Chapter Twelve

South of Villisca, the Nodaway River splits into two and then runs north, up both sides of town. I have no idea which side David has driven me to, but I’m now standing on a muddy bank, watching him squish a worm on a hook.

He laughs at me. “Never fished with worms before?”

“Of course I have. When I was little, my grandpa took me fishing every time we visited.”

“Then why are you so grossed out?”

“I never got used to the savage nature of torturing and sacrificing little worms. Nets. People should use nets. Plus? Worms are icky. Lively, wriggling little strings of wet flesh. No thanks.”

David hands me a fishing rod, then watches with a grin that says good luck, City Girl. But the joke is on him. I know how to cast a line. I draw the rod back, then fling it forward and release the line. But the little worm plops into the water only ten feet from shore. My pride slumps into embarrassment.

“Good enough for now,” he says, not hiding his amusement. His line is perfectly cast, well beyond mine. “If you don’t like fishing, then what do you like to do? Do you play any sports?”

“No. I tried soccer once. That was an epic disaster. The only goal I ever managed to make was in the other team’s net. After that, I realized I’m not cut out for athletics.”

“Are you more the marching band type?” he asks with a teasing tone.

I cut him a sharp look. “Shut up.”

His eyes widen and he laughs. “Oh my god, you are. I’m—” He tries to stop his laughter, but it doesn’t work and he laughs louder. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. What instrument do you play?”

“The clarinet, although I haven’t played it at all since I got here.” This realization brings a smile to my face. “My parents would be so pissed if they knew that.”

David stops his laughter before asking, “Did you get in trouble or something?”

My eyebrows furrow. I’ve never been in trouble for anything in my life. Not real trouble anyway. Once, when I was five, I was caught trying to sneak a candy bar out of Target. A woman who worked there had scolded me, and I burst into tears. That was when I had realized the criminal life was not for me.

“I’m not in trouble,” I say. “Why do you ask?”

“You sure?” David asks with a crooked grin and a glimmer of sun in his eyes. “Thought maybe you knocked over a convenience store, so your parents sent you away to stay out of trouble in the big city.”

I laugh, shaking my head. “Not even close.”

“So then why did they send you away?”

“They…they didn’t send me away.” The words stammer out, contradicting my message.

He drops his smile and stares at me. “You can tell me what’s going on. I’m not gonna make fun of you.”

“It’s nothing; don’t worry about it,” I say, plopping down onto a semi-buried rock barely big enough to keep my butt off the muddy sand. My parents are four hundred miles away, and I’d like to keep it that way. “I didn’t get in trouble. I’m just here to visit my grandparents.”

David looks back out at the waters. “Whatever you say.”

In the sand right in front of me, I draw a figure eight with my finger. “What else do you guys do around here for fun? Besides your two-man ghost-busting club.”

David exhales hard, as if that alone sums up his thoughts on small-town life. “There’s baseball in the spring and summer, but that’s never been my scene. There’s deer and pheasant hunting in the fall, but I’m not much of a hunter. I’d rather fish. But mostly, I just work.”

“How long have you worked at the store?”

“Since before I could see over the counter. My family’s owned it for generations.” He doesn’t say anymore, but I sense it—the small-town desperation for escape. Wanting more but being tied to family roots planted in the middle of nowhere.

Before his retirement, Grandpa owned a small real estate office in town. My dad had worked there part-time in high school, but he fled Villisca a week after graduation and never moved back. Dad once told me that small towns have highways leading out, and no perimeter walls keeping people in, but they’re still damn hard to escape.

David watches the slow-moving waters, and I wonder if he’s going to flee after turning eighteen. Or will he be one who struggles to escape?

“Are you going to college in the fall?” I ask.

His jaw clenches and I take his non-answer as a no—and immediately want to know why. Why would someone not use college as the perfect opportunity to get away from tiny-town living? Though plenty of answers fill my mind. He can’t afford it, or his grades aren’t good. Or maybe he thinks the family store needs him more than the academic world.

“Are you going to stick around here and continue working for your dad?” I keep my voice chipper to cheer him up. But the lightness in my voice doesn’t ease the tension around David. His jaw is set, and he keeps his gaze out at the river—away from me.

“I’m more of a one day at a time kind of guy.” He reels his line in and checks the hook. His worm is gone. “Our days are limited. We’re not guaranteed a future—or even a tomorrow, so why bother worrying about it?” After hooking another worm, he recasts.

His words roll through my mind again and again…We’re not guaranteed a future—or even a tomorrow…and I wonder how someone gets so jaded. What had happened that made a small-town-Iowa boy so hopeless?

For the next two hours, I’m too apprehensive to ask. We meander around our muddy little patch of river’s edge, catching a couple of catfish that David throws back, declaring them too small. The overhead sun is hot, bearing down relentlessly and leaving its bronzed mark on both mine and David’s skin.

We switch from fishing to skipping rocks. He tries to show me how to do it, but I remind him that I’m from Minnesota, land of ten thousand lakes. I know how to skip rocks.

Neither of us make any mention of college or the future, or why I’m staying in Villisca, though the topics never leave my mind, and they don’t seem to leave David’s either. Through his smiles and laughter, his eyes remain bleak.

We both have our secrets and sorrows.

When he drops me off at my grandparents’ in the early evening, he once again parks a block away.

“Thanks for taking me fishing,” I say. “I almost kind of enjoyed it.”

“Almost kind of,” he repeats with a laugh. “That’s exactly what I was going for.”

“I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I really did have fun hanging out with you.” My cheeks blush as I say the words, but I’m hopeful my sun-kissed skin hides my bashfulness.

David’s lip curls up. “I had fun hanging out with you, too.” He pauses. “You’re definitely a Carpenter, even though you hate fishing.”

I smile back, unsure of what he means. There’s an intimacy that comes with his words and the way he says “Carpenter.” And then he smiles, and I’m once again struck by an odd sense that I’ve met him before.

“Did we ever play together when we were little?” I ask.

“I don’t think so.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek, thinking back to younger days when I’d visit Villisca on the Fourth of July. The playground, the ice cream sundaes at the now-shuttered Mary Moo Ice Cream parlor, the fireworks show at the edge of the town. I have no memories of a brown-haired boy in any of those.

“Weird,” I say. “Sometimes, it feels like I’ve hung out with you before. But that sounds dumb, huh?”

David’s smile disappears and he turns away from me. “You should get back home before your grandma thinks you’ve run back to Minneapolis or something.”

My hand hooks the door handle.

“Chessie.”

The brusque tone of his voice makes me turn to him. His face is solemn.

“Midnight.”

A chill runs down my spine. I give him a slight nod. “Midnight.” I exit the vehicle without another word. My phone shows that it’s nearly six o’clock. I have six hours to figure out how to sneak two boys into my room.

Shit.