Goodbye earl, p.1
Goodbye Earl, page 1
Also by Leesa Cross-Smith
Every Kiss a War
Whiskey & Ribbons
So We Can Glow
This Close to Okay
Half-Blown Rose
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Temple Hill Publishing, LLC
Cover design by Laywan Kwan
Cover photograph of pie by The Picture Pantry/Alamy Stock photo
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Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Bible verses on pages vii and 234 are from the King James Version.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cross-Smith, Leesa, 1978- author.
Title: Goodbye earl : a revenge story / Leesa Cross-Smith.
Description: First edition. | New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2023. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022053135 | ISBN 9781538707654 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781538707678 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3603.R67945 G66 2023 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053135
ISBNs: 978-1-5387-0765-4 (hardcover); 978-1-5387-0767-8 (ebook)
E3-20230605-DA-NF-ORI
For everyone, seriously.
(Everyone but Earl.)
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Greater love hath no woman than this, that a woman lay down her life for her friends.
—John 15:13 (KJV, paraphrased)
Contents
Cover
Also by Leesa Cross-Smith
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Act I 1: 2019
2: 2004
3: 2019
4: 2004
5: 2019
6: 2004
7: 2019
8: 2004
9: 2019
10: 2004
11: 2019
12: 2004
13: 2019
14: 2004
15: 2019
16: 2004
Act II 17: 2019
18: 2004
19: 2019
20: 2004
21: 2019
22: 2004
23: 2019
24: 2004
25: 2019
26: 2004
27: 2019
28: 2004
29: 2019
30: 2004
31: 2019
32: 2004
33: 2019
34: 2004
35: 2019
36: 2004
37: 2019
38: 2006
39: 2019
40: 2006
Act III 41: 2019
42
43: 2016
44: 2019
45
46: 2016
47: 2019
48
49: 2017
50: 2019
51
52: 2018
53: 2019
54
55
56
57
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the Author
Reading Group Guide
Act I
My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them.
—Emily Dickinson
2019
1
Kasey Fritz
Yep. That electric slut-red cherry on top of the Goldie Dairy Dee sign was zapping like always, even though Kasey Fritz hadn’t been back home to see it in fifteen years. She rolled the rental car window down and stuck her hand out—like maybe she could touch the ghosts she knew were there, like lightning bugs wisping through the summer dark.
The old used car lot was now a family-style Mexican restaurant. The gas station where she and her girlfriends stopped to get slushies after school got turned into a fancy new gas station with more pumps and glowing bulbs hanging overhead than the one before. It was lit up like a fish tank as Kasey drove past. She went through the green light, knowing the next turn would put her right in front of where the laundromat, the KFC, and the liquor store once were. They’d been replaced by a brand-new boutique hotel, which she’d read about online right after Taylor sent her to the wedding website.
Enjoy Goldie! You can visit a farm, stroll around the old-fashioned town square, get a mixed cocktail with your fried chicken at the swanky hotel restaurant…
The town decided to knock down a KFC to build a hotel that sold a plate of fried chicken for thirty dollars. Kasey wowed as she remembered checking the price twice, so sure she must’ve read it wrong. She stopped the car in front of the hotel and pulled the brake. She’d refused the luxury rental they attempted to upsell her at the airport thirty minutes away and gotten a little hatchback stick shift instead. The hotel’s valet parking wasn’t optional and Kasey tipped well, but she wheeled her luggage to the front desk on her own as a tiny act of defiance.
The receptionist was young, so young. Was that how young they were making hotel receptionists now? Kasey was only thirty-three, but this girl behind the counter didn’t look like she should be allowed out past ten. Kasey gave her the wedding hashtag—#PlumBMarried—as Taylor had instructed her, guaranteeing the discounted hotel room. The Plums had more than enough room to house her, and it was true that Kasey had grown up counting every penny; it also felt ridiculous to be paying so much to stay in some fancy hotel in Goldie, of all places. Still, money wasn’t an issue anymore, and Kasey liked having her own space. She insisted on staying at the hotel for the entire wedding week and not imposing on anyone—yes, wedding week because nothing, not one thing, was too much for little miss Taylor Plum.
The receptionist gave Kasey a small, stiff card for free drinks with her first and last name and #PlumBMarried written on the back in frilly cursive. Kasey pocketed it and glanced around quickly, betting she’d see someone she knew.
Thankfully, she didn’t.
