Mirrors (Reflections Book 1)

by A. L. Woods

  That was the very problem with dreams. Sometimes they were just that—dreams. I was desperate when I took a job in this bucolic town that looked like something straight out of a frigging Hallmark-movie, right down to the idyllic houses with meticulously kept lawns and residents who knew each other’s first and last names, blood types, and whether or not you failed to recycle properly.

  There was nothing wrong with writing for a wholesome little newspaper, all while waiting for Candace Cameron Bure to show up looking like a candy cane princess with her sugary, mawkish voice and shimmery blond tresses in brushed-out curls. Of course, she wouldn’t, because Eaton was a suburb an hour away from Boston that didn’t have much going for it. Unless you cared about errant cats stuck in trees, fire department charity car washes, and new gazebos.

  There was some irony here, considering I had grown up slugging it out with some of the worst people—my anxiety probably needed the change of pace, especially after what I had gone through. There was no need to look over your shoulder here, because if someone was hot on your trail in the dead of the night, it was probably because they wanted to return the wallet you dropped or they wanted to remind you that aluminium was a recyclable.

  People here saw my sarcasm and ambivalence as edgy and youthful, a true glimpse of what the “big city” mighta looked like—The Eaton Advocate loved what I had to say, and the interview had lasted all of five minutes before Earl had practically thrown himself at my feet and told me, “You simply must join the team!” as a columnist.

  As Earl warbled on and doled out story assignments, I propped my chin up on the palm of my hand, my elbow leaning on the edge of the table just as my best friend’s caller ID flashed on my phone that lay face up on the table. I excused myself from the meeting, taking on a serious, pointed expression as I dipped out of the boardroom, rushing toward the back exit and muttering something along the lines of “I need to take this; it’s a story lead.” No one questioned me, seemingly forgetting that there was no lead, and there was no story.

  Penelope Louise Cullimore had been Connecticut born and raised, and as much as I had chastised her for being a debutante in those earlier years, she had become a real Masshole over time. When we first met a decade ago, she was about as WASPy as they came. On paper she was the cliché perfect, poised blonde, loaded, and on a surface level about as artificially sweet as could be. She had waltzed into our shared dorm room looking like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, right down to the Mary Janes on her feet and blond curls in her hair.

  That is, until her tight-ass parents finally left our dorm room with a peck on both her cheeks and their noses in the air. She had all but flung off those stuffy shoes with a deft kick of her legs and then undid the tight buttons of her cardigan, revealing an Iron Maiden T-shirt that she had tucked into her pleated kilt. The smile she shot me that day was sly and knowing, like she had decided right then and there that we were going to be best friends.

  “I’m Penelope. I like Maiden, Marlboros, and muscular men—not necessarily in that order, but I would take all three at the same time. What’s your name?”

  We’ve been inseparable ever since.

  “Hey,” I breathed, a sigh of relief escaping me when I pushed open the exit door, fresh, cold air rushing at me. I fished a cigarette out from the pack tucked in the pocket of the oversized denim shirt I had picked up from a thrift shop, jamming it between my lips. The friction wheel of the lighter aroused my best friend’s suspicions, a harrumphing sound greeting me from the other end of the phone.

  “Kell, are you smoking right now?” Penelope asked suspiciously, not even bothering with a greeting.

  I stopped myself from rolling my eyes, even though she couldn’t see me. I braced myself for the impending lecture about wrinkles, lung cancer, and all the other nefarious things that my nicotine addiction was going to do to me. She had gone on a crazy health kick after graduation and given it up. Frankly, I smoked enough for the both of us, so it was probably for the best.

  “Morning to you, too, doll face,” I jested, pinching the cancer stick between my fingers and taking a drag, exhaling the smoke that settled in my lungs, a fog of calmness enveloping me.

  “Raquel.”

  “Penelope.” I rolled the vowels of her name, my accent thick as my inflection headed upward, the way everyone in Southie spoke.

  “You’re going to look fifty before your time.”

