by Holly Hook
Aunt May closes the curtains. "I'm sorry," she says, setting her coffee mug down on the table. She adjusts the clip in her hair, tying up her graying blond hair. "It's been a long day for me, too."
"A long day?"
"It's nothing," she says in a dismissive tone. "It's nothing at all. Who came in?" She sits down as if bracing for news.
So far as I know, Aunt May doesn't have enemies other than financial gremlins she won't discuss with me. But she wears them in her deepening wrinkles and stress lines. Every time I ask if something's wrong or if she's having trouble keeping the store in the black, she waves my words away. But I'm not stupid. When she inherited the house my family's kept forever, debt came attached. Same with the store. During the past several months, the lines on her face have deepened, and she's scheduled Leonora and Lily, another employee, for fewer hours over the summer.
"A guy about my age came in," I say. "His phone was more important than anything." Maybe he has a super jealous girlfriend and he was texting with her. Sad thought. “I know lost tourists wander in, but I don't think he was one.”
"Oh. Really?" Aunt May says, lifting her other eyebrow to match the first. "What brings you to that conclusion?"
"He came in and bought spices today for grilling.”
Aunt May laughs. "There might be a new person at your school, then."
"I wonder if he will be a junior, too," I say. He looked to match my age.
"He could be," she says with a wink.
My cheeks betray me again. "Aunt May!"
"I know how it is," she says. "Do we need to have The Talk?"
"I'm seventeen," I say. "You can't scare me more than the horrors of Health class." An urge to escape sweeps over me and I decide I can heat something up for dinner later. "It's not as if we exchanged more than about a dozen words.” I can't tell her about how he appeared to overhear us now. Aunt May is making me feel awkward enough.
"You've been walking around with this look on your face since you got home. I can tell." She maintains a wry smile.
How does she know my body language so well? I'm in theater. I should perform better when it comes to hiding things. With a wave, I retreat to the back deck and out into the evening. The sun has sunk under the hills, but it still gives off rays of orange and pink.
The old tire swing Mom and Dad built when I was three hangs from the lower branch of our ancient pine. Putting my body through it, I swing back and forth and watch the field that spreads out behind our house. Bugs buzz and the first crickets chirp. I replay Aunt May's bizarre reaction to a new person walking into the store. It's not that big of a deal. There's something she's not telling me.
I eye the tall pines beyond the field. It's always peaceful out here, sitting in the crisp air. It's no wonder my family has lived in Breckenridge for generations. My parents owned this old, creaky house after Mom's father died. Aunt May took it over thirteen years ago when the car accident claimed them both. I've known no other home. Now Aunt May might deal with—
My stomach turns over and my heart gives an ominous leap as a new thought hits me. All thoughts of the mysterious guy flee as I worm out of the tire swing and stagger to the packed earth. Wires in my mind make connections without my trying. Aunt May wants me out of the house and she knows when I need alone time, I retreat to the tire swing. Her teasing serves a purpose.
Picking myself up, I creep across the grass and back to the house. The back door offers a view of the rear part of our property, so I walk around to the side garage door, avoiding the pale light pouring out of the back. Opening it with my not-often-used key, I wedge myself between Aunt May's old truck and my old Honda, the Beater. Praying no parts fall off as I sidestep through, I make it to the kitchen door.
With a tiny click, I crack it open an inch. Peeking inside, I find Aunt May pacing around the dining room, opening cabinets and fishing out a folder of documents from the bottom one. She draws her cell phone from her pocket, almost drops it, and sets the folder down on the table. Rubbing her temples, she sits and opens it. Creases form around her eyes as if she's aging a thousand times faster than normal. These lines are different. They're ones she doesn't dare wear around me.
Aunt May runs her fingers down one paper, which I can't see from my vantage point, and presses buttons on her phone to make a call.
"Yes? Have I reached the collection agency? You're a human? Good.” A pause. “Yes. Here's my account number.” She bites her nail after surrendering it. “I want to discuss a new payment plan with you if I can. You see, I won't be able to make the next rent payment on time. My business didn't quite get into the black this month. Oh, and about the property taxes—"
I close the door, having heard enough.
