Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock (general ebook reader .TXT) 📗

for one, am not going to be one bit surprised.”

As their mother watched them take Father Lazaria away in the big black car on the news, her eye twitch had been working overtime. He was being sent to a retirement home, where he would no longer be a danger to himself or society.

“Oh, that’s how they deal with it,” her mother had said. “I don’t care what they tell you on the news, I’ll bet my good eye setting a fire in a dumpster isn’t the worst thing he’s ever done.”

This coming from a woman who had almost lost her house.

Now Jenny wondered: Was Coyote Jones the same man who had given Jade the five-dollar bill?

“Jenny, there you are.” Oh, speak of the devil.

“Did you hear?” Jenny asked Jade, holding up the article. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she also didn’t want to talk about Nate and the hair cutting.

“I did.”

“Did you see his picture?”

“Yeah. I honestly can’t remember if he’s the same one I saw.”

“You’re not going to just make something up, though, say it was him anyway?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

Jenny was so flustered by all this new information, she wasn’t choosing her words very well.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“No, Jade, that’s not what I meant.”

But Jade was now staring at Jenny, as if they’d just met for the first time and she wasn’t sure what to believe.

“I was six,” Jade said. “And I did like the attention. But I never lied, Jenny.”

“I’m sorry, Jade. I didn’t mean it.”

“I think you did.”

“Okay, I did. I just…God, that was so mean of me. And now that little girl has just been found and I’m sort of freaking out and I’m so sorry. I can be so awful. I’m really glad that didn’t happen to you, I swear.”

“It was a long time ago. You have no idea how sick I am of the whole thing. We should just get over it. Can we do that?”

“Definitely. Done,” said Jenny.

Jade looked at Colonel Mustard in the kennel. She reached in to stroke his nose with the tip of her finger.

“That girl’s family is going to have to deal with this all over again,” said Jenny quietly.

Jade nodded. Mostly she just looked sad. “That guy you were with, he came by looking for you.”

“Nate?”

“Yeah, he said he had to leave and asked me to give you this note. He seems nice.”

“He is nice.”

Jade gave her a sideways glance.

“I’ll take Colonel Mustard back to our cots if you want,” she said, to change the subject. “He looks really traumatized.”

“Like all of us,” said Jenny.

“Yeah, like all of us,” Jade agreed.

She waited until Jade was out of sight before opening Nate’s note.

Hey Jenny,

Thanks for the haircut. Sorry I was a bit nervous about the scissors. Just wanted to say goodbye, we’re moving west with the fire. You guys can go back home soon.

It’s none of my business, so take this with a grain of salt, but I don’t think your sister upstages you at all. I noticed you and I haven’t noticed anyone new in four years.

Give my regards to Colonel Mustard. Look me up if you ever find yourself in Pigeon Creek. Just leave a note on the bulletin board at the Duck-In and I’ll get it. It’s a small town.

All the best,

Nate

THERE’S GAS IN THE TANK, LOUISE!

“Do you think it was because of her boots?”

Addie is lying on Louise’s bed, walking her dirty feet up the wall.

“Who?” asks Louise, even though she knows perfectly well who.

“Mom,” says Addie. “And Dad. The yellow boots.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Louise.

“They went on a second honeymoon—gross, by the way—and then they get home and can barely talk to each other,” says Addie. “Was it because of the ugly boots, and are they going to split up?”

“People don’t split up over boots,” says Louise.

“Why not?”

“They just don’t.”

“They could.”

“No, they could not.”

“Remember when you said people’s backs don’t go out because they bend over to pick up the shampoo? And then wham-o! Out went Dad’s back in the shower.”

“It’s called the last straw.”

“No, it was shampoo. Head and Shoulders,” says Addie.

“The shampoo was the last straw,” says Louise, trying to concentrate on putting on her mascara.

“So the ugly boots could have been the last straw?” asks Addie.

“I don’t know. Will you please get a washrag and wipe your dirty footprints off my wall?”

“If I don’t, will it be the last straw?”

Louise considers this, holding her eye open with her left hand, trying not to impale herself with the mascara brush in her right.

She has a long fuse for Addie, all things considered.

“Maybe,” she says.

Addie snorts disbelievingly.

“You’re funny, Louise.”

“Please just clean up the wall, in case Mom comes in here.”

That does it. Addie jumps up and goes into the jack-and-jill bathroom that separates their rooms. Their sisters, Gladys and Isabelle, have another jack-and-jill bathroom that separates theirs, but they’ve both gone off to college and don’t come home very often. Louise told Addie she should use the other bathroom—they could each have their own—but Addie says she likes sharing with Louise.

Four girls and twenty years of marriage.

Louise doesn’t even want to think about her parents and which straw might have been the last one.

She understands complexity and how to ignore things in a way that Addie does not. Her parents didn’t go on a second honeymoon. It was a Hail Mary trip, intended to save their crumbling marriage. Louise knows Addie has realized she was the surprise baby that came along eight years after her parents were supposedly done having children.

She tends to be overly sensitive about that at times.

“Mom threw them in the back of the closet and swore at them,” Addie says, dripping a sopping-wet washcloth all the way across Louise’s room.

“So what, maybe they gave her blisters.”

“She said the whole trip was ruined because of them.”

“Because of blisters?”

“No, because of the boots, Louise.”

Addie snaps her fingers twice near Louise’s head, a gesture her