Goodbye Earl(3)

When they all got together that first time in New York, the girls sat Kasey down and again demanded answers. Kasey listened, they cried. She told them what she’d always told them: that she’d felt like if she didn’t leave that night, she’d be trapped forever. When Rosemarie was the last to go, she told Kasey she’d get the girls to lay off from asking her to explain herself, as long as she promised to never go completely radio silent on them. Kasey made that easy promise.



The old-timey movie theater was still there and so was the whipping American flag on the pole shooting up from the courthouse lawn. A small group of laughing teenagers got into a car in front of it. The video store was gone but Myrtle’s Diner hadn’t budged. So much looked exactly the same. Kasey walked slowly, taking it all in.

“Hot damn! Kasey Fritz, as I live and breathe, I’d know you anywhere, lookin’ just like your mama,” a voice next to her said from underneath a navy-blue ballcap. Duke Nichols took off his hat. Duke was a former marine, a Vietnam vet, who had worked at the grocery store with her mom back in the day. Last time she’d seen him he’d been skinnier with a full head of hair, a smooth face. He was a big, bald, bearded sweetheart now. He’d been so kind to Kasey when she was growing up, sneaking her candy and pops on her way out of the store when she stopped in to visit her mom. Now, Duke owned one of the busiest bars in town. Seeing him bloomed her heart into a swirly mess of happy and sad. Duke Nichols had been such a good friend to her mom it was perfect that he was the first to welcome her home. She felt safer in his shadow; she wished she could tell her mama that.

“Hi, Duke,” Kasey said, smiling, pushing her sunglasses atop her head.

Duke swallowed her up in one of his bear hugs and she melted in his arms.

“You ain’t been back here in what…?” he asked.

“It’s been fifteen years, just about. Since I graduated from high school,” Kasey answered as they pulled away to look at each other. Duke still had his hands on her shoulders, and Kasey’s eyes got watery.

“You’re back because the Plum girl’s getting married,” he said, squeezing her again and returning his arms to his sides.

“Yep. Little Taylor. I’m headed there now,” she said.

After she caught up with Duke—and promised to stop by his place for a piece of his wife’s cherry pie before returning to the Big Apple—she kept walking. An older gentleman walking a chocolate Lab with a red kerchief around its neck excused himself past her after saying hello. Kasey made a mental note to tell Devon about the dog when she texted him later to say that the sunshine had made a difference. Goldie really did sparkle in the morning awash in the golden light it was named for, the lemony sun cutting across the rolling hills.

June in Good Ol’ Goldie’s town square still smells the same—hot ice cream and garbage, she thought. It was comforting, she admitted to herself. It made her feel two-faced, telling the good-parts truth about Goldie. How could the place she’d grown to hate so much look so pretty? How could even the rotten parts make her wistful? She thought she’d feel downright miserable when she saw the WELCOME TO GOLDIE sign as she drove into town…but she hadn’t.

All Kasey felt in those last moments making her way to the Plum house was hot; her face was starting to sweat. Good Ol’ Goldie, humidity’s best friend. She’d gone half dressy-dressy and put on a brand-new white V-neck eyelet dress, her small strand of real pearls, and her tobacco-brown cowboy boots. So unlike the minimalist, clean lines she wore in New York. Stepping into that white dress and those boots felt like stepping into a time machine—the ghost of Goldie Kasey’s past.

*



The Plum house sat like a big pink trilevel cake on a tray of green grass. That morning it was festooned—from the mansard roof down to the historical plaque announcing it as the oldest house in Goldie—with Instagram-worthy balloon arches and fresh flower decorations. Peony bouquets the size of small children lined the steps. A big banner that read CONGRATULATIONS, TAYLOR AND BEN hung across the porch columns, the letters glimmering and catching the light. Pink, pink, pink! Everylittlebit of it. It’d been both Taylor’s and Ada’s favorite color their entire lives.

The inside of the house adhered strictly to the theme—pink twinkle lights and tulle, pink streamers and ribbons, T-A-Y-L-O-R in huge, individual rose-gold balloons. Kasey put the bag holding Taylor’s bridal shower gift on a table covered with a pink tablecloth, and it was no surprise when Ada herself appeared in pink chiffon bell sleeves squealing Kasey’s name.

“Oh oh oh, you’re here! I’m so glad you’re here. Finally! Tay, Kase is here! In Goldie!” Ada said the last part up at the ceiling, her bouncy brown-blonde hair falling down her back, although Taylor was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m so glad to see you. Everything looks annoyingly perfect. I mean, of course…you did all this. It looks…amazing. You look amazing,” Kasey said, staring into Ada’s hooded smoky-blue eyes. Kasey had to bend down a bit to hug her properly.

“Oh please, thank you. But you! It’s been too long since you’ve been in front of me, and I hate that. I need to see you more. In real life! Why weren’t you texting on the way here? Why didn’t you call last night?” Ada asked, letting Kasey go.

“I’m sorry—I am. It’s bizarre being back, but all that matters is…I’m here now! Aaand I need a drink,” Kasey said as a woman she didn’t know stopped next to them and kissed the air. Ada leaned her cheek over to the woman’s mouth.