“Oh, look, there's the bimbo bride-to-be now,” Pru said, nodding her chin way up the platform.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Lizzie Morrow and her friends Gayle and Felicia come through the station's double doors onto the platform. They stood close to the wall and seemed to be in animated conversation. For a second he imagined they were waiting for Holly Morrow. The four had been best friends their entire lives until Holly had moved away after high school, and whenever he saw the three women, he always felt Holly's absence the strongest, as though something were definitely wrong with this picture.
Holly would have a good laugh over that. What was wrong with this picture, according to Holly, was anyone living in Troutville a second longer than they had to.
He shook thoughts of Holly from his mind. The last place he'd ever see her was in Troutville.
“I can't believe Lizzie's walking around in public in that outfit!” Arianna exclaimed, loudly, of course. “And look at those tacky friends of hers. They make me so sick.”
“I happen to like Lizzie's friends, too,” Jake snapped. “So I'd appreciate it if you kept your comments about them to yourselves.”
Arianna smiled. “Jake, you don't need to be so charitable. Just because you're friends with Dylan doesn't mean you have to like his so-called fiancée's friends.”
“Ughâdon't even call her his fiancée,” Pru said. “That's way too official. I doubt they'll ever make it to the altar.”
Jake eyed Pru and mentally filed away that last comment. “There's my client now, so good-bye, ladies.” As he stepped away, he heard Arianna say to Pru, “He
so
wants you.”
Of all the false statements that came rushing out of Pru and Arianna's mouths, that one could easily take first place as the least true.
Â
As the train slowed to a stop at the Troutville station, Holly spotted her cousin immediately, despite how crowded the platform was. Lizzie's long platinum curls, fuchsia top and ruffly skirt stood out against the gray, soggy August morning. Holly's heart leapt at the sight of Lizzie, who as usual was in the middle of an animated conversation, talking with her hands and throwing her head back in laughter.
Oh, how good it was to see Lizzie! Holly saw Lizzie so infrequently, which was Holly's own fault. Several times a year, Lizzie would take the two-hour train ride to Hoboken, where Holly lived, and sometimes, Lizzie's mom and Gayle and Flea would come, too. And every time the train took them all away, back where Holly couldn't bear to go, couldn't even bear to think about, her heart would close up just a little bit more.
When the train doors opened, Holly saw Lizzie stop in mid-sentence and jump up and down, trying to see over heads through the windows. Holly laughed. Standing next to Lizzie was the old gang, Gayle Green and Flea Harvey, whose real name was Felicia. The four of them had been best friends through grade school and middle school and high school, and whenever Holly talked to Lizzie, Lizzie's conversation was peppered with who Gayle was dating and what exquisite dress Flea had made, and for just a moment, Holly was almost nostalgic for the old days, the friendship, the insular world they'd created in the face of exclusion and derision.
The four girls had spent their after-school hours in an abandoned playground near the railroad tracks that separated their Troutville from the Dunhills' Troutville. There, they dreamed for the present, for the future. They talked about boys they liked, clothes they wanted, teachers they liked, what they wanted to do after high school. And every so often, when it hurt so bad it couldn't be ignored or forgotten, they'd talk about how they were treated in Troutville. The rumors. The stories. The lies. And they'd soothe themselves with dreams of leaving town after high school. But only Holly had left. Lizzie had become a barmaid at Morrow's Pub. Gayle was a secretary and had recently enrolled at the local college. And Flea, an exceptional seamstress, now owned the small dress shop she used to work in.
When Holly used to bring up plans for after graduation, the girls would talk big, about heading to sleepy southern towns or for the big city lights, but Lizzie's mom had broken her leg at the graduation ceremony itself and Lizzie felt she should stick around until her mom's leg healed. But it never did heal properly and Lizzie stayed on at the barâwaitressing until she came of legal age to bar-tend. By then, Lizzie had said, she had put down some new roots, some different roots, made some new friends at the bar. She liked her job and she liked her cozy little bungalow.
Gayle had stayed for a man. A boy she'd been crazy about in high school had gone to law school and come back and opened his own practice, and when Gayle saw his advertisement for a receptionist, that was that. After a few of her hints about dinner or a drink, he'd told her he thought it best not to mix business and pleasure. So Gayle took pleasure in just continuing her crush and had decided to pursue becoming a paralegal or even a lawyer herself.
Then there was Flea, who'd dreamed of making dresses for a major designer in New York City and opening her own business, but had instead taken a job sewing dresses in a claustrophobic back room of a dress shop Down Hill, which at least she now owned. Word-of-mouth of Flea's amazing handiwork had spread, and Up Hill women sometimes ventured down to her shop or had her come to their homes with fabrics and a sketch pad.
Their lives were full and busy, and after a while, Holly had stopped asking when they were going to leave town. And her friends had stopped asking her to come visit, since she always made excuses. They enjoyed coming to Hoboken, a fun town just across the river from New York City. And when she'd drive them to the train, that tiny part of her wished she could go back with them, to find the peace with Troutville that they'd found. The peace with themselves.
As Holly looked out the window, she noticed that Flea was arranging her hair back around her face, taking care to cover the patches of scars on her neck.
Oh, Flea
, Holly thought, her heart squeezing. Flea had barely escaped a fire when she was fourteen, but she hadn't escaped the nasty rumors that her own father had set the fire for the insurance money. Flea had just added those mean lies to all the others that people liked to tell about the four friends.
It's because you're all so pretty and smart and kind,
Holly's mother always said whenever Holly came running home with tears in her eyes.
You may not be rich, but you and your friends have characterâand that'll end up buying you everything you need.
Before Holly had left for Troutville this morning, she'd called her mother in Florida, and let her know the big news that Lizzie was getting marriedâto a Dunhill. And that Holly would be spending the weekendâand possibly the next three weeksâin Troutville.
