“Walk into a club where you know no one, all by yourself.” When I say it out loud, it doesn’t sound like fun at all. I remember Jessie saying her nephew worked there, but I don’t remember his name. Walking up to a perfect stranger and saying “Hey, I know your aunt!” seems beyond bizarre and not an action I’d consider.
I pull out my phone and search for things to do in Cascade Falls. The club, Big O, is one of the first things to come up. My other options include a bowling alley, a pottery store where you can paint your own bowls, and a place you can go to throw axes.
An advertisement for the Winter Lodge pops up, and I click on it. Jessie was right about the holiday season—they do go all out—but all of that ended just a couple of months ago and no major events are scheduled until March. However, the lodge does boast about having the largest indoor water park in the Midwest, an arcade, and an escape room, which is available year-round.
The escape room actually interests me, but again, I’d need someone to go with me.
“The dilemma continues.”
As if in response, my phone chimes. It’s a notification from a dating app I signed up for months ago at the encouragement of one of Aunt Ginny’s recently divorced friends. I’d gone out on a couple disastrous dates and stopped using it. Every once in a while, I’d look, just to see what was out there. I’d start chatting with a few people, get a weird vibe from someone, become intimidated, and quickly close it out.
“Why are you sending me notifications now? Oh, I see. Phone update. Love it when updating my phone also means changing the settings.”
I pause, wondering if I should just delete the app altogether or actually respond to a message from “BigBen69.” According to his profile picture, he does catch a nice fish.
“It’s like none of them know anything about women.” I roll my eyes.
I notice the app has added some new features, including looking at people who are both online now and close to your location. Tentatively, I scroll through a few of them. I skip all the ones with pictures containing other women, not enough clothing, or too many fish.
A red exclamation point pops up at the bottom of my screen. BigBen69 has sent me another message. Out of curiosity, I read it.
BigBen69: how u doin beautiful
And then when I didn’t reply in the first ten minutes,
BigBen69: just don’t respond then bitch
“Seriously?” I consider throwing the phone, but it’s not the phone’s fault, so I don’t. “What an ass!”
I’m about to turn the phone off when another message appears. The tiny picture in the corner shows a relatively handsome man with dark hair and a nice smile. His user name is simply TommyFlynnW. I take a deep breath and open the message.
TommyFlynnW: Hi there! Are you new in town or just passing thru? You don’t look familiar, but you do look nice!
Well, that’s certainly a better introduction than the last one. At least this guy uses punctuation and a reasonable level of spelling accuracy, assuming I can get over “thru.”
AccidentalC99: Thank you, Tommy. I’m new in town. Just moved here a few days ago.
TommyFlynnW: Nice! I’ve lived here my whole life. How’s that for small town lol
AccidentalC99: I thought this was a big city! I come from a much smaller town.
TommyFlynnW: oh yeah? Where?
We chat back and forth for a few minutes, and my mood steadily starts to improve, that is, until Tommy asks to meet.
TommyFlynnW: Have you been to the new club over on Locust? I hear it’s hoppin.
AccidentalC99: The only club I know about is Big O. I haven’t been there yet.
TommyFlynnW: Big O?
AccidentalC99: Yeah my neighbor told me about it.
TommyFlynnW: So you live east of main?
My skin begins to crawl, and I pause before answering.
AccidentalC99: Yes. Is that a rpbolem?
“Dammit!” I hit enter too soon, and my typo goes through. I quickly type it out again, but by the time I do, I get an error message.
You can no longer send messages to TommyFlynnW!
“Wait! What?”
He blocked me.
That fucker blocked me!
I have never been blocked from anything in my life. I’ve always considered myself a nice, non-confrontational kind of person and though I wasn’t good at making friends, I simply didn’t make enemies of anyone. In my high school, I had been the loner who didn’t belong to any cliques, but I had never been shunned or bullied. Though it meant I was often lonely, I never felt like I was missing anything and had never been treated cruelly by classmates. I’ve never been unfriended on social media or even blocked into a parking space!
“What the actual fuck?” I scream at the phone.
I quickly cover my mouth. Aunt Ginny didn’t approve of swearing unless you were directly connected to the Navy. Then I remember where I am and why, and I can’t stop the tears from flowing. I let it happen for the first time in months. I sit and cry and cry and cry until I’ve practically dehydrated myself, and the tissue box is half empty.
With labored breaths, I drag myself to the kitchen for some water, drink it down, and then blow my nose loudly. I trudge to the bathroom to wash my face and stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
“I’m not going to let some motherfucking Westsider make me feel bad!” I yell at the reflective glass, no longer caring about my language. “That fucking fucker can just go fuck himself!”
I end up laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. I also have to admit that there just might be something to the east-side, west-side thing though I can’t fathom what it might be.
Maybe Jessie isn’t paranoid after all.
Chapter 3—First Date
A combination of anger and curiosity drive me, and I spend the whole evening on the dating app. I notice almost immediately that many of the profiles with Cascade Hills as their location have either a W or an E at the end of their user names.
I get messages from a few other men, all of whom ask which side of town I live on within the first few messages. Those with a W in their names stop talking to me or block me right away. All thoughts of Jessie being paranoid leave me.
“It’s like a whole town full of Hatfields and McCoys!”
Tossing my phone to the side, I pull out my laptop and start doing a little research on the town of Cascade Falls, Ohio. I look up the words “feud” and “dispute” and “vendetta” but find nothing to explain everyone’s behavior.
Digging a bit more, the only thing I find of note about the town is an obituary for Carlo Orso, who apparently passed away suddenly a few weeks ago. Jessie had mentioned the Orso family once or twice before, calling them philanthropists and going on about them as if they were the royal family of Cascade Falls. With no other real direction, I start researching the family.
The first thing I notice is that Cascade Falls—a town of roughly twenty thousand people—has two newspapers. Two honest-to-goodness, actually printed-on-paper newspapers that come out once a week. I can only shake my head when I see the newspapers are called Cascade Falls West and Cascade Falls East.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
In the Cascade Falls West articles, there is exactly one reference to the Orso family, and that is the same obituary I had already found. In the Cascade Falls East newspaper, the Orso family appears in every edition, often more than once, and usually front-page articles. All the write-ups have a similar theme.