by Tara Brown
I scowled. “I wasn’t going to list all those bad things.” My scowl turned into a mischievous grin. “Okay, but not exactly like that.”
He rubbed my back. “Give her a chance. You’re only here for another year and then you leave for university, Liv.” He looked worried. “Then it’s me, all by myself. Is that what you want? Or do you want me to have a marriage and a life and love? I could die next year in a freak car accident. I could die tomorrow of a stroke. We don’t have forever, Liv. If anyone knows that it’s you and me. We have to use the time we have. I’m tired of mourning and being alone. I’m tired of the last image I have of your mom. Her eyes were closed and she was in her coma. She never woke but she squeezed my hand. I knew she was saying goodbye. I can’t let that be the only thing that runs through my mind. I have to let myself be reborn, or I am not going to make it. I’m in love. Do you know how happy your mother would be? Her last words to me were to celebrate the love we once had and have enough respect for it to continue with someone else. I never thought that possible before I met Judith.”
Tears flooded my eyes. “I think her words were that she had worked awfully hard on perfecting you as a husband, and she didn’t want to see it wasted.”
He nudged me. “My way is nicer.”
I shook my head. “No, I know. I’m glad you found someone.” I sighed and decided to show him the real problem I was having. We had always been an honest family. He deserved to know my real apprehension towards it all. I took a breath and nodded. “My main issue is her being so, uhm, well . . . so different from Mom.”
He laughed. “I loved your mother and I always will. I didn’t love that she was a vegan or that I was forced to eat Tofurkey or that we had to live in that dumpy apartment or that she opposed everything in the world because she hated capitalists. She would drive ten extra blocks to get organic farm-raised chickens for me, not realizing that all the extra gas was still going to the man. She drove me insane, but I loved her dedication and strength and compassion for those weaker or less fortunate than her.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his dark, slightly wavy hair. “With Judith, I love her strength but in a different way, and I love her compassion in a different way. I think if you gave her a chance, you would see she really is exactly like your mom but in a totally opposite way.”
I didn’t see it, but I had to let him think I did. I smiled, even if it was a fake ass attempt and my brain was chanting ‘I hate your NRA Barbie wife.’ I gave my very best attempt. “Okay, I think I see what you mean—I mean, she is obviously strong. Did you see how much firewood she chopped yesterday? She looked like a lumberjack. And she can cook. She seems sweet. Her family is wicked nice.” The point was that I loved my dad.
He laughed. “I will never comprehend what you mean when you talk. I’ve come to that understanding, but I am taking this as you will accept my life, my choices, and love me through it all.”
I nodded.
He slapped my leg. “The harvest ball starts in half an hour. Get dressed.” He stood and left the room, chuckling about lumberjacks and teenagers.
I sat there, wondering if I would ever see it, and if I did, would I be betraying my mother? Then his words hit my mind. I forgot all about the ball. I had said I didn’t want to go, but clearly they hadn’t listened. What kind of town still had an annual harvest ball?
I knew Chicago had them but they were crazy fancy and cost a fortune. They were fundraisers, not celebrating shit growing. My mom had been against them, but I imagined she would like the idea of celebrating harvests. She was crazy like that.
But honestly, what the hell was with this place? Who still celebrated harvests, beyond the Amish?
I looked at the hanger I could see poking out the top of the door of my walk-in closet. It was the ball gown my father and Judith had picked out for me as a surprise, for the ball I had declined their invitation to. The last surprise they had picked out for me had been this town . . . I didn’t even want to imagine the dress, speaking of Amish. I knew what was awaiting me. It would be something from the country-bumpkin, Gone-With-the-Wind variety of dress. Every building in the whole town looked like the friggin’ gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel. I didn’t imagine the stores had much going on.
It had been delivered earlier, and I had done my very best at my personal protest to not look at the dress.
Now that my dad had come in and said all of that, I knew my war would have to be a silent one, and like this magnificent bedroom, I could just say I was taking one for the team. I was avoiding conflict. Actually, looking at the dress was a step towards peace, so I was being proactive really.
Not to mention the sad fact, my war was out of ammo. Even the evil side of my brain couldn’t negotiate its way out of the chat my father and I had just had. So I got off the bed and sauntered slowly to the door. I kept my head high in false self-respect. Looking as dignified as I could, I pulled the door back.
I gasped.
Instead of Gone With the Wind, a stunning Christian Dior gown hung from the closet door. It looked like something Carrie would wear on Sex in The City. It was pale-blue silk tulle, embroidered with sequins that were iridescent blues, rusts and greens, over a creamy-gray strapless dress. The amazing skirt of petals looked exactly like peacock feathers without their colorful eyes. The strapless creamy-grey dress had a tight-fitting bodice with a flowing A-line skirt. There was even a pair of blue, strappy, four-inch-heel sandals to go with it. They were dark-blue and matched the peacock-look perfectly.
