CHAPTER 5

Violet

Raising my brother and sisters while going to nursing school wasn’t easy— or cheap. Life is expensive. When you don’t have a lot of pennies coming in, every one counts.

One day, when I was walking my sister home from school, we passed a yard sale with an almost-new-looking sewing machine and a how-to booklet for five bucks. I scooped it up, thinking I could save some cash mending the kids’ clothes or buying oversized clothes that I could take in, then let back out, so they’d last longer.

But the sewing machine also turned into an unexpected money maker. Once word got around that I had sewing skills, I was tailoring clothes, making custom curtains and Halloween costumes for the neighbors.

I remember sitting beside my mom on one of those endless, rough nights as the steady hum of the sewing machine seemed to soothe her. Not lulling her to sleep—in the end, she was never able to sink into a full sleep—but the sound settled her into a quiet calm that I was grateful for.

Sewing is also I how I found one of my friend groups in Lakeside: Lainey Burrows’s sewing circle.

Lainey Burrows is a social media influencer with a blog called Life With Lainey. The whole reason she moved to Lakeside was to renovate and redecorate a lake house for Facebook. That’s how she met her fiancé, Dean Walker—who was her teenage son’s math teacher at Lakeside High School.

Dean and Lainey are getting married in two weeks in their backyard, beside their lake. She’s doing all the decorating and planning herself and showing her followers how she’s doing it without breaking the bank. The sewing circle sewed the little pink and silver roses on all the table linens.

Lainey put together all the festivities for her bachelorette party too, here at the local bar, Chubby’s.

“Hey, Vi!” Effie, one of the nurses from Labor and Delivery, pushes through the crowd, greeting me with a hug and a shout above the music.

“How are you doing?”

Effie’s about my age and in the sewing circle too. She was one of Lainey’s nurses when she gave birth to her and Dean’s daughter, Ava, last year. It was a natural delivery—God bless Lainey’s little masochistic heart.

“I’m good. This place looks amazing!”

Silver ribbons hang down from rose-colored balloons that cover the ceiling, and a huge Congratulations, Lainey banner is draped above the shaded windows. The movie Father of the Bride plays with subtitles from all four of the big-screen corner televisions and “It’s Raining Men” pours from the speakers—even though there aren’t actually any men, raining or otherwise. Lainey and Dean agreed to separate stripper-free parties. Outside, four chauffeur-driven, white stretch limos wait to drive the soon-to-be- plastered guests home.

“Gurl, you haven’t seen the half of it! Lainey went all out! Come on, I’ll show you.”

After doing a lap of the large room, I can tell Effie told no lies. It’s the ultimate girls’ night extravaganza.

There’s a neck masseuse in one corner and two manicurists doing mani- pedis in cushioned, throne-like chairs in the other. There’s a straight-out-of- Candy-Land candy table, and trays of cupcakes and vegetable platters within reaching distance no matter where you’re standing. The cupcakes are white with pink wrappers, and pink chocolate penises stick up from them like birthday candles. The carrots, cucumbers, and zucchinis on the vegetable platters have been carved into bite-sized penises too. There’s Never Have I Ever bingo cards with homemade fruity-scented body scrubs for prizes, a Truth or Dare champagne fountain, and a Wheel of Fortune-Teller shot glass table near the back door.

Two hours later I’m convinced Lainey should quit Influencing and become an event planner—she’d conquer the industry in her very first year.

When Effie and a few of the other girls head off to the bathroom, I walk up to the shot glass table. Small glasses filled with every color of the rainbow pack the table in front of a tall, elegant woman in a black dress and jade scarf. Long, sparkling emeralds dangle from her ears. Behind her is a big wheel— like one of the games on the boardwalk—sectioned off by large words: MONEY, HEALTH, LOVE, ADVENTURE.

“Would you like to spin the wheel of fortune?” she asks with a red-lipped smile.

“Sure, why not?”

She gives the wheel a turn and it spins dizzyingly fast before ticking down to a standstill.

Landing dead center on LOVE.

And like his penis before him, one handsome face pops directly into my brain.

The woman claps her hands. “Love! Glorious love.” She plucks a shot glass from the table. “Drink this, then say the name of your dearest love, loud and strong, and you will have a lifetime of joy and happiness.”

I don’t put any stock in this hokey, mumbo-jumbo, mystical stuff—but it’s a party. Where else can you let go, have fun, and let yourself believe in the patently unbelievable?

I peer into the cloudy-liquid-filled shot glass. “What is it?”

For my twenty-first birthday some college friends bought me almost an entire bottle worth of tequila shots. I was sick for days and haven’t been able to touch the stuff since.

The North remembers—and so does my stomach.

The lady shields her mouth with her hand and says, “Vodka with a dash of lemon.”

Vodka works.

I lift the glass, then down the contents. After the liquid scorches a path of fire down my throat, I close my eyes and declare in a loud, clear, fearless voice, “Connor.”

Mere moments after the two syllables slip past my lips, a wind-chime pleasant voice pipes up from behind my shoulder.

“Connor who?”

A voice I realize with growing Michael Myers in the background level horror belongs to Callie Daniels. The woman married to Connor’s brother, Garrett. They both teach at the high school. They’re like the prom king and queen of the whole town.

Ermahgerd!

“Did you mean Connor Daniels?”

Slowly I turn, hoping with every fiber of my being that I’m wrong. My hope dies a quick but painful death when I come face-to-face with Callie Daniels’s friendly green eyes.