  “Good. Maybe it’ll put me in a hole a little faster.”

  “That is morbid, even for you,” she drolly remarked.

  “You still wearing Iron Maiden T-shirts to bed?”

  “Maiden is not morbid; Maiden is life,” she declared, as if I had just told her that socks with sandals was acceptable attire to wear to church on Sunday.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I flicked the ash from my cigarette, watching a flock of Canadian geese overhead, flying south for the winter. “So, what’s up?” Penelope had left BU with a degree in English literature and ended up getting caught up in the allure of interior design. She launched her own business against her parents’ wishes—refusing to deign to them—soon after college. She had managed a steady stream of projects over the years. Her current one was located in Eaton, which was great for me, as it gave me an excuse to meet her for lunch.

  Her cleared throat acted as her segue before she launched into the reason for her call. “I had the most brilliant idea.”

  My blood ran cold, I fought the urge to groan. Penelope had a penchant for “brilliant ideas,” and often they required me to do things I didn’t want to do. “Remember how I told you I was doing that design job for Dougie’s boss?”

  My mouth slid into a frown. Dougie was Penelope’s new flavor of the month. Well, sort of. This one had managed to make it to the six-month mark, so we were in good shape. No tears, no complaints, and apparently he was endowed with a dick the size of Alaska that dipped slightly to the right.

  Not that I had requested that detail, but Penelope had never been one to mince words. She was the literal embodiment of an open book.

  “Yah-huh?” I purred, taking a drag on my cigarette.

  “You think you could convince Earl to run a story on it?”

  I coughed on the nicotine in my lungs. “Uh…” my voice carried as I toyed with the idea.

  Earl had fallen in love with Penelope at the holiday party I had brought her to as my plus one last Christmas, not that I could fault him. Penelope had won the genetic lottery with her aristocratic face, lithe figure, and Atlantic Ocean blue-green eyes with specks of yellow in them that nearly stopped your heart in your chest if you stared at them too long.

  “You mean you don’t want to read another story about the fire department’s charity drive?” I said.

  “You can do so much better than that; c’mon.”

  I turned to put my weight flush against the wall. Penelope’s statement had been loaded; it wasn’t just a “You can write something more interesting,” it was a “What the fuck are you still doing working there?” She had been practically begging me to let her ask her father to pull some strings to get me a reporting gig with the Boston Globe—he was friends with the paper’s publisher, John W. Henry. I had been tempted. The pay would be better, the commute would be virtually nonexistent, and it would be a million times better than the Advocate. But I didn’t need anyone’s handout, and I sure as shit didn’t want to ask Daddy Cullimore for anything.

  It was impossible to reconcile that Penelope’s parents were actually her parents. Her mother looked at me as if being poor was a contagious disease, and her father tossed me glances that suggested he couldn’t decide if he wanted to fuck me because I fulfilled his closeted rich man/poor woman fetish, or demand I stay away from his daughter lest she start speaking with a distinct South Boston lilt. (Mighta been too late on the latter; sorry, Pops.)

  “So, is this favor for you or for your boyfriend?”

  “Both,” she replied quickly…too quickly.

  “I’m starting to think thin
gs are getting serious with you and Dougie. Look at you, trying to call in favors for him,” I teased, not really meaning anything by it. Penelope bored easily, and I imagined it would only be a matter of time before she swapped Dougie out for an upgrade.

  Penelope cleared her throat with a freneticism that aroused a swirl of uncertainty in my gut that I didn’t really like. Penelope dated regularly; I did not. Frankly, she dated enough for the both of us, so I never really felt like I was missing out. And that suited me just fine.

  I suspected it was only a matter of time before her parents tried to marry her off to some blue-blooded prince toting an Ivy League degree and seven-figure income. She was “getting up there” in age by WASP standards, and her mother had already been attempting to henpeck her into submission for the last couple of years, slinging comments like: “Haven’t you gotten this middle-class lifestyle out of your system yet? Honestly, Penelope Louise.”

