said, “Landon’s probably pretty upset he’s missing this.”
Em’s hand strayed to her hair with a bob of her head. “Oh, you know better ’n all of us what Landon Wells was like. He had to have his nose in everything, or it drove him positively crazy. I’m sure wherever he is, he hates missing out on the circus outside these doors. Did you see the gentleman who looks like he just left the set of that movie Coming to America? And bless his heart, all those grief-stricken comments from parts near and far on his Facebook page made me tear up.”
Dixie let slip a fond grin of recollection. “The turnout would have tickled Landon’s ‘come one, come all’ bone,” she agreed, referring to the mass of mourners she’d witnessed on their way inside.
Eclectic defined her best friend, or maybe, he’d defined it? Either way, it was what made Landon Landon. His joy in everything great and small—his wonder at the differences in people, cultures—his determination to experience anything he could get his hands on and celebrate it with gusto. His ability to collect people from all walks of life and turn them into lifelong friends.
Shortly after college, he’d invested his trust fund wisely in several startup internet companies and was a self-made multimillionaire by the time he was twenty-five. Those companies continued to provide steady incomes to this day. And along the way, he’d added new ones—via winning bets on everything from a game of pool with a castoff royal to a polo match with some foreign politician.
Because of his savvy business acumen, Landon was able to retire at twenty-six. Since that time, he’d been to exotic, sometimes isolated locales Dixie’d never heard of, had experienced the gamut of a world traveler, from a pilgrimage in an ashram in India to bobsledding with the Swiss Olympic team.
Landon had lived and loved openly and freely, sharing his wealth wherever he went.
Dixie gripped the edge of the couch, her heart overloaded with the empty beat of grief. She’d miss everything about him: his pushy late-night phone calls about her nonexistent love life, his questions about her financial security, his inquiries into her cholesterol levels, and anything and everything else Landon had pestered/mothered/nurtured her about in their lifelong friendship.
The small room had grown oppressive with her sorrow in the last vestiges of the late August day. She reached into her bag and used one of her many overdue credit card bills to fan herself. “Mercy, it’s hot in here.”
“Are your ears hot, too? Because I hear through the iPhone grapevine Louella Palmer’s in the back row of this very establishment, sittin’ next to Caine, and chewin’ his ear off as we speak. You know, the man you’re not in an emotional tailspin over?” Em showed her the text in yet another obvious bid to take her licks. It only made sense she’d think the subject of Louella Palmer would be the straw to break Dixie’s back.
Everyone in town probably thought the subject of Louella was a sore spot for Dixie. The real sore spot belonged to Louella, though, and she had every right to it.
Louella had once been her right-hand, helping her lead the Mags as if they were the mob—Southern contingency. They’d been frenemies of sorts then, and in the end just before Dixie left town, bitter rivals. Not only was Louella currently the head of the Magnolias, she was almost as good at mob relations as Dixie had been.
On the outside the Mags were refined and decorous, and they considered themselves the epitome of Southern grace and charm, but upon Dixie’s harsh inner reflections these past few years, they were all nothing more than elitist snobs with Southern accents—and she’d been the biggest one of all.
Of course Louella was sitting with Caine. It gave her plenty of time to remind him anew how Dixie was spawned from the loins of the devil.
Caine was already here, too. Dixie’s heart sped up as though someone had revved its engine, but her next words belied the storm brewing in her stomach. “You know what, Em? I hope Louella reminds him just how silly he was to ever get mixed up with the likes of Dixie Davis.”
Take that. She would not bite on the matter of Caine Donovan or Louella Palmer. The whole town had witnessed their messy breakup with Louella smack dab in the middle, and in a town as small as Plum Orchard, people were sure to speculate about their eventual meeting after all these years.
It was only natural—expected even. So why was she so jittery about it?
Because what you did was unforgiveable, Dixie. Then you ran away without so much as an apology.
Em’s expression was astonished, her eyes full of some good ol’ Southern shock. “I can’t believe you’re not biting, Dixie. How can you even be in the same room with him after everythin’ that happened between you?”
“Technically, we’re not in the same room. I’m in here, and he’s out there in the foyer.” Right out there. “And I no longer bite,” she teased, snapping her teeth in jest.
“For two people who were gonna get married and had the biggest breakup Plum Orchard’s ever seen, in the middle of the town’s square to boot, you sure are calm and collected.”
Her spine stiffened. Em just couldn’t seem to choose to love or hate her, and while Dixie recognized it as her due, the reminder of her and Caine’s breakup was still like a knife in the gut almost ten years later.
There’d been rain, and thunder, and shouting, and accusations, and even a small fire and finally, the death of their preordained relationship, left splattered all over the whitewashed wood-stained floor of the gazebo in the town square.
Dixie shivered. She would not revisit that horrific night today.
“I bet your mother’s still crying over all that money wasted on your fancy engagement party. Caine’s mama, too.”
Poke, poke, poke. Dixie knew for a fact her mother, Pearl, was still crying. She’d told her so from her sickbed in Palm Springs when she’d made Dixie promise to pass on her condolences to Landon’s mother. Though, her tears always had crocodile properties to them.
Pearl Davis didn’t cry genuine tears over human beings. She cried over investments lost, bank accounts in the red, and the merging of two prominent Plum Orchard families lost to her all because of Dixie.
And Caine’s mother, Jo-Lynne? She still didn’t speak to Pearl. Regret, sharp and just as vivid as if their breakup had happened only yesterday, left Dixie fighting an outward cringe.
Dixie, Landon and Caine’s mothers were all best friends once—the belles of Plum Orchard’s hierarchy aka the Senior Mags. So it was only natural their three children were virtually weaned from the same bottle. Just over two years older than Dixie, Landon and Caine had been her protectors since birth.
While their mothers had played canasta every Thursday, planned church events at Plum Orchard Baptist, and been a part of every social organization a small town finds imperative to good breeding and proper social connectivity, they’d also planned Dixie would one day marry one of the two boys.
Either one would do as far as Pearl, Jo-Lynne, or Landon’s mother, Charlotte, were concerned. They were all as good as family, the women used to say. That hadn’t quite worked out as planned after Landon confessed to their families he’d only marry Dixie if she had male parts. And Caine’s male parts didn’t interest him in the least.
Caine and Dixie had always known their mothers’ plans were fruitless where Landon was concerned, but as it turned out, the plan wasn’t
