The morning breeze tousled Katie Sara’s hair while her feet pounded the pavement. Finishing the second mile of her early morning run, sweat trickled down her back. She ran past manicured yards with glossy-leafed rhododendrons and porches with flower boxes of bright begonias and marigolds and petunias.
Foggy mornings were her favorite, when the mist settled over the world, cocooning her, wrapping her in cotton swaddling and protecting her. Then, little by little, it lifted, revealing the world as if presenting her with a grand and wonderful gift.
This morning, though, was crystal clear, silent except for bird song and the occasional dog’s bark. Lights blinked on in a few of the houses scattered up and down the street. The smell of bacon, cinnamon rolls, and coffee wafted from open kitchen windows.
Memories surfaced with almost every house she passed. Some pleasant, others splinters to be painfully extracted.
Speaking of splinters and pains in the butt. Katie Sara stopped and ran in place, her mind racing. Jeez. There had to be what? Twenty, thirty streets in town? And she’d picked this one to turn down.
Out of all 3,934 Paradoxians, whom did she run into right off the bat but the two she least wanted to face. Well, no. Reiner Broderick topped that list, didn’t he? Not going there, though. Slam that door shut and fast! Dead end!
So, okay, not first on her list of undesirables, but these two came in a close second and third.
Her choices were limited. Since she hadn’t mastered invisibility yet, she couldn’t run past Twiddle-De and Twiddle-Dum sight unseen. Besides, they’d spotted her. If she detoured now, she’d come off looking like the chicken she was.
Miss America smile cemented in place, sweat running down her back and into her eyes, hair stuck to forehead and cheeks, she homed in on the enemy. Hard to do genteel when you looked and smelled like wet dog, but what the heck.
Cookie Renquist and Jennie Mae Benson, cheerleaders back in high school, stood two houses down at the end of the driveway. Drawing nearer, Katie Sara noted that sweet little ol’ Jennie Mae had gone slightly soft around the edges.
Cookie, though, looked as toned and chirpy as ever, blond hair pulled back in the long, swingy, all-American-girl ponytail, her blue eyes twinkling—at seven in the morning.
“Hey, Katie Sara. Didn’t figure to see you again.” Cookie eyed her, a predator sizing up prey. “Heard you were a professor at some big fancy college.”
Katie Sara grudgingly came to a stop, doing a few knee raises to keep her muscles warm. “Yes, well, things change.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Jennie Mae elbowed Cookie. “Sometimes people think they’re all high and mighty, and then find out they’re just like all the rest of us. Gotta put their panties on one leg at a time.”
Katie Sara flinched.
“Jennie Mae’s mama was real happy when you bought the Wedgwood house from her.” Cookie said. “Nice you could afford it...still bein’ single and all.”
Cookie waited a beat. When Katie Sara still said nothing, she threw a sideways smirk at Jennie Mae. “Fact is, two houses in town sold that same week, didn’t they?”
Jennie Mae tucked her thumbs in the back pockets of her two-sizes-too-small shorts and nodded. “Looks like all of Paradox’s chicks are comin’ back to roost.”
Katie Sara’s stomach dropped. She did not have a good feeling about this. Without permission, her lips asked, “Really? Who else is moving back?”
“Can’t say. Professional courtesy.” Cookie snickered. “But it’s somebody with big bucks. Not many fit that bill, if ya know what I mean.”
She winked, and Katie Sara’s stomach plummeted the last three floors into the basement.
“Bought that big new house been sittin’ empty over on the edge of town,” Cookie went on. “Doctor from Memphis built it last year, then changed his mind ’bout transferin’ his practice here.”
“Time to get them kids of ours off to daycare.” Jennie Mae threw Katie Sara a mean smile. “Enjoy your first day back now, ya hear?”
The two past-tense cheerleaders swaggered off into the saggy house, its green paint faded and peeling, the screen door slamming behind them.
For several seconds Katie Sara stood transfixed. From inside, she heard a baby cry, followed by a toddler’s shrill voice and Jennie Mae’s muffled response.
She’d known there’d be confrontations. Known the power of small-town gossip. She understood, too, that this morning was only the barest tip of the iceberg. A line from Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock came to her. “At ev’ry word a reputation dies.” Boy, how true!
Death had come swiftly for the McMichaels—but not painlessly. While her disgrace had begun with her father, it had ended with her. She accepted that.
Squaring her shoulders, she forced herself on. The toe of her running shoe caught where a tree root had cracked the sidewalk. She pitched forward, then quickly rebalanced, wishing she could regain her emotional stability as easily.
Someone with money had bought the house at the edge of town. Couldn’t tell me his name! Professional courtesy, my eye!
