by Kay, Hannah;
I thought for a moment. “I saw her.” It just came out. Maybe she was the most exciting part of my day. I bit back a laugh, because it was true. Her surprise entrance and departure from the drab news office had been the highlight of my day. I was honestly surprised by the lack of hustle and bustle that went on at the Gazette. I mean even the Eagle had more breaking news than that place seemed to have. It was all very calculated and uninteresting, what they seemed to do… Needless to say, it wasn’t what I imagined the newsroom at the Washington Post would be. The very thought of going back tomorrow was sickening. Only the thought of her surprise visits would keep me waking up before noon.
His eyes cut up suddenly, slicing me in half with intensity. “You did?” A slow grin spread across his face. “Finally an opinion from someone other than those hormonal bastards. Is she all they’re going on about?”
We shuffled through the sand toward the water where I could see Krista sitting with her three-year-old baby sister, making a sandcastle. “Yes.” It was more of a croak than a statement. I coughed, picking my words carefully. “She’s beautiful.”
He stopped in his tracks, turning to look at me. “Beautiful, eh?” He was looking at me strangely.
“Yeah,” I responded, shaking my head. I could imagine the language the Goodmans would’ve used. To be fair, all the jock-types except Mike… I grounded him.
He nodded, leaning back on his heels. “Well, what’s she look like then?”
I stared over his shoulder. I could see my mom talking to Mike’s mom, who appeared to have a beach ball under her stretched blue sundress. I’m only kidding. She’s six months pregnant. His six-year-old sister, Maggie, was standing close by wearing one of Mike’s T-shirts over her swimsuit but she, in fact, had stuffed a ball under her shirt and was walking around making all the little kids giggle. My eyes lifted to see our parents’ reaction, but I zeroed in on something else.
The girl in the blue coat was approaching from the parking lot. I could see the golden red glittering in the descending sun. It only made her more radiant. She was trailing beside her father, who was trying to drape an arm around her, but she stayed just out of his reach.
“Lucas—” Mike swallowed the question before it was spoken. He saw her.
Krista, with baby Carrie on her hip, stepped up beside us. “That must be the new girl.” The little girl’s blonde curls stuck up, glistening golden in the sunshine. Krista was wearing a smile, not envious at all, unlike the other members of the cheer team. I could hear their nervous whispers. The football boys fell into a hushed silence, whispering amongst themselves.
I merely nodded, mouth dry. “Yeah, it is.”
I watched her as she slipped her shoes from her feet, padding barefoot onto the sand, now trailing after her father. Her hair cascaded in front of her eyes and she pushed it away in irritation, but it looked effortless with her every move. Then I lost her as she was enveloped into the crowd.
An hour later, I had a sturdy paper plate piled high with food—two hot dogs, a hamburger and a sampling of the ten or so different sides assembled at the ‘Great Summer Feast’—and was camped out on a blanket with Krista and Mike with a perfect view of her. She was with her father, obviously avoiding the creeps who were ogling her. I tried not to think of myself the same way. I wasn’t ogling. I was gazing. I thought she was beautiful. It’s still creepy. Rational Lucas reminded Irrational, but I didn’t stop watching her. The way she moved was so elegant, like dancers on stage in London, ballets and operas. She screamed it without saying a word.
Hightower was standing in his ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron at the front of the assembly. His graying hair and deep brown eyes stared out at the crowd, scanning it. “I would like to thank everyone for coming to our barbeque again this year. I’m about to turn things over to the band, but first I would like to wish everyone a great summer.” By band, he meant the drum line from school turned rock band with the addition of a forty-year-old Elvis in tight pants and wearing a wicked smile. Hightower turned to leave, but then turned back. “I almost forgot! I would also like to introduce a rather special addition to our little party.”
I could see her cringing into her food, bending over it and hoping to disappear, but there was nothing hiding her. She outshone every star in the sky somehow.
“Miss Evelyn Juliet Swift has come to live with her father. Let’s all welcome her to Carltonville.”
There was no keeping the crowd silent.
