by Robin Dodd
I was there the day Tammy Dickey showed up at the Northcutts. It wasn’t like people said, either. Candi never chased Tammy’s car down the road and Bobby never went to jail. That was something Freddie Jo made up. It was the summer before we all came to school wearing those shirts: I survived the Texas heatwave. Bobby had picked me and Lisa up from Camp Pinsky over in East Texas the day before, and to this day, I still can’t believe my mother let me go. She was sure we were gonna be snatched up by some hillbilly cult and sacrificed in the woods. We weren’t, and we got back just in time for the fish fry they were throwing. The Northcutts lived on a fish hatchery, and Bobby worked his ass off managing the place. He liked to cut loose on the occasional weekend and reward his staff with impromptu fish fries.
At the time, Lisa Northcutt was my best friend, and I worshipped the ground her mama walked on. Candi Northcutt wasn’t a glamorous person. For one, she was a close talker. She’d get right up in people’s faces, one hand in a bag of chips, the other on her hip, food flying when she talked. She’d hold up the checkout line at the Piggly Wiggly, like a honey crisp apple in a flowery caftan, her hair sprayed to high heaven, barking at the poor cashier, wondering why he wouldn’t take her expired coupon. She had more than her share of public run-ins, for sure. The woman could’ve given a master class in not giving a shit. That’s what kept me spellbound.
Jackie, my mother, did not get my obsession with being over there, the above-ground swimming pool, the mismatched furniture, the velvet dog paintings. She was constantly trying to get my dad to move to one of those new subdivisions in Fort Worth where the schools were supposedly better. The thought terrified me. I loved our ugly little highway town, and I loved Bobby and Candi. I would’ve traded houses in a heartbeat. The Northcutts were free to be you and me. But it was more than that. Candi Northcutt was the head lunch lady over at Hawk Heights elementary for years, and one time a teacher had me in the hallway for something Julie Fetters did, that troublemaker. Well, Candi saw me standing out there, and she went right up to old Ms. Wright and said, “Hell no, you won’t be calling Beth’s mama, because Beth was raised in the church, and she don’t get in trouble; I’ll handle it. I’ll let her mama know,” or something like that. She gave me extra fries in the lunch line that day. She stood up for me. Plus, when Candi watched her Kojak reruns on the weekend, she let Lisa and me share a wine cooler.
My relationship with my mother didn’t come so easy. In those days, everything she did was for show. She had to be the room mother every year and the PTA president. She threw me elaborate birthday parties, but we never just sat around together, and if we did, she never listened to a thing I said. One time Lisa told Candi she wanted to be a hair stylist, and Candi’s face lit up like the Fourth of July, she actually got giddy, like Lisa had said she wanted to be governor of Texas. Then, she turns and asks me what do I want to do with my life, and I didn’t know, I was probably twelve, but I said maybe I might be a music teacher, and Candi looked me right in the eye and said, “Beth, that is a fucking fantastic idea, you play the piano better than any kid I’ve ever heard.” My mama liked to preach about the real job I’d have to get some day, that I should save my piano playing for parties or church. She had Daddy pushing computer programming on me, even though he knew I wanted to follow the music. I’d never even seen a computer; I wasn’t about to major in data processing. My poor daddy—it destroyed him when I didn’t go to TCU, his alma mater, a fact I attribute to the events of that day at the Northcutts.
Anyway, I should’ve known the universe was off when Candi and Bobby started fighting over a dead snake. All of us girls were laying out, minding our own business, listening to the Bee Gees when Candi came outside, a cigarette dangling out of her mouth, carrying our lunch: hot dogs, and Doritos. Bobby didn’t like her to smoke while she cooked, so I thought maybe they’d been bickering; I’d never seen them fight much. “If you want chili, it’s in the crock pot on the stove.” Candi looked down at us and pulled a long drag off her cigarette. She was wearing a ragged blue bikini top she’d been living in all summer and some flowery knee length shorts. Before we could get up, Bobby came from the side yard, shaking his head, cussing to himself, with the snake in question thrown over his shoulder. Bobby was tall and wiry, but delicate in some ways, like a praying mantis who decided to kick it up a notch with some aviator sunglasses. Well, he took that snake and fastened it next to a very large, very scaly, deep grey cottonmouth that was already hanging from the clothesline.
