“Do you want to talk about it?” Audrey offered sweetly, again, probably for the fiftieth time.
Ava shook her head. She didn’t. Maybe her sisters were right and it just hadn’t hit her yet, or maybe the assessment she’d made in the bathroom was right and Ian had done what she hadn’t been brave enough to do herself. Either way, she didn’t have anything to say on the subject.
“No, I don’t. I want to talk about anything but that. What’s the new gossip?” Ava directed the question to her sister Viv who always had her finger on the pulse of the goings on in the small town.
“Gossip, gossip, gossip…” Viv’s lips twisted to the side of her face before she sighed. “Things have been slow around here. Everyone’s been busy with tourist season.” After drumming her fingers on the table, Viv lifted her hand and snapped them. “Oh, I’ve got one when I went to…” Viv’s eyes shot to Audrey and back to Ava. “Um, when I went to… update Amanda on the new developments of the day,she’d just gotten off the phone with Lisa, do you remember her from last summer? She was working on the thesis for her PHD and she asked you about a paper you wrote.”
Ava nodded, remembering the interaction. She’d visited Hope Falls last summer after Ian agreed that they could get married here. She looked at several venues and then settled on Mountain Ridge after Ian refused to get married in the little white chapel next to the civic plaza that she’d always dreamed of tying the knot in because he didn’t want to get married in a church.
When she went to tour the resort facility she’d met Lisa, who was working at the summer camp they ran every year as a therapist. The two had started talking about the mental health field and it turned out that Lisa had read a paper Ava had written about the effects trauma in adolescence had in young adults.
“Well…” Viv leaned forward. “Lisa was supposed to come back this summer to work at the camp that starts on Monday, but she’s not coming because she had a family emergency. Apparently, her dad Gary just came out as Gina, and it is not going over so well with her mom who’s been married to Gary for over forty years.”
“Wow, that’s…” Audrey’s words trailed off as her eyes widened.
“It’s a lot, right?” Viv sipped her orange juice. “I mean, at least the ball-less wonder didn’t do that to you.”
Viv was big on nicknames and Ava truly hoped that Ian’s wasn’t going to stick. Ian had had the balls to do what she’d been too scared to. He’d done the right thing.
“Are they going to stay together?” Audrey asked.
As her sisters discussed whether or not they’d be able to stay with a spouse if their partner came out as transgender Ava heard a deep voice behind her.
“Table for two.”
The moment she heard the three words a shudder chased down Ava’s spine, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up and goosebumps spread down her arms.
Ava turned her head, looking over her shoulder in the direction the voice had come from. She saw the back of a man walking with a teenage girl to the back of the café. She knew some of the local people here in Hope Falls, and she didn’t immediately recognize them. At least from behind. Even though she knew it was rude, she kept watching while they were seated. Unfortunately, when he took his seat, his face was blocked by Kelly who was handing them menus.
Unable to look away, Ava continued watching the scene, willing Kelly to move so she could see the man’s face. His voice hadn’t sounded familiar, at least to her ears, but her body had definitely recognized it.
“Ava?” Audrey’s voice cut through her inner thoughts. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” Ava turned her head around, feeling a little embarrassed that she’d been caught staring.
“Did you need Kell?” Viv asked, already lifting her hand to try and get Kelly’s attention.
“No, I just…that man at the table she’s at…do you know him?”
Viv leaned to the side, tilting her head so that she could see, and a wide smile spread on her face. “That is fresh meat. And not just any meat, pig meat.”
“Pig meat?” Ava repeated, her brow creasing.
“He’s five-o. Fuzz. The man. Po po.”
Audrey and Ava both stared at their sister.
“He’s a cop.” Viv said as if that was obvious.
Audrey’s face scrunched. “I think that pig is a derogatory term.”
Viv sighed. “It was a play on words, Auds, lighten up. Anyway, he’s new to town and that is his daughter Blake. She is going to the camp that is now down a mental health professional thanks to Gina. Which reminds me, if you know any head shrinkers that want to spend the summer in the vacation hot spot that is Hope Falls, you should let Amanda know. She needs to fill the position ASAP.”
“Okay, I got the tickets changed for no additional fees.” Grace joined her sisters, lowering down into the seat next to Ava wearing a self-satisfied expression on her face. “We fly out of Sacramento at four-fifteen.”
“I’m not going.” Ava blurted out. The statement had flown out of her mouth before she’d run it past her brain and even she was surprised when she heard it.
“What?” her sisters chorused as they looked at her like they might need to commit her.