His smile dimmed now. “It doesn’t have to be any big, fancy, affair. Something more casual. Quaint. A welcome to the town party.”
I didn’t smile to make him feel more at ease. Why would I?
“I don’t participate in signings, and I don’t need to be welcomed to the town. I just need to be left alone.”
With that, I wistfully glanced at the shadowy shelves and walked purposefully out the door.
Though I wanted to, I didn’t walk into the bar. Instead, I hopped in my car where I could go back to whatever passed for home and be alone.
Wasn’t that what I wanted?
Chapter 4
“I didn’t dispose of her body. Didn’t do that disservice. Would someone cover up a Van Gogh? No. That’s what I was. An artist. They would realize that one day.”
I was both happy and pissed off when I heard the knock at my door.
It was interrupting my very serious perusal of my favorite online shopping site.
But I was happy because after cleaning the cottage, after working out, after dissecting social media with a scalpel, after watching YouTube videos—yes, I resorted to that—and reading more King, this was pretty much all I had left of my procrastination.
The knock stopped me from having to do something unthinkable like…write.
I couldn’t do that.
Of course, I should do that. I had a bucketload of unread emails, missed calls and texts from my editor and agent respectively, looking for chapters I’d long promised and hadn’t written a word of.
As much as I hated, despised people who turned up at people’s houses who were not food delivery guys or from USPS, I didn’t hide and wait until this person was gone.
Instead, I did something very uncharacteristic. I opened the door.
A woman smiled at me, holding a basket of what looked like muffins. Some kind of welcoming committee, I guessed, even though she seemed like the absolute last person to be the head of any welcoming committee.
She was tall, masculine, wearing all black, with frizzy hair and not a lick of makeup, except a smear of bright red lipstick that somehow worked even though it totally shouldn’t. She was wearing so many layers and chunky necklaces she reminded me of my high school art teacher I didn’t know whether I liked or hated.
“I’m Margot,” she said by greeting. “I’m your second closest neighbor and I thought I’d bring you something to welcome you since your first closest neighbor is not likely to do so.”
I didn’t bother asking who my first closest neighbor was because I didn’t care who they were. I definitely didn’t care who my second closest neighbors were. I spent eight delightful years in New York never even speaking to a neighbor.
“I’m allergic,” I said, instead of offering my own name or letting her into my house.
She quirked her brow. “To neighbors?”
Definitely.
“Muffins,” I said, nodding to the basket.
“Who’s allergic to muffins?”
I shrugged. “I guess I am. Thank you for the thought and for being so kind. Make sure they go to someone that would enjoy them.”
Of course, I didn’t go so far as to slam the door in my face but I gave her that tight, dismissive smile polite people did to get themselves out of such situations. I wasn’t at all polite and in New York I definitely would’ve slammed the door in a stranger’s face. As much as I didn’t want people to like me here, I didn’t want them straight up hating me either.
I was also certain most people in this town would be much more polite than me.
“I assume you’re not allergic to wine because Nicole at the General Store told me you bought eight bottles of it yesterday and came back for another three today,” she replied, obviously not as polite as the rest of the town.
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t mean to be rude—”
“Yes, you do,” she interrupted.
I bristled, straightening my spine at the sharpness of her tone. There was no bullshit in it.
She took my surprise as a foothold to just barge right in.
I was so shocked that I let her, staring at the basket of muffins she left on the stoop.
There was not much I could do right now unless I wanted to try to remove her bodily from my cottage, and she looked like she could take me in a fight. I sighed, closing the door, leaving the muffins to the bears, or coyotes, or whatever was roaming about in the woods.
She was looking around the room when I turned back to her, a thoughtful look on her face. I expected she’d been in here before because Emily seemed like she was the person to eat muffins with her neighbor.
I waited for Margot to ask me about all of Emily’s belongings, maybe be pissed about it. I hoped she was pissed about it because the only other thing she could do was start crying with all the memories of grief over her dead friend.
But Margot surprised me. It was not often that people did that.
“I’m not sure I like you,” she said, tilting her head as if a different angle might either make her decision easier.
I shrugged to hide the fact this statement made me almost want to like her. “I’m not very likeable.”
She continued to regard me. “Ah, but I think that’s why I’m leaning toward befriending you.”
I stiffened. “I’m not here to make friends.” My voice was short. Terse. As bitchy as I could muster. And I could muster a pretty darn bitchy tone.
Instead of bristle at my bald-faced rudeness, she smiled. Every part of her face moved with that smile, the creases on her tanned face deepening. It aged her, all the smiling and regarding people. But she suited it. With her whole androgynous, Diane Keaton kind of look. She was elegant and masculine, kind of rude and not beautiful. But stunning nonetheless.
Not at all my kind of friend. I liked glossy, flawless, Botox people who didn’t make me think about how broken I was.
“You’re not very popular in town,” she said as she opened my refrigerator, peering in there for a few seconds before emerging with a bottle of rosé, already chilled, replacing it with the one she’d bought. Thought I didn’t really like rosé, I’d bought this as a more acceptable thing to have with my breakfast.
I didn’t get up to help Margot find glasses, she seemed to know her way around. She proved me right, opening a cabinet it had taken me ten minutes to find on my first night. They were nice glasses too. Classy. Emily had large, restaurant quality red wine glasses. Coups for champagne and baby pink rosé glasses which Margot had grabbed.
“Shocker,” I replied as she poured. I wasn’t surprised that Nicole from the supermarket was ready to offer up information on my bitchiness, and Charlie was probably on suicide watch.
“Why didn’t you say yes to the signing?” she asked. No judgment, just curiosity. She walked over to hand me the glass. “It could’ve gone a long way to you making connections in this town.”
I took a sip before I answered, savoring the crisp, sweet liquid. I only usually drank rosé in private. Blood red Cabernet that cost as much as a shitty car was more on brand for me.
“I didn’t want to do it, so I didn’t,” I answered. “Women aren’t usually liked for saying no to shit we don’t want to do. People would rather we contort ourselves into all sorts of painful emotional shapes and situations in order to suit what they expect from us.” I shrugged. “Plenty of people hate me for perfectly legitimate reasons. I’m not easy to like, but I am pretty easy to hate. And that’s fine with me. I spent a lot of my life hating myself, there’s plenty of material there. But the thing that made me stop hating myself was stop doing things I didn’t want to do so people would like me. So, I said no to the signing.”