Page 3 of August Lane

Luke’s excitement faded. He hadn’t thought about his marriage to Charlotte Turner before accepting the offer because those rumors were true: They had been separated for years.

The lack of an official divorce was their attempt to avoid an even bigger scandal than her covering Jojo’s song.

Charlotte had cheated on him with the woman she was currently engaged to.

If her conservative fan base found out that not only had she been unfaithful but she was also secretly queer, it might ruin Charlotte’s career.

Luke briefly wondered if this man knew that his entire life was one lie toppling over the next. But David had made it clear he wasn’t a fan. If he knew the truth, he wouldn’t be there. “All that stuff about Charlotte and me is old news.”

“Agreed. But I just want to make sure that’s all there is. You’ve been off the radar for a long time. Any other skeletons I should know about before we put your name in micro font beneath the headliner?”

Luke’s thoughts turned to “Another Love Song,” but like always, he wrestled them back down a different road that wasn’t littered with potholes. “No,” he said. “What you see is what you get.”

“Well, that’s probably true.” He gave Luke a long look. “You really haven’t been home in thirteen years?”

Luke was thrown by the sudden change in topic. “No. Why?”

David shrugged. “Just seems odd. I imagine it’ll be strange going back next month.”

“Going back?”

“The concert’s in Arcadia. During that music festival that they hold every year.” He pulled out his business card and scribbled something on the back. “Think you can sing that song one more time?”

Luke nodded, even though his heart was trying to strangle the life out of him. “Does um…” He cleared his throat. “Does August Lane still live there?”

August didn’t realize how drunk she was until she laughed when Shirley Dixon called her a backstabbing cunt.

She’d convinced herself that the faint buzz in her ears was nerves.

Or, more accurately, guilt. Ringing the doorbell of your married ex-lover at one in the morning was bound to be hazardous to your health.

Staring into the angry abyss of Shirley’s blue eyes confirmed it.

That kind of venom left a mark on everything in its path.

August tried to explain that, despite appearances, she wasn’t there to cause a scene. But what came out was a slurred “This isn’t what you think,” coupled with a desperate “I don’t want trouble.”

The irony of her sad little protests made her want to laugh again.

The windows of the shotgun houses lining the gravel road were lit up like spotlights for the show on Shirley’s porch.

The neighbors were watching. Charlie Leppo peered through the curtains.

Alice Magee took out a drooping trash bag that could have waited another day.

“First you steal my husband,” Shirley said, her high-pitched voice sharpening the words into needles.

“Now you embarrass me in public?” Her eyes shifted sideways to the small crowd of Black faces watching the drama unfold.

She was one of two white people currently living in the Eastside neighborhood, and both of them had married in.

Shirley’s parents owned the local newspaper and drove the only Tesla August had seen up close.

They’d disowned their daughter when she got engaged to a Black UPS driver but had paid for her wedding anyway, because that’s what people with money did: freeze you out politely.

That had to be something. Going from country club receptions to this.

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” August said, which was true.

Head spinning aside, she remembered Terrance saying that his soon-to-be ex-wife usually worked the late shift at Kroger, which seemed like the perfect time to talk to him alone.

Only August hadn’t factored in her detour to the county line liquor store.

Or that her inebriated brain would decide that inching down a country road at five miles an hour was the best way to avoid slamming her Nissan into a tree.

“I need to drop this off.” August shoved her hand inside her pocket and fingered the velour jewelry box she’d stashed there. It sobered her slightly and reminded her of the reason she’d come. Some things were more important than her pride or Shirley’s feelings.

“Why are you like this?” Shirley looked her over like a bruised apple marring an otherwise perfect produce section. “Greedy. Like everyone owes you something ’cause of your mama.”

August didn’t want to talk about Jojo. But Shirley probably knew that.

They’d gone to high school together. While August wouldn’t call her a bully, Shirley used to laugh loud and long whenever someone insulted August with comparisons to her mother.

But August never held that against her. Shirley was just trying to survive the ruthless hierarchies of Arcadia High.

August had done the same, even though it hadn’t done her much good.

