Page 6 of Passing Notes
Sure, on occasion I wondered what my neighbors thought of me with my positivity podcasts blaring through my window, crystals lining my porch railing, and my mug of coffee constantly within reach as I sat out here all day clad in my various leggings and hoodie combinations as I spite-knitted in a straight line because I didn’t know shit about knitting except what my mother had forced me and my sisters to learn as kids.
Whatever.
Leonard had no life either, aside from his obsessive gardening and bunco night with his mom and her friends—The Bunco Broads. They’d invited me to join them, but I was at least two-and-a-half decades younger, so I’d said no. It had felt like a pity invite. Anyway, Leonard could just fuck all the way off if he was judging me.
“Clara!” I was so far into my internal rant that I almost fell out of my chair at the sound of my name being called. My head whipped to the side as Sadie jumped out of Barrett’s truck and came hauling ass my way, her face filled with concern.
“Oh crap.” She carried a box of doughnuts from Daisy’s Nut House and an iced mocha. “What is it?” Whatever she was about to tell me had to be bad if she came here armed with doughnuts. I mean, doughnuts were great. But also harbingers of doom. Why did everyone bring me treats with their bad news? Was I that easy to placate?
Her eyes darted to the moving truck next door as she barreled to a stop in front of me. “I have news,” she announced. “And you’re not going to like it. Take these, you’re gonna need at least one of them first.” She shoved the doughnuts my way and sat next to me on the porch swing. “Eat one. Go on, take a bite.”
I opened the box and stuffed half a cream-filled into my mouth. “I’m ready,” I murmured, covering my mouth with a hand as I chewed. “Tell me.”
“The Middletons sold their house to Nick Easton. He’s moving in this weekend. And yes, I do mean, your Nick Easton... that stupid ass, leaving you waiting at that damn bus stop all alone, dumping you with a damn note like a dang coward—frickin’ Nick. I should march right over there when he moves in and?—”
“Sadie.” I slapped a palm on her thigh. “Focus, please.”
“Fine,” she grumbled, flinging a hand in the general direction of the place. “He bought it. We can’t do anything—it’s a done deal. It’s happening and soon.” She blurted the rest out quick. Like pulling off a Band-Aid.
She knew about me and Nick. She was the only one in the world aside from Nick himself who knew what had gone on between us, and that was because I always told Sadie everything. Well, almost everything. She still didn’t know how I’d paid my way through college; no one knew about that.
“Nooooooo,” I breathed. I took another huge bite. If I had to stuff my feelings, at least I had doughnuts.
“I’m afraid so. Becky Lee told me when we were going over plans for the day—at some point today someone from Monroe & Sons will be by to make some minor repairs on the deck. So I picked up the doughnuts and came straight here to break the news.”
Becky Lee Monroe was Sadie’s mother-in-law. She was also my sister Willa’s mother-in-law, and my best friend Molly’s. Her sons had basically infiltrated my entire life, which was fine because they were great. The only bad thing about them was they were all married and there wasn’t one left for me to snap up to protect me from Nick and all the sucky, heartbreaking memories that were about to put the smackdown on me even harder once he moved in and I’d have to see his stupid gorgeous face every day.
“What the hell, Sadie?” I said with my mouth full.
“Listen. I know. This sucks, but it’s true. She heard it from Janice at bunco night.” She gestured across the street toward Leonard and Janice’s house. “Janice heard it from Mari—what’s it called when our grandfathers are brothers? Second cousins? Third?” She wrinkled her nose in confusion as I shook my head and gestured for her to get to the dang point. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Mari took over for Janice years ago. She’s the band director at the high school, so she knows Nick pretty well now.” I stared at her blankly as she rambled away. “You know Nick teaches there too, right? And he coaches the football team. Anyway, they’re friends and?—”
“Gah! Stop.” Mari was our cousin. We used to play together at all the Hill family functions but drifted apart when my father left and my mother cut off his side of the family. We’d reconnected after I came back to town to stay.
Sadie’s mouth slammed shut. She stabbed a straw into the mocha and took a huge slurp, watching me carefully as my mind slowly unraveled. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I don’t know what to say and you’re kind of freaking me out right now. I’ve never seen you this quiet. Usually news like this would have you enraged, plotting—Gah! At least get up and pace. This silence is scaring me.”
“I saw him this morning at the high school when I dropped Gracie off. It was like an omen. I thought it then and I was right. This day is shit. My life is worse.” I half groaned, half whined, “I can’t move. Can I? I mean, I like it here, my yard is awesome, and what would I do without my porch, Sadie? It’s all I have, damn it.”
“Hell no, you aren’t moving. We’ll deal with this. I’m here for you, okay? I promise you’ll be fine.” She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “Maybe we could do something to make him think the place is haunted or something. Maybe important things could start ‘accidentally’ breaking, like his toilets, or his garage door opener, and he’ll get frustrated and move away.” She air-quoted the word accidentally and I laughed in spite of myself. “Oh my god! I know!” She stood up, hands in the air. “We could put a bunch of red Jell-O powder in the pool. Boom! Instant creepy murder scene. Redrum, amirite?” Her grin was infectious and I smiled back, but it didn’t last.
“No, we can’t do any of that. We’re apparently adults now.” I scoffed. “Damn, I’ve been a wreck all morning and I only saw him for less than a minute sitting in his truck.” I tossed the doughnut into the box and dropped my head into my hands. “He’s one of Gracie’s teachers, for the love of god. Does he have kids? Is he married? Holy crap, how am I going to deal with this?”
The thought of him with another woman made me want to vomit. I had deliberately never asked around about him. The thought of knowing where he’d been and what he’d done without me over all these years was simply too much to bear, so I’d kept my head in the sand when it came to him.
Eyes soft with sympathy met mine as Sadie sat back down and took my hands. “He’s divorced and he has two kids, a boy and a girl. Both go to the middle school in town. His ex-wife lives around the corner, in that big house with that yard full of daffodils you’ve been coveting, and he’s been living in one of those crappy apartments across town. Now he’s moving in next door.”
My eyebrows rose as I reached for another doughnut. “Kids?” I wanted to cry but somehow managed to avoid it.
“I asked Mari about him, okay? I knew you’d want to know. Look, what happened between the two of y’all was almost fifteen years ago. You don’t have to talk to him. You don’t have to acknowledge he even exists.” She dropped her chin and looked me in the eye, her tone much more serious when she said, “You’ve come a long way and you don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. You have the power now, right?”
I nodded. “You’re right. I have the power.” I chucked my doughnut back into the box and grabbed her by the shoulders. “I have the freaking power. Damn straight I do. Alexa, play!” I shrieked. I needed my podcast to confirm it.
“Only you have the power to make positive changes in your life.”
“See?” Sadie let out a laugh and pulled me close. “You have this. Ice him out. And if you’re into getting a little bit of petty revenge, you know who to call. Jell-O is on sale at the Piggly Wiggly. I got your back, sister.”
CHAPTER 3
NICK