“You just forget the past
,
honey
,” her mother had advised. “
And don't you worry about Lizzie. She's a flamboyant girl, but she's got a good head on her shoulders. If she's marrying a Dunhill, then he must be all right. Who knows, maybe things have changed at last.”
But Dylan Dunhill wasn't all right. How could he be? And what could have possibly changed in Troutville, ten years or not? Nothing had changed during the eighteen years Holly had lived there. Perhaps the sunny warmth and swaying palm trees of Florida had worked their magic on her mom, making her forget just how awful they'd all been treated in Troutville. Then again, her mom had always been a turn-the-other-cheek type of person. “
We know who we are and what we're made of,”
her mom had often said, “
so who cares what some people think of us?”
Holly cared. She'd always cared. She'd tried so hard not to, just as Lizzie, Gayle, and Flea had tried. But they'd all failed. They'd cared plenty.
Holly sighed. Heavy-hearted, she stood and collected her suitcase from the overhead rack and waited to exit the busy train. She glanced out the window as another flash of blond hair caught her attention.
Holly stiffened.
It was Prudence Dunhill.
Pru stood in the center of the platform, unmistakable despite the decade that had passed since Holly had seen her. Voted “Best Looking” by their class, Pru had saucer-wide blue eyes, long blond hair, and a fantastic figure. On prom night, just before Holly's argument with Jake, Holly had run into Pru and her friend Arianna having their own argument in the school gymnasium's courtyard; apparently, Arianna, who'd been crowned prom queen, was upset that Pru had been voted Best Looking. Arianna felt that she should have taken that honor (she'd come in second) as her boyfriend at the time, Dylan, had won Best Looking and prom king. Holly had been shocked by their conversation; the two girls had been friends forever, but there was nothing friendly about their fight.
“Well,
I
won, Arianna,” Pru had snapped. “What do you want me to do about it? If everyone thinks I'm the best-looking girl of our class, I must
be
.”
Arianna had fumed. “I'm more classically beautiful than you are, Pru. I'm the one who finaled in the beauty pageant. Not you.”
The beauty of the courtyard, with its manicured grass plots and low stone wall, just the right height for jumping up onto it for a seat, and the rows of blooming flowers and tall trees, seemed marred by the ugliness Pru and Arianna brought to it. Back and forth, they'd snipped and snapped, until they noticed Holly.
“Hey, look, Arianna,” Pru had shouted. “It's the winner of Biggest Slut!”
“And Trashiest,” Arianna added.
“Where'd you get your prom dress?” Pru asked. “The Dumpster? Hey, Arianna, Dumpster chicâmaybe it'll be the next big thing.”
“I'll bet Scar Girl made it,” Arianna put in. “Fleabag's always walking around with her needle and thread and pathetic little pieces of cheap fabric!”
“How dare you,” Holly bit out. “How dare you refer to my friend that way!”
“Well, you knew who we were talking about, didn't you?” Pru asked, examining her nails.
They were so mean, so unbelievably mean, that Holly was always too shocked to defend herself, defend her friends. It infuriated her that she could only think of blistering responses later, when it was too late.
“Look at Holly the Whore, standing there with her mouth open,” Pru said. “There's no guy around here, Holly, so you might as well close it.”
“Actually, there is,” said a deep male voice. “And if there were a prize for Most Vile Human Beings On the Planet, you two would win.”
The three girls whirled around, and there stood Jake Boone, scowling fiercely in his tuxedo.
Pru stared at him, and for a moment, Holly thought the girl might burst into tears, but Arianna put her arm around her and muttered, “Like your opinion means anything, Jake.” Then the girls walked away.
Jake glared after them and shook his head. “If there was a prize for Most Everything, Holly Morrow, you'd win,” he said. “You're the most beautiful, most intelligent, most creative, most interesting, most everything girl in this stupid school.”
Holly had burst into tears, and Jake wrapped his arms around her. “Don't listen to those witches, Holly!” he said fiercely. “Don't let them get to you. They're nothing.
They're
the trash!”
“I can't wait to get out of this town!” Holly muttered, tears running down her cheeks. She'd secured a summer job as a day camp counselor and then she was headed to a good college an hour away on a scholarship. “Once I leave I'm never coming back.”
“So, they win?” Jake asked.
“I'm not like you, Jake,” she said. “What they say doesn't roll off my back like it does yours.”
“Well, how about I convince you to stay here for the five minutes it'll take me to go get us two cups of punch?”
Holly had smiled. That was Jake, able to change a heated subject and draw a smile at the same time.
“And by the way,” he added, turning around. “I think your dress is beautiful.”
With a wink, he disappeared into the gym, and Holly leaned against the stone wall. She wouldn't let Pru and Arianna get to her. She would enjoy this night, her last in Troutville, and spend it with her friends. She hopped up onto the stone wall and gazed at the stars.
And then Pru had come back. If only she hadn't.
“Where's Jake?” Pru demanded, hands on her hips, and Holly wondered how someone so angelic-looking could be such a monster. Pru wore one of the prettiest dresses Holly had ever seen, pink and floaty and feminine, with pink strappy sandals.
“He went inside to get us punch,” Holly answered.
“You're a slut!” Pru hissed. “The only reason Jake trails after you like a puppy is because you have sex with him. You're nothing but a trashy whore! No wonder he chose you over me as his prom daâ”
“You shut up, Pru Dunhill!” came Flea's voice. Half visible in the dim light from the windows of the gym, Flea stood in her lovely black dress, which she'd made herself, clutching the beaded purse she'd also sewed herself. Flea, like Gayle, didn't have a date to the prom, so they'd come together. “You just shut up.”