Duet in September (The Calendar Girls)

by Gina Ardito

  Duet in September

  Book I of the Calendar Girls Series

  by

  Gina Ardito

  The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2013 by Victoria Ardito

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, whether by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without express written permission of the publisher.

  Dedication

  For Carolyn Hughey, my “bling” girl, who has become a true soul sister to me. One of the best days of my life was the day I sat at a table next to you and introduced myself. Thank you for always listening, for always caring, for always sharing, and for always laughing. I am richer simply from knowing you!

  Chapter 1

  Nia

  “It’s one lousy month, Nia. Come on! It’ll be fun.”

  Seated inside our favorite local coffee shop, I stared in amazement at my twin sister, Paige. Staring at Paige isn’t exactly like looking in a mirror, by the way. She’s a candy box blonde, and I’m a redhead. She’s petite; I’m five-foot-ten—in flats. Her eyes are a really cool blue, mine are boring hazel. Yet, despite the disparities in our appearance, we’re generally more alike than not.

  Generally.

  This new scheme she’d divulged over our morning caffeine get-together would probably widen the gap between us. More than that, I had to consider the possibility she’d finally lost her mind. It was bound to happen, particularly after what had become known as the Kevin Event. I sighed. Time to dazzle my other half with flawless logic.

  “Not all guys ask for the waitress’s phone number during a dinner date, you know. In fact, the good guys actually pay attention to you. The whole time. Sometimes, they even call again.” Not that I knew by personal experience. My love life wasn’t any more successful than my sister’s these days.

  Paige’s lips twisted like a strawberry Twizzler. “This has nothing to do with Kevin the Cretin.”

  I quirked a brow until she visibly squirmed in the comfy wingback chair.

  “Okay, it has a little to do with Kevin the Cretin,” she conceded. “But not entirely. I mean, let’s face it. You and I are both in a rut. Coffee, work, home, weeknight television, Friday night chick flicks. Day after day, week after week, nothing ever changes. I saw this psychologist on Dara the other day…”

  Tilting my tall coffee toward my mouth, I stared at the ceiling to keep Paige from seeing my eyes roll. Not Dara Fitzsimmons, that talk show host, again. God, give me strength.

  Years ago, Dara’s daddy bought a local cable station and found himself with an empty hour of airtime, which he offered to his daughter. Within one season, she’d become a syndicated voice for those ladies still maneuvering the shark-infested waters of fishing for careers and Mr. Right simultaneously. Paige, as one of Dara’s Disciples, not only watched the show every weekday, she firmly believed Dara Fitzsimmons held all the answers to the hunt for love and happiness. I, on the other hand, thought Dara was a prissy, sanctimonious, spoiled little rich girl who knew nothing about the Real World.

  Just another checkmark in the Different column for us.

  “Think about it.” Paige picked at the edges of the cardboard ring wrapped around the cup that held her mocha latte. “Every day for thirty days, you change one thing in your life. One thing. Easy, right? You take a different route to work one day, you go out for lunch instead of choking down a sandwich behind the counter.” Her index finger popped up near my nose. “One simple thing.”

  Simple. Right. Over our childhood and teenage years, I’d learned to avoid anything Paige deemed “simple.”

  In elementary school, Paige said sneaking our cat into school would be “simple.” In hindsight, smuggling Fluffy into the class had been easy. Keeping her hidden in my backpack for six hours? Not so much. Before we finished the Pledge of Allegiance, Fluffy had ripped her way out and dashed around the classroom like a whirling dervish, hissing, spitting, and scratching. Thirty manic minutes later, the janitor had cornered our poor calico and stuffed her into a drawstring bag while I sat in the principal’s office waiting for Dad to come to school. I lost television privileges and my allowance for two weeks over that little escapade.

  At fifteen, Paige insisted we’d have no problem climbing out our bedroom window to meet our friends for a midnight rendezvous at the schoolyard without our dad ever knowing we were gone. And of course, she had no problem at all. I slipped on a patch of wet leaves, caught my foot in the rain gutter, and fell off the roof. Three manic hours later, I left the emergency room with my left arm in a cast and my father’s disappointment weighing down my shoulders. I lost my allowance for two months.

