Page 55 of Hello, Summer
“That’s me.”
Charlie ran a hand through his hair. “Man! This is crazy. I never would have recognized you. I mean, you look awesome. Really. I like your hair like that. How long has it been?”
She straightened her shoulders. “Let’s see. I believe it would have been the summer before my senior year of high school.”
His face colored, and he laughed uneasily. “Well, that accounts for my memory lapse. I don’t know about you, but most of my summer that year was lost in a haze of Jägermeister and cheap weed. Up in smoke, right?”
“My memory of our last meeting was probably more vivid than yours,” Conley said coolly. “Let’s see. I went out with you two or three times at the beginning of the summer, when I got home from boarding school. I thought you were funny and cute. But when I refused to ‘put out,’ as you phrased it, for revenge, you told everybody in town that I’d—what’s that graphic phrase for group sex you used? ‘Pulled a train’? So cute and colorful.”
“Oh, man,” he said. “Kids, huh? If I really did that, I’m sorry.”
“You really did do it. And more.” Conley said. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans, willing herself not to go batshit postal on Charlie Robinette. Batshit was not why she was here. She had a job to do. The past was the past. Ancient history.
Until the guy who’d ruined your teenage life didn’t even recognize you as an adult or have the grace to acknowledge the damage he’d done to your life.
He shrugged. “I’d do a lot of things differently now, if I had the chance.”
“Would you?” she asked.
“Hell yeah. Look, you can’t judge somebody by the stupid shit they did at the age of eighteen.”
Her head was starting to throb. She had to let it go, had to put the past firmly in the past, where it belonged.
“I didn’t come here to talk about this stuff,” she said. “Let’s start over, shall we? First, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Whatever.” He was obviously annoyed that she’d dredged up ancient history. “You came for the obituary, for theBeacon? Now you’ve got it.”
“Thanks, but Kennedy McFall just emailed it to me. I was actually hoping to speak to you about a story I’m writing about your dad for the paper.”
He sighed dramatically. “There’s not much I can tell you. We’re still in shock. It hasn’t really sunk in yet. What else do you need?”
“For starters, I was wondering if you have any idea why the medical examiner hasn’t released the body or determined the cause of death.”
“Who told you that?”
“The funeral home.”
His pleasant face reddened. “They had no business telling you something like that. We don’t know why there’s a holdup. Typical bureaucratic incompetence. The kind my dad battled his whole career.”
She nodded.
“My father was killed in a single-car wreck,” he went on, growing animated. “He was basically incinerated. Nothing else matters, okay? We don’t need this shit.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she repeated. “It must be incredibly painful. When I spoke to Sheriff Goggins over in Varnedoe—”
“Why would you talk to the sheriff?” he cut in.
“Because that’s part of my job. Your father was a prominent figure in this community, Charlie. In this state. Given the nature of his death—”
“Given the nature of his death, I find it totally inappropriate for you to show up at my office asking these kinds of questions,” Robinette said. “And since when does a crappy weekly like theBeaconrun this kind of shit?” He took a step toward her, his fists balled up. “What the hell are you trying to insinuate?”
Conley stood her ground. “I’m not insinuating anything.”
“I think you need to leave here now,” Robinette said. “Despite the fact that I’ve tried to apologize, you’ve obviously still got some kind of personal ax to grind with me. I’m warning you, Sarah, if you come up with some kind of bullshit story about my dad’s death, I will grind you and that pathetic excuse for a paper into dust.”
She smiled. “Good to see you again, Charlie.”
19
