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One
Whoever said money can’t buy happiness was a damn fool.
Right then, on that sad and desperate October evening, I could’ve generated an extensive list of things money could buy that would’ve made me happier. I’d call it Shay’s Happy List.
Primary items on that list? Food I didn’t mooch off my best friends. A roof over my head that didn’t also belong to said friends. A time machine that would take me back two months so I could stop myself from quitting my job.
On the front porch of Ravi and Maribel’s trendy bungalow, I arranged a series of three devices along their rustic wooden table, the better to tackle my unnerving predicament and organize my thoughts. The screens glowed in the lavender evening light.
No, they didn’t glow. They gloated.
The chill of the October evening couldn’t penetrate the thick knit of my chunky sweater as I pulled my gaze from the screens to the manicured front lawn. Bathed in twilight, children played in the street a few doors away, their playful shrieks echoing toward me, coaxing a brief smile. Families walked their dogs down uncracked sidewalks.
Pretty typical for small-town Georgia.
My smile faded as I glared at the screens.
They glared right back.
The first, my laptop—a nine-year-old MacBook on its last leg—was open to my budget spreadsheet. The sizable difference between the income and expense columns threatened to bring up my dinner. How did one emergency surgery cost so much? One stupid appendix, rotting on the inside, undid years of careful budgeting and planning.
My pitiful savings were gone. Those ramen dinners, the declined invitations, the penny-pinching—all wasted. My hindsight brain harped that I should have splurged on health insurance.
But I’d done the calculations. The odds of needing it were so low, and the premiums so high.
My fingers looped their way through the holes in my well-worn sweater as I contemplated the second screen—Ravi’s tablet. He had no idea I’d commandeered the thing from his and Mari’s bedroom, but this was a crisis. He wouldn’t begrudge me side-by-side comparison in a crisis.
The email I’d received earlier today gleamed innocently across the True Tone LED display.
Darling Shay,
It’s been an age, hasn’t it? How are you? How’s your mama? It was such a tickle to learn from Ravi Parikh that you’ve come home after all these years! I heard you were amazing (no surprises there) at your last venture. Marketing for a chain of yoga studios, right? I looked up some of their campaigns and was very impressed. You did good for yourself.
I’m working at Henley Bourbon Co. You remember Camden Shepherd, right? His family’s company is really making a name for itself. Did you know Henley is now one of the top family-owned distilleries in Georgia?
With you home now, I’m wondering whether you’d like a tour? The Sweetheart of Sugar Springs deserves the VIP treatment, Henley-style. What do you say? We really should catch up. Looking forward to hearing from you, darling.
Yours as always
Ivy Hayes
Like the last dozen times I’d read the email, I tripped over that sign off.
Yours as always?
Ivy Hayes and I were never friends. We went to the same high school, but Ivy Hayes lived on the rich side of town, wore Gucci Vuitton or whatever-the-heck designer was chic, and never spared me a second glance. I lived in a trailer park in the neighboring town of Sweetwater—the poor man’s Sugar Springs—and not once did I spend my spare time with Ivy Hayes or her group of modern Southern belles.
Once again, I scanned the innocuous email, attempting to decode the encryption inside.
The hidden language of an upper-class Southern woman contained subtleties that were often tough to translate, but I’d spent my formative years memorizing it. These women possessed charm sharp enough to cut and wielded words with lethal precision. Every ‘darling’ and ‘bless your heart’ spoken by a Southern belle held an ulterior motive.
The message in that email was clear.
Ivy Hayes wanted something from me.
I picked up my mug of chamomile tea, sipping while I narrowed my eyes on that insufferable nickname.
The Sweetheart of Sugar Springs.