“Let me ask you girls somethin’,” he said, picking up a garden hoe.
Candi rolled her eyes and took another exasperated drag. “Bobby, this isn’t necessary. I told you it was a mistake.”
“It’s necessary, Candi.” He pointed the hoe at the snakes. “These girls need to know.”
“They ain’t never gonna kill a damn snake, Bobby. They’re kids.”
He ignored her. “Can you girls tell me the difference between one of the most dangerous snakes in Texas, the cottonmouth, and the very innocent, very loving, watersnake? It shouldn’t be too hard.” He hit that last word and glared over at Candi.
Rhetta, Lisa’s sister, the one who became a pediatric nurse, put down the bodice ripper she’d stolen from Candi’s dresser drawer and pranced over to the clothesline. “Well, you can’t tell it, cuz they’re both dead, but when a cottonmouth opens its mouth, it looks like cotton, and the watersnake has round eyes.” She circled around both snakes examining them. “The cottonmouth has cat eyes.” She flicked the snake on the right. “And it floats.”
“Thank you, darlin’. I’m glad you’ve been paying attention, cuz your mama done killed a damn watersnake, as you can see, and it just breaks my heart. We can’t be doing that.” Bobby threw down the hoe and grabbed a Bud Light from the cooler on the deck to self soothe. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “I mean, I think I know this snake; I recognize the markings.”
“Goddamn Bobby. People are gonna be here in a few hours and you’re having a memorial for a reptile. Now get inside and take a shower.” Done 2025done 2025
They left us out there surrounded by poisonous snakes and large-mouthed bass. I tried to picture my mother hanging our clothes next to a couple of dead snakes, the pioneer she was, on the trail to Neiman Marcus. The image still makes me cry with laughter.
By the time everyone showed up with their Pyrex dishes filled with tater tots and mac and cheese, Candi and Bobby were over their spat. Bobby was frying up fish, and sucking on a toothpick, while Candi, parked herself next to a bucket of wine coolers and a friend she could gossip with, her sunglasses reflecting the light of the setting sun. Lisa and I were watching all the little kids in the pool, and I had just popped a George Strait tape in the jam box, when I noticed a lanky blond girl wearing a tube top and cut-offs like we all wore back in the day. She slid out of the passenger seat of this tiny yellow car that pulled up right next to the driveway. A guy no bigger than a soda straw and sporting a pristine mullet leaned over the roof of the car. He said a few words to her before they both strolled over like invited them.
“Is this Bobby Northcutt’s place?” she said, pulling up her tube top. She was tan, had icy blue eyes and a tiny button mouth. Her voice was deep and raspy.
“Well, he manages the hatchery,” Lisa answered, looking her over. “Do you work for the state too?”
“No,” Mullet said. “Uh, we don’t.” He gave a head toss. “I’m Van, and this is Tammy.”
Lisa’s littlest sister Misty started spilling her entire life story to them, the way kindergartners do with strangers. Tammy had freckles and dark eyeliner around each eye which gave her a harsh look. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but definitely older than me and Lisa. Before it got seriously awkward, Candi pushed through our little crowd holding a spatula and wine cooler, smiling like a cartoon shark. “I’m Candi Northcutt,” she said, in the most officious voice I’d ever heard her use. “This is private property.” Her eyes darted over to Van and then back to Tammy where they lingered.
“They’re looking for Daddy, Mom.” Lisa said flatly and went to get Bobby.
“Do you work for the parks department?” Candi asked, her eyes narrowing in on them.
“We live over in Dallas. We didn’t mean to intrude; the gate up there was open.” Van pointed in the direction of the road, a tuft of black hair, the size of a small Yorkie, escaping from his sleeveless Metallica sweatshirt.
Something I’ll never forget is Candi’s face when Bobby came strolling up. It’s like she knew. She knew before Tammy Dickey said a word. He took off those shades, introduced himself, and gave them the Bobby Northcutt official greeting—a backslap followed by a wheezy laugh. Tammy asked if they could speak off to the side, and Candi got right up in her face and said, “Whatever you need to say you can say right here in front of all of us.” Then everything went into slow motion. Candi was irate, because deep down, shit had finally hit the fan.
