“Why do I have a feeling you already have someone in mind?” Josh asks, sounding amused.
“Well…” I glance at Rose, whose ears are positively pricked. “Rose, why don’t you check on your chickens?”
“What!” She looks at me indignantly. “It’s only five o’clock. They don’t need to bechecked on.”
“Moonbeam was looking a little under the weather,” I lie baldly. “And you know chicks are vulnerable. You’d better check on them.”
She gives me the kind of glare that says she’s not fooled but obediently trots outside.
“Wow, all this effort,” Josh remarks. “And for what? With whom do you wish to set up Mike Landry?”
“Our new neighbor, who bought Hooch’s place,” I answer promptly.
Josh lets out a genuine bellow of laughter. “Abby, we haven’t even met her yet. You know literallynothingabout her, including whether she’s moved in.” He shakes his head, seeming incredulous by my admittedly dubious matchmaking plans.
“Well, she’s the only woman around here I know of who is single—”
“You don’t even know that,” Josh points out all too reasonably.
“Well, I’ll find out,” I declare as I dump the potatoes in a pot and plop it on the stove. “Hooch said she was moving in at the end of April, and it’s already May. I’ll head over tomorrow.”
The next morning, I am still fired up enough to drive down to Hooch’s place and see if our Mystery Lady has moved in. As I pull into the rutted drive, my heart skips a beat because there is a car parked in front of Hooch’s dilapidated cabin. A two-bedroom ranch house with a sagging front porch and tarpaper roof, Hooch was once proud of the fact that his grandmother helped build it after her husband was incarcerated during the Battle of Blair Mountain.
Now, however, it looks more than a little forlorn. One window is still covered in plastic sheeting, and the roof is definitely the worse for wear since the last time I was there. It sits on its own two acres, but the property is wild and rampant, a patch of scraggly grass in front of the house the only halfhearted attempt at taming the land.
I glance at the car, and my spirits droop a little, because judging just from the bumper stickers plastered on its rear, Mike Landry and Mystery Lady are unlikely to be a match. The car, a well-worn Toyota, is covered in progressive stickers—election campaigns for the last twenty years, as well as no less than three Green Peace stickers, a Grateful Dead one, and also a few sporting a couple of well-meaning but somewhat smart-alecky slogans—Destroy the Patriarchy, Not the Planet, Radicalized by Basic Decency, When Injustice Becomes Law, Resistance Becomes Duty.
Hmm. I wonder what Mike Landry would think of those.
Still, I want to get to know my new neighbor, so I park behind the stickered car and slowly get out. By the time I make it to the front porch, my neighbor has flung open the door.
“Hey!” Her voice is almost wild with enthusiasm, her face wreathed in a wide smile. She looks around my age, mid-forties, dressed in worn jeans and a fleece, but her hair, a neat bob, is electric blue, and she has a nose ring. The whole effect is a little… jarring. I imagine my kids’ reaction ifIcame home with bluehair and a nose ring, and I have to school my expression into something suitably neutral.
“I know, I know,” she says, patting her hair. “I was told it would wash out. What can I say, mid-life crisis?” She rolls her eyes. “But actually, to be totally honest, I think I kind ofrockthe nose ring. Surprisingly.” She lets out an uncertain laugh, and I grin, deciding I like this woman already. A lot.
“I wish I had the guts to get a nose ring,” I tell her, sticking out a hand. “Abby Bryant. We live just across the creek and up the road. We moved here a year ago from New Jersey.”
“Oh, I’msoglad to meet you,” my new neighbor exclaims, shaking my hand enthusiastically. “I was starting to wonder if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. That is, besides marrying my no-good skunk of a cheating ex-husband when I was just twenty-one. But that’s another story.” She eyes me eagerly, clearly desperate for a friend. “Do you want to come in?”
“Sure,” I say expansively. I hand over the jar of apple chutney I brought just in case someone was home. “I wasn’t sure you’d even be here, or I would have gone to more effort, but… welcome to Wildflower Valley.”
“Oh.” For a second, she looks near tears, and I feel a little awkward. “Sorry,” she says, brushing at her eyes. “I’m a mess. Let me just say that up front. I. Am. A. Mess.” She gives a shaky laugh. “So, now you know. Do you still want to come inside?”
“Yes,” I say firmly, and follow her inside Hooch’s old house, which pretty much looks as I remember it, minus the furniture. “I still don’t know your name,” I tell my new neighbor semi-awkwardly as I traipse after her into the kitchen, which is filled with boxes.
“Oh!” She presses one hand to her chest. “I’m so sorry. I’m Diana. Diana Ames. Gosh. I can’t even introduce myself. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I assure her, laughing a little. “I just wanted to know what to call you.”
“Diana,” she says again, firmly, as if she means it, and I feel like we are going to be good friends.
Chapter thirteen
Aweek later, I am unlocking our hotel room door in Charleston while Emmy giggles from behind me.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she says as the door beeps, and I swing it open. “It feels like we’re playing hooky.”
It’s our weekend away, and itdoesfeel like we’re playing hooky. We’ve left behind husbands, kids, and animals, and we have facials and massages booked in an hour. Tonight, we’re going to havecocktails. Well, Emmy is. I will have to be satisfied with a very yummy mocktail, but still. This feels… decadent. Degenerate, even.
