AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Miss Tiffany was a friend of Andy’s mother. And a “life coach.”
Andy hadn’t disliked the woman. She was nice enough. But it still rankled to have a glorified babysitter hired to live with her. Even if she had been a minor at the time.
That was probably tops on Andy’s list of dislikes.
Being treated like a child when she was a grown damn woman.
She got it a lot.
Part of this was probably due to her looks. If she wasn’t wearing her favorite boots, Andy was five foot four. In addition to her small frame, she’d also inherited her mother’s blonde hair and big blue eyes. Bette Davis eyes. That’s how Andy’s grandmother referred to them. It was also why Andy’s mother had been christened with such an unusual name for a girl.
“Pretty bird, Andy. Pretty bird.”
Andy stroked the warm downy feathers along Petals’s back. They were the same taupe hue as her wings. Petals was a cinnamon cockatiel with black-brown eyes. One of which was fixed upon her right now.
Andy didn’t mind when her bird stared at her. It was whenpeopledid it that she felt the reflexive urge to look away. And people did it a lot. Maybe it was the Bette Davis eyes.
“Shut! Up!”
At her roommate’s excited cry, Andy glanced over to the kitchen island.
“I would kill to go to the Louvre,” Kory was telling her mother. “Maybe you canFlat Stanleyme into one of your suitcases and take me along.”
Davis chuckled. “Ha, I remember reading those books to Andy when she was little. She used to love them.”
Andy didn’t remember loving those books.
Nor did she remember loving the Louvre.
Andy remembered exactly two things from her trip to France at age eight. One, she’d been terrified nearly the whole flight over to Paris. It had been violently windy that day, and the near-constant turbulence had convinced her that the plane would crash into the Atlantic. And two, she’d had a meltdown at the Louvre in front of a John the Baptist painting — the one where the woman is lifting his severed head over a platter.
Andy didn’t like airplanes.
She also didn’t like art museums.
But she could understand why her current roommate did since she was a graphics design major.
Kory Wilkes had moved into the apartment right after Miss Tiffany had moved out to go live with her boyfriend who rode a Harley and smelled like tires. Literally right after because — not wanting to give her mother a chance to hire another babysitter — Andy had covertly found her own roommate and told Kory she could move in the next day.
Davis Whittenbalm hadn’t been too pleased about this at the time, but Kory had quickly won her over, and now, a few years later, the two were quite close. Andy sometimes envied the natural ease with which they slipped into their happy little bubbles of chatter.
But not today.
Not at five in the morning.
“You two are going to havesomuch fun in Paris,” Kory gushed.
“I certainly hope so. We’ve been once before, but it was so long ago and that trip was—”
Andy sensed her mother’s gaze shifting to her when she paused.
“Well, it wasn’t the most relaxing vacation we’ve ever taken,” she finished with a lame chuckle.
Peering into one of Petals’s black-brown eyes — since her bird didn’t seem to mind the staring thing so much — Andy could just make out a tiny little Andy reflected back at her. Tiny little Andy looked sad.
No, not sad.
Sleep-deprived and grumpy.