“You all go on now,” Bobby said in robotic voice and shooed us girls away when Tammy started to cry a little. He walked her and Van over to the side of the house, Van nodding his head up and down like a southern preacher in a church receiving line. Candi pushed her way over there, and mumbled something to Bobby I couldn’t hear. He grabbed her wrist real quick like and said, “I’m not gonna do that Candi.” After that, Lisa and I went and ate all the desserts we could find, and I lost track of Candi.
“She said you’re my daddy,” Lisa said staring at them out the kitchen window. “Isn’t that what she said?”
“That’s what she said.”
“She could be lying,” Lisa said, looking at me for validation.
“Why would she lie?”
“People lie about shit all the time.”
I hadn’t heard Lisa cuss much. I figured she was in shock. I know I was. Lisa asked me if she and Tammy looked alike. I stared into my friend’s blue eyes and button mouth, lied and said no. I changed the subject.
“Her weirdo boyfriend said they live in Dallas.”
“You think he’s a weirdo?” Lisa said.
“He has a lot of arm pit hair for a skinny guy.”
“Yeah, he does,” she agreed. “Dallas is far.”
When the mosquitos came out, the fish hatchery folk started packing up and Candi reappeared on cue to say goodbye to everyone. “We’ll see you next month.” They had no idea. I was impressed. A strange girl had walked into a huge party Candi Northcutt was having and announced that she was Bobby’s lovechild and Candi had not lost her cool. She looked okay. Like she was going to roll with it. She made Rhetta and Misty go to bed and made me and Lisa help her clean up. I was dying to talk to Tammy and figure out all the details.
“We were wondering if y’all knew of any campgrounds around here?” Van was saying when we came out on the porch.
“There’s a KOA up the road,” Candi said, still trying to sound nonchalant.
“Why don’t y’all just stay here,” Bobby said holding a can of lighter fluid. “We got plenty of room.”
Bobby was trying to put the fire together for s’mores, when the little kids were already asleep. I think he was just on autopilot, tinkering around with things like he did. Tammy stayed close to him, saying she was grateful that she stopped by, that she’d been scared, but Van said to do it anyway, that her mother had wanted her to meet Bobby after all this time. Bobby told her it was brave for her to come over to see him. Lisa and I were sitting on the deck eating marshmallows watching them talk, when my ears started to ring. The air fell silent, like how it gets right before a tornado finds the ground and starts destroying everything in its path. Candi was standing off to the side, staring a hole through Tammy.
“Your mama was such a nice girl, Tammy.” Bobby ignored Candi like he couldn’t even see her. He got up, lit a cigarette, and steadied himself against a post on the deck. “I never knew her as a woman, you know. We were just seventeen when we broke up.” He raised his chin and blew smoke above our heads. “It sounds like Bubba was a real good dad to you. I’m glad he was there for you. I looked up to him so much in school. He was a damn good football player.”
“He thinks he still is.” Tammy laughed to try to break the tension. She smiled over at me and Lisa, then yelled across the yard. “Van, it’s probably better, all the way around, if we head to the KOA.”
He’d been over by the clothesline eyeballing the snakes. Van nodded and said that it was a good idea. They’d upset Candi with all of this, Tammy told him, when he wandered back over. Bobby got Van a beer and the three of them took off in the direction of the car. Candi stood on the deck, staring off toward the spillway. Her face was hard, a deep furrow between her brows.
Lisa broke the silence. “Mama, why don’t you want them to stay?” She started picking dirt from her fingernails, one of her nervous habits.
“I just don’t,” Candi said, without turning around.
“You’re not even talking to her.” Lisa stood up, her voice getting louder.
“Lisa…”
I knew by the way Candi said Lisa that it was time for us to get out of there. I tried to grab Lisa’s arm, but she pushed my hand away. I stood there holding a bag of giant marshmallows and a Hershey bar the size of a brick, not knowing what the hell to do.
Lisa tapped Candi hard on the shoulder. “It sounds like Daddy believes everything Tammy is saying, which sounds about right, since he’s a hundred times nicer…”
That’s when Candi hit Lisa so hard that she spun around like a top. Not with a fist or anything, but one of those iconic childhood slaps. It was so loud I screamed a little. Candi looked at me like “you’ll be next if you say anything”, then stormed into the house. Lisa stood there dry-eyed and slack-jawed, with a Candi-sized handprint on her face. I was wondering what to do next when Bobby and them walked down to the yard with the tent. Lisa gave me a look that said do not say a word so I didn’t.
