Good job.”
“Thanks, Miss Taylor,” she said, handing me my coffee. “I’m proud of myself.”
“You should be,” I said, nodding.
It wasn’t until I was walking away that I tried to place what was strange about that conversation. Had she called me Miss Taylor?
“Mallory,” Kat said as I approached, waving me in. “Come here, you have to hear this. Repeat what you said, Simone.”
I sat down, clearly ready to hear whatever juicy gossip Simone had seemingly been holding back until now. She tended to do that. She was more of a wallflower than the other two, preferring to sit and listen first, then tell her stories when Kat and Tessa calmed down.
“Well,” she said, splaying her fingers on the counter and leaning forward conspiratorially. “I heard that Principal Runnels’ surprise for the school was that he got that pitcher to come back to town to coach.”
My ears perked up.
“Pitcher?” I asked.
Simone nodded excitedly.
“He’s apparently staying in town for a while and might move here permanently again. If he does, there’s a bunch of talk that other celebrities might come into town to see him,” she said.
Tessa was looking at me, her expression pensive. I could read her like a book. She not only knew what I was thinking, she’d known about this all along. This was what she had been so excited to talk about. She just didn’t want to be the one to bring it up.
“Graham Miller?” I asked.
“Oh my God, yes, that’s his name,” Simone said.
“We went to school with him,” Kat said. “Mallory knows him pretty well.”
“Did,” I said, before Simone could get excited. “I did know him. And not all that well, actually.”
“He’s so hot,” Simone said, oblivious to the other three friends at the table. “I saw his picture online, and he is gorgeous. And single, I think. Nothing online said anything about him dating anyone at least.”
“He had a girlfriend for a long time,” Kat said. “Debbie Lee.”
