The Peach Keeper (25 page)

Agatha stroked the box of chocolates on her lap. The first thing she said was, “If the police go after Georgie, I want you to tell them what I told you.”

“I don’t think they’re going after her,” Willa said. “I haven’t heard anything from Woody Olsen. Have you?” Willa asked Paxton.

“No.”

“I don’t care what you think,” Agatha said. “If it comes down to it, promise me you’ll tell them!”

“It’s all right, Nana. We promise.”

“Okay, then.” She petted the chocolate box some more.

“The gala is this Friday,” Paxton said. “I still want you to come.”

Agatha pshawed. “You silly girls.”

“Willa and I noticed the date of the formation of the
Women’s Society Club is around the same time Tucker Devlin disappeared seventy-five years ago. Is that just a coincidence?”

“No, it’s not a coincidence. There’s no such thing. The night we buried him, I told Georgie I’d always be there for her. She was afraid. She was pregnant. And I was going to help her, no matter what. The next day I got our four other best friends together and told them Georgie needed us. I didn’t give them the details, but the town seemed to know Tucker was gone. Everything felt different, like we were waking up. The six of us formed the Women’s Society Club exclusively to help Georgie. We promised that we would never turn our backs on each other again. Even if it made us afraid, even if it was dangerous, we promised we would stick together and make things right, because no one else would. Georgie’s family did nothing to help her. And the whole town saw how Tucker treated us, pitting us against each other, and did nothing to save their daughters’ hearts. We decided to become a society of women, a club to make sure women were protected. The club was something important back then. Not like it is today.”

“What happened to make it change so much?” Paxton asked. She’d been having mixed feelings about the club lately, and finding this out just made her more confused about her role in it.

“Life happened,” Agatha said. “Georgie left the club about ten years later, when the rest of us started having our own children. That’s when we began to use the club as a way to compare notes. Who had the best
cook. Whose husband made more money. Georgie’s life was so different that I don’t think she felt like she belonged anymore. But I kept my promise. I was always there if she needed me. She just stopped asking. I was close enough to Ham, though, that he would come to me when she wouldn’t.”

“Grandmother Georgie was very strict with my father,” Willa said. Paxton turned to her. She didn’t understand the context, but Willa was obviously going somewhere with this.

“She was terrified he was going to turn out just like Tucker. She was terrified of everything. She was terrified this very thing was going to happen, that Tucker’s body was going to be found.” Agatha shook her head. “All her superstitions were because she wanted his ghost to stay buried. It turned into a mania.”

“Did my dad know who his father was?”

“She eventually told him he was a traveling salesman she never saw again. I think he might have deduced more. What Ham knew for sure was that living a small life was what his mother wanted for him. And he did that for her. It was a shame he died just as he was finally coming into his own.”

Willa leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“He was going to sell his house and travel.”

“He never told me that!”

“I don’t think he told you a lot of things.”

Willa surprised Paxton by asking, “Did he quit his job at the school because of me?”

“Yes. He was impressed by you. Although I can’t
imagine why.” Agatha made a face. “All those pranks. And when he found out you’d dropped out of college, he just thought you were finding yourself.”

“He knew I dropped out?” It didn’t seem possible, but Willa’s brows rose even more.

“Of course he knew.”

“How do
you
know?” Paxton asked, amazed that her grandmother had been harboring not only her own secrets but Willa’s father’s as well. What else was in that hard head of hers? All these years, Paxton had thought her grandmother was nothing more than a mean old lady. But she had a complexity and depth that no one suspected.

“Ham and I had a very long conversation when the time came for him to move his mother into a nursing home. He was going to travel. I promised I’d watch over Georgie.” She straightened her shoulders. “Not that I ever stopped.”

Willa sat back in her seat, seeming to think things over. Paxton used that opportunity to ask, “Why did you never tell me the club had lost its way? Maybe I could have done something.”

“Paxton, I think you’ve tried to make the club more about the deed than the social aspect, and I give you credit for that, but I also believe it’s more because you don’t have friends than because of a higher calling.” Paxton reared back at that. “Friendship started that club, and if you ever want to see it back to what it was, you have to understand what it means to be a friend. I know you’ve always looked at me and thought,
I don’t want to be like her
. Well, here’s your chance. People always say life is too short for regrets. But the truth is, it’s too long.”

“Will you come to the gala?” Paxton asked again. “I think it’s important that you be there.”

“Maybe. Keep bringing me chocolate like this and … maybe. Leave me to eat in peace,” she said, opening the box.

Paxton and Willa stood, and each was lost in her own thoughts as they walked down the corridor. Paxton was heading toward the front doors when Willa stopped.

“I’m going to see my grandmother,” Willa said.

“Oh. Right. Okay.”

“Do you want to have some coffee first?” Willa pointed over her shoulder, toward the dining room.

Paxton smiled, almost relieved. “Yes. That would be nice.”

