Haunting Olivia

by Janelle Taylor

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  She wouldn’t step foot in Blueberry, let alone spend a month there.

  Her cell phone rang again. Camilla. Thank God it wasn’t her mother.

  “I guess you’ve heard,” Olivia said, absently watching a mother push her toddler on the baby swings.

  “Everyone’s heard!” Camilla said. “You’re our hero!”

  “How much does that pay?” Olivia joked. “I’m out of a job.”

  “Meet for lunch?” Camilla asked. “My treat. To celebrate your escape from the wicked witch.”

  Lunch with a friend was exactly what Olivia needed.

  The more Olivia talked, the more Camilla’s huge brown eyes widened even more.

  “Wow,” Camilla said, poking at her salad. Salad was all Camilla—and most of the Glitz staffers—ever ate. Only one teaspoon of dressing, of course. “I had no idea how much you were keeping inside.

  Your family, Zach, the pregnancy. Maybe going to Blueberry will give you some closure.”

  Olivia shrugged and poked at her omelet. “Maybe.”

  But closure from what? Nothing in Blueberry had been left unresolved. Both her relationship with Zach and the birth of her baby had very clear endings.

  “Enough about me,” Olivia said. “And Glitz. Tell me about you. How’s that cute guy you’re dating?”

  Camilla’s entire face lit up. And for the next hour, Olivia was happy to lose herself in Camilla’s warm chatter and forget all about lawyers, letters, the State of Maine, her mother, and joblessness.

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  After lunch, Olivia headed back home to think.

  Her phone rang nonstop—her mom—and Olivia let the machine get it. It felt so strange to be aim-less at two in the afternoon on a weekday. So after scrubbing her apartment (her tub had never been so sparkling) and making an elaborate chicken dish for dinner, involving sherry and walnuts, and then staring out the window at the gathering dusk, Olivia headed into the bathroom to slather on yet another of Camilla’s complementary masks, this time soothing lavender.

  In her plush pink bathrobe she flopped down on her bed to wait for the mask to dry and mulled over her sisters’ advice. She’d called both Amanda and Ivy after dinner, bringing them up to date on everything—

  except her own past. That she still wasn’t ready to share with her sisters.

  “Sounds just like the letter I received,” Amanda had said. “I don’t know, Olivia. Since you’re free and clear for a while anyway, you could just go and get it over with and then decide if the cottage and the money are something you want or not. Maybe a month away from it all is exactly what you need.”

  But Blueberry wasn’t “a month away from it all.”

  It was “it all.”

  Ivy had similar advice.

  “And one more thing, Olivia,” Ivy had said. “Will you be my co–maid of honor with Amanda?”

  Olivia had been so touched. “Of course! I’d love to. And thanks so much for asking me.”

  “I’ll have more details on the wedding plans soon.

  I can’t believe I’m getting married in two months!”

  Ivy’s fiancé was a handsome business student HAUNTING OLIV IA

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  named Declan. Ivy’s mother adored him; he was the friend of a friend of a friend, but William Sedgwick hadn’t approved of Declan and let Ivy know it.

  In fact, she was scheduled to receive her inheritance letter on March 20. Her wedding day. Ivy’s mother thought William was up to no good and would send her on a wild goose chase in order to receive her inheritance—anything to get her not to marry Declan.

  “I’m planning to open that letter after the cere-mony,” Ivy had said. “I’m not letting William or his crazy letter ruin my wedding day. I’ll deal with whatever’s in my envelope after I’m a married woman.”

  But what if William was right about Declan? Olivia had worried silently. What if there’s a good reason he arranged for Ivy’s envelope to be opened on her wedding day? What if he knew something? He certainly ended up doing well enough by Amanda, posthumously setting her up with the man she married.

  It was all so confusing. William couldn’t have known that Amanda—a daughter he barely knew—

  would fall in love with Ethan, the man he’d chosen to make sure she followed the instructions in her bequeathal envelope. How could he possibly have known?

  Your every dream will come true . . .

  I have no dreams, she thought. I once dreamed of running away with Zach, raising our child, being happy. That was all I ever wanted. What could I possibly want now?

  Once, she wanted to be editor in chief of a women’s magazine, but that was less a dream and more pure ambition to make up for the lack of anything else in her life, like love. Like a relationship.

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  When she gave birth only to know the baby died instead of living and thriving with a family who would take good care of him or her, a huge piece of Olivia died too. The piece that wanted or hoped.

  The only dreams Olivia had were recurring ones she’d had for thirteen years.

  She picked up the phone and called her mother.

  It was time to tell her mom what her father had conditionally left her—and that she wasn’t going to meet the conditions. Her mother was the only person, aside from Camilla now, who knew about her past. She’d understand. And then Olivia could get on with the business of trying to find a new job at a women’s magazine—if Desdemona hadn’t black-balled her, that was.

  “But you must do as your father wants!” her mother screeched. “You have to go to Blueberry!”

  “Mom, I did as my father wanted when I was sixteen and confused and scared and abandoned by my boyfriend. I’m not that terrified teenager anymore. I’ll do as I want. I’ll do what I think is right for me.”

