CHAPTER 2 - Rosie

I have a small cottage just off Goosebeak Alley and right behind the blacksmith that I use to keep my Bishop life separate from my Disciple one. It was a necessity at first because if you wanna work in the Bishop downtown historical district, you gotta look the part. Which means I have myself a nice little collection of eighteenth-century dresses that need to be kept in a certain condition.

When my son, Cross, and I were still living in our Disciple trailer, there wasn't any room to store these dresses properly. Of course, there's plenty of room now because we're living in Lowyn's house. But driving home in a traditional gown without ruining it is a chore so I decided to keep the little cottage behind the blacksmith instead of giving it up.

This cottage is basically just a ten-by-ten square and doesn't even have a proper kitchen, just a countertop to plug in small appliances, a tiny sink, and a little bar fridge to keep a few snacks. There is a bathroom, but it's just a tall rectangle that hangs off the cottage like maybe it was an outhouse before modern plumbing renovations.

I only use the cottage as a dressing room but it's the most perfect space a girl could ever wish for. The floors are gorgeous wide-plank dark wood, the walls are a cream-colored plaster that looks so soft, ya just wanna pet it, and there's a French chandelier hanging down from the center of the ceiling that originally used wax candles but now has electric ones.

Bishop is a stickler for everything eighteenth-century authentic, but the town makes exceptions for electricity. Fire, it turns out, is a fire hazard. And insurance premiums in the twenty-first century will break the bank even if you're not lighting hundreds of candles every night, let alone when ya are.

I have three vintage armoires that I scored from McBooms because Lowyn didn't think they'd be worth restoring after she got them home from her picking trip. They line the walls of the small space and together they are big enough to store my seven dresses and collection of aprons, stays, and petticoats.

In between two of the armoires I have a vanity, which is new, but it's custom and Amish-made, so it still has the whole Bishop vibe. The last thing along the walls is the dresser that stores my various undergarments.

Right underneath the chandelier in the center of the room is my most favorite piece of furniture ever. A chaise longue covered in light blue silk velvet, authentically restored by Lowyn McBride herself, and gifted to me several Christmases ago after it had sat in the McBooms showroom for over a year and she saw how I longed for it. It's got to be worth ten thousand dollars, at least, but I would never sell it. Aside from my child—who doesn't count because he's not an asset, he's a human being—this chaise is my most prized possession, the best gift I've ever received. Again, aside from my child, who, in retrospect, was definitely a gift, but also wasn't, since I was fifteen at the time when I had him.

My little cottage is full up with gorgeous, frilly, feminine things and every time I walk through the door, I sigh, it's that cozy and comfortable.

A second home for me, actually. I only use it on Tuesdays and Wednesday when I'm in Bishop takin' care of my Busybody duties. It's kinda wasteful to spend so much money on such a small part of my life, but it makes me happy. And I think I deserve this happiness.

Besides, Cross has not gone without anything due to the expense of my life here in Bishop. Aside from a father, of course, but that's got nothing to do with Bishop. In fact, I would say Cross benefited from my second life because you really can't buy happiness. Sure, it's fun to try. But after the spending spree is over there's nothing left but the truth. Happiness is a precious thing—it's not for sale nowhere.

Of course, I don't even pay rent in Disciple these days. I'm living at Lowyn's house and she refuses to take money from me. She considers her contribution to my easier, less-stressful life a pay-it-forward gift. And the job of a recipient of such a gift is to appreciate it, which I do. And take advantage of it, which I'm trying to do. I'm just not sure how, aside from saving money, living at Lowyn's helps me get to the next step in my journey.

Philosophical musings aside, I am a very lucky woman and even though the Revival is nothing more than a carnival sideshow when you look too close at it, I sit in that tent every single weekend and count my blessings. Every single ‘amen' I shout is honest. I mean it with my whole heart.

It was a rough ride. Felt like a nightmare rollercoaster I couldn't get off for a few years there in the beginning, but it's all worked out for Cross and me.

It truly has.

After changing into my McBooms clothes—vintage bell bottoms, halter top, and clogs, which is my most favorite shoe ever—I walk a few blocks over to the printers just outside the historical district and get my copies of the Busybody all printed on pretty vintage-like paper. Then I come back to my cottage and sit at the vanity so I can fold and stuff this week's edition of the Busybody into vintage-looking envelopes.

After that, I affix the meticulously designed address labels and stack them up all neat so I can get a good look at them. Seventy-three subscribers. It doesn't sound like much, but I'm proud of that number. It averages out to a little bit less than twenty new ones per year, but still—it feels like a win.

I gather them up in my giant purse and head on out the door.

Outside it's hot and sticky, though that is just getting started because it's only June. By July we'll all be melting. But I love summers in Bishop. Everyone's outside working on something. All the downtown ladies are in their backyards gardening, or feeding chickens, or chasing baby pigs. And all the men are doing manly things like making horseshoes and milling grain, or whatever it is these Bishop men do.

