Page 10 of Just (Fake) Married
The truth was, in some ways (in a lot of ways, really) it felt like Last Hope Gulch was dying. A slow, withering death. And I couldn’t help but feel like I’d played a tiny part in that, by refusing to be in the re-enactments because of that dumb high school moment with Ethan.
So if we were going to make the Feud Day Festival a big deal again, someone had to make the first move. And it felt like it should be me.
Sunshine would tell me I was an “extreme people pleaser” and that, “it wasn’t my job to make everyone happy.”
Which…whatever.
Being nice to the McGraws so that we could restore glory to The Feud Day Festival and get our town off life support seemed like a long shot, but I put it on the list.
Move out of Mom’s House.
Our dad had died over five years ago, and it was easy to say that I’d moved home with Mom because she needed me. However, the truth was, I’d failed out of grad school, got dumped by my boyfriend, and I had nowhere else to go. There just wasn’t a good enough reason to leave after that.
But I was twenty-eight now, and it seemed like I was stuck. Unlike my other siblings, who had all moved on with their lives.
Our youngest brother, Boone, had joined the military the day he’d turned eighteen and had been deployed for years, only coming home on the very occasional visit. Bliss had floated around for a while, but had settled down in the apartment above the bar, and Amity had had her shit together at age 10.
I didn’t think Sunshine was ever going to leave New York.
Which left me as the lone, lost Calloway sibling still living at home.
The Goods and Provision store also had an apartment over the storefront. Currently, it was filled with everyone else’s junk. I could clean it out, make a space for myself. Would Mom be heartbroken if I did that?
I crossed off moving out and instead added:
Clean out apartment above store.
Cleaning out an apartment wasn’t as sexy as moving out on my own, but baby steps.
Speaking of sexy…
Have sex?
That would be nice. Really nice. But, considering my current dry spell, (see the boyfriend who dumped me) it was perhaps too far out of reach. Like trying to get to the moon on a paper airplane.
There just weren’t a whole lot of single, eligible men in town.
Well, there were some, but they were all McGraws or part time cowboys so…hard pass.
Outside, the wind blew and rattled the window. Snow swirled around Main Street like we were in a toy globe. I could see the Darryls, out there in the elements in their bright orange Carhartt jumpsuits. Darryl Jones and Darryl Hernandez, a married couple who both worked for the township, were taking down the Christmas decorations hung up on the old cast iron street lights and town statues.
They didn’t abide by my January and February needing more lights, not fewer rule.
“Mrs. McCormick? You still doing all right?” I asked, worried about the silence.
“Fine!” she called out. “Bert’s got the reflux and I’m just trying to find something that can help him.”
I found her in the pharmacy section and handed her a bottle of our most popular antacids. “Start with that,” I said.
“Honestly, Harmony,” she said, squeezing my arm. “What would this town do without you?”
I laughed, like she was making a joke, but I knew she was serious.
She wasn’t exactly wrong. Yes, this town needed me, but I needed it back. For all its quirks and faults, I still loved it. I loved the people and the traditions, even if they might be in need of a medical miracle.
I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t Harmony Calloway of Last Hope Gulch.
Back at my desk, I looked down at my resolutions and put a line through drink more water. Too boring. I put a line through being nice to the McGraws. Too impossible.
