Indigo, Sara and Diana have spread out on the dining room table of the Inn while some of the guests gather around looking over their shoulders. A retired couple I recognize from before is holding one of the flyers, munching on Indigo’s homemade biscuits and commenting that they’ll have to book a return visit for the festival.
I trip over someone’s duffel bag as I enter the room and everyone turns their head to identify the noise. Kicking the bag to the side, I make my way to the table and they’re all still staring at me. “What?” I start smoothing my hair, wondering if I have something on my face.
Diana raises an eyebrow and points her pen at me. “You got fucked last night.”
The retired couple titters with laughter and the wife claps me on the back. “That’s what I was thinking, too, dear. Looks like you had a good time. George, look at her blush.”
Indigo squeals and claps her hands. “This all can wait. I want details. First thing: what was your orgasm tally? This is very important.”
Sara rolls her eyes and my jaw works up and down as I try to figure out what to say.
“Oh, lord. You slept with my brother.” Diana reaches for a biscuit and, tilting her head, asks, “Was it awful?”
Sara shakes her head. “She doesn’t look like it was awful.”
“Well good day to all of you,” I say, sinking into a chair and wishing it would fall into the abyss. I close my eyes for a minute and then say to each of them, “the tally is 5; it was your brother; it was amazing.”
Indigo shoves the pile of papers into a folder as the retired couple leans front on their elbows. “I think we can go ahead and green light all this, Sar,” she says. “We’ve got more important things to discuss.”
I finish answering their questions as briefly as they’ll allow, and Mabel and George weigh in that it sounds like I’ve got a good thing going here. I like the sound of that.
“You’re glowing, babe,” Indigo says, draping an arm around Sara’s shoulders. “This is great. Who knew Hunter had it in him?”
Diana pulls up the oral sex article from Cosmo and squints while she starts to read it aloud. “This is kind of amazing,” she says. “Sara, come see how this article uses really inclusive language. It’s not heteronormative at all. I’m going to try really hard not to think about my brother doing this shit and be happy that you—my friend and a person with a clitoris—got someone to do this for you.”
George makes eyes at Mabel and asks Indigo how much time they have before checkout.
Eager to change the topic, I ask Indigo what comes next for the festival. We are two weeks out and I feel like I have no idea what will happen. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she says. “The hard part was finishing all this signage. Everyone will just show up next Friday to do their same old job. Did Rose say you could take off Friday to help set up?”
I frown. Rose has a lot going on right now, meeting with alumni like George and Mabel to hit them up for cash. As soon as she got back from Panama, she got some foreign alum staying at their house in the Meadow room, which evidently used to be Fletcher’s. “As long as I can get talking points on her desk by that Thursday I think we will be good.”
Autumn Apple always gets a lot of involvement from the college students, apparently, looking for something different to do on a weekend. Oak Creek College might excel in academics, but the small town setting doesn’t offer much in the way of entertainment. Sara fills me in on all the telltale signs to watch for with the students trying to pass off fake IDs to get hard cider.
The four of us spend the entire day sorting volunteer packets for next weekend and talking about Sara and Indigo’s plans to maybe have a baby, which is a whole production apparently for same-sex couples.
Diana’s dad calls mid-afternoon to insist she come over for dinner, and I hear him holler through the phone, “Are you there with Hunter’s lady-friend? Tell Abigail to come, too.”
“I guess you’re coming home with me for Dinner with Daniel,” she says.
We walk to the Crawford house, where I can smell garlic from half a block away. “Come on inside,” Rose sings from the kitchen. She’s dancing around with a glass of wine as Daniel bastes a roasting chicken. “The alumni have taken a bus tour to New York City. It’s just us tonight. Oh, Abigail, there you are, dear. Listen, next time I really would prefer if you and Hunter can tip us off before we read about your personal activities in the Gazette.” Rose slides me a glass of wine along with today’s “special edition” newspaper.
GROUCHY SCIENTIST WOOS SPEECHWRITER, the headline screams.
“Drink your wine before you read, dear,” Rose says. “It’ll help.”
“Diana, have you heard from your brothers?” Daniel starts rapidly chopping herbs for a sauce that smells amazing.
She shakes her head and stage whispers to me, “This is a family strategy meeting, if you couldn’t tell.”
Archer strides into the kitchen and kisses his mother on the cheek. “What’s up? I got the SOS text.”
I start reading the article, which makes it sound like Hunter and I were caught having sex in the middle of Main Street. “Are drug store employees allowed to share information about what people buy??”
“The wine, Abigail,” Rose says. “Drink the wine. Archer, I’m sure you’ve heard by now. We need to decide how we will respond.”
“He knew,” I blurt to Rose, chugging the wine as she refills my glass. “Archer knew last night!”
“Aw, come on, Abigail. I thought we were friends.”
Rose starts scolding him, swatting his upper arm as she yells at him for not giving her and Daniel a heads up that Hunter had a lady-friend. I continue reading about so-called public displays of affection—“Hunter gave me one peck on the cheek at the coffee shop!”—but then the article takes a nasty turn I wasn’t expecting.
I don’t know much about the details of Hunter’s separation with his wife, just that she left him and is asking for a lot of money in their divorce. This article suggests that Hunter is somehow creating this relationship with me publicly to manipulate public opinion about his divorce. “We have to wonder what the estranged Mrs. Crawford thinks about another woman glowing with satisfaction from a night spent making love with her spacey spouse.” I almost can’t get the words out. “What is this, Rose? Does Hunter still talk to Heather?”
Hunter arrives then, seemingly unaware of what’s been going on. Diana hands him a beer and nudges him to sit next to me. I slide him the paper and watch his face, trying to gauge his reaction. I feel relief when I see him frown and grit his teeth as he gets toward the end of the article. He throws the paper on the table and turns toward me. “Abigail,” he says. “There is no reason for you to think Heather is a consideration for me at all. Please tell me you are not swayed by this inflammatory tirade?”
I shake my head, but the truth is I’m rattled by the article. There are small grains of truth in Ed Hastings’ suggestion that I ran out on my old life and haven’t looked back. He says I am burying myself into this town’s traditions and this town’s men, apparently, to escape my demons. Why shouldn’t it be a little true that Hunter is just using me strategically? Divorcing Heather will cost him millions at this point.
Daniel plunks a laptop on the table and I look up to see a video chat with a man who looks like Hunter but Rose’s blue eyes. He’s seated outside somewhere with palm trees in the background. “What’s all this about?” the face squints around the room.
“Fletcher, we have a situation,” Daniel says, clearing his throat and sitting at the head of the table. “We need to get Heather to settle immediately so your brother can finalize his divorce.”