Page 23 of When We Were Younger

I can't decide if that statement makes me want to drink one more or less…

"Come on," she says, picking up my new Prada cashmere beanie and fixing it on to my head. "It’s time for a little skip down memory lane.”

Stephen was notwrong when he said the town would be going all out for this tree lighting. I shouldn't be surprised. Linda Parker has been the town mayor since I was in diapers, and she is nothing if not a fan of an over-the-top celebration for the most mundane things. She once wanted acrobats brought in to celebrate the burying of our elementary school time capsule. Seemingly fitting, since the theme was 'Flipping Over the Future', but the town budget only allowed for one performer.

It wouldn't have been so bad if said performer hadn't gotten his bookings mixed up and showed up ready to do a police-themed striptease for a bunch of bachelorettes and not a gymnastics routine for a room full of fifth graders.

It seems like the budget for fanfare has since been expanded, because the town square looks amazing. Snowflake shaped lights hang from every tree and lightpost, intertwined with tinsel and strings of popcorn and cranberries. They look so real that I have to assume that they are and also wonder how the hell Mayor Parker is managing to keep the town's notorious tricky raccoons away.

Food stands have signs boasting everything from caramel apples to kettle corn, hush puppies to cider donuts, fried pickles to the famous peppermint white hot chocolate. The high school choir is adorned in red, silver, green, and gold robes, standing in formation on bleachers and singing the classic “Carol of The Bells”. There's a machine blowing fake snow towards the children's play area, and even the weather seems to have gotten in on the merriment, having dipped to a frosty forty-five degree–numbers that Fox Hole, Tennessee usually only sees on early January mornings.

The tree is huge. Not giant like the hundred-foot monsters they put up at The Grove every year, but it's a decent size. Bigger than I remember the ones of my youth being. It's still dark, of course, the lighting ceremony hasn't yet begun, but it’s decorated with a myriad of ornaments. I can see the glitter of the large balls of red, green, and gold, as well as the silvers and blues of menorahs and dreidels. That is new, and it's nice to see the Fox Hole decorating squad including some more holiday diversity, if not a century too late. I know Keith had been complaining about a lack of Hanukkah-based celebrations in this town for most of my childhood, so it was about time.

Kira and I walk arm-in-arm through the crowd offamilies and townspeople and she points out some of the newer town additions I haven't yet noticed, like the gazebo that was moved six yards to the east after a heated town meeting regarding the town's septic system. I didn't ask for more information. I really don't need to know how the gazebos position has anything to do with what the people of Fox Hole flush down their toilets.

I try to listen as she tells me about the drama involving last year's Nativity reenactment, where the fourth-grade brat playing a Wise Man punched the Virgin Mary in the face. She’d accidentally stepped on the bottom of his costume, tugging it loose and exposing his Batman boxers to the crowd. I manage to do what I think is a pretty impressive impression of a person who’s listening intently while slyly scanning the square for a six-foot mountain man with a brunette bun and the world's sweetest dog at his side. You'd think he'd be hard to miss, given the sheer size of him, but I don't see him anywhere.

I think back to the text he sent me this morning. Seven thirty by the corn dog stand. It's seven thirty-five, and there is no one by the corn dog stand besides Dean and some girl I vaguely remember from high school. I feel my stomach start to somersault as worry slams into me.

Stephen is never late. Not even by five measly minutes.

And then on my next breath, I realize that I don't know if that's true. Teenage Stephen may have livedand died by the watch on his wrist, but adult Stephen? I'm not sure.

I try to think back to the other day at the coffee shop. Was he wearing a watch then? I can't seem to remember. I try to picture him, but when my mind's eye sweeps down to his arms, the traitorous thing focuses in on the thick vein running out from underneath the sleeve of his cuffed flannel, leading down to the hands that I used to know so well

"Are you even going to pretend to listen to me?" Kira interrupts my train of thought with a hip check, nearly knocking me off balance in the process. I just shrug a shoulder. There's no point in lying.

"I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it," I say, and she scoffs.

"Not even close, honey bear. You're looking in the wrong direction, by the way."

That gets my attention.

"What do you mean?" I ask, following her finger as she points towards a lemonade stand, where Stephen and Daisy May are standing with Mrs. Danfield, the oldest and pushiest of the Fox Hole Bitties. I see him cast a gaze towards the corn dog stand where we're supposed to be meeting, and then just to the left of where Kira and I stand. He gives me an ‘I'm so sorry,’ look that is so cute I have no choice but to laugh, or else I will swoon right here where I stand. There's no need for apologies, though. Every single person in this town knows that if Mrs. Danfield gets you in her conversational clutches, it's nearly impossible to escape.

"You'd better go save your casual meetup," Kira whispers in my ear as she pats my butt, nudging me in their direction. I turn to ask her to join me, but she's vanished into the crowd.

That bitch just left me here, on my own. So much for my aromantic safety net.

I start towards them, and when Daisy May spots me, her little dog ears perk up. She jumps up when I reach them, her paws landing softly on my thighs. I'm going to have little muddy puppy prints on my leggings all night, but I suppose I'll live.

"Mrs. Danfield," Stephen says an octave louder than is necessary, butting in to whatever story she was telling him. "You remember Dottie Lynn Hart, don't you?"

I prefer when he calls me Dorothea, but I know he went with Dottie for Mrs. Danfield’s benefit.

I smile and hold out my hand.

"Hi Mrs. Danfield, it's good to see you again."

Mrs. Danfield looks down at my outstretched hand, and then back up at me. Her nose wrinkles up as she regards me like I'm some sort of alien life force that also happens to smell like day-old sushi.

"Yes, I remember you. I'm surprised to see you here, Ms. Hart. I thought you and your hoity-toity mother were too good for this town," she sneers, tapping her cane on the ground next to her. She has a point, about my mother at least. I never thought I was "too good" for Fox Hole, I just wanted somewhere better than the lonely home I was living in.

Mom, on the other hand, hated this place with apassion. She thought the town, me, and the man who knocked her up were all beneath her, despite having grown up here herself. The woman felt stuck because of me. She had a house to raise me in, courtesy of my late grandfather's will, and that ain't nothing for a single mom to sneeze at. Keeping that house until I was old enough to leave was probably the smartest thing she ever did.

But still, she was stuck. I think that's part of why she drank so much. So that she could pretend that she was anywhere but here. Me, I wrote in journals, drew pictures, and created secret places in my mind that I could escape to when I needed to. Mom? She found her solace at the bottom of a bottle of gin.

Be that as it may, I am in no mood for Mrs. Danfield's shit. She might be my elder, but do unto others what you would have done to you and all that crap, right?

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