Whew and praise Jesus. She wasn’t ready for that just yet.
The hotel lobby was piping out a comforting lavender-vanilla scent to go along with the coffeehouse acoustic playlist—brushy voice and guitar, soft and low. Both the smell and the music hemmed Kasey in as she made her way to the elevator. There was a big digital screen inside flashing a slideshow of Main Street and the town square. The green hills and blue sky. Smiling, sunglassed families. Rich-looking tourists. Enjoy quaint Americana! slid across in a fat yellow font so bright Kasey squinted at it and scrunched up her nose. The screen jumped to black and she almost laughed at the ridiculous reflection staring back at her.
* * *
Once Kasey got to her room, she plopped on the bed and promptly tapped the Devon messages to text her fiancé and let him know she was safe.
He responded, So glad to hear it. Do you feel like talking? It’s ok if you don’t.
Not really, but thanks. So freakiiiing
weeeeird being back…but…I
don’t know. Maybe seeing everything
in the sun tomorrow will make
a difference.? I hope so.
It will. Have you bumped into
anyone you know yet?
Weirdly and thankfully, no.
Did you go to the farmhouse?
Nope.
Gotcha. Call me in the morning?
I love you.
I will. I love you too.
As Kasey texted Devon, she undressed and took a speedy shower. Brushed her teeth. By the time they were finished, she was in bed with the lamp off, the blue light of the television glowing the room. It’d comforted her ever since she was a little girl, sleeping with the TV on. She turned on a home-renovation show and drifted away easily as a couple timidly argued about whether to go with Italian or French marble for their kitchen countertops.
* * *
The blackout curtains did their job a little too well. Kasey was knocked out for a full eight hours, something that rarely happened back home in New York. Between her job as finance manager of LunaCrush—the third-largest beauty company in the world—and traveli
She sat at the table by the window in her matching underwear, the sunshine warming her face. She drank the surprisingly good hotel room coffee, sipping carefully and scrolling through the wedding group chat Taylor had added her to, although Kasey had never written in it. The last one from Taylor read,
Good morning, bitches! I love you all so much and I’m so glad you’re here to celebrate our special weeeeek! Get your asses to the Plum house as SOON as you can for mimosas and cupcakes. Srsly, there’s so much food! GET. HERE. NOW.
The other girls began chiming in quickly, at least a million of them.
OMW!
I LOVE YOU SM BITCH!
Can I bring you anything?
Are we doing dressy-dressy?
Of course it's dressy-dressy, this is the south! :P Dress up like you're going to a football game!
Can someone come pick me up? I am NOT walking in these big-ass heels.
Kasey set the group chat to Do Not Disturb before calling Devon and telling him her plans for the day. Devon was a Listener and stayed quiet as she complained about the embarrassing fawning, the possible tension, and all the questions she knew were waiting for her.
“Well, Kase…I offered to come with you, but you said you wanted to do this alone. Do you still want to do this alone?” Devon asked when she was finished. “You have a hard time admitting you need help. I wish you didn’t. It would make things a lot easier sometimes,” he added. Kasey heard New York City clichés over the line—quick honks, rumbly construction, overlapping chatter.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said. Devon meant well. She was sure he could hear her loud facial expressions over the phone; he’d told her plenty of times that her face could use a volume button. “Thank you. I’m okay, I am. Just venting. I can take care of it, and trust me, there’s no point in you coming here. At all. Pfft, let’s talk about something else. Tell me something good, please.”
Although it frustrated him, Devon was used to Kasey deflecting whenever he wanted to dig deeper about Goldie and what life was like for her growing up. She gave him—along with everyone else—the bare minimum: she was from a small town, didn’t have much family, had an asshole stepdad, both of her parents died when she was young. Orphaned, she left right after high school and never came back, never looked back either. She’d ditched that town in the dust because Kasey Fritz was so much bigger and better than Goldie, that was for damn sure.
Devon launched into the things he saw on his early morning run in the park. Described the dogs in full detail for Kasey’s pleasure. Two scrappy Yorkies in matching yellow bows. A hyper golden retriever living its best life. A tiny brown-and-white mutt with a tennis ball in its mouth.
“You’re very good at loving me,” she said, sighing.
“You’re easy to love” was his reply.
“Yeah…uh-huh. Super easy and agreeable and never annoying. Sure.”
“It’s true. Even when you’re fussy,” he said.
