The Silver Bay American Legion Post 42 was ten miles outside the city limits. The parking lot outside the boxy redbrick building was half full, most of the vehicles pickup trucks or late-model sedans, heavy on American-made, light on Hondas and Kias.
The bar at the Legion looked like something out of a seventies movie, with knotty pine paneling, neon beer signs, a variety of taxidermied bass and bucks, wall-mounted televisions, and nicotine-stained everything, although Conley was relieved to spot the large NO SMOKING signs posted near the door. She was also relieved to note that she wasn’t the only female on the premises. The bartender was a woman, and she spotted six or seven other women in the room too.
There was a jukebox, and it was playing Patsy Cline. She was fairly sure “I Fall to Pieces” had been playing the last time she’d been to the Legion. One wall of the room was lined with booths, and there were a dozen small four-tops scattered between the booths and the long bar.
Conley found a vacant stool in the middle of the bar. She didn’t recognize anybody, but this was not a surprise, since she hadn’t darkened the door of the Legion in at least fifteen years.
“What are you drinking?” The bartender gave her an appraising look. She looked to be in her early twenties, with a burgundy-tinted pixie haircut, pale skin, and tattoo sleeves on both her well-muscled arms. Sort of like a punk version of Audrey Hepburn.
“Um, what kind of bourbon do you have?”
“You’re probably not gonna like any of the rotgut shit we sell. Best I can offer is Four Roses.”
Conley laughed. “What makes you think I don’t like rotgut?”
“I’m a bartender. I read people. Those shredded jeans you’re wearing cost hundred-eighty a pair, and you didn’t get that cut and color anywhere around here. At home, you probably drink Knob. Or maybe one of those boutique brands. Pappy Van Winkle? Right?”
“Guess I should be flattered,” Conley said. “I couldn’t afford Pappy even when I was working. Now? I’m just an out-of-work newspaper reporter.”
“So Four Roses?”
She nodded. “On the rocks, with water.”
As the bartender moved away, Conley felt a hand clap her shoulder and a grizzled cheek rubbing against her own.
“Well, look what the cat drug in! Sarah Conley Hawkins, what in the hell are you doing here?”
She pulled away from the stranger. But it wasn’t a stranger after all.
“Skelly?” Conley whooped and threw her arms around the slender man’s shoulders. “Skelly! Oh my God!”
He hugged her back and rubbed his graying beard against her face until she laughed and pushed him away.
Sean Kelly’s family lived two doors down from G’mama’s house. He was a year younger than Grayson, a year older than Conley. His father was a doctor and his mother was a pharmacist, but Skelly, as he’d been called since their childhood, didn’t fit in that mold.
Tall and thin, with spaghetti-like arms and legs, he was the neighborhood prankster, with an outsize personality and an underwhelming academic record in school. He’d flunked second grade—in a small-town elementary school where virtually every kid got what was charitably called a social promotion, and had been delighted to land in Conley’s second-grade class the next year.
They’d been running mates and best friends until puberty hit Skelly upside the head at the age of thirteen and he no longer had time for skateboarding, crank-calling the cool kids, and shoplifting cigarettes and Cokes from the 7-Eleven.
Now he parked himself on the stool beside Conley’s. A self-described late bloomer, Skelly had gone off to college and surprised everyone, including himself, by graduating with honors and then going on to pharmacy school. He’d filled out some over the years, but he was still tall and lanky, with a streak of silver in his straight brown hair. His graying beard looked untamed, and he’d started wearing glasses since the last time she’d seen him. “Trish! Beer me!”
The bartender finished pouring Conley’s drink, then reached into a cooler and pulled out a longneck.
“You know this troublemaker?” the bartender asked her, setting their drinks on the bar.
“Know me? I gave this girl her first kiss.” Skelly took a long pull from his beer.
“And then I gave him his first black eye,” Conley shot back.
“But all is forgiven,” Skelly said. “Trish, meet my oldest friend on the planet, Sarah Conley Hawkins.”
Trish stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Sarah.”
“Just Conley, if you don’t mind.”
“Conley here is a big-deal, award-winning reporter in Atlanta,” Skelly said, a little too loudly. “But she’s homegrown talent all the way. Her family owns the Beacon.”
“Cool,” Trish said, unimpressed.
“Hey,” called a blonde two stools down. “Are we playing or what?”
Trish reached for a deck of cards and held them up to Skelly and Conley. “You guys in?”
“In for what?” Conley asked.
“Screw your neighbor,” Trish said.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Skelly said, reaching into his hip pocket for his billfold.
Conley rolled her eyes.
“Put up or shut up,” Trish said, tapping the bar with the flat of her hand. The two patrons sitting on either side of Skelly and Conley each tossed a dollar bill onto the counter, and the bartender shuffled the cards, then dealt one to each of the players.
Skelly tapped Conley’s forearm. “You remember how to play, right?”
“Duh,” she said, fishing bills from the pocket of her jeans and putting a single on the bar top. “Kings high, aces low.” She picked up her card. It was the eight of hearts. She placed it facedown on the bar and took a sip of her bourbon.
Skelly looked at his card. “Pass.” He handed it off to a fresh-faced preppie guy sitting the next stool over and picked up a new card from the top of the deck. The prepster peeked at his own card, hesitated, then accepted Skelly’s card, and passed his own to the blonde.
“So?” he asked, looking over at Conley. “What’s up?”