There's a lot of activity, but it's not chaos like a big city might be. It's easy, and relaxed, and comfortable.

I love being in Bishop, though I don't mind leaving, to be honest. Disciple is the same way, but on a less rustic spectrum. But before I return, I have two more things to attend to. First, I stop at the post office and hand my envelopes over to Betty Watson so she can run them through the postage machine that will stamp each one with the Bishop postmark. Details matter, after all.

When that's done, I head on over to the Bishop Inn to help out for the lunch rush. I don't have a regular job there, I just fill in on the days I'm in town. And they might have me washing dishes, or bussing tables, or serving. It all depends. But I don't mind it. You don't have to dress traditional at the Bishop Inn because it's right on the edge of downtown and not technically part of the historical district.

When I walk in, Jessica, part-owner and front-desk manager, greets me with a smile. "It's the kitchen today, Rosie. Bryn will fill you in."

I smile and wave as I make my way through the crowd of people waiting for a table or to check in. Bryn McBride is her usual self, mumbling under her breath as she works the grill and the stove at the same time. Mostly she's cursing. But this is what I like about Bryn. She is all drama all the time. When we're together there isn't a moment when she's not complaining, or gossiping, or telling some kind of puffed-up story.

It's off-putting to some people, but not to me. I like it because Bryn is the kind of person who fills in empty spaces. When she's nearby there is no room for loneliness, or silence, or regrets because she is bigger than all of that. She's loud, and aggressive, and I just laugh when she complains about not being able to find a decent man because it's got nothing to do with her looks—she's beautiful, just like her big sister Lowyn. And it's got nothing to do with her ambition—she's successful too. On a smaller scale than Lowyn, but flourishing, nonetheless.

The reason she can't find a man is because she's so damn disagreeable, most people just get tired of it. But I can't tell her this because her confrontational personality is my most favorite thing about Bryn McBride and I never want her to change.

"Oh, good! You're here!" Bryn exclaims this when she finally breaks off from her rant and notices me putting on a plastic apron. "I've got dishes piling up and I need those pots and pans, Rosie!"

"I'm on it," I tell her. I start doing dishes, every once in a while looking over my shoulder as Bryn makes room for me in her private tirade—which is only private in the Bryn sense of the word, in that she's mostly talking to herself, but these external monologues just happen to occur out loud.

But Bryn fills up the space. The emptiness recedes. Silence hasn't got a prayer.

And I like it this way.

After my little shift at the Bishop Inn is over, I head back to Disciple. But it's only two o'clock, so I don't go home. Instead, I stop off at McBooms to check in and see how things are going. Lowyn made me the manager so she wouldn't have to come into Disciple every day. She's keeping her distance from the town right now on account of all that mess up in Blackberry Hill and Jim Bob Baptist's part in it. Which was tangential, at best, but I can see her point.

Anyway, she left town, renouncing any Revival profit share for good, and moved in with Collin and his gang over at the Edge compound. But she couldn't just pick up McBooms and move it as well.

So. I am the manager. The problem is, I'm not in town every day. I only worked at McBooms part-time. I only work anywhere part-time. So she ended up hiring a gang of teenagers for the summer and I'm loosely in charge of them.

When I walk in the door the music is blaring, two teenage girls are dancing in the middle of the showroom, and two teenage boys are sitting in a nearby ‘living room' watching them. When they see me, the music and dancing comes to a screeching halt and the boys all stand up, smoothing their hair and trying to look presentable.

They always treat me like I'm an adult and get all respectful and shit. It's kinda cute.

I act accordingly as well, planting my hands on my hips and making my eyes wide. "What the hell is goin' on in here!"

They get all scared and fidgety, apologizing profusely. I glare at them a little, then tell the boys to leave and prod the girls back to work.

The problem is, there's really nothing to do here during the week. I mean, I have things to do—I'm in charge of cataloguing everything Lowyn brings home from her pickin' trips and coordinating with the warehouse and shipping people—but the teenagers are only here to mind the place. And maybe, if a customer walks in, ring them up. But most of Lowyn's foot traffic happens on the weekends after the Revival show, so it's always dead.

Still, there's not a wooden floor in existence that can't use a good sweepin'. So that's what I have the girls do. But I let them put the music back on. I always play music when I'm here too.

Then I gather up the pile of mail Lowyn never pays any attention to, take it over to my favorite Fifties dinette set in the middle of the showroom, and sit down to sort.

It's a big pile, but junk is easy to filter out and since this is my regular spot, there's a trash can at the ready near my feet.

Almost all of it is junk, so I'm toss-toss-tossin' away when I just so happen to look down and spy an envelope sticking out of a catalogue.

"Oops!" Guess I got a little over-enthusiastic. I pick the envelope up out of the can and turn it over. "Well, that's weird." I say this right out loud because the envelope is addressed to me .

It's handwritten too, my full name sittin' right on top of the McBooms street address in a well-practiced all-caps style. No return address, not even on the back. But the weirdest thing is that the postmark says Disciple.

