Page 60 of The Backtrack
“Who is Wild Boar Willie?” Sam laughed.
“We call him that because he asked us to,” Pearl explained. “We never questioned it.”
“That, and the fact that he has these two canine teeth that are super pointy.” Jessie mimed the teeth. “Kind of like a boar’s tusks. But he wasn’t a bore in bed—if you know what I mean.”
Pearl leaned back into the couch and sipped her White Claw. “Speaking of...should we talk about the Damon in the room?”
“You kids overthink everything.” Jessie popped a tortilla chip into her mouth. She spoke through the bite. “He’s hot. You’re hot. Be hot together.”
“Sayhotone more time,” Pearl said.
“Hot.” Jessie and Pearl stared across Sam at each other, then burst out laughing.
The whole thing made Sam miss Rachel and having her best friend to be silly with. “You’re both drunk,” Sam said. But then again, she felt buzzed, too.
“Do you like him orlikehim?” Jessie asked.
“Forgethim,” Pearl said, “what doyouwant, Sam? Be selfish. Think about what you want your life to look like.”
Sam swallowed hard. The can of White Claw rested against her upper thigh, and drops of condensation ran down her skin. Before coming back to Tybee, all she wanted was to keep flying. But now that she’d seen the past she could’ve had, her wants were muddled. Maybe shedidwant to be in a relationship. Maybe shedidwant to have a place to call home. Maybe shedidn’twant to say goodbye to Damon.
But she wasn’t willing to give up everything she’d worked for just to be with him. That wasn’t what she wanted. She couldn’t outrun the past, not while she was here. It hit her every day, from all sides. But she also couldn’t just hop on a plane and vanish into the clouds.
There was a banging so loud that all three women shrieked. Sam’s legs shot up toward her chest and she curled in on herself. The banging sounded again and Pearl held up her cast like a weapon. “That’s coming from the door,” she said.
“Damon?” Jessie ventured a guess.
“Maybe,” Sam said. She checked her phone, but there were no new messages from him. Still, Pearl gave her a gentle shove to signal that she should get off the couch and go answer it.
Sam, not for the first time, wished she were wearing anything else, but settled for smoothing out her hair as she walked to the front door. Damon’s return meant they could hash out some of the details she was sticking on, but she tried to temper her feelings as she unlocked and opened the door.
Her smile fell, though, as the umbrella lifted and she saw her mother standing there.
25
Sam’s mom was at the house, standing on the welcome mat, wearing capris and a clingy top, and blinking back at Sam.
“Bonnie?” Sam said, almost like an accusation. She hadn’t called Bonniemomto her face in a long time. The switch had happened somewhere around the late teens mark, when Sam’s hope that her mom would return vanished like sand in the high tide.
“Bonnie?” Pearl echoed, even louder.
Pearl was by Sam’s side what seemed almost instantly, and the three Leto women were all in the same place for the first time in years.
A wild gust of wind came and turned Bonnie’s umbrella inside out. Which is exactly when the power in the house blinked off. Sam saw the spark from the generator first, then the lights behind her dimmed. Sam and Pearl looked at each other and then at Bonnie, who seemed a few seconds from blowing over herself.
“Well, don’t just stand there like a possum in the road, come in.” Pearl stepped aside and Bonnie brushed past both of them.
Because the windows were boarded up, there was no light in the room. Sam had had the good sense—pre–White Claw drinks—to bring out flashlights. She picked up a heavy blue one from the coffee table and flipped it on.
Her face lit up, like she was telling a spooky story around the campfire. Only this horror tale was about a neglectful mother who returned at the worst possible moment. Then Sam shined it at Bonnie, who held her hand up to shield the light from hitting her eyes directly.
“Why are you here?” Sam asked with an unintentionally forceful tone.
“Your grandma called a few weeks ago to let me know she was selling the house,” Bonnie said.
“Well, I didn’t think you’d just show up without so much as a warning,” Pearl said.
“Mom also mentioned you were back in town,” Bonnie said carefully. “And I wanted to see for myself. We have some things we’d probably like to say to each other.”