“Not much.” She shrugged. “I had some time off from work, so I decided to come home and check in with G’mama. Grayson’s kinda worried about her health. What’s up with you? How’s Danielle?”
He tilted his bottle to his lips and drained it. “Danielle moved back to Memphis eighteen months ago.”
“Oh. Sorry. I hadn’t heard. So you guys are officially split up again?”
He flashed his left hand, displaying a pale band of untanned skin. “She says it’s for good this time.”
“She always says that.”
He ran a finger over the spot where his wedding band had been, then looked up at Conley. His lips were smiling, but she could see the pain in his dark eyes. “She’s getting remarried, Sarah. I was refilling Jodi Pilgreen’s acid reflux medicine, and Danielle just called me up at the store today and blurted it out. Said she didn’t want me to hear it from somebody else.”
“That was quick,” Conley said.
“They work together at the university.”
“Sucks,” Conley said.
“Majorly,” he agreed.
The bartender was standing in front of them, looking expectant.
“Check it out,” Trish said, turning her card faceup on the bar. It was the jack of spades. The preppie turned over the card Skelly had given him. The nine of diamonds. The blonde went next. She had the queen of clubs. Skelly had the nine of hearts. He looked over at Conley. She turned over her eight with a sigh.
“All mine,” Trish said, raking in the small stack of bills. She reached for the bourbon bottle and poured a hefty shot into Conley’s half-empty glass.
“Drink up,” Skelly ordered.
Conley tossed the drink back. It burned as it went down, but not in a good way.
Trish dealt another hand of cards.
“How long you home for?” Skelly asked.
“To be determined.” Conley hesitated. “I’m sorta kind of between jobs.”
“You?” He pretended to look shocked.
“I was supposed to start work at a digital investigative outlet next week, but things changed. I’d already quit my job at the AJC and given up my apartment, so now here I am.”
“You’ll find another job,” he said.
“That’s the plan. Until then, I’m gonna move G’mama out to the Dunes tomorrow and hang out at the beach.”
“When’s the last time you were home?” Skelly asked. “Been a while, right?”
“According to my dear sister, it’s been too long,” Conley said. She was struck with a sudden pang of guilt. She clutched his arm. “Oh God, Skelly. I just remembered about your dad. I really am a horrible person. I meant to send a card or flowers or something.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. Grayson put a real nice write-up in the Beacon.” He laughed ruefully. “We had to let people into the funeral home in shifts.”
“I know Doc could be tough on you, but he was always so sweet to me. He delivered me, did you know that?”
“You and half the population of Griffin County,” Skelly said.
“Are you two playing or chatting?” Trish demanded, waving cards in front of their faces.
“Hit me,” Skelly said.
“I’m in,” Conley agreed.
They played six more rounds, and Conley lost two more times. The drinks got stronger, and she laughed harder and talked louder than she had in a long, long time.
“I’m done,” Conley said after she’d downed her third shot of whiskey. “Any more and they’ll have to send me home in an ambulance.”
Skelly pointed toward the handkerchief-size dance floor, where a lone couple shuffled back and forth to a mournful country song she didn’t recognize. “C’mon, kid. Let’s dance.”
“Skelly, no. I’m about drunk, and so are you.”
He pulled her from her barstool. “Best reason in the world.”
He went over to the jukebox and studied the playlist, finally nodding and mashing the correct buttons.
“C’mon,” he said, leading her to the dance floor. The last notes of the country song were still fading when Skelly’s selection started to play. Conley recognized it immediately.
“Not this,” she moaned. “Not Shania.” But she put her arms around his neck, and he draped his loosely around her waist.
She’d forgotten what a good dancer Skelly was. He was surprisingly light on his feet, and she was just buzzed enough to forget her usual inhibitions, lean in, and let him lead. He skimmed her gracefully across the dance floor, humming softly in her ear. “From this moment…”
“No, no, no,” she mumbled.
“Remember the last time we danced to this song?” he asked.
“You mean that time your mom made you take me to the country club dance because your real girlfriend was such a skank?”
“Steffi? She wasn’t a skank,” he protested.
“Oh, please. She put out like a gas station Coke box.”
“Wonder whatever happened to her?” He looked down at Conley. “My mom didn’t make me take you, you know.”
“You took me straight home after the dance, when everybody else was going out to Cady Alexander’s beach house for the after-party. The next day, I heard you hooked up with Steffi there.”
He winced. “High school guys are pigs. I didn’t know you knew.”
“I knew,” Conley said. “Steffi made sure.”
“But you were dating that dude from the fancy Virginia prep school, so what difference did it make anyway?” Skelly asked. “We were just friends, right? Besides, your big sister would have called the cops on me if I’d tried anything funny with you.”
She waved away his protests. “Water under the bridge.” She yawned widely and just then spotted the neon clock mounted over the bar. “Oh, man. It’s nearly three!”
“So?”
She stopped dancing and shook her head. “I promised G’mama we’d leave for the beach at nine! It’ll take me forever to load up all the crap she and Winnie are taking.”
He grabbed for her arm and missed. “Hey, slow down.”
“Can’t. I gotta go.” She dug in her pocket for her car keys, and Skelly snatched them away.
“No way,” he said firmly. “You’re wasted. Those were double shots Trish was pouring you tonight.”
She grabbed for his arm but missed, stumbled, and nearly tripped over her own feet.
“Whoa. Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”
She gave him a weak smile. “Gimme a ride home?”
He tucked his arm through hers. “I think I can remember the way.”