“Okay, maybe not. That’s reasonable,” Kasey said, laughing. They’d never be able to stick to that, though, because strawberries were their favorite.
Her mom piled her dark-chocolate hair on top of her head, stuck it there with a pencil. Kasey and her mom had the same brown curls, the same brown eyes, the same gentle press in their chins. Angie liked to tell her that it meant they’d been touched by an angel before they were born.
“Hmm…what’s your middle name again?” Angie asked, smirking and eyeing the form.
“Angelina,” Kasey lied. Angelina was her mom’s full name, but no one called her that. Her middle name was Josephine, like Kasey’s.
“Josephine,” her mom said slowly as she wrote it down. “When were you born? Ah, I remember and so does my vagina, since it’s never been the same since, poor thing.”
“Mama, can we leave your vagina out of this?”
“Hmm, we’ll see. I haven’t finished filling out the form yet. You basically have to sign over your life, so there could very well be a question about my vagina somewhere on here. Yours too, Miss Valedictorian.”
“Mama!”
Kasey’s phone rang next to her elbow.
“Speaking of your vagina, it’s Silas Castelow calling right on time!” her mom said, sticking out her tongue.
“Gross! I’m calling Child Protective Services as soon as I’m off this phone,” Kasey said, sticking her tongue out too. She stood up to go talk in her bedroom for a second.
“Gail’s in town for the night and on her way here, so you and Silas can hang out guilt-free. Your poor mommy won’t be so lonely!”
Gail was her mom’s best friend, who lived down in Jacksonville. She was on her way through town to visit her parents like she did several times a year. When those days lined up with Roy’s absences, Gail spent the night. When they didn’t, Gail stayed at the Castelow B and B and met Angie for coffee and lunch at the grocery store. Kasey loved Gail, and Gail had been married to a kind man for years and years. Kasey wished her mom had met a kind man after her dad died. Even with the dark Roy-cloud lifted for the past few nights, Kasey could feel the impending menace of his return the same way animals could sense an earthquake days before it happened.
Roy had been behaving himself lately and ignoring Kasey for the most part. She’d been sleeping at home more. He hadn’t been yelling at her mom as much. Kasey had learned not to be too optimistic about anything, but the news of the internship, which started at the beginning of July, was the flickering light she could see so clearly at the end of the this-part-of-her-life tunnel. It was almost June. Her mom kept telling her that she thought Roy would start acting a whole lot better once Kasey was gone, so not to worry about it. Her mom told Kasey that her and Roy’s personalities never mixed and it wasn’t either of their faults. She said Roy was a junkyard dog and Kasey was a kitten, and that was all there was to it. When Kasey had asked her mom what animal she was, Angie—without missing a beat—said she was a unicorn.
On the phone, Silas told Kasey his parents were gone for the night if she wanted to come over. She could even sleep there if she wanted.
“Will your mom let you? Ada’s already here with Grayson and she said she invited Rosemarie and Leo. Caro’s coming when she gets off work. Prom night part two?” he said. Prom night had been perfect; prom night part two sounded like a dream.
“She’ll let me. Pick me up in twenty minutes? Come all the way up the driveway,” Kasey said, pulling her backpack off the door handle.
“All right, Dandelion.”
Kasey could tell how big he was grinning when he said it.
*
On prom night, Kasey and Silas had slept in bed together for the first time. Technically it was post-prom morning, since they’d stayed up so late and only gone to bed as the sun was coming up. They’d gotten kind of drunk on Goldie Light, skinny-dipped twice, listened to the same Nelly song one hundred times. She and Caro kissed twice during their game of spin the bottle, matching Rosemarie’s kisses with Sparrow. Sparrow and Frankie disappeared after that, and Rosemarie snuck off downstairs with Leo. Ada and Grayson also disappeared to his bedroom. Caro camped on the couch with some of their other girlfriends but wound up sleeping with her head in Mateo’s lap, which was mildly scandalous in a fun way, since they were exes. Caro also drunk-dialed Beau, leaving him an I just called to say hi and that I like pie voicemail at four in the morning.
Kasey had been about 90 percent sure she wanted to lose her virginity to Silas on prom night. Ada’s virginity was lost over Christmas break to Grayson, and Rosemarie and Leo had totally done it for the first time—both of their first times—downstairs at the lake house on prom night. Caro lost hers to Mateo at the beginning of the year, so Kasey was the last holdout, but when she got in Silas’s bed the morning after prom, she was drunker than she wanted to be. So was he. They were under his sheets, fumbling and sweating; she was naked and breathless underneath him.
“I’m leaving soon, and I promise we’ll do this before I go…but not now. Not when we both smell like Goldie Light. God, I’d never forgive myself,” Kasey said, shoving her head out of his covers.
“Okay,” Silas said, breathing hard. “You’re right. Are you okay? Am I being too—”
“No! I’m the one—”
“No! I’m happy. I’m so happy right now,” he said, kissing her mouth, her ear, her neck. Kasey leaned over to retrieve her tank top and slip it back over her head. Silas was in his boxers. He was holding her face, and they laughed when they both got stuck in her shirt.
“Soon. I promise,” she said, kissing him back.
“I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want you to leave Goldie,” he said so earnestly Kasey thought she’d burst into tears.
“We’ll be us, no matter where we go. I’ll come back. A lot. You know I’m a mama’s girl so I won’t be able to stay gone too long without coming home anyway. It’s the future and we have phones and email. Plus, I’ll be here,” she said, touching his bare chest. His heart.
“You’ll be here,” he said, putting his hand on hers.
“And here,” she said, putting her hand between his legs.
He snatched her under the covers with him, tickled her until she begged for mercy.
2019
11
Caroline
Trey was in a mood at Taylor and Ben’s wedding reception. After dancing to two more songs with her grandma, Caroline found him sitting with a few guys she barely knew at a table inside the tent.
“I saw you out there. Didn’t want you to hurt yourself,” Trey said to her when she sat next to him. She took his glass of icy water from him, sipped it. “Were you dancing with Nick too?”
Caroline tried to think of who her husband could be talking about. Nick? She didn’t know a Nick.
“I was dancing with my grandma,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Who’s Nick?”
“Some guy who’s friends with Ben. He worked at the distillery for a minute. Seems like your type. He’s tall and his family has a lot of money,” he said. “He’d definitely try to get under your dress if you weren’t married to me.”