She was on the way back to the Beacon office when Grayson called. “Where are you?” she asked, skipping, as usual, any niceties like a greeting.
“Just leaving the funeral home,” Conley said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the office. We just got an emailed press release from Robinette’s office about the funeral arrangements, with some canned statements from a bunch of political types. Want me to email it to you?”
“You can, but I’m on my way to the office now, so I’ll look at it when I get there,” Conley told her.
When she arrived at the Beacon, she found Grayson at her desk, working her way through a stack of bank statements. The bedding and clothes she’d seen earlier were gone, and so was the rest of the staff. Grayson was dressed in a faded Griffin County High Marlin’s tank top and blue spandex bike shorts. Her arms were tanned, but shockingly thin. Grayson had lost weight. A lot of weight.
Standing over the desk and looking down at her older sister, Conley noticed the number of silver streaks in Grayson’s hair, and with Grayson’s reading glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose, she looked like a feminine version of their father at that age.
It struck her then that Grayson was exactly the age their father had been when Melinda pulled her first of many vanishing acts.
“What happened to Lillian and Michael?” Conley asked.
Grayson shoved the bank statements aside, covering them with page proofs of the IGA’s next display ad. “I sent ’em home. I can’t afford to pay overtime. Lillian worked late last night, and Michael’s covering a minor-league baseball game in Apalachicola tonight.” She pointed at a desk in the outer office. “I had Lillian clean off a work space for you. I printed out the press release from Robinette’s office.”
“Thanks.”
“You getting any good stuff about Robinette?” she asked.
“Depends on how you define good. According to Kennedy McFall, there’ll be a ceremony to honor Robinette in D.C. on Tuesday at the Capitol, then the actual funeral is next Saturday, pending the medical examiner’s release of the body. I’ve also got some juicy stuff courtesy of my session with Rowena this morning.”
“How’d that go?”
“The old bird’s definitely got the good dirt,” Conley said. “Listen to this—she told me Robinette got Vanessa pregnant while Symmes was still married to his first wife.”
“You mean with Charlie? No shit? Are you sure? I mean, consider the source.”
“Rowena claims she saw the baby’s birth certificate with her own eyes. Charlie was born three months before Symmes Robinette’s divorce from his first wife was final. Symmes and Vanessa got married the day after the divorce was final—in the House chapel in D.C.—by the House chaplain.”
“Damn,” Grayson chortled. “I thought old Symmes was Mr. Christian Family Values. How come this is the first I’m hearing about it?”
“Granddaddy wouldn’t run the story Rowena wrote about the kid,” Conley said. “He considered it gossip and beneath the paper’s dignity.”
“Sounds like Pops,” Grayson said. She tapped her fingertips on the desktop. “You know we can’t run a story like that now, right?”
“Why not?”
“It’s ancient history, Sarah. That happened, what, thirty-four years ago? Nobody cares about that stuff now. And you especially can’t write about it in light of our esteemed congressman’s untimely death. What? You think the Beacon is gonna run a story telling the world that Charlie Robinette is, literally, a bastard? The week after his old man gets killed in a car wreck? That’s like lighting a bag of dog poop and leaving it on the old man’s grave.”
Conley stared openmouthedly at her sister. “You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious,” Grayson said. “Granddaddy was right. It is beneath our dignity, especially now.”
“Dignity? We’re a newspaper. Who cares about dignity? We publish the news. Facts. Good or bad, they’re the facts. Look, I know that back in the day, the press looked the other way when politicians behaved badly. They ignored JFK’s affairs, but that all changed with Bill Clinton. Symmes Robinette was an elected official. If I can prove what Rowena claims, then Vanessa was a member of his staff when she got pregnant with his kid, which means he was bonking her while she was on the government payroll.”
Grayson stood up from her desk and glared at her younger sister. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not The New York Times or The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. We are the by-God Silver Bay Beacon. We are a tiny, struggling weekly paper, and we’ve managed to stay in business because this town considers us part of the community.” She tapped the page proofs she’d been working on. “These ads might not seem like a big deal to you, but they’re what keep the lights on and the press rolling around here. The community’s goodwill keeps us in business.”
Conley returned her glare, and suddenly, she felt they were right back in the living room at Felicity Street, teenagers bickering over whose turn it was to borrow their father’s Buick. She took a deep breath and tried to tamp down her anger.
“So what? You want me to write a puff piece about Robinette? Overlook any inconvenient facts that might tarnish his heretofore sterling reputation?”
“Not a puff piece,” Grayson said. “The facts. The police report, a statement from his office, list of accomplishments, like that.”