  Still, I selfishly hoped that our plan to grow old and gray together came to fruition, and that I’d never run the risk of being alone again. She was the Thelma to my Louise. We had plans to ditch New England in pursuit of something climatically warmer and frankly, farther from both our problems.

  “What’s in it for me?” I asked, ditching the cigarette into the bucket that had been filled with sand with me in mind.

  “Seriously?” Penelope snorted in a way I knew woulda earned her a scolding had her mother heard. “You really want to write about the car wash drive again?”

  “Not really,” I conceded, tucking the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could pick at the cuticle on my thumb, “but I already came up with a catchy headline already: ‘Blazing Charity Initiative Sounds the Alarm on Children in Need’.”

  “First of all, that is a terrible headline.”

  I made a gasping sound, feigning insult.

  “Second of all,” she continued, “you don’t give a shit about that. Trust me. You’ll love this house. Dougie’s boss does nothing but century-old home restorations.”

  I considered it for a moment, rolling the concept around my mind like a piece of modeling clay. “So, kinda like giving things a new lease on life?”

  “Exactly!” she squealed, and I didn’t have to see her face to know she was grinning from ear to ear, her dimples deeply set.

  The idea felt kind of tired, but at least it would be a change of pace for me. I was a little curious about what was happening with all those century-old homes in Bristol County. Eaton, New Bedford, and Dartmouth, just to name a few towns, had thousands of ’em that were in desperate need of either restoration or a date with a wrecking ball. And this guy had taken it upon himself like a real-life Bob the Builder to fix ’em all. How noble. I could do something with that. My mind spun, the angle for the story lodging its way into the spot that had previously housed the car wash charity drive.

  I felt around for the cigarettes in my pocket again, but decided against lighting up another one. Marinating on the idea for all of thirty seconds more, I cleared my throat, ready to strike a deal. “If Earl agrees—”

  “When Earl agrees,” she cut in, “head to five-eighteen Riverside Avenue. You gotta drive across the bridge on Main Street and swing a right past that Presbyterian church. It’ll be on the left-hand side. You won’t be able to miss all the crew. You do your interview, and then we can hit that sandwich place you like so much in town.”

  “You’re buying,” I grumbled, pushing off the wall to head back inside.

  “Yeah, yeah. Just get your ass over here. And do not show up smelling like a pack of Pall Malls.” Penelope hung up before I could argue.

  Asshole.

  I swung my stare at the door, my hand gingerly lingering on its handle for a few moments before I pulled it open. Penelope was gonna owe me big time for this.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I didn’t like this.

  I didn’t like this one bit.

  “Sean, why do you look like someone died?” Penelope crooned, fluffing another stupid fucking pillow for the umpteenth damn time. All that woman had brought me since I accepted my sister Maria’s suggestion to hire her had been nothing but fucking throw pillows, brightly colored rugs, and a pounding headache.

  “It’s an interview,” she stressed, flipping a lock of her layered golden hair out of her stormy blue eyes that had been made up with thick mascara. “It’s good press.”

  I didn’t need press; I needed a sale…and a Tylenol.

  Penelope would have been fine, and I use that word loosely, if my best friend and foreman, Dougie, hadn’t decided to make a move on her. I had wanted to scrub the stupid shit-eating grin off his face the first time his forest green eyes landed on her. It was as close to infatuation at first sight that would have contended with the plot line of any of the telenovelas my ma liked so much.

  It wasn’t that I was jealous. Penelope definitely wasn’t my type, and she talked way too damn much to make the sex component worth it, even if she was aristocratic pretty with her high cheekbones and perfect posture.

  Ever since her royal highness had waltzed into our lives six months ago at the design stages of this project, I couldn’t seem to get rid of her—or this fucking house.

  Her sigh ate up the silence of the room, her tongue tsk-tsking against the roof of her mouth.