They got their cups and filled them, and then they walked to a table near a window that overlooked the side garden.

“Why do you think we never became friends?” Paxton asked as Willa was emptying a packet of sugar into her coffee. “I’ve always been aware of the way you looked at me. You never liked me, did you?”

“It’s not that,” Willa said.

“What is it, then?”

Willa hesitated. “I guess it was jealousy in high school. I hated not having what you had. I ended up resenting my family because of it, and I wish I could take that back. As adults, I don’t know.” Willa shrugged.
“You set an impossible standard, and no one can live up to it. And sometimes it seems like you do it on purpose. Your clothes are perfect. Your hair is perfect. You juggle a work schedule that would take three normal people to manage. Not all of us can do that.”

Paxton looked into her coffee cup. “Maybe I do do it on purpose. But it’s only because everyone else seems happier than I am. They have their own homes, husbands, children, businesses. I sometimes think there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Willa said. “Why did
you
never make friends with
me
?”

“Oh, that’s simple.” Paxton smiled as she looked up. “You scared me.” That made Willa laugh. “Seriously. You were so quiet and intense. Like you could see right through people. If I had known you were the Joker sooner, maybe it would have been easier to get to know you. I would have at least known you had a sense of humor. Then, when you came back, you didn’t seem to want anything to do with the people you grew up with. You took up with the National Street set like you were thumbing your nose at us, like we were silly yokels.”

“It’s not that,” Willa said immediately. “It’s not that at all. After my dad died, I came back here to the realization that I could never say I was sorry for making it seem like he didn’t do enough. I made a promise to myself, and to him, to be happy with what I had. Every day. But being around people I grew up with brought back all those insecurities at first, so I just got used to avoiding it.”

“There’s no avoiding me now, you know,” she said. “You know my secrets. You maced people for me. You’ve got me for life.”

Willa laughed and tried to wave that off. “Any of your friends would have done the same thing.”

“No,” Paxton said. “They wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Willa said, reaching into the back pocket of her jeans. “I need to return this to you.” She handed Paxton a folded piece of notebook paper.

“What is it?”

“It’s a note you dropped one day in the hallway at school. I picked it up and read it. After that, I was just too embarrassed to return it to you.”

Paxton took it and opened it. As soon as she realized what it was, she laughed in surprise. “My list of qualities in the man I wanted to marry.”

“I’m sorry,” Willa said sheepishly.

“This is how you forged my handwriting with that note to Robbie Roberts!”

“Yes. I’m really, really sorry.”

Paxton shook her head and put the note in her tote bag. “That’s okay. It’s just a list. One of many. I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“It’s an impressive list,” Willa said.

“I knew what I wanted back then.” Paxton smiled and decided to go ahead and ask Willa what she was dying to know. “Speaking of wanting. My brother didn’t come home last night. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

Willa looked away. “He might have slept on my couch.”

“Then why are you blushing?”

Willa turned back to her with a glint in her eye. “I might have slept there with him.”

“I knew it!”

They laughed, and she suddenly felt like she was on such good footing with Willa. She never thought she was good at making friends. But maybe she was just trying to be friends with the wrong people.

They ended up talking long after their coffee had gone cold.

P
AXTON
O
SGOOD’S
F
UTURE
H
USBAND

Will be kind

Will be funny

Will be accepting

Will be able to cook

Will be a good kisser

Will smell good

Will always surprise me

Will argue with me and sometimes let me win, but not always

Will be mysterious

Will always love me, no matter what I look like

Mama will not like him, which means I will love him even more

Hours later, after they left the dining room and Willa went to see her grandmother, Paxton got in her car and immediately took the note out of her tote bag and read the list again.

She remembered losing it and panicking for days
about where it could be. She’d been afraid some ridiculous boy like Robbie Roberts would find it and tease her. But years passed and she’d forgotten about it, one of many things she’d managed to leave behind.

Where did this girl go?
Paxton wondered. It was just like looking at that old photo of her grandmother.
Where did this girl go?
Colin said she was the only one in their group who hadn’t changed. But she had, and not in a good way.

The girl she used to be would not approve of the woman she’d become. That girl always assumed she’d be happy at this age, as happy as she’d been back then. What happened?

She sat there, staring into space, the note on her lap, until her cellphone rang.

She looked at the screen. It was her mother, probably wondering why she wasn’t home yet for the last fitting of her dress for the gala.

With a sigh, she put the phone and the note back in her tote bag and started the car, then drove away.

Back to life as she knew it.

FIFTEEN
The Risk

M
onday afternoon, Paxton worked through lunch in order to give herself the rest of the afternoon off. Paperwork requiring her signature was piling up at the outreach center, and there were a million little details to attend to before the gala on Friday night, but there were some things that were just more important.

She drove into the lot of Harris & Associates Realty, which was located next to the organic market, and parked her car. When she walked in, she saw Kirsty Lemon on the phone at her desk. As soon as she hung up, Paxton walked over to her.