Hello, Summer Read online

  Conley took a deep breath. “I’m actually on the way to see you. I’m probably still an hour and a half away, though.”

  “You’re not in Washington? I thought you were moving. Now I’m confused.”

  “You’re not confused. It’s a long, sad story. I’ll explain everything when I get to town. Is it okay if I stay with you for a few days?”

  “Well, I guess that would be all right.” G’mama hesitated a beat. “Yes, I think there are clean linens in your old room.”

  Lorraine sounded flustered. Conley frowned. Her grandmother was the most unflappable woman she’d ever met. “You’re out at the beach, right?”

  Her grandmother opened the Dunes, the family’s rambling 1920s home on Silver Bay, every year on the dot on May 1. And every year, on Columbus Day weekend in October, she closed the house down and moved back to the tidy Victorian cottage on Felicity Street, where she’d been born.

  “Welllll,” the word stretched out. “No, darlin’. I’m still in town.”

  “Really? It’s the middle of May. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Lorraine said. “Your sister thought perhaps this year I should wait a few weeks before opening up. It’s a lot of work for Winnie, and she’s not getting any younger.”

  “G’mama, Winnie isn’t that much younger than you.”

  “Don’t be impertinent,” Lorraine said. “You know I don’t discuss my age. Anyway, I’ll probably open the house up in a week or so. It’s been so rainy here, the damp has been playing the devil with her arthritis. Now let’s talk about you. What time shall I expect you? And will you have eaten? Winnie’s gone home, but I can probably heat up a can of soup or something.”

  “Don’t worry about feeding me. I’ll stop and get something. And don’t wait up. Just leave the porch light burning. Do you have any bourbon in the house?”

  Lorraine’s throaty laugh erupted in a hoarse cough. “Foolish child. When have you ever known me to run out of bourbon? Now drive safe, and don’t talk to strange men.”

  The familiar phrase gave Conley the first moment of comfort she’d had that very long, very bad day. She replied automatically, “But the strange men are always the most fun.”

  Eventually, she exited the interstate and followed the two-lane blacktop west as it meandered through soybean and cotton fields and endless stands of longleaf pines. Occasionally, she saw lights glowing from within an old farmhouse or a knot of double-wide trailers. She slowed the Subaru as she passed through scattered tiny communities with shuttered downtown storefronts and the ubiquitous gas stations and dollar stores.

  So much of this area had never recovered from Hurricane Matthew. Sure, the downed power lines had been fixed, and the mountains of splintered trees and ruined roofs, furniture, and construction debris had finally been hauled off, but the lasting cost of the devastation was still mounting.

  She passed the abandoned Verner Brothers textile plant, with a faded INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY AVAILABLE sign posted on a high, barbed wire–topped fence. The redbrick mill building’s roof had caved in, and sapling trees now poked through what was left. The plant, which had once produced denim for blue jeans, was shuttered in the ’80s, like so many other textile mills in this part of the country.

  Conley’s mood lightened as she approached the outskirts of Silver Bay. Even from here, she could see the jaunty red-and-white-striped tower atop the Silver Bay Beacon building, its searchlight bathing the downtown in an eerie yellow glow.

  Her great-grandfather, Arthur DuBignon, had bought what was then a steeple from a financially ailing church in Pensacola in the middle of the Depression, and the family legend was that he’d hired two men to load it onto a mule-drawn wagon for the trip to Silver Bay. Great-Granddaddy Dub, as he was called, then had the steeple hoisted onto the roof of the yellow-brick Beacon building and proceeded to install a light in the place of the old church bell.

  “It’s a beacon of hope for the people of this community,” he’d told his wife, Mattie Lou, when she’d protested this foolhardy expense. “The Depression won’t last forever, and when it’s over, people will know that The Silver Bay Beacon was a source of truth and enlightenment for this county.”

  “They’ll know Arthur DuBignon had more dollars than sense,” Mattie told her closest friends, but she knew better than to try to dampen her husband’s grand schemes.

