CHAPTER FOUR
Nick
“You rented a beach house for the weekend?” Charley gave the house a slow once-over while I got our bags out of the trunk. After nearly three hours of driving, the night sky had settled in and it was hard to see much of anything.
“I don’t really like hotels,” I explained. “Besides, why be locked up in a stuffy hotel all weekend when we can have our very own slice of paradise.”
“Paradise? In Nowhereville, Virginia?” The town was so small Charley hadn’t even been able to find it on her phone’s navigation system, which she had pointed out to me with a skeptical look.
“Scoff now, but you’ll be eating those words in the light of day.” I hefted the bags and led the way to the front door. “And it’s Collinsburg, Virginia.”
In a matter of seconds, I had unlocked the door, dropped our bags in the hallway, and turned on the lights. I moved around the house confidently, giving her a quick tour before carrying our bags toward the bedrooms.
“You sure seem to know your way around,” she commented.
“I know the owner,” I replied. “This is my brother William’s vacation home. You can take the master bedroom. It has a nice bathroom and a balcony facing the beach. Make yourself at home and let me know if you need anything.”
She hesitated at the threshold of her assigned room. “Thank you, Nick.”
I noticed her reluctance to step inside the room. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.” Charley gave her head a small shake. “I’m not really tired yet. Any chance there’s something to drink in this place?”
I grinned. “It’s like you read my mind. Let’s see what we can find.”
What we found was scotch, and plenty of it. We took a bottle and two glasses outside and made ourselves comfortable on the deck chairs. Water lapped gently on the shoreline somewhere in the distance and the moon was full as it began its journey through the sky. It was cold enough that I could start a fire and it we watched it crackle while sitting next to each other in an oversized chair.
“My family used to come to this beach every summer.” I twirled the scotch in my glass as I spoke. “My dad was a lawyer in a big firm and he worked way too many hours. But without fail, every August we headed to the beach, all six of us piled into the blue station wagon.”
“Six?”
“My parents and four kids- all boys.”
“You’re the oldest?”
“Is it that obvious?” I laughed softly. “That’s how I learned to be so bossy and arrogant.”
“That explains it.” Charley winced after taking a long sip of scotch.
“What about you?” I asked hesitantly, remembering how poorly my last questioning of her past had gone. “Any siblings?”
“One.”
“Brother? Sister? Older? Younger?” I probed.
“Brother. Younger.”
I sensed her reluctance to discuss it further, but that didn’t stop me, probably because of the scotch. “These are pretty basic questions, Charley. It shouldn’t be this much of a struggle to get answers out of you.”
“I know.” She didn’t seem to be offended by my bluntness. She finished her drink in a big gulp and held out her glass. “I’m going to need more if we’re going to continue down this path.”
I joined her in another drink, remaining quiet while Charley stayed lost in her head. I didn’t mind the silence. I wasn’t one of those people that squirmed and fussed to fill the time and I was perfectly content to just sip my scotch and stare up at the sky.
“Tim was exactly one year younger than me, down to the day. Some kids would’ve hated sharing a birthday with their sibling, but I loved it. I always felt like no matter what, we would have this one day that was just ours and no one else’s. Maybe that’s why we were so close growing up, I don’t know. But our close age also meant that we were in high school at the same time, and we ran in the same social circles. Tim was the life of every party, always clowning around. Everyone loved him.”
A dog barked loudly down the street and it seemed to pull Charley out of her revere.
“Anyway, my senior year of high school was when everything changed. You know about the Danville Massacre, or at least you think you do. Everyone in the country was glued to their televisions that day. I was inside, watching my friends die.”
I reacted for the first time, the smallest of flinches. “Charley, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“I want to,” she said a little too urgently. “I’ve never been able to talk about it in the past, but now that I’ve started I think I need to finish.”
I topped off her glass and sat back again.
“It was a Monday, the Monday before prom and one month before graduation.” Just saying those words seemed to take her all the way back to that day. “People were excited. About prom and about the weather. It was the first really warm day of the year. Tim was wearing his baseball jersey because his team had a game that day.