Conley went out to her new desk and picked up the press release. It was printed on letterhead from the U.S. House of Representatives. She read it over, then carried it back to Grayson’s office.
“Here,” she said, her voice dripping acid. “Here’s your story. Symmes Robinette, war hero, champion of freedom, defender of democracy, beloved colleague, husband, and father. Why bother paying me any of the Beacon’s good money? Just run this, verbatim. Or better yet, let Rowena write your story. She’s already all over it. Made a trip to the funeral home just this morning to pick up the obituary.”
“Damn it, Sarah,” Grayson started. “What? You’re quitting?”
“Damn straight,” Conley said. “And for the last time, my name is Conley.”
She’d driven halfway around the square, her hands still shaking with barely suppressed rage, when her cell phone rang. It was G’mama. Had Grayson already called to tattle about their fight?
“Sarah?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said wearily.
“Are you still downtown?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, good. I was wondering if you could pick up a prescription for me. Sean called to say it was ready, and he even offered to bring it out here to the Dunes, which was so sweet of him, but I told him I thought maybe you’d pick it up.”
“Happy to,” Conley said.
“How is your research on Symmes Robinette coming along?”
“I’ll tell you about it when I get home,” Conley said. She didn’t feel up to explaining her sudden resignation over the phone.
“Fine,” Lorraine said. “See you soon.”
Kelly’s Drugs hadn’t changed much over the years. The big neon sign outside, in the shape of a mortar and pestle, still hung over the front door. A spinner rack near the front held comic books and paperback romance novels. The soda fountain ran along the left side of the store, and the pharmacy was at the back. The black-and-white checkerboard linoleum floor tiles were a little more scuffed, and the prices posted on the menu board by the lunch counter had of course increased, but that was about it.
“Hello there!” a woman’s voice called from the back. Conley was startled to see June Kelly perched on a high-backed stool behind the pharmacy counter. “Can I help you?”
Conley stared. June Kelly seemed to be her old self today. Her white hair was freshly coiffed, her lipstick seamlessly applied. She wore the starched lab coat with her name above the pocket.
“Sarah?” Miss June said, studying the new customer. “Sarah Hawkins!” She bustled around the counter and gave Conley a warm hug. “Where have you been hiding yourself?”
“Um, well,” Conley stammered, at a loss for words. “I guess I’ve been working.”
“How’s your daddy’s bursitis?” she asked. “Is Chet taking the medication Patrick prescribed?”
“He’s much better, thanks, Miss June,” Conley said.
“What can I get for you today? How about a nice ice cream cone? With extra sprinkles?”
She was still holding Conley’s hand between her own birdlike hands.
Conley glanced around the store. “Right now, I’m looking for Sean.”
A moment later, Skelly stepped out from the stockroom. He held up a white paper sack. “Guessing you’re here for your grandmother’s meds? I felt bad we didn’t have this one ready earlier. Hope you didn’t have to make a special trip into town.”
He came around the counter and gently disengaged his mother, walking her back to her perch.
“No trouble. I was just over at the office,” Conley said. “Hey, since you’re a pharmacist, how about selling me a bottle of aspirin?”
“You sick?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve just got a throbbing headache.”
“I’ll give you some aspirin, but have you eaten anything today?”
“Come to think of it, I haven’t,” she said. “But I think my headache is more from tension than hunger.”
“Mom, do you think you can watch the counter while I fix Sarah some lunch?” he asked. “It’s slow right now, but if you need her, Ginny is in the back room, unpacking stock.”
“All right,” June said calmly. She sat back on her stool and folded her hands in her lap.
Skelly handed her a paper cup with two tablets. “Cherry Coke?” he asked, his hand poised above the soft drink fountain.
“Please.”
He scooped crushed ice into a tall plastic cup and squirted deep red cherry syrup nto it, then added the carbonated drink, finally plopping a maraschino cherry on top.
She swallowed the pills with a gulp of the icy concoction.
“Wow,” Conley said, “talk about a trip in the wayback machine. I don’t think I’ve had a Cherry Coke this good since the last time your mama fixed me one while I was sitting right here at this soda fountain.” She glanced toward the back of the room, where the older woman was sitting placidly, leafing through a comic book.
“She just asked me if my dad was taking the meds your dad prescribed.”
“Sorry,” Skelly said. “Up until just now, I thought she was having a pretty good day. She loves coming into the store. It seems to center her or something. Her happy place, you know? Plus, it’s fairly early in the day. Evenings are when the confusion and agitation usually seem to set in. Sundowners, the doctors call it. Now how about lunch? What’ll you have? Grilled cheese, chicken salad? BLT? I’ve got some great-looking tomatoes. The sky’s the limit as far as you’re concerned.”
