If It Makes You Happy(8)

“Yeah, I know it was smeared,” I mutter to all of them.

It hasn’t been easy, raising a teenage girl. It’s not like there’s a class on which tampons to buy or how to say, No, you can’t sneak out of school to see your boyfriend. Please stop asking. Emily claims her mom gave her the birds and the bees talk. I’m not sure if I believe it because Tracy likes difficult conversations even less than I do, which means I should probably talk to her soon. Add it to the list, along with reminding Brittany not to fight over a grown man’s fake winning streak.

I raise my girls day by day, week by week. It’s always something new, and I always hope the problems get spread out over the course of weeks or years. But sometimes they happen all at once on the same day.

Carol crosses the street again, and I follow. I steal the cigarette from her hand and put it out on the ashtray on top of the town trash can.

She eyes the sizzling butt before murmuring, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Inside, the phone rings.

I thread my fingers behind my head and stroll back to the bakery. “That’d better be Trace,” I mutter.

“You’re not that lucky,” Carol says.

“Tell her I said hi!” Betty calls.

I throw a lazy thumbs-up back.

Crossing behind the counter, I take a deep breath and pick up the receiver. “This is Burke’s Bakery.”

I wait for my ex-wife’s apologetic voice.

Instead, I’m greeted with a gruff, “Hey, Cliff. How’re you today?”

I let out my held breath. “Oh, hey, George. What’ve you got today?”

I take the pen tucked beside the phone’s cord and scribble George’s usual catering order on the notepad. But the more he talks, the more it dawns on me that Tracy still hasn’t called.

Again.

The Burke family is held together by duct tape, glue, and the old wood of this bakery. But we are held together, and I suppose that’s all we can ask for. It’ll be my ex-wife who sends me into a stress-induced early grave. Maybe I can hang out with Birdie in heaven.

A flash of yellow glimmers through the bakery’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows. I look up and watch a taxi pass by. I don’t know the last time I saw a taxi rumbling through Copper Run.

I lean over the counter with George continuing to murmur in my ear, peering through the car’s back window. Inside, a stiff border collie watches the town square buildings pass. And beside the dog, a beautiful, familiar woman flips over a map.





CHAPTER 2





Michelle




When I left Seattle, I intended to disappear completely. Thankfully, Copper Run is in the middle of nowhere, Vermont.

It’s been two hours since I rumbled away from the airport in a musty taxi. The chain-smoking driver peers through the rearview mirror, as he has been doing every five minutes since picking us up. His eyes won’t leave Rocket. The taxi’s floorboard is littered with fast-food wrappers and sticky CDs, yet he’s concerned about the well-trained dog sitting sentinel in his back seat.

“You’re paying extra for the mutt,” he told me amid throwing my suitcases in the trunk.

I swear Rocket grumbled under his breath at the borderline slur, assuming dogs could have such emotions.

“I know,” I said, side-eyeing the driver’s peeling name tag behind his headrest, reading LOUIS.

I shoved a folded clip of cash at him that would overshoot the meter’s cost by a hundred bucks at least, including his trip back to the airport. He rubbed a thumb over the layers, then pocketed the stack without another word.

Two hours later, trees accented in burnt orange and maroon zip past the taxi window. In Seattle, buildings overshadow the already scarce trees. But out here, it’s all foliage and fences. Not a skyscraper in sight.

Rocket stares out the cracked window, a light breeze rustling his fur. He doesn’t stick his head out. That would be too undignified. Instead, he observes.

When our driver rumbles roughly over old train tracks, Rocket swivels his eyes to me, as if to say, You can’t be serious, Shelly.

He readjusts in his seat with a huff of breath. I don’t bother to pet him. He wouldn’t like it anyway. Hating touch is the one thing we have in common.

“This it?” Louis growls from the front seat.

I lean over the center console, watching the hills of autumn gold and red slowly part to reveal a white lattice sign.

WELCOME TO COPPER RUN!

“Yes.”

Past the sign is a covered red bridge—short and one-way—emptying into a town square.

“Jeez-us. It’s practically Happy Days out here,” Louis says, peering over the wheel through the windshield.

A quaint park, lined with shops, is covered in hay bales and pumpkins. Orange-and-white bunting hangs between lampposts. A white gazebo, smack-dab in the center of the park, is wrapped in orange string lights and a garland of autumn leaves. Two propped scarecrows sit on the bench inside.

Along the sidewalks are A-frame chalkboards listing daily specials. Hanging wooden signs from awnings point out shops, like a pharmacy, a video store, and a bakery. Most floor-to-ceiling glass storefronts are decorated with window murals of more scarecrows and pumpkins. Another lattice sign beside the park reads COPPER RUN, as if we might have forgotten already.