  “How about doing what’s right for me, then?” her mother asked in a low, cracking voice.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I involved myself in a moneymaking scheme and it turned out to be a scam,” her mother said.

  “How much?” Olivia asked, bracing herself.

  “A quarter of a million.”

  “Mom! That was your entire life’s savings!”

  “I can pay February’s bills, but come March, I won’t be able to pay the maintenance on the apartment or my bills, and I do have quite a balance on HAUNTING OLIV IA

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  my credit cards. I guess I could sell the apartment and move in with you. If I sell, I could afford to pay my share of your rent. Or perhaps we could look for an inexpensive two bedroom since you won’t have much privacy once you move to the pullout couch in the living room.”

  Olivia closed her eyes and slowly counted to five.

  She was pretty sure she had the most manipulative mother on the planet. “Do you have any idea what it will do to me to go back to Blueberry? To live in that cottage for a month? Do you have any idea, Mom?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said more gently than Olivia was used to. “Perhaps going will help, though.”

  “Help what?”

  “Help give you some peace, Olivia. Something you haven’t had since you were sixteen.”

  “I doubt I’ll find peace in Blueberry, Mom. In fact, I’m sure that’s the last thing I’ll feel there.”

  Her mother was silent for a moment. “I’m pretty desperate, Olivia. I’m very sorry, but until I figure out the best way to replenish my accounts, I’m in a terrible pickle.”

  Ding-ding! I know—it’s called getting a job! Something you’ve never had in your life!

  Olivia let out a deep breath. Her mother had been there for her when Olivia was a total wreck; well, she’d been there as best she could, providing a home and a job and structure, a routine she could numbly go about.

  Twenty-nine years ago, William Sedgwick had left her mother pregnant and alone, moving on to t
he next woman without a backward glance. Granted, 46

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  her mother had taken William to court and won a good settlement, the rest of which she’d now blown, but Olivia never really knew the extent to which William had hurt her mother. Olivia only knew what it felt like to be pregnant and abandoned. So did her mom. Her father had the money; her mother needed it. And Olivia was the middleman.

  It was a good thing that Blueberry was a seven-hour drive from New York City. She’d need every one of those hours to prepare mentally and emotionally for the first sight of the highway sign that read, “Welcome to Maine: The Way Life Should Be.”

  More like the way life should have been.

  Chapter 4

  According to the posters advertising the Inner-Beauty Pageant all around town, entry forms were available at the post office, the town hall, and the Blueberry Eat-In Diner.

  Zach decided on the diner, despite the fact that Kayla was grounded for the foreseeable future. His daughter had a bad habit of slipping most of the healthful breakfasts he made her every morning to their dog, Lucy, but she loved eating breakfast out.

  Maybe Zach was just a bad cook.

  He and Kayla had had a long talk last night, once Marnie and Brianna had left. She didn’t want to know anything about her mother; she was in a phase where she hated even the mention of the words your mother, but she was very interested in the fact that Olivia had won the Inner-Beauty Pageant.

  “Do you think I could win something like that?”

  Kayla had asked, her eyes tear filled one moment and shooting sparks the next.

  “Of course you could,” he had said. “That’s why I come down so hard on you when you do things that 48

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  are just plain wrong. You’re a good, kind, warm, funny, beautiful person in there,” he had said, pointing to the vicinity of her heart.

  “But when I get in trouble, doesn’t that prove I’m not a good person?” she had asked. “How could I have inner beauty if I’m always getting grounded?”

  “Kayla, I know that when you mess up, you know you’re messing up. You know you’re not doing the right thing. That’s part of what inner beauty is. It’s knowing. You’re thirteen and I’ve got to give you some leeway for that alone, but not much, honey.

  Real inner beauty means knowing what the right thing is and doing it. And I know you’re more than capable of that.”

  “If I did enter and I did win—as if—do you think my mother would find out?” she had asked without looking at him, tears pooling in her eyes.

  He had squeezed her hand. “I don’t know, honey.”

  Kayla received two cards a year from her mother: one for her birthday and one for Christmas. There was never a personal message, just, “Dear Kayla”

  and “Your Mother.”

  Real warm.

  Last year, Kayla began ripping them up. All years previous, she opened them eagerly, hoping for an enclosed letter, a photo, a “How are you?” But she was always disappointed. He supposed on some basic level the impersonal cards were better than nothing. Nothing would be much, much worse.

  The cards were just an eighth of an inch up from nothing, but every year on her birthday and at Christmas, he breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the card in the mailbox, no return address, just a postmark from New York, New York.

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  “If I did win and she found out,” Kayla had said last night, “she would probably feel really bad about just abandoning me the way she did. She would be, like, ‘Wow, I messed up by walking out on Kayla. She’s special—

  she won the Inner-Beauty Pageant just like I did.’”

  He had grabbed his daughter into a hug and hadn’t even bothered trying to hide the fact that he’d had tears in his eyes. “Kayla Archer, I want to make sure you know one thing: you’ve been special from the day you were born. You’re the most special thing in the world to me. Your mother didn’t leave us because you weren’t special. She left because she couldn’t deal with having a family. That’s about her—not you.”