I kept replaying her name. It was as beautiful as her. Evelyn Juliet. I shivered suddenly, goosebumps rising along my arm as the night-time breeze kicked up, but I knew it wasn’t the breeze affecting me. It was her.
Chapter Two
Julie
The moon followed us home that night from the barbeque. My fascination with it was unparalleled by anything else I’d discovered on this earth. Since Mom died I’ve been wishing more and more that I could just run away to the moon.
I stayed strong, though, because that’s what Mom would’ve wanted. She’d always said she wanted me to become a ‘strong, independent woman’ and this, her terrible untimely death, had pushed me to become just that. I wasn’t running from anything—not this no name town that didn’t even show up on the county map. Not these people who whispered as I passed. And the fact that I was made the town spectacle? I guess that’s just small town charm.
The five-minute ride to our small two–bedroom, two-bath home was utterly silent. Dad had never known what to say to me. He really didn’t know now that Mom was gone, so we didn’t talk. In fact, we hadn’t really talked at all since I’d arrived here last night. He’d gruffly taken me to my room, then he was gone when I woke this morning. He shot me a text asking me to bring some paperwork down to the office and I did just that. Since then, nothing. It wasn’t entirely bad.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t love my father. I do. He’s just never been around, never been there for me on birthdays or holidays. He’d mimed his way through my life. I didn’t know him as anyone other than the newspaper man.
I climbed from his midnight blue Volvo and onto the soft green grass without bothering to put my shoes back on. I pulled my coat closer to my body and hurried to the door, carefully fishing the old pair of keys from my pocket that Dad’d given me when I arrived. They were a dull gray color as if they had been sitting in the sun for years, losing their shine or, more likely, waiting in a drawer for Mom and me to come home. I’d have to take care of that.
I slipped in the house and Dad followed after me, heading straight to bed, but I ambled toward the fridge. It was simple white. No pictures or report cards or even clippings from his newspaper. The only color marring the fridge was a single magnet—Dad’s beloved ‘Editor of the Year’ magnet. Other than that, it was just white—white, the color of his entire house. His entire newspaper. This entire town.
I exhaled sharply, opening the door to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water from its drab contents. I closed the door with a muted sigh and padded from the room, down the hallway and into my bedroom. I shut the door behind me with a quiet sigh of desperation and smiled at my sanctuary. I’d splatter-painted the wall across from my bed from the time I arrived yesterday till I finally collapsed into bed around two-thirty this morning. It was a mixture of splatters—red, blue and purple. It felt a little bit more like home now.
I sat down at my desk—a ratty old wooden thing with bruises and chips of paint missing—throwing the keys down on the linoleum tabletop. I reached over, flipping on my radio and turning it up a few notches. Apparently Dad could sleep through a hurricane. Last night’s radio stylings of angry rock bands at full volume had proved that. Today’s selection was a lot calmer. I choose my music according to my mood, and tonight my mood was fluctuating. I was no longer mad at the world. I wasn’t angry, but I was sad. I missed my mom.
I stood up again, walking slowly to my purple suitcase, opening it and pulling out my shorts I’d messily tossed on top of the pile when I got dressed this morning and
the thin red ‘Love is Art, Art is Love’ T-shirt I wear to bed every night. The T-shirt was simple black but splattered with paint, like most of my clothes.
I turned, walking to my closet and carefully untying the bow on my coat before gingerly hanging it up on the only hanger. I’d yet to unpack my boxes, but the coat mattered. It was my mother’s coat, the one she’d worn every day and loved with all her heart. She’d given it to me on my sixteenth birthday last year, and I’ve worn it every day since then. I even wore it to her funeral. I think she would’ve appreciated that.
With a small sigh, I peeled my clothes off and stuck them in my hamper before pulling on the soft material of my black short shorts and the T-shirt and sitting at my desk once more. I leaned over the desk, grabbing my survival kit and the keys. They slipped off the ring easily, and I started painting.
* * * *
I’d painted into the night. Then I’d slipped into unconsciousness, a pile of body and soul and music still playing in the background because I had been too tired to turn it off. My dreams were drabbles of color, sunlight and music flowing in the blurred lines of beauty.