Stress tightened her muscles, made her feel like a big old bulldog sat on her chest. The dang thing wore a football jersey—with the name Broderick emblazoned across it.
Without realizing it, her feet carried her to Barnie’s Garage. His hair now graying, Barnie was outside hosing off the pavement. He and her father had at one time been best friends. Gathering her courage, she glanced both ways for non-existent traffic before she jogged across the street.
“Barnie?”
He swiveled toward her, hose low, face bland. Then he smiled and, whooping, turned off the water. “Katie Sara! By damn, it is true. Rhonda told me on the QT you might be comin’ home.” Then his face sobered. “Heard about your dad, honey. Near broke my heart.”
Her throat clogged at the genuine sympathy, and she swallowed. “That’s why I’m here. Daddy wanted to be buried in Paradox.”
He nodded. “You gonna have a service?”
She faltered. She hadn’t planned any big to-do. Something simple and quiet. Her father, herself, and a priest.
Barnie laid a hand on her arm. “If you do, let me know. I’d like to be part of it. It’d mean a lot to me.”
Not trusting her voice, she simply nodded.
“You’re a good daughter, Katie Sara.”
Clearing her throat, she changed the subject. “I heard the doctor’s house sold. Any idea who bought it?”
“Lots of speculation, honey. But puttin’ two and two together...” His brows waggled convulsively.
“Oh, God.” Closing her eyes, she dropped her chin onto her chest. Her worst nightmare.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “Bad case of moving sickness catching up with me.”
“Movin’— Oh, you mean motion sickness, don’t ya? Yeah, that can be nasty.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” She gave him a quick hug. “Gotta go.”
“Catch you later?”
“You bet.” It couldn’t be. It simply could not be. Reiner Broderick would not, could not move back to Paradox.
Not now.
Why in the world would he buy a house here? Bury himself in the middle of Podunkville, USA?
He wouldn’t. It had to be somebody else. Somebody else.
The words picked up the cadence of her feet as they slapped the pavement.
A wave of nostalgia swept her as she hit Main Street, the town that time forgot. A little Brigadoon still doing business the way towns had fifty, sixty years ago.
Mom-and-pop operations passed down from generation to generation still took care of Paradoxians’ needs. There were no big chain stores. The nearest Wal-Mart was thirty miles away and Sam’s Club another fifteen beyond that.
Wooden barrels filled with bright flowers perfumed the early morning air, the scents reminiscent of her childhood. The Stars and Stripes flapped in a slight breeze outside the post office.
Many of the old brick buildings dated back to the early 1800s, before the Late Unpleasantness...the War of Northern Aggression. Sturdy. Permanent. Solid.
Home.
But could you go home, she wondered.
Would the good people of Paradox line up behind Cookie and Jennie Mae or behind Barnie? Maybe sit on the fence and give her a chance to prove—or disprove—herself?
Shading her eyes with one hand, she peered at a mouth-watering display of high-caloric delights in the bakery window. Something whacked her in the back, and she jerked around.
Two older women, vinyl purses draped over their arms, planted themselves on the sidewalk as if defending their ground.
“Ought to watch where you stand so’s a body can get by. ’Bout knocked my purse right out of my hand,” the tall, anorexic-looking one grumbled.
“Ralph McMichaels' girl,” the equally tall, though rounder one sniffed. “What do you expect?” She shook her head. “Bad seed.”
Noses in the air, they strutted down the walk.
“Pompous, self-righteous—” How many pounds of flesh did they want? Any magic the early morning may have held was long gone.
“Katie Sara, that you?”
Flustered, she squinted up into the sunlight. “Kip?”
Perched atop a ladder, a round-cheeked Kip Haskell smiled down at her. “That’s what it said last time I checked my driver’s license.”
When she realized he was checking more than his license, had in fact a view straight down her top, she took a step back.
His grin broadened, and he looped the cord in his hand around the light pole. “Heard you bought the Larson place.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Welcome home.”
A quick lump formed in her throat at his off-handed kindness. “Thank you.”
Kip gave the knot a last tug. “That should do it. Now, to get the other side up. Sure would be easier if there were two of me.” He laughed. “God help the world!”
She smiled. “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you hanging?”
“See there?” He pointed down the street. “Already finished on that end. Look good, don’t they?”
She’d been staring eye-level as she ran. Now she tipped her head and ran her gaze down the length of the street.
Red, white, and blue banners.
WELCOME HOME, REINER
Reiner. Senior year’s second hard lesson.
A log truck, undoubtedly headed for the paper mill outside of town, lumbered down the street, shifting gears and belching black smoke.
“What you lookin’ at?” Kip asked.
“That truck. I’m trying to come up with one good reason I shouldn’t just jump in front of it right now and be done with it.”