  “Come on, Nia.” My sister’s urgent whine broke through my memories of those…ahem…good times. “It’ll be fun. And maybe it’ll break us both out of our funks.”

  I was going to regret this. I knew someday soon, I’d be sitting somewhere—an alley, a police station—ruing the day I agreed to my sister’s Thirty Days to Break Out of Our Funks plan. Which made my quick surrender that much more pitiful.

  At least no one could take away my allowance this time.

  “All right, all right,” I relented on a heavy sigh. “I’ll do it. When do you wanna start?”

  “Today. Right now. It’s September 1, the perfect time. From now until the thirtieth, you and I will both do one thing differently every day.” Her eyes took on an electric glint. “Me? I’m going to walk to work today. What about you?”

  I took a sip of coffee to buy time—a stay of execution.

  “Nia! Answer me.” Paige pushed a hand into my shoulder.

  Coffee sloshed up to my nostrils, but thankfully, didn’t spill over the top and onto my spotless white blouse. As a precaution against further possible damage, I set the cup down on the table and grabbed a napkin to blot my upper lip. “I don’t know yet. I haven’t exactly had time to map this all out the way you obviously did.”

  “Don’t you dare welch on me on the first day,” she warned in low tones, her lashes fluttering like a bat’s wings at me. “Don’t welch at all.”

  “I won’t. I’ll come up with something. I promise.” I glanced at my watch. Twenty minutes to nine. “But right now, I gotta dash to get the store open.”

  Before she could protest, I grabbed my purse from the seat next to me and sprinted out the door. As I settled into my car in the parking lot, I sighed again. Paige would only continue to nag me until I played along. Might as well give in right from the start. Leaving the gear in park, engine idling, I dug out my cell and dialed her number.

  “Yeeeeeessss…?” she answered after the first ring.

  “Just so you know, I’m going to take First Avenue to work today, okay?” Since my gift and souvenir shop, Nature’s Bounty, sat in the middle of Snug Harbor’s Main Street, this new route would make me late. But only by about five minutes, and it would get Paige off my back until tomorrow. Well worth the time sacrifice.

  “Purr-fect.” Her satisfied smile bounced off satellites in space and zinged through my earpiece.

  While fine hairs danced on the back of my neck, I gripped my cell phone tight enough to crush it. “I hope you get caught in a sudden thunderstorm on your walk to work,” I grumbled.

  Paige only laughed. “Have a nice day, Nia. If anything exciting happens today, call me back. I’ll do the same.”

  I hung up, shifted the car into drive, and took step one of this dumb thirty day challenge. Two blocks after I turned onto First Avenue, I remembered wh
y I never drove this route to work. On the Thursday before Labor Day weekend, tourists poured into our tiny oceanside village by ferry, car, and—for the rich ones—private plane. All entrances into Snug Harbor used First Avenue as the main artery to beach homes, inns, and motels. At 8:50 a.m., the visiting throngs forced traffic to a dead halt.

  Penned in between an RV larger than my house and a Manhattan-to-East End luxury bus, I rubbed my fingers at the pain piercing my head just above my eyebrows. This was going to be the longest September of my life. The traffic light changed from red to green, and I managed to squeak past the bus on my right. Naturally, at the next block, the traffic light jumped from green to yellow, and the car in front of me stopped before entering the intersection.

  Kathump! My head snapped forward as the whole car jerked, and the crunch of metal resounded in my ears. Or was that the sound of my neck cracking? No, no, no. As dread crept over me, I slowly turned to look into my rearview mirror—in time to see a Jeep full of teenagers jump the curb on my right and speed away in the road’s shoulder.

  Perfect. Just perfect. As soon as the light changed to green, I eased out of the traffic and toward the curb.