  “I’m still going to show her what she missed out on,” Kayla had said, the sparkle back in her eyes.

  “Can I be ungrounded so I can enter and do whatever stupid stuff I have to do?”

  He had smiled. “You’re still grounded. But you may enter the contest and you may do all the wonderful things necessary to compete in the pageant.

  You’re in luck that I can take off this week from work. I can go with you everywhere you need to go.”

  She had frowned, then smiled. “I’m going to beat Brianna by, like, a million points. I have so much more inner beauty than she does.”

  He had wagged his finger at her. “Those with inner beauty don’t say things like that.”

  She had grinned. “Do they think things like that?”

  “Sometimes. If they really can’t help it.”

  “I really can’t,” she had said.

  He’d yanked her braid and off they’d gone to the diner.

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  Once inside, he found the entry forms available in a manila folder on the community bulletin board.

  “I have to write an essay just to enter?” Kayla complained, studying the rules on the application. “I’ll fail the application! I won’t even get to enter.”

  “What does the essay have to be about?”

  She frowned and shoved the entry form away.

  “What inner beauty means to me.”

  Thank you, he directed heavenward. This could not have been a more perfect assignment for Kayla this week.

  Their breakfast was served, and Kayla dug into her scrambled eggs and bacon. While he drank his coffee, Zach took a minute to read the flyer and the rules.

  The town of Blueberr y announces its annual Inner-Beauty Pageant for girls age 13–17 who know beauty is only skin-deep! Open only to year-round residents of Blueberry who attend the Blueberry public or private schools.

  Ah. The pageant used to be held in the summer, but the coordinators must have decided that too many out-of-towners with summer homes in Blueberry were taking the pageant away from the girls who lived in Blueberry all year.

  The winner would receive $2,500 and a monthly column for a year in the Maine Daily News on the subject of inner beauty. Zach remembered Olivia telling him that was why she’d wanted to enter the pageant and win so badly; she thought the columns would help her land her dream job as a magazine writer or editor.

  Kayla sipped her orange juice. “Okay, Dad, so what does inner beauty mean to me?”

  He smiled. “Why don’t we head home so you can spend some time thinking about that.”

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  “Can’t you help me?”

  “The answer needs to come from you, honey, not me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

  By the time Olivia arrived at the cottage, it was pitch dark and late, almost 11:00 P.M. She was grateful for the darkness; she wasn’t quite ready for the familiar sights and shops and people and places, particularly places where she and Zach used to go to be alone.

  She sat in her car for a moment and stared at the lovely gray shingled house. Even in winter, the cottage was so welcoming. There were quaint touches everywhere, from folk art bird feeders to a decorative wishing well, in which she and her sisters used to pitch pennies. The house would be warm; her father’s lawyer had alerted the caretaker that she would be arriving this evening and the woman had promised to turn on the heat and stock the place with some basic necessities.

  Tomorrow she’d have to go into town and buy one item from two stores. The charming coastal village was always bustling on Sundays. She wondered if she’d run into anyone she knew, anyone she’d remember or who would remember her.

  Olivia grabbed her overnight bag, deciding to leave her suitcases in the trunk until tomorrow. With a deep breath, she opened the door with the key E
dwin Harris had given her, and warmth and the foyer light and the scent of pine needles greeted her.

  She was surprised to discover brand-new furni-ture and artwork and knickknacks, down to the 52

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  switch plate covers. The cottage had always had a nautical theme; William Sedgwick loved boating and the water, but now the cottage was decorated in a folk-country style, much like Olivia’s own apartment, with whimsical feminine touches. In the entryway was a console table upon which sat eight figurines of ballet dancers. Olivia had loved ballet as a teenager. It was almost as if William had the place completely redecorated to suit her taste.

  She’d learned from Amanda last month that William had known he was dying. He hadn’t told his daughters that he’d been diagnosed with late-stage cancer or that he’d suffered a heart attack.

  He’d been given a certain number of months to live, and the sisters had surmised that he’d decided to get his affairs in order.

  But why redecorate the cottage for her? How could he have been so sure she’d accept the terms of the letter?

  Questions. She had plenty. But she was exhausted and didn’t want to think too deeply about anything, especially about how she felt even being in this house, standing in this living room, where for so many summers she had sat uncomfortably on the sofa, trying to feel as though she belonged here, to these people, to this family—if it could even be called that. And then there had been Zach, and Olivia had understood what the word family really meant to some people. Zach had been family.

  She glanced around the pretty living room, and despite how little it looked like it used to, Olivia could remember that first day she met Zach, how she’d been sitting in this room with her sisters on the second day of their annual vacation, and there’d HAUNTING OLIV IA

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  been a fight, something stupid and petty and based on charged emotions the girls simply didn’t know what to do with. And so she’d gone out for a long walk along the beach, and there was Zach, a boy she’d never seen before, angrily throwing rocks into the ocean.