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Chapter Two
One month later
Flanked by her best friends, Sophie stared at the tiny, thousand-square-foot house on Sycamore Street, located a few blocks away from the small downtown area of Revival, Illinois.
She wasn’t sure how something four blocks long, with absolutely no significant shopping, could be considered downtown, but there it was.
Downtown Revival. This was her life.
No more busy Chicago traffic, no more noise, no more Nordstrom, Starbucks, or late-night clubbing.
Teeth grinding, she listened and heard nothing familiar. She could barely make out the rumble of a car. In fact, there was hardly any noise. How would she sleep without background noise?
Panic whooshed through her veins. What was she supposed to do with quiet? Think about her life? But she didn’t want to think; she wanted to be out there in the busy world, acting. She took a deep breath. Okay, she needed to relax. This was temporary.
All she needed was a positive spin. There were worse fates than spending time in Revival. The small town was certainly better than prison. It was better than crashing in Penelope’s guest room because she couldn’t pay her rent and was a bit ... unemployable at the moment. And she’d always had fun when she’d visited. The weekends flew by, so how hard could it be? She’d do six months and be back where she belonged.
Eventually people had to forget. Right? After all, she’d done nothing wrong. All she needed was time. The world lived in a twenty-four-hour news cycle; the reporters had to move on sooner rather than later. It would just take a little time before her former company’s name at the top of her résumé didn’t send her email straight into the trash.
Maddie’s arm was around her waist, and Penelope’s was around her shoulders. They both squeezed. They were driving Sophie crazy. Of course they meant well, but all their relentless optimism made her want to scream or break out into uncontrollable sobbing. She did neither. She merely endured in suffocating silence.
Sophie refused to cry. Especially when she was lucky compared to some of her other coworkers.
Yes, her reputation was presently tainted. She’d lost her job and put her Chicago After Dark blog on hiatus. Since her name had continuously been in the papers as part of the company’s executive team, she was a bit like a case of chlamydia. Not permanent, but distasteful enough that people wanted some distance. Given enough time, she’d recover. People had short memories, and when she got back home, she’d be back on top.
She needed to look on the bright side. This whole fiasco had taught her some valuable lessons. Namely, that life could change on a dime, and that sometimes it did pay to be prepared. It turned out designer shoes weren’t actually an investment and money in the bank was important. Go figure. Maybe she wasn’t practical and retirement savvy, but she was smart and wouldn’t make that mistake again.
It wasn’t all bad. While her savings were meager at best, she’d been able to get a job.
Yes, the position was in Revival, working for—she swallowed—the city government, but still. It was something. She wouldn’t be homeless, have to live off her friends or, God forbid, be forced to go join her parents in their meditation commune in India. She didn’t think she’d be good at commune life. She was too selfish. Too materialistic. Too American. She was everything her parents hadn’t wanted her to be.
So she needed to focus on how lucky she’d been to land this job helping the city of Revival, population twenty five hundred, with their town revitalization project. As a bonus, she’d get to spend tons of time with Maddie, and that would be great.
So, see, she was blessed. It wasn’t ideal, but it was work in her chosen profession, and for that she was grateful. She’d have time to regroup and reassemble.
It would be an adjustment, over before she knew it. If she kept busy, she’d blink and be home where she belonged, this whole mess like a faded bad dream.
“What do you think?” Maddie asked, waving her free hand at the frame porch, her long red hair blowing gently in the breeze, making her look like she was ready to film a shampoo commercial in a spring meadow.
Sophie studied what would be her home for the next six months. While the place was small, the white frame house looked like a cottage, with window boxes and a cute small front porch. It was a little run down and needed some landscaping, but it would do.
She smiled at her friend. They were both tiny, and eye level. At five-three, Maddie had Sophie beat by one inch. Her friend had gone through so much trouble to find a place for her; Sophie refused to burst her bubble by whining about how she wanted to go home. “It’s perfect, thanks.”
It wasn’t quite a lie, but it was an exaggeration.
It was charming enough, but Sophie was a city girl. She’d never lived anywhere with grass before. She took a deep breath. “Maybe I could learn to garden. Or at least mow the lawn. That’s a thing, right?”
Maddie pointed to the garage in the back of the house. “The owner said there’s a mower in the garage.”
The grass needed to be cut. Once she’d read in Real Simple people found yard work therapeutic, so maybe it would help her feel better. More like she was at home instead of dropped into an alternative universe.
Penelope laughed. “Please call me when you do, because I’d really love to see that.”
“Hey! Like you’ve ever mowed in your life.” Sophie scowled good-naturedly at Penelope, a tall, willowy brunette and the good girl in their close group. Everyone knew she was the perfect one. The planner. The organized one. The woman that kept Maddie and Sophie out of jail when they were girls and from going off the deep end now as adults.
Penelope smiled. “But I could if I needed to.”
“Well, so can I.” Sophie squirmed, and her friends finally dropped their death hold on her. “How hard can it be?”