  Picturing Paige in my head, I stared at the graying sky and amended my wish from earlier. “I hope we get a tropical storm this morning.”

  Once I managed to pull into an empty restaurant parking lot, I stepped out of the car to survey the damage. Smears of blue paint and black impact marks framed the crater-shaped dent in my rear fender. A crack ran through my right taillight like San Andreas Fault: no damage yet, but one good bump away from total destruction.

  Yet again, I pulled out my cell phone—this time to call the local police. The female dispatcher answered before the first ring completed its chime.

  “I need to report a car accident,” I said.

  “What’s your name?” the woman asked.

  “Nia Wainwright.”

  “Nia? It’s Emily. Emily Handler.”

  Emily Handler had grown up as Emily Forletti, three houses away from Paige and me. Shortly before beginning her senior year in high school, she’d married Roy Handler and promptly given birth to their first daughter a scant seven months later.

  “Is anyone hurt?” Emily asked. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  “No. A bunch of kids in a Jeep hit my car and then took off. I just want to file a report.”

  Emily expelled exasperated breath into my earpiece. “Tourists. Think they have the right to wreak havoc and drive away without owning up to their responsibilities. You sure you’re okay, Nia?”

  I rubbed a hand over my neck as I assured her, “Yes. Annoyed, shaken up, late for work. But physically, I’m all right.”

  “Where are you? In a safe place?”

  “I’m on the corner of First Avenue and Maple Street.” I glanced at the sign perched on the gray-weathered clapboard building behind me. “In the parking lot of The Gull and Oar.”

  Emily remained quiet for a moment, but computer keys clicked in the background. “Sam Dillon is pretty close to that area, I think,” she said at last. “I’ll send him over. Are you on your cell?” She rattled off my phone number to me.

  “Yes.”

  “You got enough juice in it to send and receive calls?”

  “Yes, it’s fully charged.” Thank God I hadn’t changed that routine.

  “Okay, sit tight. Any problems, call me back. I’ll have Sam there in a jiff.”

  I looked at the gridlock on the road. Not in this traffic. “Tell him to come up Maple. First Avenue’s a nightmare right now.”

  Emily laughed. “Well, duh. I don’t know why you didn’t go down Main Street. You’ve lived here long enough to know to avoid First Avenue in the summer.”