  A blue-and-gray sheriff’s car sat idling in front of the magnolia-shaded redbrick Griffin County Courthouse. The granite plinth with the statue of a defiant Confederate general still stood, up-lit and oblivious to political correctness, in the middle of the grassy courthouse square, circled with neat beds of red geraniums, white petunias, and blue salvias.

  As she rounded the square, she noted Holy Redeemer, the Episcopal church, on one corner and First Baptist directly across the street. On the opposite side of the square stood the Silver Bay Presbyterian Church where her own family worshipped.

  As always when she was in her hometown, Conley marveled at the number of churches. Who filled all these pews on Sunday mornings?

  Halfway around the square, she made a right turn and drove two more blocks. When she pulled up to the house at 38 Felicity Street, she felt herself slowly exhaling. The porch light was on, and the polished brass coach lanterns that flanked the lipstick-red front door flickered a welcome. Before she could get out of the Subaru, Lorraine was standing in the doorway in her pink satin quilted bathrobe, impatiently waving her inside.

  * * *

  Conley perched on the edge of the sofa in the den, careful not to drip tomato soup onto the pale aqua silk damask upholstery.

  “This is great,” she said, gesturing at her now-empty bowl. “When did you start cooking?”

  “I haven’t,” Lorraine said. “Winnie made it Saturday. Used up the rest of the canned tomatoes from last summer’s garden. Now can we please talk about what’s going on with your new job?”

  “There is no new job,” Conley said. “I was about to cut the cake at my going-away party today when my darling sister texted me a link to a Wall Street Journal story telling me that Intelligentsia had ceased publication.”

  “Just like that? And you weren’t notified?” Lorraine looked aghast.

  “Exactly. I finally managed to get Fred Ward—he’s the managing editor—to return my calls. He said the news caught everybody unawares. Something about a venture capitalist who decided not to invest.”

  “Assholes.” Lorraine took another sip from the cut-glass tumbler of Knob Creek.

  Conley smiled despite herself. Her grandmother delighted in trying to shock the world by peppering sentences with the salty words she claimed she’d learned at Agnes Scott, the “girls’ college” she’d attended in Atlanta.

  “My editor at the AJC offered to put out some feelers. He’s got pretty good connections.”

  Her grandmother tilted her head and studied Conley’s face. “You don’t look very hopeful.”

  “I’ll go through the motions, but the thing is, there really aren’t any jobs. Papers aren’t hiring these days—they’re laying people off, buying out any reporter over the age of twelve. You of all people should know that, G’mama.”

  “Print is dead? Is that what you’re saying?” Lorraine clinked the ice cubes in her mostly empty glass.

  “I sure as hell hope it’s not completely dead,” Conley said wearily. “What does Grayson say about things at the Beacon?”

  “You know your sister. She’s a total pessimist. With her, the glass isn’t just half-empty, it’s cracked and ready for the trash heap.” Lorraine stared down into her glass. “She thinks we should sell the Beacon. There’s a chain out of Kansas City, they’ve been sniffing around for the past year or so.”

  “Not the Massey Group, I hope,” Conley said, suddenly alarmed. “Tell me she isn’t thinking of selling to those bottom-feeders.”

  “They flew here in their private jet,” Lorraine said. “Wined and dined us at the nicest restaurant in Pensacola. Grayson
seems very smitten with them.”

  “Grayson is easily impressed,” Conley said. “Show her a Mercedes and a Rolex watch and she’ll follow you anywhere.”

  “That’s not very nice,” Lorraine said mildly.

  “But it’s true. And you know it. She can’t sell the paper unless you agree, right?”

  “I’m still majority stockholder, yes. And you have a say in the matter too, you know.”

  “Not as much say as Grayson,” Conley pointed out.

  Lorraine patted her hand over her mouth, stifling a yawn. “It’s too late to think about things like this. I know you must be exhausted. And it’s way past my bedtime.”

  Conley smiled. “Who are you kidding? It’s not even midnight. We both know you’re part werewolf.” She stood up and reached out a hand to help her grandmother up. But Lorraine shook off the offer, grasped the carved wooden arms of the chair, and slowly rose without assistance.

