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CHAPTER ONE
Charlotte
* * *
“I always knew your father was up to no good,” Aunt Tracy says as she slides a plate of waffles in front of me. “Even as a kid, he was trouble. Did I ever tell you he sold my bike when I was nine years old?”
Only about a million times.
“I never did get it back and it was my favorite bike. It was pink with these lovely streamers coming out of the handles. Your grandparents gave it to me for my birthday. Do you have a bicycle? I didn’t see you bring one with you.”
“I lived in Manhattan my whole life, Aunt Tracy,” I say as I pour syrup over the waffles. “I’d be in a coma if I ever tried to ride a bike on the street.”
“Well, you’re not in Manhattan anymore,” she says as she buzzes around the kitchen. “You need to learn how to ride a bike. It’s the best way to get around town until you can save up for a car.”
I drop my head and stare at my waffles as I try not to cry.
“Are you ready for your first shift?”
I exhale long and hard as I watch the syrup slide off the waffles. It’s the fake syrup, not the real Canadian maple syrup I’m used to eating. It’s probably full of corn syrup and other poisonous crap.
Stop, I tell myself. If it wasn’t for Aunt Tracy, I’d be living on the street right now, wrestling a pigeon over a discarded bagel. Be thankful for any kind of syrup she gives you, real or not.
“I’m ready,” I say as my stomach churns. I can’t eat anything. I’m too… blah.
“You need to wear black pants,” she says. “Lindsay was very adamant about you wearing black pants.”
“I have black pants on,” I say as I kick out a leg to show her.
“Hmmm,” she says as her face twists up in disapproval. What the heck is it now? Are they the wrong shade of black or something?
“I’ll iron them.”
“They’re fine, Aunt Tracy.”
“Take them off, it will only take a second.”
I lower my fork with a sigh. She’s impossible when she gets like this. It’s easier just to do whatever she wants.
“Lindsay is doing us a big favor by giving you a job in her bakery,” she says as she puts water on for a tea, wipes the counter, and adjusts the dimness of the light, all in the time it takes her to say one sentence. “How’s it going to reflect on me if I send you there with wrinkled pants? The whole Bingo hall will be buzzing about it!”
“The whole Bingo hall will be buzzing about a few wrinkles in my pants?” Geez, how boring is this town?
I can’t believe this is my life now. I have nothing. I have no one.
I want to drop my head onto my plate and drown myself in this cheap imitation maple syrup.
I can’t believe my father did this to me. I hate him.
I hate what my life has become. He broke it and I’m never going to be able to get it back.
A minute later, I’m standing pants-less in my aunt’s kitchen in this small town in the middle of Connecticut, hating everything my life has become.
“Remember your manners,” Aunt Tracy says as she pulls out the ironing board and slaps my pants onto it. “Bridgeworth Pines is not like New York City where everyone is so rude to each other. These are nice salt of the earth folk who appreciate good manners.”
“I’m not going to be dealing with the customers,” I tell her. “I’m sure Lindsay is going to keep me in the back where I won’t make a spectacle.”
“How big do you think this bakery is?” Aunt Tracy says as she starts vigorously ironing the one wrinkle in my pants. “You’ll be doing everything.”
“But people are going to recognize me from the news.”
I’m feeling nauseous just thinking about having to smile at customers while they whisper about me.
Aunt Tracy shrugs. “People around here don’t follow the big New York City news,” she says. “And you weren’t in the local paper, so they probably don’t know you from a pig in the door.”
“From a what? Never mind.”
“Here you go,” she says as she hands me the pants.
I put them on as she starts plucking my hair.
“You might want to run a brush through your hair before you leave,” she says. “Malcolm might be working there.”
“Malcolm?”
“He’s Lindsay’s twenty-six-year-old son. Very handsome.”
I hold in a laugh. I’m sure that my version of handsome and my aunt’s version of handsome are two very different things. I come from New York, the land of beautiful people, and she comes from Bridgeworth Pines, the land of people who shop at Shirts and Stuff.
“Oh, you better go!” she says as she looks at the time on the microwave. “I’d walk with you, but I don’t like walking in the snow. I slipped last year and hurt my hip.”