Running the family has become too much for her. And we don't pay rent on the house: only the lot that Sterling Grocery calls home.
Walking across the garage, slow at first, and then picking up my pace, I head to the back door of the house and slip back inside, taking the back steps to the second story. Knowing where to step to avoid alerting Aunt May, whose quiet voice floats from the kitchen, I make it to the second floor and eye the sealed attic door where my aunt keeps my parents' old stuff. With the right tools, I could pry it open. The nails don't look hard to remove. It's not as if I haven't helped Aunt May fix things around the house and have no clue how to use a hammer or flathead screwdriver.
She's had that door nailed shut forever. Her excuse is dry rot and keeping heat in the house during the winter, but that explanation never sat with me.
Temptation sweeps over me and my hands tingle. Maybe it's nailed shut for a good reason. But there could be answers to my parents' financial situation up there, along with so much more, but I fear that exploring that forbidden space will just lead to sadness. Possibilities I'll never experience. A graduation my parents will never attend, along with my wedding, first child, and the rest of my life.
The lump in my throat turns to a ball of pain and I walk away from the attic. I enter my bedroom and flop down on the bed, surrounded by a room and a house I may one day have to leave.
Chapter Three
"First day fist bump!" Noah Carmichael, my senior friend, turns away from his locker and raises his fist at me. He smiles.
Despite it being the first day of school, warmth fills me at the sight of one of my best friends. "Fist bump? Since when is this a thing?"
"Since now," he says.
"Come on. Fist bumps are for guys," I joke, stepping to the side to allow a stream of students to pass. Bodies brush against me in the narrow hall as people shuffle around, trying to find their classes. Eyes turn down to schedules and the freshmen clump together in nervous groups.
"So you're a guy?" Noah lifts one eyebrow at me.
"Noah!" I am so not giving him a fist bump now.
I'm glad to be back at school and away from the worries that surround the store and the house. Now that I've finished my required summer reading for Lit, I can focus back on Theater with Noah. The two of us go back to junior high when we worked on the Wizard of Oz together. I played one of the Munchkins and Noah got to be the scarecrow. He's always had better luck landing parts than me, but at least he's awesome about it.
Unlike some people.
Someone slams into me and makes me stumble into a nearby locker—right in front of Noah. A glimpse of jet black hair and perfect purple lipstick reveals that it's Olivia.
"Sorry," she says, not sounding it. "You shouldn't have been standing in the way, Bri-anna." She speaks the second part of my name with a sneer reserved just for me.
Olivia got to play Dorothy and rescue Noah from the Wicked Witch and her fire broom. She also starred as Juliet. Anne of Green Gables. She's stepped into the dress of every single female lead since the sixth grade and she is not cool about it.
And Noah is in love with her.
"Hey, Olivia," he says. "Ready for another fun an exciting year?" Noah takes the look of a puppy dog and doesn't dare try a fist bump. Doesn't he se
e the way Olivia looks at and talks to me? I like to think love blinds him.
Then Olivia puts on her nice girl act, the one she reserves when Noah is anywhere within fifty feet of her and when teachers are calling on us in class. She flutters her eyebrows, making my stomach turn. "Hey, Noah. Why yes, I am. Did you hear they'll do the auditions for this semester's play this week?"
"Which one are we doing this year?" Noah asks. He maintains that puppy glow in his eyes. “Have you heard?”
"I don't know yet. They're still deciding," Olivia says. She backs into the river of students with a wave. "I'll see you around!" With one last sneer at me, she vanishes into the flow.
"Noah, why are you in love with her?" I ask. "She's horrible and you know it."
He faces me and rubs his hand through his dirty blond hair. "Olivia—"
"Tutored you so you wouldn't flunk math in the fifth grade," I recite. "Just because she did that doesn't mean she's that same person now."