“We were both in the lunchroom, but we weren’t sitting at the same table. Tim was a couple of tables away, but close enough that I could hear him laughing. I barely noticed the first shot. It was loud in there with kids laughing and yelling and lunch trays clanging. It wasn’t until the second shot when someone screamed that I realized something was wrong.”
Now that she was in the middle of the story, the words poured out of her. She described how the shooter, Ben Talbot, marched through the room weighed down with guns and ammunition. People were bleeding and crying and screaming. Tim ran over and shielded Charley, pushing her toward the exit when Ben’s back was turned.
“I was halfway down the hall before I realized Tim wasn’t behind me. I stopped for just a second, wanting to run back for him, but my body wouldn’t let me. I froze– completely locked-up by fear. The next thing I knew, a SWAT guy had thrown me over his shoulder and rushed me out of the building.”
I was about to reach for the bottle again but noticed that we had drained it, which was probably for the best. I had already developed a decent buzz.
“Tim was dead. He was shot in the back while he got me out of the room. Twenty-four other kids died that day. I was the only one that made it out of the lunchroom alive.” Charley let out a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. “So that’s my story. Can we talk about something else now?”
“Sure.” I was quick to snap out of the pity-party. “There’s something you should know about tomorrow’s wedding. The groomsmen will be wearing kilts.”
“All of them?” Charley sat up in excitement.
“All of them.”
“What about the groom?” A small smile had returned to her face.
“I’m glad you asked. Craig will not be wearing a kilt.”
She playfully slapped my arm. “That isn’t fair!”
I laughed. “I think the groomsmen would agree with you. Unfortunately, they lost the poker game and the kilts were their punishment. Craig actually was going to wear one, too, but his lovely bride, Carrie, found out and quickly forbade it. The groomsmen are getting their revenge by not wearing anything under the kilts.”
“I’m just glad this isn’t an outdoor wedding. Though I suppose there could still be gusts of air in the chapel.” Charley shuddered at the thought of flapping kilts and exposed dangly bits.
“And you thought this would just be another boring wedding.” I smiled when I saw the twinkle in her eye. She had recovered quickly from her trip down memory lane. “I haven’t even told you about the bride’s mother yet.”
Charley leaned back and let me take over the conversation. I told her a bunch of stories about the people she would be meeting at the wedding, as well as some of my own childhood stories which were much lighter than hers and tended to be embarrassing. Charley laughed and smiled the entire time and it was only when I saw her eyelids start to droop that I decide to call it a night.
“We should turn in,” I said when I caught her stifling a yawn. “Plenty of time to chat tomorrow.”
I picked up our glasses and the empty bottle and Charley slowly followed me inside. She seemed reluctant to go to bed despite the obvious fact that she was exhausted.
“I’m glad you agreed to come with me this weekend,” I said as I walked her to her assigned bedroom. We stopped in front of the open door, each of us awkwardly waiting for the other to make the first move.
“So far my only regret is that last glass of scotch.”
I smirked. “I was just thinking my only regret was not encouraging you to have one more glass of scotch.”
Her eyes narrowed at me. “You’re not trying to take advantage of me are you, Senator?”
“Not yet.” I took a small step forward and that was all the encouragement she needed in her semi-drunk state.
She grabbed the front of my shirt and twisted it in her hand, drawing me closer. I slid my hand over the back of her neck and guided her head toward mine until our lips met in a drunken, searching kiss. She tasted like scotch and her lips were warm and inviting. Just as her body began to melt against mine, making every nerve in my body tingle, I sighed heavily and pulled away.
“We shouldn’t do this tonight,” I said, slightly out of breath. “We’ve both had too much to drink.”
She nodded without conviction. “Good night then,” she said, backing away reluctantly.
“Sweet dreams, Charley.” I came close again, this time to kiss her on the cheek before flashing her one last smile and disappearing down the hall.