“He’s going to lose his shit.”
I flinch.
Right.
Mr. Rule Follower for Soccer has been using Uncle Tony’s ranch for wayward kids while I didn’t have the insurance to cover accidents. “I need to take a closer look, but from the outside, it doesn’t appear structurally sound, and I don’t need the liability if it collapses while someone’s in it.”
“Reasonable,” Opal says.
“I’m not saying I won’t rebuild a barn, but I’ve started a priority list for the ranch, and—”
“And safety comes first,” Charlotte finishes.
“Yes.”
She gives me a look that says she suspects there’s way more to my story.
But it’s not the same suspicion that Flint aimed my way yesterday.
This feels like genuine curiosity coming from someone who appreciated my uncle enough to give me a chance.
“When’s the last time you were here?” she asks. And I don’t think it’s judgment. I think it’s curiosity.
I glance at Junie and do quick math. “Maybe eighteen years ago. I didn’t come back after I left for college.”
“So you and Flint wouldn’t have been here at the same time,” she muses.
Hello, story that I don’t think I want to hear. “I have very little recollection of anyone here from back then other than Uncle Tony.”
“Suppose you should know that Flint’s used the ranch for years to help struggling teenagers who needed an outlet.”
I sigh.
I get it. I do.
I’m the outsider with land that was used for good before I was here, and now things are changing, and that’s hard. “I’m not saying that’s out of the question,” I say slowly. “But I need to get liability insurance first, and that’s going to involve the ranch being inspected, and that’s going to take time.”
Opal sucks one of her cheeks in. And I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad sign. Is she amused?
Or does she think I’m some big-city person who loves lawsuits?
“I know things are different in small towns,” I say quietly. “Believe me, I’ve been in a lot of them the past six or seven years. But this is the home I need for Junie right now, and I cannot do anything to risk her stability.”
“We’d all do anything for our children,” Opal replies, equally quietly.
“You have kids?”
“Just Flint. He moved in with me right before his junior year of high school.”
Junie peeks over the magazine.
I open my mouth to ask what happened, but Opal cuts me off.
“Are we fixing this mess or not?” she asks me.
“My hair, or the mess your nephew thinks I’m making of the ranch?” I ask dryly.
She ruffles my hair. “Keep talking. I’m gonna start cutting.”
“I didn’t actually mean I agree with this plan to cut so—”
“Get the pixie cut, Mom,” Junie says. “You’ll be so adorable I’ll have to screen all of your gentlemen callers, which will be so gross that I’ll be glad to go to school. And then if Mr. Jackson gets too annoying living there at the gatehouse and not letting me on the soccer team, we can move in with one of your sugar daddies. That’s way preferable to let you have a sugar daddy who’ll hire me a driver. Win win win win win, right?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Okay. Okay. Pixie cut it is.”
“And no more swings,” Junie says.
“Or hanging out around men with pocketknives.”
“Unless they’re handsome,” Opal says.
I peek out of one eye. “Not funny.”
“You don’t want to date?” she asks.
“Moving here is about reconnecting with Junie—”
“Because there’s literally nothing else to do, so she’s making me spend time with her,” Junie interjects.
“Clearly,” I agree dryly. “Almost being eaten by a bear and burying a cow and almost setting the oven on fire making breakfast this morning, since I didn’t know it was broken, and going shopping for cowboy boots and out to dinner yesterday and making new adult friends and then cutting me loose from a swing yesterday was so boring.”
She rolls her eyes.
I roll mine back even bigger just to prove that I can.
Opal visibly stifles a laugh.
“And moving here is about finding myself again, and I don’t mean finding myself with a new man.”
“Girl power,” Charlotte says. “Welcome to the awesome divorcée club of Hell’s Bells. We meet a couple of times a week for book club. And by book club, I mean wine and whine club.”
“I am so in.”
She lifts an imaginary glass. I clink with my own imaginary glass, and look at that.
I think I have a new friend.
Opal grabs my head and turns me back to stare at myself while she snips a gigantic chunk of my hair off.
It takes a herculean effort not to whimper, but I manage it. Moving here is about embracing change. I can do that with my hair too.
“So your daughter plays soccer,” she says softly while she snips more of my hair.
“Lives for it.”
“And she missed tryouts.”
“There was an issue with my—with some family stuff and then another issue with the movers and—yes. Yes, I was late, and I failed to call the school early and ask the questions I should’ve asked, and—”
“Late cherry crop this year,” she muses. “Did you know cherry crisp is one of the very best things about Wyoming?”
“I didn’t. What else—”
“Very best thing,” she interrupts. Strongly. With emphasis.
Someone behind us snorts softly.
Someone else coughs.
Charlotte makes a strangled noise.
And I realize exactly what’s going on.
Opal’s telling me how to push Flint’s buttons to get Junie on the soccer team.
Either that, or she’s completely sabotaging me.
“Are you seriously telling me bribes work around here?” I whisper.
“Bribes? You’re not the type of woman to bribe. You’re the type of woman who’d go above and beyond the call of duty to get to know your child’s teachers, since you’re doing this solo for the first time in your life and you know how important it is to be involved.”
She is.
She is totally telling me how to bribe Flint to get Junie on the team.
Well then.
Not like I have a lot to lose on that front at least.
I beam at Opal. “Meeting you is making me so glad I had a hair mishap.”
She smiles back at me. “Let’s hope you still feel that way after your haircut and cherry crisp.”
Chapter 7
Flint
My first day back in the school building to prep for a new year after having the summer off is always one of my favorite days.
The hallways are empty except for my fellow teachers and the small administrative staff. Everything smells like fresh paint. No one’s smoked anything in the bathrooms yet, and there’s an air of possibility permeating my classroom.
My new posters are hung. My ask a question prize jar is full. I’m lounging in my chair, feet up on my desk, scrolling through my rosters on my laptop, when someone walks past my door.