Chapter 1
June, Now
I grew up the youngest of five girls and my childhood best friend was Maisy Morgan.
This is all anyone from my hometown knows about me.
One more time, for emphasis: this is all anyone from mytiny, gossipyhometown in rural East Tennessee knows about me. They could advise you on the latest drama between Earl’s Mowing Service (the incumbent) and Merle’s Mowers (the new biz in town). They could inform you of Mr. Dalrymple’s medical ailments even though I’m pretty sure that gossip is illegal. They could tell you who last checked out an obscure library book about the best closing arguments in American legal history. Because if you aren’t bribing the librarian for a list of who’s reading what, how else do you stay informed?
But when it comes to me, nobody inquired much. If someone did, an easy sound bite was on the tip of the tongue:
Oh, Paige Lancaster? Well, you know, she’s the youngest of five girls, and her best friend growing up was Maisy Morgan.
I’m not being hyperbolic. I overheard this exact sentence when I was seventeen, while hidden behind a booth at the Tri-Cities Spring Market. But my ears didn’t even have time to burn; the gossips immediately moved on to juicier topics, like Mr. Dalrymple’s insurance plan and the lawsuit Earl filed against Merle, which hepromised the whole town would have the best closing argument in American legal history.
Nothing more to say on Paige Lancaster, apparently. It’s almost like my older sisters and Maisy Morgan had enough personality between the five of them that I was never asked to develop one. I certainly never had an identifier like they each did.
When it comes to my sisters, there’s Maren, the oldest daughter, and Candice, the aloof one, then Folly, the wild child, and Zara, the book nerd.
And of course, my childhood best friend Maisy, a copper-haired, wide-grinned literal pageant queen. There were plenty of popular kids at our high school, but nobody held a candle to Maisy when it came to attention. She gathered every drop of it by disarming you in an instant and endearing her to you the next.
So yeah. When people say I grew up the youngest of five girls and best friends with Maisy Morgan, what they’re really saying is this:
I was invisible.
I still feel that way most of the time, even as a twenty-five-year-old with my fair share of stick-and-poke tattoos and one pink stripe in my otherwise wavy dark brown hair. My voice, too, is naturally soft, which I’ll admit isn’t conducive to waitressing during the lunch rush.
“Can you repeat that?” the woman at table six asks me.
I clear my pathetic throat and do my best to project. “Our specials today are a fennel sausage and white bean soup—”
“Sorry.” The woman frowns. Her presumable daughter glares like I’m a bona fide supervillain. “We still can’t hear you.”
You’d think that after four years of a collegiate music education I’d have projection nailed by this point, but alas.
“OUR SPECIALS TODAY ARE A FENNEL SAUSAGE AND WHITE BEAN SOUP AND A SQUID INK RISOTTO UNDER—”
I’m interrupted by the shatter of a cocktail glass near the bar.
The woman closes her eyes and points her nose at the ceiling, as if cycling through an internal calming mechanism. The younger one’s eyes narrow into slits with the insinuation thatIcaused that glass to shatter. That I’m personallythwartingher from hearing about the lunch specials, and sure, maybe I would have if today were the defrosted shrimp puffs, but that would’ve been a kindness anyway.
“—under a pan-seared halibut with a white wine reduction,” I finish, blushing.
“Can we start with a couple of mimosas?” the woman asks.
I nod, inching away from their table. “Of course.”
“Sorry, what was that?” She strains toward me.
I just nod again, my smile pained, and dart in the direction of the bar.
It’s twelve thirty at Oyster Diver, the too-bright seafood restaurant where I waitress downtown, on the Friday of Nashville’s CMA Fest weekend. The room is stuffed to the gills, the volume of voices jumping up every sixty seconds like a fever about to reach its highest point.
I knew today would be busy. But I didn’t anticipate my already faint voice all but vanishing after shrieking the lyrics to Kelsea Ballerini songs at her show last night while simultaneously inhaling the rancid fumes of what I swear to God was a peanut-butter-flavored vape somewhere in the crowd.
Near the bar, my sister Folly is kneeling on the floor, piling shards of glass onto a serving tray while amber liquid inches toward her shoes. I grab a handheld broom, dustpan, and wad of paper towels and stoop beside her.
“Wasn’t my fault,” she grumbles. Which means it was definitely her fault.