I force a swallow down my panic-narrowed throat and wave a sweaty-

palmed hand as nonchalantly as I can manage.

“No. Not Connor Daniels. Definitely not. I meant another Connor.” Callie’s light-blond brows furrow and her blond head tilts in curiosity. “Oh. Another Connor?”

Lying isn’t a skill I possess. So, I literally say the first thing that pops into my head—it’s my only defense.

“From Tacoma.”

I never said it would be a good defense. Callie squints. I don’t blame her. “Connor from Tacoma?”

“Yes.”

“Like, Tacoma, Washington?”

When I was twelve, my neighbor, Noah Jarvis, convinced me to run across Highway 9 to the Dunkin’ Donuts on the other side. Halfway across the southbound lane, Noah panicked, turned around, and tried to run back.

He got hit by a Range Rover and spent the whole summer in traction.

Moral of the story? The only way through is forward—always stick with the plan.

“Yep . . . that’s where Tacoma is.”

“Really?” she asks, like she absolutely doesn’t believe me but is too nice to say so.

And that’s when I cave. Because lying is just too exhausting. The inconvenient truth tears out of me in a rapid-fire burst.

“Okay, no—not really. I meant Connor Daniels. But for the love of God, you can’t say anything! To anyone!”

Callie says nothing for a few seconds. She just stares at me, looking me over, a slow, sly smile sliding onto her pretty face.

“This is fantastic!”

“No one!” I stop short of screeching—but it’s close. “Connor is my brother-in-law. I could introduce you.”

I rub my hands over my face—because she’s not listening to a word I’m saying.

“Violet works at the hospital. She’s a nurse.”

Lainey Burrows has entered the chat. Coming up beside me and Callie— and she’s not helping either.

Because news of my occupation just delights Callie Daniels even more. “That’s perfect!” she says. “So you and Connor must know each other

already?”

I grab their arms and drag the three of us into a tighter triangle in the corner, to keep the sound of our voices contained and knowledge of my mortifying crush drowned out by the beat of the music.

“Yes, we know each other. We work together. So you have to swear to me—woman to woman, Girl Scout pledge, sisterhood of the traveling vagina level swear—that you won’t tell anyone what you have learned here tonight. Especially NOT your husband. And it can’t be one of those ‘Oh, honey, I’m going to tell you something but you have to promise not to mention it to your brother’ kind of things that I know all you married people do, because it never works! He’s a man—he’ll talk.”

“It’s true.” Lainey says, slurring a little behind the big silver straw in her giant pink-concoction-filled Bride goblet. “Garrett came over to the house the other day so he and Dean could have a ‘strategy session’ for the upcoming football season. But all they did was gossip about which of their players was dating who and which one of them was most likely to get dumped before the first game. They were like little old ladies.”

“See! You can’t say anything, Callie. You don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Callie says with a vehemence that takes me back a step. “You haven’t seen the women Connor has gone out with.” She ticks off each one on her newly manicured hand. “There was the girl with the dragon tattoo . . . on her face. The woman who would only eat foods that started with the letter G. The one we found out later was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list—and they’re just the tip of the shitshow. Connor’s a relationship guy, a family guy—he’s not meant to be alone. He’s going to keep searching for his better half and who knows what kind of disaster he’ll stumble across next. But you’re gorgeous! And you know Lainey and you seem normal . . . and you’re a nurse! I mean, Jesus, if Connor made his perfect woman in a computer—you are what would come out!”

A sudden heaviness weighs down on my me, crushing my tone into a whisper. A sad, truthful whisper.

“He doesn’t even see me. We’ve worked together for two years and he barely knows I’m there.”

Callie puts her hand over mine, squeezing. “What if you’re wrong? I can’t believe that Connor wouldn’t notice someone like you. What if he does see you? Or what if he just needs a little nudge to see you? Guys can be really stupid. Sometimes they need help.”

Lainey waves her pointer finger at Callie like it’s a magic wand. “Also true.”

I let myself think about it—to imagine being set up with Connor. How he would pick me up at my house, maybe bring flowers. How easy our conversation would flow—about life, work, his kids, my brother and sisters.

I picture what it would feel like to make him smile, make him laugh, or even better—to make him groan. To have him look at me with heat and hunger in his eyes . . .

And I want it so much my heart throbs and my mouth goes dry and my vision swims.

But just for a moment.

Because then I come back down to earth . . . to reality. My reality. “That’s not a chance I can take. I love this town, I love the hospital, I love

my job. If Connor had any clue that I have feelings for him and he didn’t feel the same way—I don’t know how I would ever be able to look at him again.”

Callie’s face goes soft with sympathy. Maybe pity.

“My life is in your hands, Callie. Please promise me you won’t say anything.”

Her features tighten with hesitation, like I’m dragging her over a line she doesn’t want to cross. Then she sighs. “Okay, if that’s what you really want

. . . then I promise.”

Blessed relief blooms through my chest cavity. “Thank you.”

Callie loops her arm through mine. “Come on—let’s get a drink.”

“Yes, your hands are empty,” Lainey says like she’s only just noticed. “No empty hands allowed, ladies!”

I walk over to the champagne fountain with them, secure and settled that my secret is safe and nothing will change.

But here’s the thing about Callie Daniels. She may seem all sweet and undevious, but deep down . . . she’s a lying-liar who’s not above lying when she thinks it’s for a worthy cause.

Because even though Callie raised her left hand solemnly when she made me her promise—her other hand was behind her back. With her fingers crossed.

Classic loophole.

But I wouldn’t find that out until later. After it was already too late.