“Just put the tent up,” Bobby said, motioning with his beer to a spot in the yard. “And I’ll deal with Candi.”
“Daddy, wait,” Lisa said and followed him into the house.
They disappeared and I imploded on the back porch, wailing like my dog died. You know when your pulse is in your eyeballs? Tammy helped me calm down and asked what my name was. She got me some water from the cooler, said Beth was her favorite name, which was bullshit I know, but it was nice of her to try to distract me. She popped the Hotel California cassetteinto the jam box and tried to block out all the shrieking coming from the house. Candi floated by the kitchen window every few minutes like the ghost of Christmas past.
“Don’t you love the Eagles?” Tammy took me by the hand. She smelled like vanilla. We danced around a little bit, her arms moving up and down like I’d seen the hippies do in old Woodstock documentaries. I told her my dad listened to opera, and she laughed, then I tried to copy her moves, my hips knocking from side to side.
“Opera’s cool,” she said dreamily, and Van moved in close and whispered something in her ear. He headed off in the direction of the pond closest to the house. We danced over to the car. It was packed with clothes, pillows, fishing poles, and a stereo system. She dug around in the back seat, rearranged a few boxes, then handed me a worn thermal blanket, a Winnie the Pooh sleeping bag and a couple of pillows. We crawled into the tent and spread out the blankets. I didn’t know what to say so I told her what a great dad Bobby was and how much he liked the holidays. How he always took us to see Christmas lights. Tammy leaned over on one butt cheek and pulled some lip gloss out of her back pocket. Her fingernail polish was blood red and chipped off in spots. She studied my face. “Do you stay over here a lot?”
“Yeah,” I said starting to cry again. “My parents drive me nuts. Especially my mother.”
“I miss my mama so much,” Tammy said, her gravelly voice cracking.
“Why? Where did she go?” I asked like an idiot, not knowing.
Tammy pulled a flashlight out of a bag and hung it from the top of the tent, so we could see. She told me her mother Tonya had died six months ago, that she’d been sick for a couple years. All hell broke loose in my head. I didn’t understand why Candi was acting like she was, for one. I felt guilty for shutting out my own mother, who had issues, but had never hauled off and slapped me across the face. I was amazed that Tammy could just walk up to a house full of strangers on the way out of town and drop this kind of bombshell. I tried to focus on what she was saying, about Colorado, how her mother left her a little money, how she wanted to see the world. How she was thankful that she got to meet Bobby, even if she never saw him again. I really liked her. I decided that right then and there.
I heard knocking around outside in the yard. It was Lisa. She pushed her way into the tent and handed each of us a beer. I popped mine open and took a slurp. It tasted terrible.
“We didn’t officially meet.” Lisa sat back in the corner of the tent. “I’m Lisa Ann. I guess I’m your sister.”
“I’m sorry about all this,” Tammy said.
“Maybe you should’ve sent a card,” Lisa said and all three of us burst out laughing. After a few minutes of laughing and making jokes Lisa asked Tammy how old she was.
“I’m eighteen.” Tammy whipped her tube top off in one swift move, leaving Lisa and me to gawk at her perfectly tanned breasts.
“Take a picture; it’ll last longer.” She laughed and went about the business of covering her arms and chest with Avon Skin so Soft. “A trick to keep the mosquitos away. Not many people know.” She inched herself around until she was facing the back of the tent. “Can you get my back, Beth?”
“How do you get your, um you know, to look so?” Lisa looked down at her own chest.
I made a face at her. Lisa gawked and shrugged back at me, so I took the bottle and rubbed some lotion on Tammy’s back with both hands. “You don’t have any tan lines.”
“I lay out in the nude on my roof. Well, I did.” She pulled a large white T-shirt from her bag and slipped it over her head. “And you have to cover yourself in baby oil when you lay out or there’s no point.” She slipped her panties off one hip to show us proof. “That’s the secret to a kick-ass tan.”
A noise came from behind us, toward the spillway. It sounded so much like a coyote, the three of us sat frozen. Another high-pitched wail came loud and long, now by the water.
“That’s a person,” Tammy said and lunged for the zipper of the tent. Lisa and I were right behind her. The three of us ran down the road screaming for Van. We couldn’t find him. Bobby came sailing by us shirtless with a pistol in his pants hopping on one foot struggling to get his other boot on.