  “Can you please lose the constipated look?” she huffed, not even looking at me. Instead she shifted a vase on the fireplace mantel three inches to the right, paused, and then slid it back into its former position. She settled her hands on her hips, propping the tip of her right foot on the floor the way she always did when she wasn’t satisfied. This woman’s life’s purpose was to stage homes into oblivion, to “build the space, set the mood, tell a story.”

  At least, that had been what she told me when I interviewed her. I had foolishly relinquished entire control to her and my younger sister, Trina. Everything from picking out a color palette in the preliminary stages right down to staging this place. This house was a showstopper, if you were into walls that were frankly too damn dark, accented by white teakwood furniture and a million different mirrors of various sizes that she called a gallery wall, imploring me to trust her judgement because the hipsters would love it.

  My eyes had rolled back in my head at that sales and marketing spiel. I mean, hipsters, in Eaton? I think not. They weren’t leaving the convenient confines of Boston to flock to this Podunk of a town.

  She turned on her heel, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Once those blue peepers of hers landed on me, though, the smile flipped and in came that tight frown she always wore when she was displeased.

  “Now what?” I groaned.

  “Your tie is all messed up.” She moved toward me, her hands outstretched in that domineering way that left me feeling a little put out. I took a step back, my thigh hitting the arm of the suede couch. “Here, let me just—”

  I held out a hand to her. “You can stage the house, Penelope, but you can’t stage me.”

  At that, she stilled. Her lips pursed and her eyebrows pinched together, as if she’d just tasted tequila for the first time in her life and didn’t have her lime wedge chaser ready.

  “I’ll have you know that I pulled a lot of strings to make this possible,” she warned, that dour look still on her face.

  I didn’t care what strings she pulled, because it seemed like none of them were getting me what I wanted—a fucking “Sold” sign on the front lawn. I felt like an idiot, pacing around the house I had rebuilt alongside my crew, looking like a fucking pansy. My shoes didn’t even have scuffs on ‘em. They were so uncharacteristically shiny that I could practically see my reflection in the unmarred brown leather.

  “I hired you. You work for me,” I stressed, tucking my hands into the fucking ridiculous wool-blend tailored suit jacket she had insisted I wear. She had conspired with Trina (who failed to understand that blood was thicker than water) earlier to locate the closest thing I had to dress clothes this morning before she to
ld me what was happening.

  Penelope harrumphed, her expression growing smug. “As of...” she considered thoughtfully, tapping her bottom lip with a manicured finger in a way that made me feel as if I wasn’t going to like what came out of her mouth next, “two weeks ago, when your checks started bouncing, I’m more of a volunteer.” Her pout bloomed into a smarmy smile, looking positively beside herself that she had socked me where it hurt.

  She may as well have actually just grabbed my balls and twisted them. Her words settled into my bones, blood rushing to my head. My brain squeezed in my cranium as the migraine attacked me with another untimely smack of the proverbial elastic band.

  Two thousand eight was proving to be the worst year I’d had in awhile.

  The recession had made banks reluctant to award anyone with less than an 860 credit rating a mortgage, which meant my bottom line had been in some serious jeopardy. In a last-ditch effort, I had accepted Maria’s recommendation to hire an interior designer to compensate for the choppy waters in the market. The suggestion had had a double purpose; we both thought that Penelope’s presence on the site might entice Trina to come work with me for a while since it wouldn’t be such a sausage fest anymore and inspire her to…well, do something either than mourn her broken heart.

  As Maria had predicted, Penelope and our kid sister got on swimmingly. It was the first time she had ever experienced being motivated by someone with whom she didn’t share a blood connection. Penelope was good at what she did, I would give her that. She saw every room (and person) as a blank canvas, asking to have some life brought to it.

  I had admittedly gotten more desperate the further the market tanked, fulfilling every single suggestion and request Penelope and Trina presented to me, no matter what the cost. They called their suggestions “must haves” for prospective buyers, assuring me this would make the difference between a lowball offer and a bidding war (a pipe dream in this economy), and like a fool who should have known better, I had obliged.