The Girl Next Door

The Girl Next Door (Chapters 1 - 4)

She thought about fixing her make-up but gave it up as a bad job. Instead, she washed her face at the sink and dried off with paper towels. She raked damp fingers through her short, wispy hair in an unsuccessful effort to make it resemble something close to the intended style, which was meant to make her look like a sassy, confident woman with better things to do than fuss endlessly over her hair. Just now, with her curls sticking up every which way in the front and matted in the back from hours pressed against the headrest, she looked like an electrocution victim, and without shampoo and mousse, she couldn’t do anything about it.

“Long trip?” someone asked, and Emma’s gaze met the reflected glance of a round-faced woman with a sympathetic smile. The woman was dressed in a frumpy sweatshirt and shapeless jeans, but for a moment, Emma envied her sleek, blonde French braid. Once upon a time, Emma’s hair had been long enough to braid, and such a style would have worn better on a long journey.

Emma nodded wearily.

“Where from?” the woman asked curiously.

“Savannah,” she replied, because it would have been rude not to answer.

“Is home here or there?”

Neither, Emma thought. “Both, I guess. I’m moving to Wellsboro.”

The woman’s face lit up in recognition. "Well then, you’re almost home! Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Emma murmured, but as she recalled the devastation she’d left behind and thought of the challenges ahead, she couldn’t muster much enthusiasm.

The woman dried her hands and left the restroom. Emma followed her out to the parking lot, but there was one more thing she had to do before getting back on the road. She got in the car (Ludo was indeed asleep) and dug through her purse for her phone.

She should have made this call before leaving Savannah, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. Calling meant speaking her intentions out loud, something else she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do, apart from the brief admission to the woman in the bathroom. Calling meant telling her mother that she was coming, not just to visit, but to live in the same zip code for the first time since leaving home a dozen years before.

 ******

Emma kept her gaze firmly glued to the taillights of the car in front of her as she drove through town. She didn’t want to look at the pretty houses around the village green or the rundown storefronts in the town’s tiny shopping district. She didn’t want to remember the few, unhappy weeks she’d spent here years ago. She definitely didn’t want to contemplate the prospect of living here permanently. She was too emotionally fragile for that.

She followed her mother’s directions to an enormous brick colonial on the edge of the village, pulled into the driveway, and parked between a shiny black Audi and a creamy white Lexus. Her dusty blue Volkswagen looked shabby and out of place beside the fancier cars, but there was nothing to be done about it. She scooped Ludo into her arms and carried him toward the front door.

A moment later, the door opened to reveal the kind of exceptionally well-groomed man Emma would have expected to meet at a Junior League banquet in the south or at a gallery opening in Manhattan. Neatly pressed, tailored slacks and a crisply starched polo shirt draped his tall, slim frame. His sandy blonde hair was flawlessly coiffed into the studied disarray of a GQ model, shiny and healthy and controlled by just the right amount of product. Even his eyebrows were neatly groomed, and at the moment, they were arched in puzzlement. Before Emma could speak, though, his confusion cleared. His face lit up with an easy smile, and he said, “You must be Helen’s daughter. Her apartment is around back. I’ll walk you there.”