Chapter 3 - Lowyn

"Good morning, peaches!" I look up from my computer at the front counter of McBooms to find Rosie Harlow breezing in. She stops in front of me and scowls. "What are you doing here? It's the Day After."

I sigh, then spin the vintage barstool I'm sitting on so that I'm looking out the front window—past the brightly painted letters that say ‘McBooms' in a huge varsity font, orange and yellow with a thick shadow of brown—it's such a great vintage combination—and then let out a long exhale.

Rosie drops her giant leather purse onto the counter. "Don't bother, I already know."

I spin back to face her. "You already know what?"

"About Collin, peaches." I roll my eyes and she grins, because that's what Collin called me all through high school while we dated. "Yep. Collin. And you." She grins bigger. "And Amon."

I knew this. Bryn told me she saw him.

Rosie rests her elbow on the counter, cupping her chin as she continues to grin. With a perfectly heart-shaped face, she's the definition of cute. Kinda short, a little bit skinny, long, straight, dark brown hair, and the grayest eyes you've ever seen. It's really hard to look at anything else when she's staring you in the face. She's Valerie Bertinelli circa 1976, complete with bell bottoms and red-checked flannel over a tight black tank top. She's a walking billboard for McBooms because everything she's wearing right now came from my store. Even the chunky platform sandals, which are totally impractical since it's really not sandal weather, but practical has never been Rosie's middle name.

She got pregnant in tenth grade and is the proud mama to a twelve-year-old boy called Cross. Not an uncommon pathway for girls who grow up in West Virginia, but Disciple isn't just any old Appalachian town. It's got a special relationship with God, and if you want to call it culty, that works just fine. No one minds because all of us, every single one of us, is descended from the sanctimonious town founders.

The main one being a preacher man called Justin. He named the town Disciple because that's what he called his followers and the town was built for them.

Here's the most ironic thing about current-day Disciple, West Virginia—there's not a single church in this place. That preacher did everything out of a tent. A real fire-and-brimstone show every frickin' Sunday complete with holy water, miracles, and promises of Hell.

I've got reels of him somewhere around here.

The Revival. That's what the show was called back in the day and that's what it's still called now because the Revival show still happens in the field just south of Jerry's Hardware store. Simon West is the preacher these days and everyone in the town—including me, including Rosie, including Bryn—plays a part in the show that gets put on.

Because that's what the Revival is—a show.

We might all have a special relationship with God here in Disciple, but that doesn't mean we can't make a dollar off it at the same time. Or… ten, as it is. Inflation and all that.

Anyway, church or no church, believers, or not, living in Disciple comes with expectations because we gotta live up to the hype. The Revival is what keeps us going. And, if I'm being honest, the Revival is how McBooms first got noticed. The whole reason Jet Shadows was in Disciple in the first place was to attend a revival. The fact that he wandered down the street and into McBooms was… well, the hand of God, I suppose.

Rosie is the only single mother within a five-mile radius. And I'm not saying that teenage girls from Disciple are any better than teenage girls from anywhere else—it's just the rest of them had the good sense to leave town limits once the baby bump started showing.

Rosie rode it out though. Hung in there. She said, to anyone who scowled at her that year, "I was born in Disciple and I'll die in Disciple. So you people had best just get over it."

And… they did, I guess. She's been working three jobs to support Cross for as long as I can remember and no one really much cares where the kid came from. He's a town treasure. Everyone loves Cross, even if they do think his mama is goin' to some kind of hell for it.

Rosie fills in for me at McBooms when I go out picking. And she's in charge of the books. Not the accounts, I like to do those myself, but the catalog books. Everything in this store is meticulously photographed, listed, and filed in the appropriate reference binder. I have binders going back to the day this place opened.

I get a lot of online sales. I mean, who the hell has time to make a trip to the hills of West Virginia to hunt down retro décor? They come for the Revival, yes, and I do get a fair amount of foot traffic on the weekends, but nothing like I do online.

Everything I sell is on the website. And I buy a lot of things online too. But that's not sustainable. Not if I want to make a profit. So every second week of the month I pack up my truck and my trailer and I go picking around Appalachia and the surrounding states, usually returning on Thursday night. Sometime I drive a whole day to get somewhere, then stay the night, pick around the towns, and spend the last day driving home. One week a month I have a wandering sort of lifestyle and I like it.

Love it, actually. My life is filled with cherished heirlooms, undiscovered treasures, and fun. I really don't do drama. I hate it, in fact. So I'm all kinds of out of sorts today.

"I ran into him at the Rise & Shine this morning."

Shit, my mind wandered. "Who are we talking about again?"

"Amon!" Rosie giggles, her back to me now because she's flipping through the pile of mail that I stack on the far side of the counter. I never read mail.

"Oh, right. What did he say?"

