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.
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.