I crouched and said goodbye to all the cats, one by one, taking my time even as the others arrived to set up the party around me. I wasn’t stalling in the hopes that they would invite me to stay. That would be pathetic, and I wasnotpathetic.
Eventually, though, I ran out of cats.
I collected my bag and jacket and made my way out to the town square to visit Jane Smith. The sun provided enough afternoon light, so I wasn’t in the dark, but heavy black clouds rolled in fast on the horizon. The lingering snow from last week had all but melted except for the parts in the shade that never got hit with direct sun. It had been a mild winter so far, but supposedly, that would change soon. There were rumblings of a storm coming, but I’d only half listened.
Meteorologists weren’t to be trusted.
I made my way to my favorite bench and sat down to share baby carrots with wild guinea pigs that roamed throughout the town. (That was a story for another time.)
There was a tight, painful squeezing in my chest. It was like this most days, but usually, it was easier to ignore. It felt worse this time of year—being a ghost in the town you grew up in.
I stared up at the statue I dubbed Jane Smith. She stood in her almost ten-foot (or thirty GPs, at least) glory just outside the roundabout in the center of town. (Important to note here that most people in Slippery Slopes measured height by guinea pigs or GPs. It was a fairly loose system and not really based on anything solid.)
Jane Smith was a bronze masterpiece of a woman who looked like she stepped out of the old-school computer gameOregon Trailwith a baby clutched to her chest as she stared into the distance. I passed that statue on the way to work, longforgotten, covered in creeping vines and overgrown grass. Every day, I came here, ate my lunch, and looked up at her. I thought about the wind blowing her in perpetuity as the heavy strands of hair forever whipped along her face, the metal of her skirt tugged in the wind, and her ever-present maternal protection of the bundle in her arms. Was her baby okay? Who were they? Where were they going? And why did our goofy little tourist town have a statue of her? All my searching had led to dead-ends, and it was as though I was the only person who cared.
A group of passing tourists stopped to play on their phones in front of her, blocking my view. One of them almost sat on me.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you,” they said.
“You and the rest of the town, buddy,” I said.
They shot me a confused look before the group scurried away.
I sighed.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked Jane when I was alone again. “What would you do if you were me? If you lived in a place where nobody even knew you existed?”
I waited a beat, the cold air whipping through me, sending chills down my back.
“Probably not talk to inanimate objects,” I answered myself.
Good thing I had Deckard, or it might seem sad that the second person I talked to the most was a statue.
I stared into her fierce bronze eyes. Something was shifting inside me. I was on a precipice. Maybe it was the rolling over into the new year, or the massive clouds on the horizon, or the still potent caffeine thrumming in my veins. Whatever it was, I had a choice. I could do things exactly the same and continue to feel like I was disappearing, or I could make a real change.
Jane Smith wouldn’t put up with being forgotten. The weeds crept up her base, and dirt collected in her crevices. She used to be someone worth memorializing and now she was a JaneSmith. No plaque explained who she was. Another woman lost to history.
“No. I won’t let that happen,” I told her.
I stood and pushed off some of the dead leaves collected by her feet. “I’m not letting you be forgotten. And I won’t be forgotten either,” I said to her, my head tilted way back to meet her gaze focused on the horizon.
I couldn’t go on like this. I couldn’t roll in another year being forgotten about.
“If you wanna be noticed, then you have to do something noticeable.”
Decker told me once or twice that I could be impulsive, but it washoursuntil midnight, and I was formulating a plan.
I shot another look to the tram and checked my watch. I had enough time to go home and pack a bag before the last one went up.
I would not start this new year the same. I would not go on as I had been. Bee Perkins will make an impression on this town one way or another. I could have a pity party. But I’m going to have my own party. I’m going to change everything this year.
New Year, New Bee, started tonight.
Chapter 2
Owen
It really didn’t feellike New Year’s Eve, yet somehow, inexplicably, it was. I remained unchanged, neither nostalgic for the year ending nor excited for the new year ahead. It was just another day. No fireworks, no bustling crowds, and no parties. Instead, the Golden Sunset retirement community was as quiet as a graveyard this evening as Ivy and I sat side by side in her room—Okay, sorry, that was aterriblemetaphor for the elderly home.