Despite spending most of the last decade single and caring for her sick grandmother, the fast reputation she’d earned as a teenager was etched in stone.

“I’m sorry,” August said, because she knew it was all anyone wanted to hear from her. Sorry I broke that thing you loved. Your marriage. Your heart. Sorry that I’m broken, too. “I don’t know what Terrance told you, but I didn’t know you two were—”

Shirley’s hand whipped out so fast August barely saw the motion. The slap was force and a loud pop followed by a numb burn along the left side of her face. August staggered back as the air filled with shocked hisses and chatter from the people around them.

She would’ve rather been punched. A punch was the beginning and end of a fight.

It said I respect you enough to win this now because I don’t know what will happen if you punch me back.

Slaps were reminders not to step out of line.

To know your place. The surprise had curved August into a slight crouch, and Shirley sneered down at her in triumph.

That look did it—the sneer. It reminded August of who she was, but more importantly, who she wasn’t and would never be again: weak.

Anyone’s victim. The low voices around them had taken on an indignant tone because, while Shirley lived there, she wasn’t Eastside.

August had been born in this neighborhood, and in a town of four thousand people, street addresses weren’t something you ever shook off.

August lunged and grabbed Shirley’s hair, weaving it between her fingers, and pulled so hard the woman nearly fell on top of her. She kicked out and hit Shirley’s shin before a strong arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back.

“Enough! That’s enough!”

For a moment, August tried to fight both people at once.

She still had a handful of hair, and she knew the man who had lifted her like she weighed nothing had always been terrified that he’d accidentally hurt her with his bulk.

Terrance was twice her size and thick all over, and even now, with August’s hand clawing at his wife’s scalp, his grip was slack and careful, like she was made of glass instead of bone.

“August, please,” he said, mouth to her ear. “Let her go.”

The surrounding voices had become shouts and whistles. She finally let go of Shirley’s hair.

Charlie Leppo yelled, “Get your house in order, Terry!”

Alice Magee laughed so hard she doubled over.

Shirley was hysterical, screaming that August was a “crazy bitch who was going to regret this.” Terrance stepped between them and blocked Shirley’s view with his Superman shoulders.

August watched him convince his wife to go back inside the house and let him handle things. He had a voice like Teddy Pendergrass. It was hypnotic. She’d told him that once when they were listening to music after dinner. It had been a nice, normal date, which she now knew neither of them deserved.

The first time August had slept with Terry was the day of her grandmother’s funeral.

Although she’d managed to face the burial dry-eyed and upright, she had to skip the repast with its tear-soaked casseroles.

Instead, she’d driven to McDonald’s and ordered half the menu because she didn’t want to eat anything without knowing exactly what it would taste like.

Terry had found her an hour later, sitting in a park, staring at a mountain of cold sandwiches and fries.

He didn’t mention the funeral. He sat across from her, claimed he was starving, and asked if she’d like to share.

August laughed. And the fact that he could do that, make her laugh on that day of all days, made her trust everything else he said.

Her willful ignorance had been a relapse, the resurgence of an old addiction to unsolicited kindness she should have outgrown years ago. It always felt like love. Not the real kind, but close enough.

Terry told her repeatedly that she could cry on his shoulder if she wanted to.

She didn’t. She would never. But she did ignore the knot in her stomach that told her his frenzied touch couldn’t be trusted.

Now, as they faced each other on a bald strip of grass between his house and its bright yellow twin, he was giving her that same look—soft and hopeful, like this was going to end any way but badly.

“You left something at my house,” she grumbled, so he’d know this wasn’t some big romantic moment. Terrance made everything into a sappy movie, as if bumping into each other at the park had been fate instead of a side effect of living in a small town.

She pulled out the jewelry box. His face crumbled when he saw it, and the rawness of it made her head spin faster. Her stomach whirled, too. She was a home-wrecking tornado. “You never should have given this to me.”

“Mom would have wanted you to have it.” He opened the box and pulled out a rose-shaped ruby pendant. “She said give it to a girl you love, and that’s you.”