Page 26 of Pin-up Girl

I strolled down a street already filling with cars. This town didn’t do much business during the colder months, but it was a minor tourist stop in the summer. With this being the last week before school started, people were here to get their last-minute antique and kitschiness shopping in.

I looked like another one of them. A visitor. I didn’t fit in on this street I’d grown up near, because I wanted to. It had been too long since I felt like I belonged somewhere, and I wanted it to be here.

I tried to be okay this weekend with doing nothing, but I was fidgety. To fill the time, I’d gone over my list of people to catch up with. To check in on. To casually mention I was looking to buy farmland here and see if they could hook me up.

At one point, I thought about looking up Clint. Would it be weird to visit my old boyfriend? Hey. Missed you. By the way, I’m engaged.

Of all the people I’d kept up on after I left, I’d watched Clint the most. Maybe that was a little over the top, but when I left, he was so mad, swore he never wanted to see me again, that I didn’t dare reach out. Instead, I’d watched the newspaper announcement when he got married. Watched his career rise and fall, seen that he vanished from the public eye…

None of that meant it was a good idea to seek him out now. He and I were a long time ago.

This morning I’d forced myself to stay in my hotel room and pretend I was taking my time waking up. That it was normal for me to not do anything before nine.

I’d already failed on the ignoring work front. I’d emailed my assistant—former assistant—half an hour ago to make sure they didn’t need anything. She reminded me someone else was handling my job for now, and that I should enjoy my sabbatical.

The heartbreaking thing though, the piece of news that pushed me from something is off into this sucks territory was that putting me on hiatus did exactly what it was supposed to. Our company’s stock prices climbed this morning, after the announcement.

At the counter in the cafe, I ordered a large red-eye—coffee with a shot of espresso—and added cream. If I was going to climb the walls not knowing what to do, might as well enhance that feeling with caffeine.

I took my drink to sit on one of the stools next to the counter lining the window. People watching always helped me think.

As soon as Aubrey’s was open, I’d go visit her. Say hi to my fiancée. I’d wanted to take her away for the weekend, and spend some time with her in person. Take another two or ten of those kisses, like we’d shared when I arrived. I wanted to consume her time. Consume her.

But she had a life. Sylvie’s wedding to help plan.

And I had to find a way to buy property here. In between catching up with the people who lived here, I would occupy myself working on a different new idea, until I reached an impasse. The technology didn’t exist to do what I wanted—less expensive and less bulky offerings—and I had to figure out how to make it so.

As I stared out the picture window, at both residents and tourists, I couldn’t help but fall into a comparison of what was now versus what had been.

On the surface, a lot of the street looked like what I remembered. The antiques, hardware store, music… All of it was where it had been my entire life.

At a closer glance, the names and owners were all different. Gage’s Grub still had the same sign it always had, and so did Young Hardware. Both had been handed off to the younger generation in those families.

Younger was deceptive. Gage and Evie were forty, a few years older than me.

Deacon had changed the name of the antique store—Deacon’s Derelicts and D’art. Ludicrous name. I bet that made him giggle for a long time.

And Aubrey’s place next door was new. New to me, anyway. She’d taken over part of his property for her vintage clothing store, Pin-up Princess.

Joystick’s was new.

The bookstore was gone, but a sign in the window said it would be back soon, under new ownership. Granny’s Yarn was still there—I couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t. I couldn’t see either of those from my seat as they were next to the cafe, but I’d noticed when I arrived.

Infused Divination was the same too, though Sebastian had taken over after his trouble.

I’d known all of this before I arrived. No matter how many times I’d tried to tell myself over the years that I was leaving this place behind for good, I couldn’t help keeping tabs. Maybe I was meant to come back, maybe I should have just forgotten it.

I was here now, and being in the middle of it, the past easily overlapped the present. The quiet, wallflower of a kid I was then compared to who I was now.

Regardless of what came next, I’d left that boy behind. That was what mattered.

Stores were opening. That was my sign that it was time to climb out of my head and get moving. I downed the rest of my coffee, not caring that there was more than half a cup left and it scalded going down.

A moment later I was walking through Aubrey’s front door.

She was talking to someone. A younger girl behind the counter, someone I didn’t recognize, greeted me with a warm smile. “Hi, can I help you find anything?”

“No. I’ve already found her.” I couldn’t tear my gaze from Aubrey. She was channeling early 80’s Madonna this morning, with her hair teased into organized chaos. Her pale sweater was too big, and slid off one shoulder to reveal a black tank top strap.

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