Nolan: Return to Signal Bend (Signal Bend)(4)
But no. Glue some construction paper into a shoebox and move on to the next thing.
Loki was right: school was f*cking stupid.
But why should it be different from anything else? Nothing about anything made any kind of sense.
Life was f*cking stupid.
CHAPTER TWO
Iris combed through a display tray of vintage jewelry. At her side, her older sister, Rose, tried on a red cloche hat trimmed with a flower of black velvet and sequins. She tipped her head and preened before the round mirror standing on the display case.
“I don’t think I’m gonna find anything for Shannon here. I mean, she comes in here all the time. Anything she wanted, she’d already have.” Iris pushed the tray back and stepped away from the case, aimlessly wandering to a nearby rack of old fur coats.
Still enjoying her reflection, Rose said, “We found Daddy’s present here. And Shannon loves stuff like this. Christmas is in a few days. It’s not like you have a lot of options, putting it off to the last minute.”
“Sorry I was too busy taking finals and graduating—and being poor—to go on a shopping spree. And I don’t have a big discount at some fancy store.”
Rose was three years older than Iris and had gotten her degree in four years—Iris had changed her major three times and taken five years to graduate—so she was out in the world, making her life. She was a buyer for a department store on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. She had a condo, a boyfriend, and an expense account.
Iris didn’t have any of those things, and she didn’t want the condo or the expense account—or anything about Rose’s life. But her big sister still managed to make her feel like a loser for not having it.
Maybe she was a loser. She had a shiny-new college degree but not the tiniest clue what she wanted to do with it. She had no idea where she would live or how she would make money or any of it. Yeah, that was the probably the definition of loser.
Rose hung the hat back in its place and gave her the kind of subtly nasty look that only sisters could give each other. “You better not be cheaping out on your half of Daddy’s present. It was your idea.”
“I’m not, jerk.” Iris dug into her pocket and pulled out her cash. When she gave Rose her half of the cost of their dad’s present, she had twenty-eight dollars left. That represented all of her dollars in the world, and she still didn’t have a present for Shannon.
As Rose neatened the bills and slid them into her wallet, the door to the back of Fosse’s Finds opened, and Dora Fosse came out with a large, flat package in her arms. She’d been back wrapping it in glittery silver paper and a blue bow. “Okay, ladies. How’s this?”
“That’s pretty, Dora, thank you!” Rose smiled and clapped her hands. “I don’t know how we’d’ve gotten it into the house unwrapped without our dad seeing it.”
The shopkeeper smiled. “I didn’t have a box of a good size, but I wrapped it up good in tissue and put a cardboard border around it so the wrapping would be pretty.”
“It looks great, Dora,” Iris affirmed.
She was excited about the present. It had taken a lot of convincing to get Rose to go in with her so she could afford it, and it had taken Dora a lot of searching to find it, but Iris knew their dad would love it.
Their parents had divorced a long time ago, and Rose and Iris had sort of picked different parents. They’d both always lived together basically full-time with their mom, in Arkansas, and it had been a couple of years before they’d even gotten to see much of their dad. It wasn’t like they’d really chosen sides, exactly. Rose loved their dad, and Iris loved their mom. But Iris just got their dad better than she did their mom, and for Rose it was the opposite.
A really horrible thing had happened right before the divorce. Their oldest sister, Daisy, had been killed in that horrible thing, and it had made the divorce happen. Their mom blamed their father for it, then and now. Rose did, too, though she had forgiven him. But that was probably why she’d always held him off, just a step or two.
For years, Iris had told everybody that she didn’t remember the really horrible thing. And everybody had always believed her. It had been a lot easier to let them believe it.
She remembered it. But she didn’t blame her dad. The people she blamed were dead.
The really horrible thing was really horrible, but Iris had never liked how angry their mom always was at their dad. She had never liked the things their mom said to her and Rose about him, or how she tried to make them feel bad for wanting to see him. Iris held her mom off, just a step or two, because she saw a different man from the one their mother wanted them to see.
So yeah, they’d sort of picked different parents in the divorce.
They both liked their stepmother, Shannon, a whole lot better than they liked their stepfather, though. On that it had been easy to agree.
Rose pulled out a credit card and handed it over to Dora, and Iris walked to the front of the shop. There was just nothing in here that seemed right for a gift for Shannon.
She looked out the window. Main Street in Signal Bend was fully decked out for Christmas, with pine rope wrapping all the rails and posts and street lamps, and big red and gold bows, and lights everywhere. Keller Acres Bed & Breakfast, which Shannon managed and partly owned, had a decorated horse-drawn carriage with a driver in an old-fashioned uniform offering rides up and down the Main Street Marketplace—several blocks of antique shops, cute boutiques, and cafes. All they needed was some snow, and the view outside would belong on a Christmas card.