"You haven't spent a lot of time around her," Noah says. "If you'd give her a chance, you might see she can actually nice. She was also the only person to sit with me in the cafeteria that year."
"That's because fifth grade sucks," I say. "Everyone knows that. My point is, Olivia isn't that same person she used to be. She turned into another one of those girls."
"But she's smart."
"That doesn't mean she's not stuck up. Maybe that's why."
"That nice person's still in there. Olivia's just going through a rough patch. She needs to apply herself in class and she'll be fine. You're juniors. There's one more year to go after this one. Once college looms, I'm sure she'll change."
"That patch has stretched on for the past, what, four years?" Olivia got caught up with the snobby girls in the seventh grade. While she maintained her work in the school plays, she ditched the artistic kids to go to wild parties instead.
We walk towards our first class, Economics. Yay, junior year. I can take that and Government. Noah and I discuss Olivia's character and how she's going to bag the lead in the play this semester. "I hope it's a play where the female lead is an ogre," I say.
"We both know it won't happen," Noah says with a grin. "I don't want to kiss an ogre. Not even a pretend kiss."
"Even if it's Olivia?" I ask.
“Well, if she's a pretty ogre...”
And then I freeze in the doorway of Mrs. Connor's Economics class.
He's sitting there.
The guy from the grocery store.
"Brie?" Noah asks. "Are you about to tell me you're really a man now?"
I shake my head. The guy looks up when he hears Noah. Our gazes meet. The guy's hazel eyes are as deep, wild, and noble as I remember, even from this distance. They threaten to pull me in. The sun coming through the classroom window brings out the unusual highlights in his hair. He wears a black shirt that contrasts well with his complexion and a leather belt not even necessary to hold up his tight jeans.
His nostrils flare again as if he's sniffing out Noah. There's no one else in the room. It's subtle, and maybe I see it because I'm looking for it, but it's there.
Then the new guy looks away, pulls his phone from his pocket, and fiddles with it again.
So he's not a tourist.
He lives here in Breck now.
"Brie?" Noah taps my shoulder. "Maybe we should sit down before more people get in and force us to take the front row? I hear Mrs. Connors is brutal on the unlucky ones.”
"Good idea," I say, but my mind is elsewhere. It's clear this new guy is putting up a wall. I hike my own shoulders. Why is he making me feel this way? It's not as if I know him at all. He's just the guy with the silent, graceful walk and the wild eyes.
I allow Noah to pick out a table for us away from the window. By coincidence, it's the one next to the new guy. With another glance at the new guy, I sit and struggle not to fall out of the chair. Smooth, Brie. Then I try to focus on unfolding my class schedule as Noah taps my shoulder again.
"What?" I ask, jumping.
"You're acting weird."
"It's the first day," I say. "You know how you get up and your stomach is in nervous knots because you're worried about finding all your classes and whether your teachers will be total jerks."
"We've both had Mrs. Connors before. Freshman year. Intro to Civics."
"So we know one's a jerk.”
The warning bell rings and people file into the room, some of them darting in right before the final bell. The guy continues to put up his invisible wall and nobody sits next to him though most of the girls give pause as their gazes land on the new arrival. He will definitely be the talk of the school for the next week. A mystery waiting for a solution. It's not as if new people come to the area often. If you don't have family in Breck, barriers prevent your entry. Few businesses hire. Families, like mine, go back for generations and some even back to the Gold Rush days. No new kids have come in for years.
Mrs. Connors sweeps into the room, wearing a blue, flowing blouse. The class silences and the new guy puts away his phone. At last. I glance at him, but he keeps his attention on the teacher and doesn't say a word to anyone. He's the only person in the room with an empty chair next to him, which shocks me. But then again, something about him seems...different. Or maybe the people of town don't know how to react to new folks.
I sure don't.
"Okay, class," Mrs. Connors says. Her tone says she's just here for the paycheck. "I know some of you already, but I have to do the obligatory reading of the classroom rules and the equally obligatory taking of attendance. If you can—"
Olivia comes through the door, opening and closing it gently. She waves at Mrs. Connors and smiles. Now she tries to be considerate.
