Kallie
“Why are you smiling like that?”
Nora’s question drifts through the warm summer breeze. Glancing over my shoulder, the amusement dancing on her face makes me laugh.
“What? A girl can’t smile?” I ask.
“Absolutely she can, but can’t her friend ask why?”
I try to shrug off her observation as I kick at a pebble lying on the sidewalk, watching it fall into the storm drain. “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe it just feels good to be home.”
We stop for a handful of cars along Beecher Street before we make our way onto Main. Nora takes out her phone when it chirps and whips out a few texts while I take in the town I grew up in.
Linton, Illinois is pretty much the same as it’s always been. A traditional small, Midwestern town, the most noticeable changes over the last few years seem to be minor. There’s a fresh coat of white paint on the post office and moss rose instead of impatiens filling the ever-present whiskey barrels lining the streets.
Closing my eyes, I breathe in the air, which is cinnamon-scented thanks to Carlson’s Bakery and their famous coffee cake, a staple of my childhood. The scent brings back memories of summers with the windows down, Christmas caroling along Main Street in snow up to my knees, and the Water Festival in the fall that the entire town waits for all year. It’s hard not to smile thinking about all that.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” Nora says, running a hand through her short blonde hair as we start across the street. My best friend since elementary school, she screamed when I showed up unannounced on her doorstep this morning. “When do you start work?”
“Next week. I’m starting over in the Merom office. Apparently, their attorneys have been sharing a paralegal and it’s a mess.” A hasty sigh sweeps past my lips. “I’m sure it’s going to be a circus in there for a while.”
“Yeah, but at least you’re here. Linton hasn’t been the same without you.”
My laugh is light and free. “I bet.”
“No, it true,” she insists. “It’s just me and the Gibson boys these days. Can you imagine how hard it is for me, the only girl, the only one trying to keep those boys in line?”
My smile falters, wobbling on my lips as I think about them. I have to look away from Nora.
“I mean, Molly McCarter tries to wiggle her way in there,” Nora continues, scowling. “Every time I turn around, she has her claws bared and ready to dig into one of them. You should’ve seen her trying to land Machlan last weekend. It was disgusting.”
“I forgot about Molly. What’s she up to these days?” I haven’t forgotten about Molly and I don’t have one care in the world about what she’s up to, but if I can shove off discussion about the Gibsons for a while, that’s a win.
Nora snorts. “Besides whoring around? Nothing that I know of.”
“What’s she ever done to you?” I laugh, attempting to dissect her reaction. To hear her talk badly about anyone is strange, and there’s a little more venom dripping from her words than I can just let go.
“Nothing. Nothing directly.”
“Uh-huh,” I tease, my curiosity more than a little piqued. “Because that’s a normal reaction for someone to have for a person who hasn’t ever done anything to them.”
She shoves her hands in her pockets, setting her gaze on some point in the distance, broadcasting pretty clearly that it’s futile for me to press the issue.
We step across chalk artwork on the sidewalk outside the library and wave to Ruby, the seventy-something-year-old librarian who used to chastise me for bringing in Goldfish crackers during story hour when I was a kid. Her silver hair is pressed to her head by a pair of glasses, and a floral-print bag is draped off her narrow shoulders. I give her a little wave.
“Well, look who it is!” Ruby calls out, her frail little hand going back and forth in front of her. “Are you in town for a while, Kallie? It’s so nice to see you, sweetheart.”
I pause at the base of the steps leading up to the oversized doors of the library. “It’s nice to see you too. How have you been?”