"You know." She's still got her back to me. "How Collin found you at the Pineapple Pub and drove you home." She turns to face me now, her lips all pouty. "Did he see… the room?"

"We woke up in the bed, Rosie."

"Together!"

"Together."

She covers her mouth with one hand and presses the other against her heart. "What did you say? I mean, how did you explain that?"

"Well…" I sigh and look out the window again. "I didn't. Bryn lied for me. She told him it was… some kind of showroom and everything was for sale on the website."

Rosie practically snorts. Then she points to my computer. "Is that what you're doing? Putting it all online?"

"Yep."

"Oh, my God. Did he believe her?"

"I don't know. She just yelled at him and got back in the car and we drove away."

"You were watching?"

"From the car."

"You wimp."

"You know how I hate confrontation. I just… I don't want him to know why I really have that stuff."

Rosie makes a serious face. "I get it. I'll push the story to Amon tonight."

"Tonight? Are they staying in town or something?"

"Apparently they bought the old coal-mine compound."

"What? You mean the church camp? Does that mean he's back for good?"

"For good. Amon says they're opening up some kind of private security company and West Virginia is home base."

"Security. Is that what they've been doing since they got kicked out of the Marines?"

Rosie shrugs. "Dunno. So… you goin' pickin' today?"

"Nah." I point at the computer. "I'm gonna finish adding all this stuff to the website and then meet Bryn for lunch in Bishop. I'm starting the trip tomorrow."

Rosie grabs a bunch of binders and a stack of photographs and takes them over to a Fifties dinette set in the middle of the store, plopping them down with a thump. "Well, let me know if you need anything. I'll be here all mornin'." She pops a cassette tape into the nearest boombox sharing the table, presses play, and begins to gyrate to the beat of ‘We Got The Beat.'

My head hurts and I can't do the Go-Go's this early in the morning, so I save my work and go into my office to finish.

Adding all this stuff to the website is so stupid. I mean, why do I care? It's Collin Creed. I've hated him for more than a decade now. Why should I rearrange my day over his stuff in my house?

It just burns me. I mean, I know it looks bad and I'm sure he's picturing me yearning for him all these years, so I just can't have that. I can't let that be the final impression of me in his head.

Not after what he did to me back in high school.

He broke my heart.

And then he left town.

I didn't mean anything to him and so… he sure as hell doesn't mean anything to me, either.

My sister Bryn is the head chef at the Bishop Inn. Which is where I was supposed to stay last night. I still don't understand how I got home and how Collin and I ended up in bed together.

Obviously, we didn't do anything. I still had my boots on when I woke up.

But I need the whole story and Bryn barely had time to drive over to the motel on Route 60, chew Collin out, and then chew me out as she raced us into Bishop so I could pick up my truck at the bar and she could still get to work on time. She said she had receipts—text messages and screenshots, and, unfortunately, a vid one of her co-workers sent to her around one a.m.—but she wasn't in the mood to go over it then, so that's why I'm driving back to Bishop to have lunch with her.

It would be better to not fill in the blanks. To just move on and chalk it up as just another wild night on the Day. But it's Collin Creed and he's not leaving town, he's staying.

I need to know the details. Even if I will hate myself when it's over.

The Bishop Inn is everything you imagine a B&B to be. A large eleven-bedroom Victorian home that has been lovingly restored and cared for over the years, boasting dark hardwood floors and trim, fancy embellishments, and way too much wallpaper.

People love it though. It doesn't attract superstars or anything, but it is a favorite place for local couples to get away from the rat race on the weekends. Bryn has been working at the inn since she was in high school. She was a maid at first. Then Bryn helped Mrs. Maroo in the kitchen—back when she did all her own cooking—and she even helped Mr. Maroo in the gardens for a summer. After Bryn finished chef school, Mr. Maroo decided he and Mrs. Maroo needed to see the world, so their thirty-something son, Michael, became the concierge, their daughter-in-law, Jessica, took over bookings, and my sister, Bryn McBride, became the new head chef.

That was one of the best days of my life. Watching Bryn grow up and make her dream come true like that—it was amazing. She's wanted to be a chef since she was nine. When I was nine, I wanted to be a veterinarian. And I know that almost no one grows up to be what they thought they would be when they were nine, but my sister did it.

It's special, I think. I'm not bitter about my non-existent veterinary career. The hours are horrible and the pay isn't great. I'm just really impressed with my sister's fortitude and focus. She's always been a take-charge kind of girl and that's why I enlisted her to go lie to Collin and tell him that bullshit story about why I still have his stuff.

She doesn't even blink when a confrontation presents itself. She's a fighter.

I'm more of a nurturer. And while I would never call myself doubtful or pessimistic, I am very cautious. Pulling our lives back together after Mama died wasn't easy and one misstep—one frickin' misstep—and everything turns out different.

