Dixie started to regret her terse words with Emmaline. She couldn’t afford to alienate the one and only, albeit totally reluctant, ally she had left in her small hometown of Plum Orchard, Georgia.
Maybe what was making her so snappish was exhaustion after the long drive from Chicago. Or the anxiety of returning to said small hometown where everyone knew her name and mostly wanted to throw darts at her picture.
Maybe it was the precariousness of her life in financial semiruin that made her voice what she’d been thinking for almost two hours as mourner after mourner repeated Em’s words while she’d waited for her private viewing of Landon’s body.
Or maybe it was the likelihood that a good portion of the female population of Plum Orchard High, class of 1996, were just outside this very funeral home with metaphoric stakes soaked in the town’s specialty, homemade plum wine, just waiting for Reverend Watson to perform her public exorcism. Then they could seal the deal by driving their angry pieces of wood right through her despicable heart.
It would be nothing less than she deserved.
She’d been a horrible person in high school and beyond, and here in Plum Orchard where time seemed to stand still, no one forgot.
You were horrible long after high school, too, Dixie. To Caine...
Point. Most of her anxiety had to do with the fact that she had no choice but to see Caine Donovan again.
Bingo, Dixie. The thought of seeing him left her feeling fragile and raw.
To this damn day his memory still leaves you breathless.
Acknowledged. Dark, star-filled nights under a scratchy army blanket in the bed of Caine’s pickup truck, the scent of magnolias clinging to their sticky skin. It was just one of many of the images—both good and bad—she’d warred with since her return to Plum Orchard became a reality.
She scrunched her eyes shut before reopening them.
“Sorry,” Em said, dragging her from her internal war. Her blue eyes held sympathy beneath her wide-brimmed hat. “I’m glad they gave you some time alone with Landon before the latecomers swarm in to pay their last respects. I can’t even imagine how much this hurts.” Em squeezed her shoulder with reassuring fingers.
Dixie let out a shaky sigh, hooking her arm through Em’s. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m tired and on edge, and you’ve been so kind to me through this whole process when I totally don’t deserve—”
“No, you surely do not, Dixie Davis!” Em’s voice rose, then just as quickly reduced to just above a whisper. She peered over her shoulder as though unseen eyes might bear witness to her bad manners. God forbid. “You were a mean girl back in the day. My high school years were torture because of you. And might I remind you, people don’t forget, especially here in little ol’ Plum Orchard. Why, you’re lucky I even picked up the phone during Landon’s last days, knowing it was you I had to talk to on the other end of the line,” she finished on an offended harrumph.
But Dixie knew better than to take Em’s outburst personally. Em was as kind as she was generous, and nothing, not even a faded-around-the-edges grudge, would keep her good heart from beating selflessly.
For all her leftover high school anger with Dixie, Em had called her religiously with updates on Landon’s last days, because he’d asked her to. Em always did what was right. That was just who she was.
Still, Dixie gave her a sheepish glance, and bumped her shoulder playfully to ease the lines of Em’s frown. “This is about the cheerleading squad, isn’t it?”
Em’s arm stiffened. She lifted her chin. “You told me my legs looked like sausages in that stupid cheerleading skirt, so I couldn’t be on the squad. But my split jumps were better ’n Annabelle Pruitt’s, and you knew it.”
True. Every last word of it. She’d been cruel, twenty or so years ago. Yet, comments like that, among the many she’d hurled at Em, obviously crept into a person’s soul and hung around. From the moment she’d seen Em after being gone so long, Dixie had known she’d be met with extreme caution. Maybe some angry outbursts and plenty of tests to see if she really had changed.
So Dixie’s next admission was without hesitation. “I did.”
Dixie let her hand slide down along Emmaline’s arm to thread her fingers through hers, giving them a light squeeze. “I’m not that person anymore, Emmaline. I’m really not. You were right then and now. Your split jumps were at least a hundred feet higher than Annabelle’s. I lied back then out of jealousy. Your legs are long and gorgeous.” They were. Em was undeniably beautiful.
Em ran a self-conscious hand over her bare leg and said, “Don’t you try and flatter me after all this time. Not after I spent four months’ worth of babysitting money on the ThighMaster because of you.”
Dixie winced. “Then, if nothing else, you know, for every mean thing I did to you back then, I hope you’ll remember, the Lord says to forgive is divine.”
“The Lord didn’t go to high school with you.”
“Fair.” Dixie let her chin drop to her chest, noting under the lights of the funeral home, the long curls of her red dye job were fading dismally.
Em’s nostrils flared at the pin Dixie’d effectively poked in her bubble of anger before her rigid posture deflated, and she let out a half chuckle. “Don’t you be nice to me, Dixie Davis. I’m not one hundred percent buyin’ this ‘I’ve changed’ act. You’ve done that bit once before, and we all fell for it ten years ago, remember? Not so fast this time. So just keep your compliments to yourself.” It was obvious Em was trying to keep her resentments in check out of respect for Landon, for which today, Dixie was grateful.
If not for Em, she wouldn’t have been able to speak to Landon the one last time he was still coherent—nor would she have known about a single funeral arrangement. So Dixie nodded in understanding. “No rights allowed.”
The tension around Em’s crimson-colored lips eased some, her expression growing playful. She fingered one of the lilies in a fluted vase on the table near the couch. “And as a by the by, Lesta-Sue and the Mags said they’ll never allow you access to the Plum Orchard Founders Day parade committee, if you were hopin’ to worm back into everyone’s good graces, that is.”
It was a “take that” comment meant to hurt her—to remind Dixie, when she’d been head Magnolia, the town’s decades-old society of women, and a rite of rich Southern girl passage, she’d once used her popularity and status to shun others via the town’s elitist club. Especially Em.
If Lesta-Sue was here already, that meant the rest of the Mags would be here, too. Terrific. Surely, Louella Palmer, Dixie’s head Magnolia predecessor, wasn’t far behind.
Louella hated her, too. In fact, there was a special kind of hate reserved by Louella just for Dixie. Because she’d broken the girlfriend code ten years ago.
Really broken it.
But Dixie nodded again, and this time, if there was such an act, she did it with even less hesitation than the time before. “Lesta-Sue shouldn’t allow me access to a public gas station bathroom after what I did to her. Stealing her high school beau of three long years by offering to let him get to second base with me was a horrible thing to do. So it’s a good thing I’ll
