Page 10 of August Lane
August sat on the ground, lowered her face to her palms, and muttered, “I don’t know. Probably.”
Terrance cursed beneath his breath. August looked up and spotted a police car easing along the curb. The lights were off, but Shirley rushed out of the house and pointed in August’s direction.
“Goddammit, girl!” Terrance yelled. “Why’d you call Bill?”
Shirley covered her face and started sobbing again.
“Midnight brawl,” a familiar voice drawled. “Ain’t you too old for this, August?”
August took her time meeting Bill Parnell’s eyes. As always, his deputy sheriff’s uniform was wrinkled and two unfastened buttons away from respectability. His cattleman hat, however, was pristine, blinding white against his ebony skin. At some point, he’d probably told her a story about where it came from—some backwoods fairy tale that was completely unverifiable.
He extended his hand, beckoning her forward with a finger quirk. She had the urge to defend herself, remind all these people that she was just a thirty-one-year-old woman having a bad night. This was not a newchapter in that same old pitiful August Lane story they’d been telling themselves for years.
“I’m drunk,” she mumbled, then managed to stand on her own. But she stumbled, and he had to prop her up, anyway.
“Don’t say that too loud.” He guided her toward his cruiser. “Then I’ll have to take you to the station instead of dropping you off at Birdie’s.” His eyes widened as soon as he finished his sentence. “Her old house. I mean… Shit, I’m sorry.” He snatched the hat from his head and looked down as if they’d been transported to her grandmother’s graveside. Birdie had been gone long enough for people to say her name in hushed tones, but also recently enough that no one could believe she wasn’t still rattling around the house where she’d lived for decades.
“Don’t take me there.” August kept her eyes averted so he wouldn’t see how panicked she was at the thought of sleeping in her old bedroom. She hadn’t been back since the funeral. Birdie’s extended family had been in and out of the house—picking over her things, cleaning, crying. And all of them had a bone to pick with August, the person they’d entrusted to take care of her. August couldn’t deal with their questions. She couldn’t handle their bitter comfort, like they resented being forced to offer any. They hadn’t been brave enough to face Birdie’s mental decline and hated being around the person who had.
August slid into the back seat, slumped low, and closed her eyes. Bill slammed the car door closed, and the jolt made her stomach roll again. “Can we hurry up?” she grumbled.
“Yes, Your Majesty. But I need a destination first.”
She told him her address, an apartment complex on the opposite side of Arcadia. He gave her a disapproving look. “How long have you been staying over there?”
August stifled a groan. This was the worst part about this place. You couldn’t even get arrested without people sticking their noses in business that wasn’t real business. “A few months,” she said. “It’s not as bad as people say.”
He sucked his teeth and turned on the ignition. August looked out the window, but the motion made her nausea worse. She closed her eyes again and listened to the radio. She wished it were louder. Sometimesshe’d put on headphones and turn up the volume until her jaw ached from the vibrations.
“So, uh… Terrance has always been a little misguided when it comes to women. Should probably leave him alone until that divorce is final.”
“Done,” August said without opening her eyes. She fell silent, praying Bill would stop talking so she could focus on holding back her bile. But the next song ripped through her concentration like razor blades.
Bill shouted, “Oh ho!” and turned the volume up to a window-rattling level. “Arcadia’s finest. One of ours plays on the radio, you gotta sing it. That’s the rule. You know the words, right?” He didn’t wait for her answer and started belting a strained, keyless soprano that made the agony of listening to Luke Randall sing “Another Love Song” infinitely worse.
She used to think this would get better. Eventually, she’d hear that song and listen to it like Bill did, as a familiar piece of fluffy nothing that drifted in and out of her life on the whims of a DJ. But now she knew it would never feel that way. Each time would be a new haunting.
You know the words, right?Of course she did. They were hers. At seventeen, she’d written one of the biggest country hits in the world. Then she’d given it away.
“You know…” Bill shook his head. “I love this kid, but I always figured he was a gridiron dummy back in the day. Just goes to show, you never know some folks.”
Bill pulled into the apartment complex and turned to face her. “Heard he’s coming to town for your mama’s concert. How cool will that be? Two local legends at once.” He frowned, studying her face. “You okay, August?”
The music was louder now that they had parked. Luke whined “I just want to write a love song,” just as August shoved the door open, pitched forward, and vomited.
CHAPTER TWO
2009
Anyone who passed through the center of Arcadia might assume the town was dead or dying. The houses were old. The buildings were the color of prisons. After a hundred years of hemorrhaging citizens, the people still living there were dismissed as aberrations. Dead bodies twitched as the life drained out of them, didn’t they? Nothing to write home about or stop the car for.
Only those people were wrong. The old, ugly buildings had been built by Black hands for Black businesses back when all-Black towns were havens. That legacy made Arcadia immortal. While poverty kept some tied to the dwindling community, most stayed out of love, for each other and occasionally something else. For August Lane, it was the town’s biggest export, something you could hear, but unless you stopped the car to catch a show, would never see.
Arcadia was an incubator for Delta music—gospel, blues, and soul—all brushed with the South in a way that shouldered up to country but was rarely identified as such. Which was fine for the long timers, who preferred to be left alone. But for young people like August, convinced she’d built her seventeen-year-old passions from the ground up, choosing safety had started to feel dangerous, like the quickest way to disappear.
Arcadia had two major events: the Delta Music Festival, which was coming in a few months, and the county fair, which was happening now. August loved the fair. She loved the rides, the long lines, and the sickly sweet smell of funnel cakes layered over earth and sweat. She loved the sudden drops from big heights and spinning in spirals that rearranged her insides. She also loved the concerts, which, despite the flat, treeless land surrounding the stages, still felt intimate with their acousticinstruments and rowdy stomps. All that love made August reckless, convinced her that going out on a school night to see a blues band was worth the risk of running into people she was trying to avoid.
Being ignored was a privilege most people didn’t appreciate. August was the only child of Jojo Lane, the town’s most famous citizen, and lived under watchful eyes that had witnessed every mistake she’d made since birth. Since the event drew fairgoers from three neighboring cities, she’d assumed she wouldn’t be recognized. So far, she was right. Any waves or smiles had been the polite greetings of strangers.