“God Dammit, God Dammit.”
“Quit using the Lord’s name in vain.” Candi was fast on his heels in flip flops. “You need to be careful with that gun.” Her face was puffy. I could see that in the dark.
“Tater!” Bobby said to Lisa. “Get the giant flashlight from the storage room.”
“God dammit!” he mumbled to himself. “Let me handle this, Candi. You get the truck. No telling what this kid has gotten hisself into.”
Bobby found Van by the fathead minnow pond, screaming full force and rolling around in the gravel.
“Let me see your leg.” Bobby grabbed the flashlight from Lisa. It shone bright against Van’s scrawny chicken-like calf. There were two perfect puncture wounds. He was sweating more than anyone I’d ever seen.
“It was a snake!” Van looked toward the pond. “And I don’t know where the hell it went. It was fucking huge.”
“Did you get in the water, Van?” Tammy sighed, like he’d done crazy things before.
“I bet it was Big Eddie.” Bobby wiped sweat from his forehead and squinted up at me and Lisa.
“Who the fuck is Big Eddie?” Van threw his arm around Bobby’s shoulder, and the two of them started walking toward the headlights of the pickup truck.
“You might want to watch your language, son, and thank your goddamn lucky stars he bit you down there.” He pointed to Van’s calf. “The only way you’re gonna get bit by Big Eddie or any other cottonmouth in this pond is by stepping on one of them or poking at one. Now which was it?” Bobby waved Candi closer. Tammy got on the other side of Van to help him walk.
“I thought I might go for a swim was all,” he winced.
“Son,” Bobby shook his head back and forth. “These snakes are night hunters. Now let’s get you in the truck. We got to go to Fort Worth. The hospital out here, I hate to say it, but they ain’t got nothing for you. If you end up needing anti-venom…”
“Will I lose my leg?” Van was crying. The whole night had been a fucking cry fest.
“Son, no. You will not lose your leg, but your dick might fall off.” One of Bobby’s favorite pastimes—laughing at his own jokes. Tammy and I started to crack up, delirious at that point. I felt an unfamiliar anxiety creep in when Bobby pulled out of the driveway with Van, especially when Candi turned on her sugary sweet voice, telling Tammy it was fine to let Bobby handle it. Van would be in good hands, that Tammy should just stay here. She would cut them a piece of pie. Then Lisa and I went to sit down at the dining room table, and Candi turned on a dime. “Y’all go get your showers.” We didn’t argue. When we got done, they were both still at the table. We sat down next to Tammy, and Candi didn’t seem to even notice. There were at least three cigarettes in her ashtray, so she’d been doing some hard thinking and running of the mouth. I kept my eyes on the cloud of smoke hovering over the table. The place reeked like a dive bar. Tammy hadn’t eaten much of her pie, just kept moving her fork around.
“Our friend Jean used to say to me,” Candi pulled a new cigarette out of the pack and lit it up, “Tonya thinks she’s so much better than us.”
“What are you talking about?” Tammy said, putting her fork down.
“I’m saying that your mama was no saint. Bubba Dickey had big dreams; he was in college at SMU. That was big time. She saw an opportunity, and she took it. I knew what she was doing.”
“My mama had to give up her dream of being a stewardess for me. She wasn’t even planning on marrying Bubba or anyone before she traveled the world.”
“Your mama told everybody she wanted to see the world alright, but she left town, because she was a whore, and everybody knew it. She didn’t have any idea who that baby’s daddy was.” Candi sucked on her cigarette and looked away. “Tonya had to peel her backside off more than one vinyl seat, back in those days.”
“No!” Tammy reared up like one of those snakes on the clothesline. “My mama was your best friend, and you fucked her over. She called you from Dallas to talk to Bobby, and you said, I’ll tell Bobby about the baby. Let me handle him.”
“That’s a lie!” Candi’s shoulders were dancing back and forth.
“Then you made a special trip to Dallas just to tell her that Bobby didn’t want to have nothing to do with me, that she should tell Bubba that I was his. Well, she never did that. Bubba was a good daddy to me, but he knew I was Bobby’s.”
“Mama, why would you do that?” Lisa said, shocked.
“You shut your goddamn mouth,” Candi said through gritted teeth. She didn’t say she was sorry to Tammy, didn’t apologize to Lisa for slapping the shit out of her, or anything. Just told Lisa to dry it up and marched into her bedroom.