  “Oh, I don’t stay up like I did when I was younger,” Lorraine said. “You go on upstairs now. I need to straighten up the kitchen. Winnie will have a cat fit if everything isn’t put back just so.”

  * * *

  Conley dragged her suitcase up the stairs past the gold-framed oil paintings, family portraits, and a group of landscapes done by a long-forgotten relative, that threatened to blot out the familiar green-and-white-flowered wallpaper. At the end of the long, narrow hallway, the door to her old bedroom was slightly ajar. She nudged it open with her foot and reached for the light switch.

  The familiar sights and scents of her childhood flooded back. There was the bulletin board, with magazine photos of the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. The mahogany dressing table held a bowl of dusty potpourri and a long-forgotten assortment of ill-advised cosmetics and an almost-full bottle of Chanel No. 5 given her by an old flame from her college days.

  The room was spotlessly clean. Winnie had seen to that. But it was musty from disuse.

  How long had it been since she’d slept here? Most of her visits home in recent years had come during the summer, when she’d stayed at the Dunes.

  The air-conditioning was on, but she went to the bank of windows that overlooked Felicity Street and tugged at the middle sash, flinging it upward, then leaning close, inhaling the humid, jasmine-scented air.

  She was home, whether she liked it or not.

  * * *

  Sometime past midnight, she heard the soft ding of an incoming text. She reached for her phone and tapped the message icon.

  I heard about Intelligentsia. Sucks, big-time. Where are u? Call if you want to talk.

  “Oh, Kev,” she breathed his name out loud and after a moment’s hesitation started typing.

  I’m in Silver Bay. Guzzling bourbon and licking my wounds. Can’t talk yet. Maybe later. Thanks. C.

  3

  In the morning, Conley followed the smell of frying bacon down the stairs and through the dining room.

  For a moment, she paused outside the kitchen door, taking in all the familiar sensations. The scent of coffee and biscuits, the drone of the local radio station punctuated with the pops and sizzles of frying bacon. There was a jelly jar of pink, orange, and yellow zinnias on the windowsill, and Winnie’s ever-present turquoise transistor radio stood beside it. The green linoleum floor appeared to have been freshly mopped. The time could have been now or five or ten or twenty years ago.

  Nothing had changed. Nothing ever did, she thought.

  Winnie stood at the massive six-burner range, tending a cast-iron skillet. She glanced over her shoulder and nodded, unsurprised at Conley’s presence. “Hey, shug. Coffee’s on. I got biscuits coming out of the oven in another five minutes. Sit yourself down.”

  Conley greeted her grandmother’s housekeeper with a light pat on the arm. Winnie was not a hugger or a toucher. G’mama said maybe that was because Winnie had been in prison.

  Winnie had come to work for the family years earlier, when Conley was a young child.

  In all the years Conley had known her, Winnie’s appearance had changed little. She still dyed her hair the same shade of pinky red, still wore it in a plait that hung down nearly to her waist. Her eyebrows were an iron gray now, but her pale face was surprisingly unlined. As always, she wore a white, button-down man’s shirt, tucked into elastic-waisted, black double-knit slacks she must have stocked up on in the seventies. Her black, lace-up shoes were polished, and she peered down at the frying pan through thick-lensed glasses.

  “Hey,” Conley said. “How’re you, Winnie?”

  “Can’t complain. You want juice, there’s some in the fridge.”

  Conley took a mug from the row of cups hanging by hooks beneath the cabinet by the sink and lifted the battered aluminum percolator from the stove top.

  “Well, look who’s here.”

  Conley turned, coffeepot still in hand. She hadn’t seen her there, tucked away in the built-in banquette overlooking the backyard. Grayson raised her own mug in a mock salute.

  “Oh, hey, Gray,” she said. “What brings you over here?”

  “Bacon and biscuits brings her here. She shows up every morning on the regular, just like that damn stray cat I keep telling your grandmother to stop feeding,” Winnie said. “And just like that cat, she never gains an ounce.”

  Conley took her coffee and sat down on the bench opposite her older sister. Gray was dressed for the office. Unlike the casual blue jeans and tennis shoes Conley’s coworkers at the Atlanta paper favored, Grayson Hawkins was dressed like the small-town Rotarian she was—a navy pantsuit, pale pink cotton blouse, single strand of pearls.

