“I don’t know about that. Just the other day, I realized I not only have a favorite heating pad, I have asecondfavorite heating pad.”
Lo’s laugh is a high, bright thing, and when she steps closer, a wave of her perfume engulfs me. It’s too sweet, and there’s a chemical tang to it, like the kind of drugstore body spray a teenage girl would wear. “You’re funny,” she says, and then surprises me by reaching out and tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. It’s the kind of easy touch you’d give to a close friend or a family member, not someone you’ve spent only fifteen minutes with. It makes me miss my mom with a sudden fierceness that has my throat going tight.
Not that Mom was ever particularly free with those easy, affectionate gestures, so maybe it just makes me miss the idea of a mom. Or maybe I just wish that things with mine hadn’t been so complicated.
“Your mama was funny, too,” Lo says, almost like she’d read my mind. I wait for her to ask about Mom, bracing myself to explain the whole sad thing to her, but instead, she just makes a shooing motion at me and says, “Now, go get changed. I need some quality time on memory lane tonight.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m in a hot, crowded room with what seems to be the entire population of Baldwin County, Alabama, plus a few hundred vacationers, some of whom are going to regret anything and everything that happens tonight. That’s the kind of place The Line is. Paradise for some—a freewheeling honky-tonk where the band is loud, the beer is cold, and everybody will be your best friend for at least an hour or two. For others—namely me—it’s hell. Too many people, too much noise, too much… everything. The floor underfoot is sticky with spilled drinks and who knows what else, and there’s a constant haze of smoke that stings my eyes. Smoking is still allowed indoors here, and I know from experience it will take at least three showers to fully get the smell out of my hair.
As I sit at a scarred picnic table on the edge of the dance floor,August throws a long leg over the bench next to me, his eyes narrowed in the dim light.
“People actually like this?” he yells over the band’s third performance of “Sweet Home Alabama.”
Nodding, I tip my beer to my mouth, grateful that it’s cold sliding down my throat. Big fans circulate overhead, and there’s a breeze coming in through all the open doors that lead out to the beach, but that can do only so much against a July night and a bunch of people crowded in one space. I’d changed out of the clothes I’d worn all day before climbing in the backseat of Lo and August’s rental car, and I’m glad I chose a simple, lightweight shift dress, but there’s already sweat dripping down my back and dotting August’s temples.
Lo, seated on the other side of the table from us, looks only a little wilted in the heat, her eyes wide as she looks around her. “God, it’s exactly the same,” she says. I can barely hear her over the band, and I lean in closer.
“Hurricane Peggy did a lot of damage back in ninety-eight, but they rebuilt it exactly like it was. Had to go to junkyards to find signs the appropriate amount of rusted.”
Using my beer bottle, I point to one such metal sign, advertising Crown Royal, and she shakes her head, smiling as she rests her chin in her hand. “I didn’t think I missed St. Medard’s Bay, I really didn’t. But Christ, I did.”
I believe her. She’s practically glowing in the red light from the beer signs, her white dress a beacon in the gloom, and for as dingy as The Line is, it’s like none of it is touching her. Like she alone is going to leave this place without a sweat stain under her arms, without the smell of Marlboros clinging to her hair.
“How long did you live here?” I ask, and she slants me a look, tipping her head to the side.
“Ellen Chambers’s Little Girl, are you really going to pretend you don’t already know my whole damn story?”
“She knows you, Lo,” August says, his knee bumping mine—accidentally?—under the table. “Remember, she knew your mom. Sorry, your ‘mama.’”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and she knows it,” Lo replies, pointing a finger at me. Her nails are short, clean of polish. “I’m asking her if she knows why I left. Landon and all that.”
Again, I see that box hidden at the back of Mom’s closet, picture after picture of a handsome man with thick dark hair and an honest-to-God dimple in his chin. “I do,” I tell her. “Or I guess, the tabloid version of it?” I pause, because it all seems so improbable and silly now. “You were accused of killing the governor’s son?”
“Mm-hmm.” Lo nods, smiling like I’ve aced my first test. “Apparently, he was going to dump me, and I decided the appropriate reaction was smashing his head in and hoping everyone blamed it on the storm? Honestly, it sounds like something Imight’vedone if Landonhadbeen about to dump me—which, trust me, baby, he wasnot.”
She says it so lightly, with a little gleam in her eye, like she’stryingto shock me with her nonchalance. Again, I’m struck by the idea that we’ve time-traveled somehow, that the Lo Bailey in front of me isn’t from 2025 at all, but frozen in amber from 1984. Still young, still beautiful, still full of more sass than her mama knew what to do with.
The band has shifted into a new song, something fast, and I can feel the bass line in my chest, in the soles of my feet. I have to raise my voice louder than I’d like as I say, “August said his body was found at the Rosalie. But the papers never mentioned that, and my mom never—”
“Let’s maybe save any talk about all that for when we’reback at the inn,” August cuts in, glancing around us. He’s smiling, but his lips are tight, his shoulders tense, and Lo waves a careless hand, the bangle on her wrist sliding down her forearm.
“Auggie has so many weird rules about this book, Geneva. Doesn’t like to talk about its specifics in public, wants as few people as possible to know that we’re even writing the damn thing, so that when he talks to them, he’ll get their… what was it? Oh, right. ‘Their authentic selves.’”
Lo makes air quotes around that, and August’s smile tightens. “Just trying to keep things unbiased.”
She gives another one of those big laughs, and I see several heads turn in her direction. I wonder if anyone recognizes the former mistress to Alabama’s Golden Son. Then again, even if she weren’t an infamous figure in these parts, it’s hardnotto look at her.
“Baby, this is the South. No one isunbiasedabout anything. They make up their minds lickety-split, and the better the story seems, the more inclined they are to believe it. Tell him, Geneva. Tell him what it’s like around here.”
“Well,” I start slowly, “I guess I’m actually a good example of that myself.”
The beer is sweaty in my hands, and I absently pick at the label with my thumbnail. “I mean, I grew up here, obviously, graduated high school in 2003, then immediately struck out for college in Savannah with these big dreams of being an interior decorator.”
“I can see that,” Lo says, tilting her head. “Everything in the inn is so pretty. So fresh, and… unique. In a good way.”
The compliment warms me, and I nod in acknowledgment. “I mean, I’d like to do a lot more, but the environment is already so hard on everything. Any beachside place, you end up replacing stuff every five to seven years, so I can’t really justify—”
Stopping myself, I shake my head and laugh. “Sorry. Not the point of the story. I just can’t turn Innkeeper Brain off lately.”
