Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(14)

Part of her wanted to tell Kyrstin to go to hell, but she needed her sister’s opinion, and possibly her help. It wasn’t the time to pick a fight or be petty.

Laire turned to the counter and slid the coffeemaker out from the wall. She opened the cabinet, took out the grounds, filled the once-white plastic basket, then filled the well with water and pressed the on switch, pivoting back around to face her sister.

“I need something.”

Kyrstin looked up and narrowed her eyes, pushing a rat’s nest of hair from her face. “Is that right?”

Laire nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“What is it?”

She sat down at the table, folding her hands next to a butter dish shaped like a crab shell. “What do you think Daddy would say about me getting a job?”

“You have jobs,” said Kyrstin. “You take care of the house and help out at the shop. Plus, you make pin money with your designs.”

“I mean a steady job,” clarified Laire. “A real job.”

“Like at the Hen’s Nest? I heard they’re hirin’.”

The Hen’s Nest was the local day care for island children that was especially busy in the summer, when islanders took on seasonal work.

“No. I mean . . .” She winced. There was no good way to back into it. “In Buxton. At the Pamlico House B & B.”

Kyrstin raised her eyebrows, sitting back in her chair. “Off-island?”

Laire nodded, standing up to grab a clean coffee cup from the drying rack beside the sink, keeping her back to her older sister. “Yeah. You know that delivery last night? Met a lady there who does the hiring for the restaurant at the B and B. She offered me a job.”

“Just like that?”

Laire poured the coffee into the cup real quick, listening as the coffee pitter-pattered into the ceramic bottom. “Aye-up.”

Kyrstin eyed her sister with suspicion. “You trust her?”

“She’s a woodser from Cherry Point.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, her posture relaxing. “How much she offerin’?”

“Ten an hour.”

“Damn.” Kyrstin whistled low, nodding her head in understanding. “That’s a lot.”

Laire turned to her sister, setting the mug of steaming coffee on the table before her. “Tell me about it.”

Krystin looked at her thoughtfully. “How much you remember ’bout Mama goin’ for the college courses down at Carteret?”

“Not a whole lot,” admitted Laire, who, nonetheless, desperately admired her mother for being one of the few islanders at the time with a partial college education under her belt.

“Yeah, you were real little. But I remember. She fought daddy tooth and nail over it.”

Laire nodded. She wasn’t surprised.

Carteret was a three-hour journey from Corey Island, first by ferry to Cedar Island, then via highway along the fringe of the mainland. She couldn’t imagine her daddy was a big fan of his wife being away all day, first of all, let alone traveling such a long distance back and forth all on her own with three small children at home.

“But she still went, didn’t she?” asked Laire. “For two years?”

Kyrstin nodded. “She did. And if you want my honest opinion? Uncle Fox took a lot of her advice when he and daddy set up King Triton Seafood. She knew a lot about the summer tourists, settin’ the prices, gettin’ the word out to the hotels and restaurants all along the Banks. She was a smart lady, our mama.”

“I remember she was smart,” said Laire wistfully, aching from how much she missed her mother.

“What do you need that kind of money for, Laire?”

“You can’t tell Daddy.”

Kyrstin gave her a look. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”

Laire rolled her eyes. Kyrstin talked big, but she wouldn’t tell if Laire asked her not to. “I want to go to college like Mama. I want to learn something.”

“Yeah. But I’ve seen the brochures, Laire,” said Kyrstin, crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes disapproving. “You’re not lookin’ at Carteret or Beaufort or even some fancy four-year college like UNC. You want to go up North.”

Laire sighed deeply, nodding at her sister. “Is that so wrong?”

Kyrstin shrugged, her voice hopeful. “Brodie’s real nice. You’ve both graduated now. He’d help set you up with a nice little boutique—maybe even over on Ocracoke, by the ferry, where they’ve got more and more tourists comin’ in every summer. You could sell your fashions. He and his daddy make a damn good livin’. You could have a few kids. Live nearby . . .”

Her words were crushing Laire’s soul, and Kyrstin must have known it because her voice tapered off.

“No,” she said, sipping her coffee thoughtfully. “I guess not. You were always more like Mama than the rest of us.”

“Kyrstin,” she said, reaching out to lay her palm across her sister’s arm. “I love Corey Island. I love you and Issy and Daddy. But I . . . I can’t stay here forever. I want to see more. I want to know more. There’s a huge world out there, and I want to be a part of it.” She looked down at her freckled hand on Kyrstin’s freckled arm. So alike, it was hard to tell where her sister’s skin ended and hers began. “I’ll always be your sister. But . . . I feel like this is my chance. The first stepping-stone toward my dream. And since you work at a café on Ocracoke, I thought maybe . . .”