“Thanks for coming all the way out here,” I said.
“Not a problem. I hope Shay texted you. She had a project to finish for art class.” Miles shooed my hand from my suitcase and lifted it into the trunk. “What’ve you got in here, Ted? Bricks?”
No one in my life now called me Ted. It sounded unfinished, yet smooth and familiar.
“Nope, just rocks.”
Miles smiled and just like that, memories broke through. Was he remembering, as I was, our long-ago friendly teasing during Scrabble matches and Pictionary marathons with Celia? We’d always joked that with Celia as his wife, and my best friend, we were practically related.
I touched his arm before I could stop myself. “Good to see you, Mi. This is weird for us, isn’t it? To be here, I mean?”
“A little bit, yes.”
“We okay?”
“As okay as we’re going to be, Ted.”
“I would have come back sooner if you’d asked me.” I wasn’t sure that was true. “Let’s not do this now. You being here is important to Shay, so it’s important to me.”
“I hope that’s true.”
“If it wasn’t true, I wouldn’t be here,” I said.
“I guess not.” Miles’s tone was soft, his words slow, leaving space for his thoughts. And mine. “You look good.”
“Oh, God, Mi—I’m a mess. But thanks.” I knew how my hair smashed to my head after a long airplane sleep. I had a natural tan that sometimes hid the fact that I was thirty-nine, but not after two flights. My skin tone was the reason most people thought I was Italian or even Greek, not descended from the Russian Jews who had journeyed west—which meant past Cleveland—from New York’s Lower East Side in the 1890s.
“I have to admit, once we got used to the idea, it was exciting to think you’d be our wedding photographer. I just want you to know that, under the circumstances, we really appreciate everything you’re doing for us.”
Our. We. Us.
Miles and …
My breath caught.
Not Celia.
Violet Frank.
His fiancée.
And I was going to photograph the wedding. That’s what Shay had wanted. That’s why I was here.
“Ready?” Miles asked.
No, I wasn’t ready at all, but within moments I was headed toward the place that had haunted me for the past six years, the town I grew up in, and ran from, on the day of Celia’s funeral.
Chance, Ohio, was no place for wimps.
I was on my way, regardless.
*
A straight stretch of rural highway connected the Robertson Regional Airport to the road leading to my hometown, tucked in the northeast corner of Union County. Or it had been a rural highway. The last time I was here the “highway” had been two lanes flanked by cornfields. Now the road was the blackest black with bright yellow lines. Newly paved and painted, it was four lanes wide. Two lanes out of town I understood, but two lanes in? I stared out the window at the cornfields. I loved the way the light played off the stalks at different heights, how the clouds cast a shadow that seemed to go on for miles. But I knew that as soon as I saw the fields, the exit would be near. Hey! Where were my cornfields?
“There’s an outlet mall?” I hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
“I’m sure Shay will talk you into going. It’s her favorite place. She says it has everything.”
“There’s enough space in the parking lot for—”
“For a hotel. And a water park. I know. It’s exciting, isn’t it?”
“Someone is building a hotel and a water park?”
“Not yet.”
“Who would go there?”
“Everyone,” Miles said. “There’s a new road off Route 33 now, so it’s easy access. Small-town feel, big-town amenities. The mall has done a lot of good things for the area, Ted. And it’s only the beginning.”
“What are you doing? Running for mayor?” I was kidding.
Miles was not.
“No,” he said with a smile. “The county board of commissioners. Just decided yesterday!”
I could have sworn a light sparked off his front tooth.
I tried to imagine Celia as a politician’s wife, all buttoned-up business suit, pearls, and coiffed hairdo. Nope, couldn’t picture it. Celia was an artist, a teacher, an expert tailor. Politics, even small-town politics, would have eaten her up and spit her out. The expectations, the gossip, the mandatory mingling. Or maybe Celia would have changed its landscape with her caring conversations and handmade clothes. I shivered. It didn’t matter what kind of political wife Celia would have been or what she could have done. Violet would be the one on the campaign trail.
“So, how’s your life?”
“It’s good. Lots of traveling, lots of interesting people.”
Miles drummed the steering wheel.
“What’s it really like working for Simon Hester?”
People always wanted to know about Simon “The Hotel Man” Hester. He had landed on at least one big most-eligible-bachelor or best-dressed list per year since he was twenty-five, almost twenty-five years ago. That kept some women interested in him. At first, that had kept me from being interested.
“I like working for Simon.”
“I saw that write-up in San Francisco Magazine.”
“You get San Francisco Magazine?”
“There’s this thing called the Internet now. And yes, we have a real copy too. You’re a celebrity.”
“Hardly. I take pictures of some celebrities and some fancy places. The Hester hotels have an A-list clientele. That’s thanks to Simon, not me.”
“That article had more than a few paragraphs about you.”
It was all part of Simon’s branding. He bragged about—promoted, he had said—all the weddings and corporate events we handled, and how I shot the most important ones. Since A-listers always want to be considered most important, they started requesting me as their photographer.
“The article was about modern hoteliers.” I shouldn’t have used that word—it made me sound like an industry insider. Which I was. I just didn’t want to sound like one around Miles. Not yet, anyway. “I wasn’t the only one mentioned in the article. Or in the photo. You remember me because you know me. Just like the other people in the photo. Everyone who knows them thinks they’re famous too. Believe me, none of us are.”
“Well, you were the only one from ‘a small town in Ohio.’ It would have helped our image if they had mentioned Chance by name.”
Chance had an image?
“So, no problem getting away, with your schedule and all? That article made Hester sound like kind of a hard-ass. But I guess you’d have to be…”
“Simon’s a very nice man. I’ve told you that before.” There was a time I’d have talked to Miles about Simon for real, but that time had passed. “No, it wasn’t a problem at all. Nothing for Shay would ever be a problem.”