My mouth hung open.
I didn’t even know what to say or do. Instead of grabbing it, I dropped to my knees and felt a small amount of moisture starting to build up in the corners of my eyes. I was speechless.
I was a bitch. There really was no other way to put it.
NRA Barbie had gone out of her way to make certain I would be the belle of the ball, but still a city girl. And there was absolutely no way my father had anything to do with the dress or shoes. Hell, my father would have had me looking like Little House on the Prairie, not a stunning goddess in a vintage Dior with Yves Saint Laurent sandals.
I had died and gone to wardrobe heaven.
Judith got me. She really saw me.
There was even a Dior clutch, sequined to match the dress. I picked it up delicately and dragged my fingers across the sequins.
How could she have been so kind to me and so thoughtful?
She had been paying attention to the fact, I too was nothing like my mother. I never cared for Tofurkey, I hated government politics, and I secretly loved the feel of fox fur. I had always hidden the fact I loved to draw gowns in class and imagined myself as a modern-day Audrey Hepburn.
No one else had ever noticed my secret love. My father assumed I was a regular teenaged girl. He didn’t know I watched Fashion TV constantly and always slowed down the show for Blair and Serena in Gossip Girl. I had to secretly watch it on my iPad that I hid under my bed. I had even gotten a Netflix account, secretly. I used pay-as-you-go credit cards to pay for it. I would stare at Chuck—his fashion sense was over stimulating, but his gentle cruelty and misconstrued love was unbearable. I wanted so badly to be Blair. My parents were old money. I could have been an Upper East Sider. I could have been dramatic and conflicted and cursed in love. But I held true to the person my mother was. It was my way of clinging to her. She just never knew it.
But Judith knew.
She knew I was a scam, a fraud, a betrayer of my mother’s passions, and although my mother had missed it, she had not. I had let my mother die, never seeing the real me, and yet, somehow Judith had caught it.
I could either be pissed that she had seen through the façade, or I could embrace who I was and just go to the damned ball and rock the dress. I ran a finger down the material, shivering from the feel of it and the excitement inside of me.
I closed my eyes and just whispered the things I wanted to say but never did. “Mom, I love you but I need you to know I love meat. I love fashion, and I
don’t even know what the president’s wife’s name is or his kids’. I don’t know what a Republican is, and I think deep down I may not vote when I turn eighteen, because I don’t understand any of it. But I love you. Please don’t hate me.”
I sat there for a moment, just letting it all be out there in the air.
Suddenly, with a scary burst of energy, I jumped up from the floor and ripped my clothes off and ran for my steamy shower. I needed to be very clean for that dress and I needed something beyond my laundry-day jogging pants and Hanes Her Way undies. I needed Victoria’s Secret, matching, and a push up. That dress deserved nothing less.
The work of making myself resemble the girl who had come from a city took an hour. I put my cell phone on vibrate and placed it and my lip gloss in the clutch. Spinning slowly, I took one last look at myself in the mirror. I was breathtaking. I could imagine myself in Chuck’s arms. It was a pivotal moment in my life, and as odd as it was, I had Judith to thank for it.
Maybe she wasn’t so bad. She had done the room for me and now the dress. Maybe she and I had some things in common. I remembered the plaid she was wearing when I left the kitchen and shook my head. No, we definitely didn’t. Maybe all we had was loving my father, maybe it could be enough.
I walked from the room, letting my feet and ankles get used to the four-inch heels. It had been months of sneakers and flip-flops. My secret stash of heels at my friend Jodie’s house was still there. She sent me pictures sometimes. I missed them and her but Snapchats with my shoes did make me feel better.
I navigated the stairs with no problems and made my way into the kitchen, where my father was laughing in a way I hadn’t heard in a long time.
He looked handsome in his tux and his tall, slim body had a James Bond look to it, forties and lean. His face seemed younger and so much less pinched, since he and Judith had met that fateful weekend at the spelunkers meet. His dark hair and blue eyes seemed to be even more shiny and sparkly than ever. I had to stop and force myself to see it. It was all a person could want for their family. And I needed to want it for him.
I promised myself, from that moment on, I would try. I would try reallllllllllly hard, and not just because she had bribed me with vintage designer clothes. Okay, that had a small part in my decision, but at least I was ashamed of it.
I knew then, in that moment, that my mother was looking down and she was happy for him—for us. There was no conflict. She was with the person who made him happy. He was having an amazing moment because of Judith, and so was I. She had improved our lives. Eww—that felt wrong in my mind, but it was the truth.
I smiled at her, making myself see it too. She looked elegant in her simple pale-pink strapless gown that had an empire waist and simple pleats. Her cream-colored shoes were also very simple and elegant. Her dark hair was pulled up into a French twist and her face, as always, was perfect, with her Barbie-like features. She always looked amazing, no matter the occasion.