“An artist’s dreams are unpredictable, beautiful,” Mom would say when I asked her about the dreams. “They’re abstract, freeform. You can’t explain them.” She was right, of course. Weren’t moms always right?
I stretched my aching limbs over my head, letting out a squeaky noise and leaving the room. The house was utterly silent, not even a rustle from my dad’s room. He must already be gone. The clock on the wall read nine-twenty-nine a.m.
I exhaled sharply, opening the fridge. I spied a carton of milk, fished it out from behind the to-go plates and pizza boxes and glanced at the expiration date. January sixteenth, 2013. I held a five month expired carton of milk in my hand.
I groaned, shaking my head and chunking it in the trash. Upon closer consideration, I realized that there was nothing remotely viable in the fridge or the pantry.
It wasn’t long until I was driving to the Diner for breakfast. I’d pulled on fresh clothes—simple white T-shirt and jeans, along with my trench, of course—and stuffed my phone into a pocket. I’d definitely be heading to the Corner Store to pick up some groceries before coming home again. I wouldn’t make it through the summer without food.
I climbed from my white Volvo in front of the Diner and could already feel the eyes on me. That was the perk of moving into a town where everyone had known everyone since kindergarten or earlier. But I was hungry, so I hurried inside and took up residence on one of the stools at the counter, letting my long legs dangle down to meet the floor.
“Can I get you something to drink?” an older man with gray hair asked me, and I smiled. He was just smiling at me as if I wasn’t the new girl. Maybe he didn’t know, or more likely he was just that nice. Either way, it was refreshing.
I smiled back, glad to see a friendly face instead of ogling eyes. “A coffee, please?” I asked and he pulled a blue mug from under the counter and began filling it with coffee. “Oh, and do you have a menu?”
The man laughed, sliding me the mug. “So you must be Alexander’s daughter.” He spoke with smiling eyes, stepping over to the cash register to grab a menu.
I nodded slowly. “Yes, sir. I’m Juliet,” I responded politely, taking a sip of the coffee and groaning quietly. “This is amazing coffee, Mr.—”
He smiled. “You can call me Randy.”
“Well, thank you, Randy. I think I’d like a waffle,” I told him and he nodded.
“That’ll be right out,” he replied then disappeared into the back.
I smiled, looking over the menu. It looked brand new, down to the shiny lamination and lettering. Maybe everyone who ate at the Diner had the menu memorized. It made sense in a town like this.
I was beginning to hope things were going to be okay. Randy’s smiling old eyes encouraged me into thinking there was a chance of this being a good year.
“Juliet, is it?”
I cringed at the sound of a voice, but quickly composed my face into a forced smile, turning to face him. He was a tall boy with blond hair, blue eyes and a cunning smile.
“Yes, I—” I began but was cut off by another voice.
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo! Deny thy father and refuse thy—” the other voice quoted, faking a high voice, and my eyes swiveled to my other side to find an identical face to the one on my left.
“Avery, don’t mock the girl,” the original boy scolded before smiling sickly sweet at me. “So, Juliet… Looking for a Romeo?”
I found myself suddenly hating my choice to be called by that name. I’d never liked being called Evelyn. Not that I didn’t like the name, but it made me feel like a thirty-year-old with a kid and a job. Commandeering my middle name as my first had been the simplest solution. I liked the name Juliet. It was elegant and poetic, just like Shakespeare, but I didn’t take up stock in the Romeo and Juliet fairy tale love story. Mom and Dad proved the love stories wrong. Their divorce had brought me down to earth from Disney’s overpowering fantasies.
“No.”
“Aw, why not?” Avery asked, tilting his head to the side and pulling out a puppy dog smile.
“Yeah, I’m a lotta fun,” the other said with a grin.
“Ah, but, Adam, I can recite Shakespeare.”
Adam retorted. “Only that one line we had to memorize for class!”
“How would you know?”
“You’re my twin brother. I know you.”