  “You don’t eat breakfast with your husband?” Conley asked.

  “Not if I can help it. Tony’s idea of breakfast is a bowl of açai berries and hemp hearts, washed down with that kombucha crap.”

  “They sell kombucha at the Piggly Wiggly? I’m impressed.”

  “Piggly Wiggly closed last summer,” Winnie reported. “All we got now is the IGA.”

  “Tony orders a lot of stuff online,” Grayson said. “Anyway, G’mama called me last night after she heard you were on your way. I wanted to come over this morning to welcome my little sister home.”

  Conley regarded her warily over the rim of her mug. With her straight, dark hair and olive skin, every year Grayson looked more like their mother, or at least what she could remember about her mother.

  “Get real,” she said. “You’re here to gloat.”

  “Not at all,” Grayson protested. “I was shocked when I read that Wall Street Journal story. I mean, Intelligentsia was big league. I assume you’d already heard?”

  “No.” She let that hang in the air between them.

  Grayson sipped her coffee. “What are your plans now?”

  “I thought I’d lie low out at the beach for a while, work on my tan, and send out my résumé and clips. I’ve already got a couple of irons in the fire.”

  This was a lie, and she was pretty sure her sister knew it.

  “That’s a relief,” was all Grayson said.

  Conley sipped her coffee. “What’s up with G’mama still being in town? She told me last night you didn’t want her to open up the Dunes because it’s too much work for her and Winnie.”

  “What’s that you say?” Winnie asked, her long-handled fork poised over the skillet.

  “It’s actually G’mama I’m worried about,” her sister said, her voice low. “But don’t say anything to her about that. She’s fallen a couple of times. So far, the only injury is to one of Granddaddy’s highball glasses, but I don’t like the idea of them way out at the beach, fifteen miles away from town and her doctor, if something should happen.”

  Winnie slapped the heavy ironstone platter of bacon and scrambled eggs down on the tabletop, followed by the basket of biscuits. “For your information, we can take care of ourselves,” she said. “Been doing just fine for a long time now.”

  “Says the woman who needs a hip replacement,” Grayson retorted.

  “
Says who?” Winnie ferried the plates and silverware to the table, then sat down on the old, green, metal step stool that was her familiar perch in the kitchen.

  “Says Jack Holloway, your doctor. He also happens to agree that G’mama needs—”

  The door swung open, and Lorraine entered the kitchen. “G’mama needs what?” she demanded, glowering at her granddaughter. “According to who? Grayson, you know I despise you talking about me behind my back.”

  “Somebody has to,” she said, shaking her head. “Jack says G’mama is prediabetic. He’s given her a prescription, but she refuses to get it filled, and she refuses to listen to her doctor.” She looked across the table at her sister. “But maybe she’ll listen to you.”

  “Scoot over,” Lorraine told Conley.

  Conley did as she was told. “G’mama, is that true? This is the first I’m hearing about any of this stuff. Sis says you’ve had a couple of falls. And what’s this about diabetes?”

  Winnie brought the percolator to the table and handed a mug to her employer. Lorraine scowled at both her grandchildren.

  “I tripped on the coffee table, which somebody moved without consulting me.” This time, Winnie was on the receiving end of Lorraine’s ire. “It was dark, and it was absolutely nothing. I scraped my shin a little, that’s all.”

  “She had a knot the size of a turnip on her forehead for a week,” Grayson said. “I had to physically force her into my car to take her to see Jack.”

  “She lied and told me we were going to the liquor store,” Lorraine said. She placed a slice of bacon and a spoonful of eggs on the plate Winnie had provided and was about to serve herself a biscuit when Winnie deftly slid it out of her reach.

  “Did you check your sugar this morning?”

  “Not you too,” Lorraine said. “My blood sugar is perfectly fine. My diet is fine. Jack gave me a food plan to keep things in check, and I’ve been sticking to it.” She pointed first at Grayson, then Conley, then Winnie. “This topic of discussion is officially closed.”