That's what I learned from that experience. That successful people are careful. That's not to say they don't take risks—I know risk is a huge part of success—but successful people calculate their risk and can steer around the rapids.

Bryn just plows her boat straight through the whitewater. And it works—for her.

But not for me. I am slow and steady. (Says the girl who picked her truck up from a bar this morning.)

I snicker a little as I pull up in front of the inn.

Inside, the place is filled with people lugging boxes of pastel-colored spring décor and Jessica is too busy giving out directions to do more than wave at me and point to the kitchen when I pass by, as if Bryn would be anywhere else.

Indeed, my sister is in the kitchen. She's flitting around a stove manning a skillet and the grill at the same time.

"Wow. Do you need help?"

She shoots me a look over her shoulder. "You? Cook?" We both laugh. I'm a terrible cook. Why should I practice a skill that my sister can do better? She cooked for us, even back when Mama was alive.

"Seriously, though. I can flip that burger."

"I'll have to cancel lunch."

"What? No! You have to fill me in on last night!"

"There's some wedding thing going on over in Revenant and for some reason the entire wedding party wanted to come here for breakfast."

"Some reason?"

Bryn and I both look at the swinging door where the comment came from. Michael is standing there smirking. "The reason they came is for you, Bryn." He directs his attention at me. "Apparently, some bigshot from Williamsburg with a cooking channel on YouTube was here a couple weeks ago and spent twenty minutes of his last vlog raving about Bryn's French toast brioche and her avocado burger."

I make a face. "That's… an odd combination."

Bryn sighs. "They do it on purpose."

"Do what on purpose?"

"Arrive just in time to order both breakfast and lunch."

"Apparently, it's to see how well the chef handles the two meals." Now Michael is beaming. "And our girl here did spectacularly. The inn is booked through July, Lowyn. Can you believe it?"

I smile at him. "That's great, Michael."

"I'm giving her a raise."

Bryn snickers. "You can't afford to give me a raise."

"I can now." Michael chuckles, then leaves the kitchen to resume his duties.

Bryn sighs, wiping her sweaty brow with the back of her sleeve. "What I need are a few more cooks in my kitchen."

"And that's not in the budget?"

"Nope." Bryn plates the burger and the French toast, then pauses to look at me. "It's great that we got all that attention, but we're always booked through July at this time of year. Our problem is winter months. People just don't want to make this trip in the winter. So he really can't afford to give me a raise, let alone hire me some help."

"Oh. Well, that sucks."

"Yeah." Bryn pouts a little. "But it's fine. I mean, the inn has been here for fifty years. Surely it will be here for fifty more."

"Surely."

"Take my phone." She points to her chef's coat pocket. "All the evidence you think you want is in the message streams between you, and me, and Taylor."

"Taylor Hill was the one who saw me last night?"

"Oh, boy, did she ever."

"Great." Taylor is the waitress here at the inn. But she's actually from Disciple and runs the kiddie tent during Revival. So this means it's gonna be all over town.

"Go sit outside, Lowyn. It's nice. I can't concentrate with people in my kitchen."

I just shake my head, but go outside so she can boss herself around in private.

The Bishop Inn gardens are pretty spectacular. Even though this property is only about two acres, Mr. Maroo used every single square inch judiciously. Spring bulbs are blooming, the trees are budding, and the evergreen hedges have been trimmed to crisp, clean lines. He made a maze of sorts—not tall enough to get lost in like that kid from The Shining, the hedges are only about four feet high, but it's kinda cool that you can go for a half-mile walk in the diameter of two hundred and fifty feet.

I enter the hedge maze flipping through Bryn's phone to find my name.

Oh, my God. That's my first reaction to the last text, which reads, He's s0 h0t, Br4n, I'm g0nna take him h0me with me.

Only all my O's are zeros and the Y in Bryn's name is a 4.

I was wasted.

I scroll up, cringe as I read the entire conversation, then go looking for Taylor's stream and find the vid of me cackling like a fucking high schooler as Collin just sits there and grins at me.

No. Laughs at me.

And my God, look at him! I didn't pay much attention to him this morning, I was too flustered. But he's hotter than ever. How is that fair?

I stop looking. It's over. I don't need to know this stuff. Obviously, I threw myself at him and I wish I hadn't.

I wish I hadn't.

Here's something most people don't know about me—which is kind of meta, because it's about people knowing stuff about me.

I don't want people to know me. I can't even explain this properly, but I don't want people to know anything about me. I just feel that… people don't have the right to know me. Not without my permission. Which is so stupid, I understand this. But it's how I feel. And now Taylor and Collin both know something about me that I didn't give them permission to know.

I hate this feeling. It's vulnerability mixed in with a violation of privacy.

And the worst part is—Collin is the whole reason I'm this way to begin with.

It was him. And what he did to me when he left that year.

He broke my heart and he didn't even care enough to say goodbye.