Goodbye Earl(2)

Good morning, bitches! I love you all so much and I’m so glad you’re here to celebrate our special weeeeek! Get your asses to the Plum house as SOON as you can for mimosas and cupcakes. Srsly, there’s so much food! GET. HERE. NOW.



The other girls began chiming in quickly, at least a million of them.

OMW!

I LOVE YOU SM BITCH!

Can I bring you anything?

Are we doing dressy-dressy?

Of course it's dressy-dressy, this is the south! :P Dress up like you're going to a football game!

Can someone come pick me up? I am NOT walking in these big-ass heels.





Kasey set the group chat to Do Not Disturb before calling Devon and telling him her plans for the day. Devon was a Listener and stayed quiet as she complained about the embarrassing fawning, the possible tension, and all the questions she knew were waiting for her.

“Well, Kase…I offered to come with you, but you said you wanted to do this alone. Do you still want to do this alone?” Devon asked when she was finished. “You have a hard time admitting you need help. I wish you didn’t. It would make things a lot easier sometimes,” he added. Kasey heard New York City clichés over the line—quick honks, rumbly construction, overlapping chatter.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said. Devon meant well. She was sure he could hear her loud facial expressions over the phone; he’d told her plenty of times that her face could use a volume button. “Thank you. I’m okay, I am. Just venting. I can take care of it, and trust me, there’s no point in you coming here. At all. Pfft, let’s talk about something else. Tell me something good, please.”

Although it frustrated him, Devon was used to Kasey deflecting whenever he wanted to dig deeper about Goldie and what life was like for her growing up. She gave him—along with everyone else—the bare minimum: she was from a small town, didn’t have much family, had an asshole stepdad, both of her parents died when she was young. Orphaned, she left right after high school and never came back, never looked back either. She’d ditched that town in the dust because Kasey Fritz was so much bigger and better than Goldie, that was for damn sure.

Devon launched into the things he saw on his early morning run in the park. Described the dogs in full detail for Kasey’s pleasure. Two scrappy Yorkies in matching yellow bows. A hyper golden retriever living its best life. A tiny brown-and-white mutt with a tennis ball in its mouth.

“You’re very good at loving me,” she said, sighing.

“You’re easy to love” was his reply.

“Yeah…uh-huh. Super easy and agreeable and never annoying. Sure.”

“It’s true. Even when you’re fussy,” he said.

“Righto, D. Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Please do. Here for whatever you need. Just say the word, bird. Just tell me the plan, Jan. Let me know the deal, Neil…”

After laughs and I love yous, Kasey finished her coffee and got dressed.



Two hope you have a good time, safe travels, love you texts from her girlfriends in the city. She sent them both kissy-face emojis in return.

One missed call from Rosemarie.

Two missed calls from Ada, and one text.

One text from Caroline.



Kasey left them unanswered.



RACK: Rosemarie, Ada, Caro, and Kasey. They’d been best friends since they were babies. Taylor was Ada’s younger sister. Kasey would see them all soon enough and they’d fall into place like they had ever since they were little. They were her sisters; they’d made their own family and gotten through their darkest moments together. They could get through anything—they could.



This is it. It’s happening. I’m back and I’m going to see my best friends again.

*



Kasey’s heart cartwheeled as she walked toward Plum Bakery—still smack-dab in the middle of the town square. The building was lavender and pale pink with green polka-dotted letters, the windows filled with pastel-colored sweet treats, cupcakes, cakes, and pies. Right next to the bakery was the restaurant, Plum Eats. Down on the corner, Plum Florals connected to Plum Designs. The Plum family had run a small bakery in town for over a hundred years before Ada and her mother turned Plum Inc. into the monster of a local empire it was today. There’d been a headline on the front of the Goldie Gazette last year: ADA PLUM-CASTELOW, GOLDIE’S STAR AND SOURCE OF STYLE. Caroline had emailed it to Rosemarie and Kasey when it happened, along with RACK NEWS! Look at our girl! Rosemarie replied from Barcelona, No surprise, this beauty. I love her so much. Kasey had written back, Oh wow look at our girl indeed!

Rosemarie, Ada, Caro, and Kasey tried their best to keep in touch with one another as much as they had in the past, but at times it was impossible with their busy schedules. Rosemarie was leading hunger-relief initiatives both domestically and all over the globe. Ada had the Plum Inc. empire on top of her husband and four(!) boys. Caro had recently gotten married and was forever busy with baking.

Ada and Caro stayed in Goldie, and since Caro ran Plum Bakery now, they were the two who saw each other most often and remained as close as they were in high school. The foursome had gotten together every now and again when their schedules aligned in the fifteen years since they’d graduated from high school, but never in Goldie. Always in NYC or Seattle. Seattle: Rosemarie’s new home base whenever she was stateside. Who could resist a girls’ week/weekend in either of those cities? Well, in truth, Kasey had tried resisting it the first time, but Rosemarie showed up on her doorstep hollering KASEY FRITZ, IT’S ROSES! I LOVE YOU AND I FOUND YOU! Ada and Caro flew up the next day. Kasey knew Rosemarie would be the first to come see her; Rosemarie also had been the first to email her after she left. She kept emailing even when Kasey took too long to write back or didn’t reply at all.