Her bedroom was comfortable. Not luxurious, but homey. The same drapes, cushions, and soft carpets from when she moved in, still adorned the place. She sneaked out a yawn, stretched her left arm, and took a glance at the hideously pink bridesmaid’s dress that lay listlessly over the chair by the large French window.
“Yes, Mother!” Rory was annoyed at being asked the same question again. How freakin’ dumb does she think I am? she wondered for the millionth time.
She swung her legs off the bed and rubbed her feet softly against the carpet, a habit she had developed as a kid. Her mind constantly looked for an opening to cut short this conversation with her
mother. There was no getting up on the right side of the bed when her mother was the one giving the wakeup call. Mary Loughlin—wife, mother, tormentor.
Rory hated what she saw in the tall mirror that stood by the side of her bed. She had no proof other than her own two eyes, but she was pretty sure that she’d put on a few pounds in the last month or so; maybe from too many drinks on vacation. She sucked in her gut, pushed up her chest, and tightened her jaw. A long sigh left her mouth as she realized that this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
Are starving artists allowed to put on weight? She chuckled to herself, the thought ending as she wondered whether she could even call herself an artist anymore. Artists created pieces of art, through which they made statements of eternal value. She, on the other hand, was designing T-shirts to make ends meet.
At least my ass looks good, Rory thought as she tilted her head sideways. She had no clue how she was going to fit into the bridesmaid’s dress in time.
She sat back on the bed with a thud and rubbed her temples. As it was, she was dreading going to this wedding, and now she had to worry about fitting in this stupid dress too. Lizzy, her closest friend in Montcove, had implored her to try it out, but Rory just couldn’t. The dress symbolized what her own family was—old-fashioned, boring and uncomfortable.
Speaking of boring and uncomfortable...
“Everything is fine here, Mother,” Rory answered absentmindedly as she picked up the dress from the table, her thoughts turning to gloom as she glanced at what lay underneath. Last notice for tax payments and the annual homeowners insurance bill for this enormous house that her grandmother had left her. For weeks she wondered if asking her parents for help would be a decent idea.
She knew the answer to that.
“No, Mother, I don’t need any help with anything, but thanks.” Rory couldn’t let her parents get a chance to prove their point—that their elder daughter wasn’t able to manage things on her own. Even if it meant that she’d risk losing this house. No handouts. Something will turn up, she told herself.
“Mother, I gotta go now, take care of the shop…Yes! That silly little bookshop of mine.” I’d like to have one conversation with her where I don’t end up shaking my head in frustration, she thought.
“Okay, Mother. Take care.” No I love yous to be said. They never were. As always, Rory hung up the phone feeling much worse.
She had less than three weeks to fit into this dress and to find a date to take to the wedding. When she thought about it, the dress was the least of her worries. It was her younger sister’s wedding, and in the conservative religious community that her parents belonged to, questions would be asked about the elder daughter. Even if she was elder by a mere nine minutes.
Rory had no doubts that her parents were constantly at work to find dates for her, guys she would certainly have to meet at the wedding and be forced to have polite conversations with. As the day grew nearer her anxiety worsened, and she wished that she could make some excuse and stay away from it all. Maybe there will be a hurricane and all flights out of Montcove will be grounded.
A girl can hope.
She had loved Montcove ever since she started coming here for summer vacations as a child. Tara, her sister, hated the humidity and the sand. Rory, on the other hand, would spend all day chasing butterflies and running around trails with her friend Alicia when she’d visit. Montcove was still scenic, still beautiful, and whatever little peace and calm they had left since the celebrity invasion started a few years ago was enough for her.
Most of all she loved Montcove because it reminded her of her beloved grandmother who had passed on last year at the ripe age of ninety-five. It was remarkable that Colleen Loughlin had worked till her nineties, stopping only after a hip operation.
After dropping out of school at USC in LA, and left with a choice between moving back with her parents or becoming homeless, Rory had decided to head to Montcove and take care of her grandmother instead. That was the wisest decision Rory had ever made, as it not only brought her close to grandma Colleen, it also allowed her to alienate herself from her time in the big city of Los Angeles. If she had her way, she would never again set foot in that godforsaken place for as long as she lived. The only thing that was good about it was her friendship with Alicia anyway, and she’d moved to NYC.
On her deathbed Colleen Loughlin had joked that if it weren’t for Rory coming in to stay with her, she would’ve passed away much earlier. A sinking feeling engulfed Rory’s heart, bringing tears to her eyes every time she thought of Colleen’s last moments. Her grandmother had barely been dead when her lawyer sister had pulled out the will.
Tara Loughlin and her long-term fiancé Paul had been pissed that Grandma Colleen had left Rory the sprawling Montcove property. Tara apparently had plans to make the place her summer home, where she and her husband could entertain corporate clients.
The triumph of that victory was short-lived for Rory once she realized the cost involved in keeping such a house in shape. Saying that she had struggled to make ends meet would be an understatement. Ten years ago she could’ve made a good living from a bookstore, but who bought books anymore? Especially in a town of 22,000 people. Tourists certainly didn’t.
Besides, what did she know about running her grandma’s bookstore or maintaining a house this big? But she couldn’t close up shop. The Open Book, her grandma’s store, was a Montcove landmark. Everyone knew Colleen and in a way, the bookshop was what kept her memory alive. Keeping it open was her tribute to her grandmother. Apart from the few tourists who came into the shop to search for something to read or the declining regular residents, she barely saw any sales. At least it gave her plenty of time to get back to her first love, sketching.
The sound of the shop computer booting up greeted her as she slid in with a warm cup of coffee in her hands.
“Morning, sunshine.” Lizzy stood there with a wide smile on her face. The girl had really grown in the years that Rory had lived at Montcove. No longer was she the lanky teenager that followed Rory everywhere. But she still worked at the bookstore, a job that she had been given by Colleen Loughlin when she was caught tearing pages out of a teen magazine.
“I swear I thought it was gonna rain. I think I even dreamt of it last night.” Lizzy said as she absentmindedly flipped through her phone.
“Did you do something with your hair? It looks different,” Rory quizzed.
“Thank you for noticing, ma’am, and yes, I did. Isn’t it wonderful?” Lizzy tossed her head, showing off her new bangs.
“You have it easy. Everything looks good on you.” Rory smiled warmly.