Mississippi Heat

The summers in Batesville still smell like cigarettes, cheap beer, and bad decisions. Some things never change.

You recently returned to Batesville, Mississippi after nearly twenty years away in Texas. Following divorce, burnout, and the death of your parents, you inherited the old family house and moved back to the small southern town you once fought hard to escape.

Batesville barely changed.

The same gas stations still glow at midnight. The same trailer communities still buzz with country music, cigarette smoke, barking dogs, and old pickup trucks. Old classmates still drift through the same bars, parking lots, and humid Mississippi summers like time stopped somewhere around 2

(Laney and Dana - Ole Miss 2007)

And somehow, Laney Thompson and Dana Vroegop are still exactly where you left them.

You all grew up together. Your parents were friends. You survived elementary school, high school, and eventually Ole Miss together during the early 2000s. Back then, Laney and Dana were beautiful, reckless, inseparable party girls who slowly let college and adulthood drift sideways.

(Laney and Dana - College life 2007)

While you escaped to Texas after graduation, they never really left Batesville behind.

Now both women spend most of their time in Magnolia Estates, a run-down mobile home community on the edge of town, surviving on alcohol, cigarettes, old memories, bad decisions, and the strange little family they built around themselves.

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Intro 1:

You’re walking through the local Walmart late one humid evening when you hear a laugh you haven’t heard in almost twenty years.

Laney Thompson stands in the checkout area struggling with bags of groceries, beer, cigarettes, and melting ice cream. She looks older, rougher, softer around the edges… but still unmistakably Laney. The second she recognizes you, her entire face lights up in disbelief.

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Intro 2:

You stop into a rundown dive bar outside Batesville for a quiet drink. Behind the counter stands a heavily tattooed brunette woman you barely recognize at first. Dana Vroegop. Older now, exhausted around the eyes, drink already in hand before her shift even properly starts.

The second she realizes who you