“But—”
“Boys!” a girl’s voice intervened, and I let out a quiet sigh of appreciation. “Let Juliet breathe. Jeez.”
“But, Krista—” Avery began, but she shook her head.
“No buts, Avery! I’ll call both your girlfriends,” she threatened and a moment later they’d vacated. The girl laughed, sitting on the stool beside me. “It works every time. They’re scared to death of those girls.” Her eyes glittered with a smile. “Oh, by the way, I’m Krista.” She extended her hand and I shook it, admiring her blonde hair. It was tucked into a side braid but I could still see the glint of its color in a tell-tale sign of a natural blonde reflecting in the sunlight that was streaming through the big windows.
I nodded. “Julie…” The ‘T’ dangled in the air between us but I simply smiled, leaving it to fall to the checkered floor.
She grinned in response. She’d seen my calculation and approved. “Nice to meet you, Julie. Would you like to sit with me and my boyfriend?”
I thought over her offer, weighing the pros and cons. Third wheel syndrome tipped the mental scale for only a moment before I nodded. Maybe if I wasn’t alone, freaks wouldn’t show up and try to talk their way into my pants.
“I’d love to,” I answered, and she smiled.
“Great,” she agreed, grinning as Randy came to hand me a plate with a steaming hot chocolate chip waffle on top. “Hey, Randy,” she greeted, wrinkling her nose playfully at him. “I’m stealing your new friend.”
The old man laughed. “By all means, Miss Krista. She’ll be in much more entertaining company this way.” His wink made me think that maybe that wasn’t the case.
I followed Krista around a corner to a sort of alcove-type booth. It was one of those big ones for parties and such, but right now it was occupied only by a tall boy with dusty blond hair and a dazzling smile. “I wondered where you’d got off to,” he greeted his girlfriend before turning his smile on me. “Oh, and you found someone.” He stood, holding out a hand for me to shake. “I’m Mike.”
I nodded. “Julie.”
He grinned back. “Well, welcome to our table, Julie. Party of three, donuts for everyone!” He gestured to a plate in the center of the table that had to hold a dozen. One glance at Krista proved that she never ate more than one, if that.
I held up my plate. “I think I’m good.”
He laughed. “You can always eat a donut.”
Krista pushed him back down into the booth. “Sit down, you pig,” sh
e joked, pecking his cheek. “Stop flirting with the new girl.” She smiled at me as I slid into the booth across from them. “How are you enjoying Carltonville?”
I laughed. “Well, so far I’ve been publicly embarrassed by the mayor and realized my dad must live off spoiled milk and doggie bags. So, yeah, it’s been an interesting two days.”
Mike chuckled. “Yeah, that’s our town all right.”
Krista nodded. “You know, we have a friend working at the paper this summer,” she opened, glancing at Mike.
I couldn’t have known less about my dad’s paper. “Oh really?”
Mike nodded. “Yeah, his name is Lucas. He’s one wicked writer.” He chuckled. “Only the best to refill daddy’s coffee, right?” he joked, but I just shrugged.
“I wouldn’t know,” I answered with a small shrug.
Krista laughed. “Ah, well, Lucas was excited.”
There was a pause in the conversation and the lull of silence wasn’t painful. It felt calm and real. I smiled, cutting my waffle into pieces. I took a tentative bite as Krista sipped her steaming cup of coffee and Mike nibbled on his chocolate donut. “This is delicious,” I found myself saying, not really sure why.
Mike chuckled. “Randy’s one awesome cook.”
Krista nodded. “He’s owned this place since he graduated high school. It’s the best place to eat in town.”
“It’s the only place to eat in town,” Randy’s voice announced, walking over to refill our coffee cups.
I looked at him. “Well, that can’t be true. There’s a pizza place, right? There were pizza boxes in Dad’s fridge.”
Krista laughed suddenly. “The nearest pizza place is twenty minutes away.”
Mike nodded. “I don’t count that, though. The nearest good pizza place is thirty-eight minutes away.”
Randy grinned down at me. “Stick with these two and you’ll be the best fed kid in Carltonville.”
I might just do that.
* * * *