“So am I,” Nate said.
He pressed his fingers against the headache starting to build between his eyebrows, not even wanting to think about the words sitting inside that little roller suitcase. Words he needed. Words he hadn’t yet read.
“We’ll contact you as soon as we know something,” said Alice.
“So... never?” said Nate.
They all tapped their ears.
NATE
“I’d like to go on record that I remained incredibly calm throughout that entire situation... Can I ask why you just wrote down the wordsarcasmin all cap letters?”
“You’re flying where on Monday?” McKenna’s boss, Mr. Sullivan, stared at her in horror as if she’d just suggested they take on every wedding job offer within a hundred-mile radius.
“Tennessee. An emergency came up.” McKenna double-checked her flight information on the laptop she kept at the studio. She’d been hoping for a flight today or tomorrow, but early Monday morning was the best she could do. With a sigh, she closed the screen and stepped away from the large wooden double desk they shared.
Sometimes she liked to pretend they were two old-time detectives working a case, because the photography studio had originally been the town’s first police station years ago. McKenna loved saying “Book ’em, Danno” to Mr. Sullivan whenever someone called about scheduling a photo shoot. He always responded by giving her the same concerned look he was giving her now.
“What sort of emergency could you possibly have in Tennessee?” His trepid footsteps followed her across the scuffed wooden floors to the little kitchenette area in the back.
“Nothing serious,” McKenna said, trying to reassure herself as much as her boss as she filled an empty coffee mug with water fromthe sink. “Just something I need to take care of as soon as possible. No need to worry.”
He trailed her from the kitchenette back to their desks. “Then why are you watering the cactus plant? You hardly ever water the cactus plant. Are you going to be gone so long that you need to water the cactus plant?”
He wrung his hands the same way he had twelve years ago when he stood on her doorstep a week after Momma J’s death.
While most people were dropping off casserole dishes and desserts and offering generalized “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help” condolences, Mr. Sullivan had been the only one to show up, wearing his standard button-down shirt and bow tie, and ask the question nobody else had the courage to ask. “Do you know how you’re going to manage all of this?”
Thisas in the disastrous financial situation Momma J had left behind as well as a ten-year-old sister who needed raising when McKenna was supposed to be leaving for college in two weeks?
All McKenna could do was quietly shake her head back at him. No. She had no idea how she was going to manage all this.
“Well...” His bow tie bobbed up and down while he swallowed. “What do you know about photography?”
McKenna shook her head again.
“Well...” His eyes squinted like he was being forced to look directly into the sun. “Would you be interested in learning?”
McKenna showed up to his photography studio the following Monday and had continued showing up without fail ever since. Probably why he was so baffled that she was taking such an impromptu trip now.
She offered Mr. Sullivan the abridged version in hopes it would smooth some of the wrinkles out of his brow.
“All for a ring?” Mr. Sullivan said, the grooves on his forehead pooling with even more worry.
“Not just any ring. The ring Momma J received when she got engaged, a ring that’s been handed down for generations.”
“Why can’t Mr. Lambert just mail the ring back to you?”
“Because I don’t trust something that valuable to go through any sort of mail service. Even if I did, I can’t get Mr. Lambert to talk to me.”
“Why won’t Mr. Lambert talk to you?”
“Because Mr. Lambert’s a pain in the posterior.” He was. Fair assessment. Nobody these days should be this difficult to contact. Why was he being so difficult?
Between using the info she’d gleaned from the ER and a little detective work online, McKenna had found a possible cell phone number. But so far, despite leaving several voicemails and texts, she’d gotten zero response from him.
Same thing when she tried reaching out through social media. Considering he hadn’t posted anything for years, she doubted he’d seen her messages. His profile said he was a literature teacher at some high school in Brooklyn, but of course school was out for the summer, so it wasn’t like she could just ring him up at the office.