Conley didn’t have to look up at the menu board. “I’d love a Kelly burger.”
“You got it.”
He opened an under-counter refrigerator and brought out a stack of thick patties separated by neat squares of waxed paper and slapped two on the griddle. Then he held up a plastic tub of thinly sliced onions and another of chopped mushrooms.
“You going full Kelly?” he asked.
“Why not?”
“Think I’ll join you. I haven’t eaten today either. We had a busy morning.”
He drizzled oil from a squeeze bottle onto the grill top and when it was sizzling added the onions and mushrooms, stirring them briefly with a broad-bladed spatula.
Conley propped her elbows on the red Formica countertop, sipped her Coke, and watched as Skelly moved behind the counter with an ease gained from long practice.
He took two seeded hamburger buns from a bag on a shelf above the grill, split them, and placed them on the grill beside the burgers, pressing down on them with the back of the spatula. Skelly added a scoop of bright orange pimento cheese to each meat patty, waited another moment, then ladled on the sautéed vegetables.
And then he was plating his creation, sliding the buns onto two plates, topping each with a burger. “All the way, right?”
She nodded enthusiastically. Skelly wiped his hands on a cotton towel, then added a juicy red slice of tomato and a sprinkling of shredded lettuce. Finally, he added the top bun, spearing the whole thing with a pickled okra slice on a long wooden toothpick. He heaped potato chips alongside the burger, then presented the plate to Conley with a flourish.
“Lunch is served,” he announced.
She bit into the burger, chewed, and sighed happily. “Now I can tell all those snippy eighth-grade girls I finally went all the way with Sean Kelly!”
Skelly, mid-bite, choked, then began laughing. “As if.”
They worked their way through their lunch, laughing and trading reminiscences about their childhood exploits.
“How’s the headache?” he asked, polishing off the last potato chip on his plate. “Any better?”
“A little,” she said. “That burger was definitely a good idea for the headache, but the main problem I’m experiencing is a pain in the ass called Grayson Hawkins.”
“You two knocking heads again? What’s Gray done now?”
She filled him in on her sister’s opposition to the story she wanted to write.
“Seems to me Grayson has a point,” Skelly said. “Maybe Robinette wasn’t a saint, but so what? He’s dead now. Let it alone, why don’t you?”
She drained the last of her Cherry Coke and considered his question. Why couldn’t she let it be? Why did she have to keep turning over rocks and poking at trouble?
Before she could form an answer, June Kelly drifted over, slipping onto the barstool next to hers at the lunch counter.
“What are you two talking about?” she asked. “You both look so serious.”
Skelly shrugged. “Sarah’s been working on a story for the newspaper, Mama. About Symmes Robinette.”
Miss June’s face clouded, and her eyes narrowed. “Him! What’s he done now?”
“He’s dead, Miss June. He was killed in a car crash over in Bronson County, Monday night,” Conley said.
“I’m glad,” the older woman said. “Serves him right for how he did Toddie.”
“Mama!”
“He was a horrible, horrible man.” Her soft voice rose in indignation. “He got that girl pregnant, and then he divorced Toddie so he could marry that whore. And then Toddie moved away and took the children.” She turned to Skelly, looking perplexed. “Son, where did Toddie go?”
“I don’t know, Mama. That was a long time ago.”
“Maybe she’s at the farm,” Miss June said. “The children love that farm. Hank and Rebecca. They had horses and a mule. You tried to ride the mule one time, remember, Seanny?”
“Maybe,” Sean said. “I was just a little kid back then, and all Toddie’s kids were older than me.”
“Where was Toddie’s farm, Miss June?” Conley asked, intrigued.
Her face clouded, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I miss my friend so much.”
“What about the farm?” Conley repeated.
“Don’t!” Skelly said sharply under his breath. “Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?”
Conley’s face flushed with shame. “You’re right. I’m so sorry.” She took out her billfold to pay for her lunch, but Skelly waved the money away. “On the house.”
She pressed a five-dollar bill into his hand anyway. “I always like to overtip the help. And Skelly? I really am sorry. I got carried away.”
He shrugged. “Five minutes from now, she won’t remember you were here.”
“Bye, Miss June,” she said, touching the older woman’s arm. “I’ll see you soon.”
The tears had vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. “Oak Springs!” she said, perking up again. “I remember now. It was Oak Springs. I’ll get Seanny to take me there. And you can come too.”
“I’d like that very much,” Conley said.