Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
After we hung up, I shook my head and then gave myself a quick once-over in the mirror. I’d made an actual effort this time, with a patchwork blue maxi skirt and a light cotton top with capped sleeves. Trying not to second guess myself, I stepped into a pair of comfortable slip-on flats, grabbed my phone and keys, and headed outside.
Chick was coming. The knowledge definitely put some pep in my step. It also gave me the confidence to consider cornering Wade. Not that he was the reason I’d dressed like this.
Lying to yourself again?
His garage was right across the street from the bar and he would need to show me how to sign into the programs and get started. So yes, I wouldn’t mind if he got the chance to see me wearing something other than the latest in hobo chic.
I hopped into Myrtle and made my way to Hudson’s Icehouse. It wasn’t far, but the white trucks with cranes and the orange cones dotting the road like tiny alien trees made the going slow. Workers were depositing a winter’s worth of cut-up logs on every curb for the county to eventually take away, and men and women in FEMA shirts were going door to door to see who might need help.
I passed one driveway with a large tree lying precariously on two crushed cars and I squeezed my steering wheel in sympathy. Things could have been so much worse for all of us.
Even with the traffic slowdown, it only took twenty minutes to get there, and I felt a pang of regret for not making more of an effort to stop by in the last few years.
It was right here. A small open-air beer bar where my godchild usually worked four days and two nights a week. I could have spent more time with her. She might not hold my tendency to isolate against me, but I was starting to. Depression was a perverse form of time travel; hours became weeks before you looked up to discover a year had passed.
I’d lost so much time.
At least she hadn’t had the baby yet. She was still expecting me to be there for the home birth of the daughter she’d been calling Sammy Hudson in honor of my mother. Or Sammy Lane, if the baby’s father could get his head out of his keister. When her doctor said she needed to watch her blood pressure if she wanted to have the baby at home, Phoebe had taken a leave of absence and started a regimen of relaxation, healthy eating, meditation and yoga for expecting mothers. I’d told her drugs in a hospital had been good enough for her mother, but she wanted to give birth in an inflatable pool, so what did I know?
When I pulled into Hudson’s, I slammed on the brakes right in the middle of the driveway. The icehouse was packed.
It wasn’t even noon yet, and the parking lot was filled with trucks. Work trucks. Police trucks. Making-a-statement-about-your-penis-size trucks. And those trucks must have been full of people, because they were everywhere. Sitting at all the tables out front. Drifting in and out of the bar through the two open overhead doors. Standing in the grass along the cinderblock side of the building, where a large grill was smoking away and a row of buffet tables overflowed with food.
“So much for hardly having to see anyone,” I said faintly.
The knots in my stomach sprouted knots of their own as I checked behind me and hit reverse, backing out onto the street to find a parking spot. Maybe I should say “screw it” and go home. It had been a while since I’d been around this many people.
It could be like riding a bike.
I wasn’t so great at that either.
“Breathe, August. You can do this. You’ll be in a closed office. It’ll be fine.”
I lucked into a parking spot on the next block and walked back to the icehouse, determined not to chicken out. It was so hot already that by the time I got there, I had sweat running down my temples and dampening the underarms of my shirt. But I was in good company as I wended my way through the crowd—most of the men and women, many of whom wore hard hats and reflective vests, looked (and smelled) like they’d been working under the Texas sun all day, trying to get our community back up and running. They’d earned those plates of potato salad, barbecue chicken and brisket the volunteers were handing out along with bottles of water.
This event had Wade written all over it.
During the pandemic, when nearly all the bars were closed, he’d kept his doors open during the day. Not for business, but to hand out donated necessities like sanitizer, masks, toilet paper, and even canned goods, to neighbors in need. It made sense that people would gravitate here now.