  I gritted my teeth just as the first fat raindrop splashed my nose.

  ~~~~

  Paige

  So Nia thought I was nuts. What else was new? But we really did need to shake up our lives. Especially Nia. This town, crammed with the same people we’d known since we were born, had sucked all the excitement out of her. While I welcomed this thirty day challenge for myself, I also hoped to see the return of the animated, fun, passionate soul Nia used to be.

  As I left the coffee shop to start my stroll to work, I studied the storm clouds gathering over the rooftops of the stores. The atmosphere felt heavy with moisture. Not the kiss of ocean spray that normally swirled in the air, thanks to the town’s location directly on the Atlantic. This much pressure could only herald a thunderstorm—a big one. My sister’s revenge in full-blown three dimension. Nia had an uncanny knack for wishing misfortune on me and getting her wish. If she’d ever channeled her energy toward good rather than evil, I probably would have won the lottery a dozen times by now.

  The black clouds rolling in required a quick detour before work. I ducked into the drug store at the end of the strip mall in search of an umbrella. Nothing would stop me from completing this thirty day plan. The guests on Dara’s show all swore only good things had come from their participation: new and better jobs, new romances, new outlooks on life. All from changing one little thing every day for thirty days. Nia’s black magic would have to be more ominous if she thought to sabotage me. A thunderstorm on Day One wouldn’t put a dent in my hope shield.

  I strode through the automatic doors, and past the shoplifting sensor gates. Mrs. Justine, the cashier who’d been a fixture in this store for at least my lifetime, peered at me over her blue-framed cat glasses. I offered a quick nod in greeting.

  “Keep those hands where I can see them, Paige,” she shouted in her two-pack-a-day smoker’s rasp.

  Oh, for crying out loud. When I was four years old, Mrs. Justine caught me shoving a package of M&Ms in my pocket. Thirty years later, she still couldn’t forgive that one toddler crime spree? I flashed her a brilliant smile. “Not to worry, Mrs. J. I’m a reformed felon these days. Just got out of the Big House, you know.” Well, sort of. If Albany and the state comptroller’s office could be considered the Big House. I’d only moved back to Snug Harbor six months ago when Dad got sick.

  As I rounded the corner toward the seasonal aisle, where back to school supplies and scarecrows fought for attention with sunscreen and sand pails, I stopped short. Naturally, a cluster of tourists blocked the end of the aisle. Shocked expressions on the adults’ faces let me know they’d heard my remark about my so-called prison record.

  The dad, big-bellied and eye-catching in vivid orange surf shorts with splashy brown flowers and a tan t-shirt that proclaimed him the World’s Greatest Golfer, narrowed his eyes to slits. Puh-leez. Like that outfit wasn’t a serious crime against fashion.

  Mom, in her wide-brimmed straw hat and white tank dress meant to show off her bronzed skin to perfection, had better taste, but no more sense than her husband. With her candy-apple-red manicured fingers poised over the postcard rack, she craned her neck to a nearly forty-five degree angle. “Kids, come over here, please.”

  Two dark-haired boys, both under the age of ten, poked fingers into the cage of colorfully painted hermit crabs. “We’re right here, Mom,” the bigger one whined.

  “Well, stay where I can see you,” the woman replied.

  I rolled my eyes so far back, I saw my brain blink. I never should have come back to Snug Harbor. I belonged in Albany, where I’d gone to school. Where I was just another face in the crowd. Where people only knew what I told them about my past. Where I was never compared to Nia. Where one day didn’t meld into another. Unlike Snug Harbor, where the only things that changed were the faces of the steady stream of sun-worshipping strangers coming and going.

  Somehow I managed to weave around the disapproving faces with my dignity intact. On a sigh of relief, I spotted the end cap where rain gear dangled from hooks. I rifled through the various sizes, shapes, and hues of umbrellas until I found a purse-sized automatic in Barbie pink. Just the bright spot this miserable day needed.

  As I played with the button to open and close my new toy, a famili
ar baritone voice drawled, “Paige! That is you. I thought so.”

  I cringed. I didn’t have to turn around to identify the speaker, but I whirled anyway. Sam Dillon. Of all people to run into, why did I have to run into Sam Dillon? In full police uniform regalia, of course. Because my wisecrack about being a felon still lingered in the air like a bad odor.

  Apparently, Nia’s voodoo was stronger than ever today.

  As Sam strolled toward me, floppy-hatted mom made a quick grab for her kids and pulled them into her protective embrace. Annoyance trickled down my spine like an ice cube on a hot day. Did I look dangerous? Really? I’m a CPA, about as far from a thrill-seeker as a sloth. Maybe if I wore a pencil behind my ear and nerd glasses, I’d appear less menacing.

  Not that I cared what a bunch of tourists thought. Most of them would evaporate by Tuesday. But the locals were a different story. Nia and I would forever be known as “the Wainwright twins” to every person who lived in this teeny, nosy town. I could find the cure for cancer, and Mrs. Justine would still insist I keep my hands where she could see them every time I walked into this store. Which brought me back to Sam Dillon.

  “Well, well,” I said with forced exuberance. “If it isn’t Marshall Dillon.”

  True to form, he glowered at me. Sam always glowered at me, whether or not I used the goofy nickname I’d given him the day I learned he’d become chief of Snug Harbor’s village police force. Small recompense for all the harassment he’d dished out at me when he was the varsity quarterback and I was the nerdy math major. I could only be happier if this former high school heartthrob had become paunchy and bald while I’d blossomed into a swan. Fate, however, has a quirky sense of humor. I blossomed into a nerdy accountant with few swan qualities except for my long neck and my habit of looking calm while paddling manically below the surface.