Love Me for Me(49)

“I’d love one. Thanks,” Libby said.

“Yes, thank you!” Celia agreed, as she sat down next to Catherine’s mother, Leanne. “Anyone else need anything from the kitchen?” The other ladies shook their heads, already involved in a discussion of the local bank’s new hours.

“I’ll come with you,” Libby said, following her.

Catherine handed her a glass and set the bottle on the counter. “So, what’s up?” she said, pulling another glass from the cabinet as Libby filled her own glass with Pinot Grigio.

“Still getting the Roberts’ cottage ready for sale. I bought it with my ex-fiancé.” She took a sip of wine.

“Ex…?”

“Well, he wasn’t my ex at the time,” she grinned.

“Girl, I don’t care about the cottage!” She poured wine into a glass for Celia. “What’s up with you and Pete? I heard y’all have been hanging out lately! Anything exciting happen?”

How did she hear that? The mere thought of people discussing her and Pete gave her a queasy feeling. That was exactly why she wanted to get back to New York. Didn’t people here have anything better to do than stick their nose in her business? In New York there was plenty to do, so no one bothered with anyone else’s lives. “Who told you about that?”

“Pete told Jason that you came to his mom’s birthday party, and Jason’s still good friends with Scott.” All those names together pulled her toward the memory of a colder day, fifteen years ago. Even though it had been cold outside, the memory was as warm as any she had.

On the first full weekend of every November, things began to change. In the town of Urbanna, a few towns over, no-parking signs and other festive decorations suddenly appeared. On the Friday night, sirens blared, lights flashed, and standing there, she nearly had to cover her ears from the sound of it all. Fire trucks from everywhere in Virginia paraded down the main street, and people with unrecognizable faces began filling the whole town. They’d come from all over the state. The Oyster Festival had begun.

So many people showed up, that the school buses couldn’t get through the streets, so every year on that Friday, school was closed. When she was only fifteen, Libby and Catherine had spent the whole Friday getting ready just so they could meet their friends behind the fire house after the parade. That was where the beer garden was, and, although they weren’t old enough to drink, they liked to hang around near the older crowd; it made them feel mature. So, with a brand new sweater and her favorite jeans, a fresh haircut and paint on her nails, Libby waited for her friends. Pete, Scott, and their friend, Jason, had shown up not too long after the girls had gotten there.

It was that night of the Oyster Festival that the five of them had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning in Catherine’s living room. Later that morning, Libby had awakened next to Pete, curled up in his arms. As she looked at his face, it was the first time she’d felt what it would be like to be Pete Bennett’s girlfriend.

Five years later, Catherine had married Scott in a small family ceremony on the beach. Catherine had dated Scott about as long as Libby had known Pete.

She remembered Jason very well. He’d been one of the boys she’d chased after that day that she’d hurt her leg when Helen had to bandage it.

“Jason still lives around here?”

“He owns a siding company now, and he bartends at Rocky’s on the weekends. He and Pete like to restore boats together sometimes. You know how they were as kids. They aren’t much different now,” she grinned.

It was true. That very conversation could have happened when she was fifteen: Pete told Jason, and he knows Scott….

“I’m aware that they aren’t much different now.” Libby took another sip of wine and peeked in to check that her mother was still chatting with the other ladies. “Did you know that Pete jumped off your tire swing the other day?”

“What?” she said over her shoulder as she took Celia her wine. After a quick moment, Catherine returned, a look of confusion on her face, but a smile on her lips.

“Would you believe he got me on that thing?”

“Want to go ahead and start dinner, Catherine?” her grandmother, Esther, called from the other room. “You and Libby get the crabs and cook while we enjoy a little conversation amongst ourselves.”

“Okay,” she called back. “When were you even near that swing?” she giggled, pulling out a bowl of fresh green beans and an empty bowl. She washed at the sink, grabbed a fistful of beans, and set them on a plate in front of Libby. She started snapping ends off the beans, her face full of interest.