I stifle a groan in my throat. Noah watches Olivia as she takes the only remaining seat in the class: the one between me and the new guy.
But at least the new guy gives her the same treatment he's giving everybody else. Looking away, he holds up his class schedule and studies it. I hold back a smile of satisfaction.
Mrs. Connors eyes Olivia for a moment and then looks at the new guy, waving him to the front of the class with impatience. He hesitates, then gets up, pushes past Olivia, and walks up the middle aisle to stand next to Mrs. Connors. I wait for the guy to blush, but he stays cool, keeping his gaze on the back wall.
"Class," Mrs. Connors recites. "This is Cayden Lowe, and he's new to Breckenridge. Please make him feel welcome." Then she waves him back to his seat.
'The reading of the rules waits and I watch as Cayden strides back to his seat. Girls' heads turn as he passes, and Olivia is practically drooling as he takes his place. She flutters her eyebrows at him, drawing some eye rolling from Sarah, a fellow Theater student.
Mrs. Connors passes out the rule sheets, but I can't focus. She reads the items about gum chewing and cell phone use. Standard stuff. My gaze creeps over to Cayden.
He's looking right at me.
His expression is unreadable. But as soon as our gazes meet, he studies his paper again.
Olivia hasn't noticed. She tries to get his attention by whispering something about Breck's nature trails. Cayden lifts one eyebrow at her. The look in his eye reminds me of that of a cornered animal about to strike.
"Hey," Noah says as Mrs. Connors opens a cabinet to get out some heavy books. "Why are you staring at that guy?"
"I'm not." Heat rushes to my cheeks and I find myself fiddling with my pendant. Noah knows about my nervous tic, too. Good job.
He grins and raises an eyebrow. "Sure."
I look again.
Cayden studies his rule sheet as if there's something in it that can save him.
* * * * *
"The play's Beauty and the Beast this year."
"Just heard from Mr. Saffron."
"He's putting up the audition notices right now. There's one hanging outside of the gym and one outside of the choir room.”
The usual theater crowd has gathered at the corner table of the c
afeteria. I sit beside Noah and listen as Ellie, Tiana, and Sarah discuss. Olivia isn't present at our table. She hasn't been since her change in the seventh grade. I spot her over by what we call the Shallow Table which true to tradition is dead center in the cafeteria. Olivia talks with the other makeup-crusted girls, digging through her purse and drawing out her phone. I wonder if she's taken pictures of Cayden without him knowing.
“They need lots of townspeople and servants,” Ellie says. “It's a musical, so those of us in choir should be able to get roles.”
"I wonder who will be the lead?" I ask with sarcasm.
But I also want to laugh. The conversation about monsters Noah and I had this morning wasn't far off. No ogres involved, but it looks like Olivia will get to dance with a monster. The uglier, the better. I'll have to put a word in to Mr. Saffron and suggest fangs, horns, and matted fur.
"When are auditions?" Noah asks. He grips the table.
"You'd make a good Beast," Sarah tells him.
"Grrr," Noah says, flexing his biceps. Then he frowns. “I don't know about that.”
“The Beast has to be a jerk without a sense of humor,” Ellie says.
“Exactly,” Noah says. He stares into the air. “But I should still try for it, I think.”
I know what's on his mind and it's Olivia. But my thoughts don't stay on her long. I'm trying to listen to the conversation, but my gaze flicks around the cafeteria. Over by the window and away from everyone else, sits Cayden. He wolfs down the mystery meat on his tray and speaks with a girl who looks like a female version of him. If I were a guy, I'd fall for this girl. She shares his dark hair with the odd red highlights.
Cayden seems to have a twin.
A second guy sits at the table, too. Instead of being dark and noble, he's blond, with hair spun from beach sand. He's stocky, unlike the two people he's sitting with, and should try out for the football team. No one on the opposing team would want to go against him.
Three new people. It's unheard of. They must all be from the same family though that doesn't explain the blond guy.