I release the seal on the envelope and pull out a piece of paper that turns out to be something of a worksheet. A dot-to-dot worksheet, actually. But not in the traditional 1-2-3 dot-to-dot pattern, but letters. And not just in the one alphabet I recognize, but something that looks like Greek and another that looks Chinese.

I flip it over and look at the back, but it's blank. Weird. Why would someone be sending me this?

Maybe it's some kind of promotional thing? I dunno. I'm just about to toss it in the trash when I pause.

Maybe Cross would like to solve it? He's a smart kid. And he used to love puzzles when he was younger. Of course, he's on the verge of being a teenager now so all the things he thought were cool two years ago are now for kids, because obviously, when a boy hits twelve, it's time to grow up.

Those are his thoughts on the matter, at least. Still, this worksheet doesn't look anything like the ones he used to do when he was smaller. It looks… complicated. In fact, it looks a little bit like code. And codes are something totally different than puzzles because codes are things grownups solve for serious reasons, of course.

So I shove the paper back into the envelope and stick it in my purse to take it home.

Even though I still feel a thrill when I park my car in the driveway and walk up to the gorgeous front porch of Lowyn McBride's meticulously restored house, I hate getting home before Cross. During the school year it almost never happens. But summer is all about unexpected plans and spur-of-the-moment adventures, so it's a nightly thing these days.

I do expect him for supper, but the average suppertime in the summer for the people of Disciple is seven-thirty. Parents coordinate this so we can be sure that our children will appear at the dinner table on a nightly basis.

But McBooms only stays open 'till six, and it's my duty as manager to shut it all down when closing time comes around.

So here I am. At home alone.

There is not a damn thing about Lowyn's home that's cold or uninviting. And that helps. A lot, actually. But even though I love this house, it's not my house. Even if I bought this house from Lowyn, it would always be her house. So all the warm and welcoming things she's collected and displayed to maximize a sense of comfortable coziness when I walk through the door only helps so much.

Glancing up at the clock, I set my big purse down on the countertop, put on an apron, and immediately start making dinner.

At seven-thirty on the dot, my son shows up all bright-eyed and bursting with stories of what he and his friends did all day. He's a handsome boy, just like his father was. In fact, he looks a lot like his father. He was always lanky as a child, but his shoulders are gettin' broader and his arms are getting wider now. He's got my eyes and my smile, which looks good on him and makes him appear friendly—most of the time.

We sit across from each other at the table and I genuinely pay attention as he tells me about the woods, and the waterfall, and the girls—he is not into girls yet, but he's going to the junior high next year and so that's all part of it.

I eat it up. I can't get enough of my son.

But this dinnertime conversation is pretty much all we have these days. All he wants to do is be with his friends and think about growing up. And as soon as he's done eating, he puts his plate in the sink and then goes into the living room to play video games.

He's my life. He is my whole purpose. And I don't want to belittle the life I've built after getting pregnant at fifteen and fighting my way through everything that came with it. It's a good life for a woman of twenty-eight.

But children grow up. He's growin' up.

And I'm just not ready for it.

I want to hold on to him for as long as I can.

Still, there's just not much left of those days to cling to and I'm struggling to get a grip on my changing role as a mother of a soon-to-be teenager. I can't seem to hold his attention anymore. I'm just… Mom. And we don't have much in common. I don't play video games and he doesn't collect eighteenth-century dresses. Hell, I'm not even sure he knows I own those dresses. We've definitely never talked about them at dinner, so he might not.

So how do I keep this conversation going? How do I get his attention?

Then I remember the dot-to-dot that came in the mail. While it's really not that exciting, at least it's something for us to talk about. So I take it out of my purse and flop down on the couch where Cross is playing his video game.

He grunts at me, probably because I messed up his move. But then he pauses his game and side-eyes me, whining his words out. "What do you want?"

"Look." I thrust the envelope at him.

"What is it?"

"Open it and look."

So he does, but he's not impressed. "A dot-to-dot worksheet? What am I, four?"

"Did you even look at it? It's not a simple dot-to-dot. It's a code."

His face twists a little. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it's not numbers, it's letters. And it's in different languages."

Apparently, this is just enough information to be intriguing because Cross takes a second look at the worksheet. But it's truly just a cursory glance because he puts it down and starts playing his game again. "Cool. Maybe I'll look at it later."

I sigh. Then get up and start cleaning up the kitchen.

A couple hours later after dinner is over , the dishes have been done, and Cross has gone to bed in the very bedroom that Collin Creed spent his entire childhood in, I go upstairs to my bedroom too.

I'm not much of a sleeper. It's a rare thing if my lights are out before midnight. So while I do get in bed, I don't wind down. I pull my Lonely Hearts notebook out of the nightstand drawer and start thinking up new personal ads for next week's issue.

My pen knows just what to write because I do this every night.

Desperately seeking… somebody .