“Sounds like you might need another drink,” August replies, signaling a passing waitress, and once August and I have our beers and Lo has her Bushwacker, I continue.
“Anyway, after school, I stayed in Savannah, got a job with a local firm. I came back to St. Medard’s Bay to visit my parents but had zero plans of ever moving back here.”
I’ve had just enough to drink that I almost tell them how lonely I always felt growing up at the inn, how weird it was to feel like everything that wasnicein your house wasn’t even for you, but for strangers. How I wished I had siblings because at least then there would’ve been other people tosharethat weirdness with. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to feel the same way I did.
Instead, I just say, “Then a bunch of things happened.” I count them off on my fingers. “One, I met a guy. Chris. He was…”
Trailing off, I try to remember the good things about Chris, but every memory still stings, so I push them away and shrug. “He was a guy. Doesn’t matter.”
“Oooh,He Was a Guy, Doesn’t Mattermight make a good title ifyouever write your memoir, Auggie,” Lo interjects, and August shoots her a look.
“Noted.”
Then August nudges me with his beer, folding his arms on the table and leaning in closer because the band has just launched into “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”
“Okay, so you were never coming back to St. Medard’s Bay, and Chris was Just a Guy. Then what?”
“Then,” I say with a sigh, “well, then my dad died. Aneurysm in his sleep. And a couple of years after that…”
A couple of years after that, my mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. She’d called me, her voice oddly calmas she’d told me the news. She’d been researching the disease, she had a specialist in Mobile, and she was already working on granting me power of attorney over everything.
And, of course, I’ll need to put the inn up for sale.
It was the one time in that conversation that her voice had broken, and that in turn had broken me.
I’d cried in Chris’s arms that night, in the apartment we were sharing in Atlanta at the time. That’s when he’d said that we should take on the inn ourselves.
Keep it in the family, he’d said.
Magic words.
My dad was gone, my mom was going, and I didn’t have siblings. My dad’s sister moved to England back in the ’80s, my mom’s brother, Adam, died in a car accident the year I graduated high school, my grandparents were long gone, and here Chris was, offering to be my family.
Or at least, that’s what I thought he was offering. After all, we’d been dating ten years at that point. A whole decade. My friends, both in Atlanta and in Savannah, had thought it was insane that we weren’t talking marriage, but I always said that we just weren’t ready yet, never admitting that there was nowein that.Chriswasn’t ready, but I’d convinced myself he would be. One day.
I don’t tell Lo and August any of that, though. I don’t need anyone feeling sorry for me.
Instead, I say, “My mom decided she wasn’t really up to running the inn anymore, so me and Chris came down here to take it on. It was Chris’s idea, actually. He worked at this digital marketing firm, absolutely hated it. I think he thought living in St. Medard’s Bay would be an escape from the rat race or something, this quaint small-town life as the local innkeeper. Instead,it’s people calling at 2AMbecause the Wi-Fi is down, or a toilet is clogged, and oh yeah, we need to replace every lamp in the place, and do you know how much lamps cost these days?”
I laugh, but it sounds more bitter than I intended.
“So he lasted just over a year here before he fucked off. Dumped meandthe inn in one fell swoop.”
August sucks in a breath, leaning back. “Ouch.”
“Asshole,” Lo offers, suddenly fierce, and it feels good, telling this story and not seeing pity in their eyes, just empathy and righteous anger.
My second beer is now empty, and I’m a little buzzed. I hardly ever have time for a drink, much less two, and the only thing I managed to eat today was a banana and some peanut butter crackers. But it feels nice, the warm, loopy sensation spreading through me, and the heat and the crowd and the noise don’t seem so bad now.
“Allllllllllof that to say that at the end of the day, mine is the most basic, boring, and sadly fuckingtypicalstory in the world. Aging parents, a boyfriend who couldn’t commit, the hell that is being a small-business owner. Nothing juicy, nothing eveninteresting.But!”
I sit up straighter, pointing one finger in the air, and okay, I might be a littlepastbuzzed, but Lo is watching me with avid eyes, and I’m very aware of August’s hot, dark gaze on the side of my face, and for the first time in years, I feel… lighter.
“To thisday, there are still about twelve people in this town who would swear up and down that Chris bolted because he caught me in bed with Edie.”
“The aging punk behind the desk?” August asks, his mouth curving into a grin.
“Mm-hmm,” I hum, nodding. “No idea how that rumor gotstarted, but Edie thinks it might have been one of the girls who cleans the rooms. Not long before Chris left, he and I got into an argument over replacing one of the beds on the second floor. I was in favor, so was Edie, Chris was not, and best I can figure, they heard Chris raising his voice about a bed and Edie and just went with themostsalacious version they could dream up.”