When they saw me, their faces dropped. “Oh my God, Liv, you look incredible,” my father whispered. “You are so grown up.”
I smiled at them, fighting the tears as I looked at Judith. “Thank you so much for this. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
“I think I do.” Judith beamed, but the best part of the moment was the proud look that crossed my father’s face as he looked at Judith. He was proud of his wife; he loved her and the effect she had had on our family. She was family. Again, I almost cried, mostly because I was a hateful bitch.
“Well, I will be the most sought-out man at the ball, two stunning ladies on my arm.” He put his arms out for us two ladies. Judith reached out and hugged me tightly as she whispered in my ear, “You deserve that dress and to have fun.”
We each took one of his arms and walked out for the night.
Chapter Two
Briton
Normally, he could have driven for days and not even flinched at it. But something was different about that drive. He hadn’t felt anything in so long, that he forgot how it felt to have dread lay its great weight upon his chest.
But it wasn’t just dread. There was something else in there, mixing him up.
On some level, deep inside of himself, Briton seemed to be able to feel the end of his journey nearing. It was as if he was exhausted in his soul. He had felt that way from the moment he had decided to go back to the US—the last home he had shared with his family.
Home.
What a strange sensation to have a home suddenly. Especially after so long on the open road.
He smiled at his thought, maybe not open road.
More like villas, chalets, and condos in cities he never let himself get attached to. They had been on the run for over a hundred and fifty years.
It was almost exciting to go home, in a way. It brought back feelings—feelings he hadn’t felt in so long. But being there on the road that he last traveled as a broken-hearted man brought back everything. The feelings he had pushed away and closed off felt like they were doubled. But he realized he was no longer broken hearted, just broken.
The feeling of excitement was replaced with nerves as they crossed over the Maine border, bringing him one more step closer than he had been in over a century.
He glanced at Miles in the rearview mirror; it was the first time Briton had driven while Miles slept in the back. Normally if Briton drove, Miles drove him insane with backseat driving. But now the older man’s breathing had grown more distressed and laborious when he slept, and he wasn’t in control or trying to hide it. It revealed how bad he really was. That made Briton’s stomach twinge. The old man was it, the last of his family.
Anger replaced the heavy feeling of fear as he thought about his family.
He hoped one day to get the revenge they so desperately sought. Revenge for himself and for Miles, who lost his wife in the town’s troubles. He considered her to be part of the family they had lost.
Briton had rarely allowed himself attachments and certainly none of his father’s crusty old friends. But Miles had always been different. After Briton’s father’s death, the old man had grown on him and eventually stepped up to the task of being his mentor in a lot of things. But regular humans had such short lives that they seemed to grow wise at a rate far faster than any other creature he had ever seen. Miles was his superior in everything, regardless of being only two centuries old. Not that he was a regular human.
Briton hadn’t needed a mentor, but the company had become something he enjoyed. It was more like having a father again and the losses they had shared tied them together. He knew Miles had made him a better man, just by being there.
He heard a slight noise and looked into the back seat again, seeing the old man grimace slightly in his sleep. It was as if he was momentarily pained, and then he fell back into a motionless state. He had gotten worse progressively, so much so that even his magical elixirs weren’t helping him for very long once he’d taken them. He was an odd old man, with his elixirs and strange ways. He suited Briton’s company perfectly, though Briton didn’t age a day from his eighteenth birthday onward, and Miles has slowly aged into the man he was now.
But nothing about either of them was what you expected when you saw them.
Briton, distracted by the feelings he had been certain he had blocked off, nearly missed the large sign beside a huge apple orchard. When he caught ‘Welcome to Wolfville, Maine’ in his peripheral, he took a deep breath.
A lump grew in his throat, the kind he wished he could blame on hunger, but he knew better than that. He was home. There was no denying the feelings that were there, particularly not the merciless feelings for bloodthirsty revenge. He was owed a debt; he just didn’t know who was collecting the bill.
Who was left of the Michaels clan?
Would they remember they owed him?
If not, he could take the town from them by force. Something he preferred not to do now that so many humans lived there. He missed the haven it had once been. He wished to peace
fully restore it, but he needed help with that task.
He smiled, recalling the number he had seen fleetingly on the sign, ‘Population 6,411, est. 1634’. The town had grown significantly since his last visit. Or rather, the last time he was there, fleeing for his life. The smile faded as quickly as it came as he was flooded by memories of the events that had transpired there in that small town all of those years before.
He hoped silently that the hunters and the pain would be avoided this time, knowing full well this was the last place on earth he should be. Unfortunately, it was the only place he could turn to. He slowed the SUV, allowing the scenery to warm him, even if it was only a minuscule amount.