“Should we drive to the hospital and find Daddy and Van?” Lisa asked. Tammy said no, she was too tired, that Van was always doing dumb stuff like that, so the three of us went out to the tent and tried to sleep. I remember Lisa kept asking Tammy a lot of questions about sex, and what it was like with Van. They fell asleep way before me, and I spent the night wondering who and what I should believe. Wondering how I would ever look Candi in the face again.
The next morning, I heard Van’s voice in the yard, so I knew he hadn’t croaked in the night. After the day we had, I wasn’t ruling anything out. Bobby was out there with him, slurping Folgers coffee and smoking, of course. “Van survived a cottonmouth, Beth.” We all had. I thought to myself, and she’s standing in the goddamn kitchen. Bobby slapped him on the back. “He’s gonna live to tell the tale.” There was no use postponing goodbye; it was already hotter than hell, so we helped Tammy pack up while Van watched from the lawn chair.
“Maybe we could see each other this Christmas.” Bobby held Tammy by the shoulders, drinking in her whole face, so he wouldn’t forget her. “I don’t know how right now, but I’ll figure something out.” Tammy nodded.
“He means it,” Lisa told Tammy, “Daddy’s not a liar. He’s a real good person.”
Van and Tammy pulled off down the road in their little yellow car, and that old broad didn’t even come outside to say goodbye. Lisa showed me a picture of Candi and Tonya that Tammy had given her. It said November 1968 on the back. Tonya was wearing a red jumper and Candi a blue one, with their matching outfits and beehive hairdos, they did look like best friends, Tonya’s baby bump, being the only difference. I studied the picture for a few minutes, wondering what those two girls must’ve been thinking. They were so young. One carrying a baby without a husband, and the other carrying a secret she would never tell.
Bobby said he would take me home.
“I sure do like Tammy,” I said in the truck. “I can tell she enjoys life, like you.”
“Yep, darlin,” Bobby said and patted my hand. “She seems to.” He was quiet until he got to my house, and then finally said, “You know Beth, I like to look for hope in places we ain’t likely to find it, and this is one of those times. Don’t you worry now. It’s gonna all work out.”
After that day, I never spent another night at the Northcutt’s. I made excuses when Lisa asked me to come over. She knew the real reason. She eventually stopped asking. After we graduated, Lisa went to Colorado, which I’m sure pissed Candi off, and I backpacked across Europe, which in turn made my mother lose her mind. I did sneak a call to Tammy a couple weeks after she left town, to see if they made it. She told me that Van got stung by a scorpion in Durango, typical, and she promised to mail me a postcard from Glenwood Springs but never did.
Last Christmas, I drove past by the Northcutt’s just to see if their old Nativity scene was up, the one we always took up to the road after Thanksgiving. It was. One Wise Man was missing, and the Angel of the Lord was faded, the paint was peeling off the plastic. I could see us there in my memory, all four girls in Bobby’s truck, Mary, mother of Jesus, riding shotgun. I pulled into the convenience store for gas and paid at the pump. I noticed a woman walking to her car and knew instantly it was Candi; the colorful caftan sealed it. She had a pack of Mores in her hand and that same boxy hair and duck walk. There she is, right where I left her, I thought. I laughed at how hard we try to escape our raising, the sense of place, whether we like it or not, burning like a pilot light deep inside us. I could hear Candi’s voice like it was yesterday. Beth, that is a fucking fantastic idea. I know she felt me staring because as I slipped into the front seat, she smiled quick and waved like you do in a small town, whether you recognize someone or not. I waved back through the windshield and wondered what Bobby was doing these days. Can you girls tell me the difference between a cottonmouth, and this sweet ole watersnake? I watched her make a right toward town, then I drove on toward the highway thinking, No Bobby, I never could.
A native Texan, Robin is drawn to write about loneliness, how we process grief, how friendships develop or fall away over time. She writes about family, what makes us hold on, and what tears us apart. In the good old days, Robin worked in musical theatre in both New York and Los Angeles. She married her country-singing husband and headed for Nashville, where she had her own photography studio. In 2023, Robin earned her MFA in Fiction from the University of Oregon. She is currently working on her debut novel and lives and writes in Chicago, where she enjoys WhatsApping her three daughters and walking her angry pug.