“Righto, D. Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Please do. Here for whatever you need. Just say the word, bird. Just tell me the plan, Jan. Let me know the deal, Neil…”
After laughs and I love yous, Kasey finished her coffee and got dressed.
Two hope you have a good time, safe travels, love you texts from her girlfriends in the city. She sent them both kissy-face emojis in return.
One missed call from Rosemarie.
Two missed calls from Ada, and one text.
One text from Caroline.
Kasey left them unanswered.
RACK: Rosemarie, Ada, Caro, and Kasey. They’d been best friends since they were babies. Taylor was Ada’s younger sister. Kasey would see them all soon enough and they’d fall into place like they had ever since they were little. They were her sisters; they’d made their own family and gotten through their darkest moments together. They could get through anything—they could.
This is it. It’s happening. I’m back and I’m going to see my best friends again.
* * *
Kasey’s heart cartwheeled as she walked toward Plum Bakery—still smack-dab in the middle of the town square. The building was lavender and pale pink with green polka-dotted letters, the windows filled with pastel-colored sweet treats, cupcakes, cakes, and pies. Right next to the bakery was the restaurant, Plum Eats. Down on the corner, Plum Florals connected to Plum Designs. The Plum family had run a small bakery in town for over a hundred years before Ada and her mother turned Plum Inc. into the monster of a local empire it was today. There’d been a headline on the front of the Goldie Gazette last year: ADA PLUM-CASTELOW, GOLDIE’S STAR AND SOURCE OF STYLE. Caroline had emailed it to Rosemarie and Kasey when it happened, along with RACK NEWS! Look at our girl! Rosemarie replied from Barcelona, No surprise, this beauty. I love her so much. Kasey had written back, Oh wow look at our girl indeed!
Rosemarie, Ada, Caro, and Kasey tried their best to keep in touch with one another as much as they had in the past, but at times it was impossible with their busy schedules. Rosemarie was leading hunger-relief initiatives both domestically and all over the globe. Ada had the Plum Inc. empire on top of her husband and four(!) boys. Caro had recently gotten married and was forever busy with baking.
Ada and Caro stayed in Goldie, and since Caro ran Plum Bakery now, they were the two who saw each other most often and remained as close as they were in high school. The foursome had gotten together every now and again when their schedules aligned in the fifteen years since they’d graduated from high school, but never in Goldie. Always in NYC or Seattle. Seattle: Rosemarie’s new home base whenever she was stateside. Who could resist a girls’ week/weekend in either of those cities? Well, in truth, Kasey had tried resisting it the first time, but Rosemarie showed up on her doorstep hollering KASEY FRITZ, IT’S ROSES! I LOVE YOU AND I FOUND YOU! Ada and Caro flew up the next day. Kasey knew Rosemarie would be the first to come see her; Rosemarie also had been the first to email her after she left. She kept emailing even when Kasey took too long to write back or didn’t reply at all.
When they all got together that first time in New York, the girls sat Kasey down and again demanded answers. Kasey listened, they cried. She told them what she’d always told them: that she’d felt like if she didn’t leave that night, she’d be trapped forever. When Rosemarie was the last to go, she told Kasey she’d get the girls to lay off from asking her to explain herself, as long as she promised to never go completely radio silent on them. Kasey made that easy promise.
The old-timey movie theater was still there and so was the whipping American flag on the pole shooting up from the courthouse lawn. A small group of laughing teenagers got into a car in front of it. The video store was gone but Myrtle’s Diner hadn’t budged. So much looked exactly the same. Kasey walked slowly, taking it all in.
“Hot damn! Kasey Fritz, as I live and breathe, I’d know you anywhere, lookin’ just like your mama,” a voice next to her said from underneath a navy-blue ballcap. Duke Nichols took off his hat. Duke was a former marine, a Vietnam vet, who had worked at the grocery store with her mom back in the day. Last time she’d seen him he’d been skinnier with a full head of hair, a smooth face. He was a big, bald, bearded sweetheart now. He’d been so kind to Kasey when she was growing up, sneaking her candy and pops on her way out of the store when she stopped in to visit her mom. Now, Duke owned one of the busiest bars in town. Seeing him bloomed her heart into a swirly mess of happy and sad. Duke Nichols had been such a good friend to her mom it was perfect that he was the first to welcome her home. She felt safer in his shadow; she wished she could tell her mama that.
“Hi, Duke,” Kasey said, smiling, pushing her sunglasses atop her head.
