The white airport walls served as a nice complement to her red striped dress. Lydia always loved the look of a simple bold print against a plain background.
"Use 'Rebecca'!" her friend and photographer suggested and she returned Lydia her phone. "It always brings out the reds."
Lydia hummed in agreement as she applied the action on her self-designed app. The whites brightened, as did the colors of her dress and hair. She saved and cropped the image before opening Instagram.
@eyecandyofficial: Airport style! Cali-bound for summer. Can't wait. Share your summer outfits with #ecstylishsummer
#ig_style #fashion #LMeyecandy
Then she switched to her private personal account and posted the image there as well.
Eyecandyofficial was the Instagram account for Lydia's fashion and lifestyle blog, Eye Candy. When Lydia was in high school she was the queen, but that was not her proudest moment. She had acted shallow and superficial, and she gladly left that version of herself behind when she entered college. One thing she did miss about it was talking about things like clothes and shopping. Just because she enjoyed learning and studying didn't mean she did not like dressing up, or making her living space look good. So after her first finals Lydia signed up for a blog and started sharing tips and picks. By the time she began her postgraduate studies at MIT, she had gain a rather large online following. Along the way, she expanded her online presence to social media and an Eye Candy photo-editing app.
She said goodbye to her friend, who had driven her to the airport, checked in and spent some time in a small bookstore before heading to the boarding gate.
Once settled on the plane, she pulled out her phone again. The photo-sharing app was still open and Lydia could her latest post already gathering likes and comments on eyecandyofficial. The single comment on that of her private account, however, stole her attention.
@allargentium: @booksxdresses see you in 6hrs!
Lydia smiled and turned her phone to flight mode.
She had intended to sleep until landing (it was a night flight after all, she couldn't get an earlier flight because she had planned the trip at the last minute), but got distracted by the in-flight entertainment. There were two movies she had wanted to watch but missed because of work.
They landed in California a few hours before sunrise on the west coast and Lydia felt her eyelids starting to droop a little. At least she was flying backwards in the time zones. She found jet lag easier to overcome that way.
She forgot about her tiredness when she spotted Allison Argent.
Lydia first met Allison in high school, when the girl's family moved into her town in New Hampshire. She had complimented the girl's outfit on the first day of sophomore year and they hit off from there. Allison was the only person who saw through Lydia's mask. The only person whom she could talk to about science and math as much as clothes and still be listened to and more importantly, accepted. When the Argents moved at the end of junior year they kept in contact, and after all these years the brunette was still Lydia's closest friend. And Lydia couldn't wait to see her again.
She might have run over three people with her luggage running to Allison when she spotted the paper reading "LYDIA MARTIN!!!!!!!!!"
"That's a lot of exclamation marks, Ally!" she exclaimed, pulling away from a tight embrace. Her best friend was a serious hugger.
Allison laughed, and Lydia revelled listening to her friend laugh in real life. Skype really didn't cut it. "It's better than the banner you had the last time I visited you."
When Allison travelled to Massachusetts during spring break, Lydia had just wrapped up a scrapbooking project for her blog, aka leftover cardstock and construction paper.
"I'm short," she defended. That was true. Even in heels Lydia still only came up to about 5 foot five. "How else were you going to spot me?"
"As your friend since high school, I can assure you I've developed a talent for finding small people in big crowds."
Beacon Hills, where Allison lived, was a small, a little out of place town that was a good distance from the airport. Meaning lots of time to catch up and share stories. Allison told Lydia about Beacon Hills: about the town, some of the places to eat, a strange wild animal attack incident, and her new job as a conservationist for the local preserve. Lydia shared about her classes, teaching undergrads, and was complaining about a report submission gone wrong.
"...so I had to go back to the library and redownload the report that I had already uploaded in advance, and waste money printing it a second time on the lousy library printer! That horrible object is a disgrace to the MIT name," she concluded.
Allison nodded. "Every school has one faulty printer. I'm glad I left that in college."
Lydia stifled a yawn. The initial excitement of reuniting with her friend was wearing off and she was starting to feel sleepy again. But she forced herself to listen to Allison's tale of how she had to rescue someone caught in a trap for coyotes.
"...and he was crying in pain and there was blood all over his leg and I was so shocked that instead of the hospital I drove him to the animal clinic," she heard her friend say. Lydia's ears perked up at the words 'animal clinic'.
Slumped against the window, she turned her head. "Speaking of the animal clinic," she asked, "when am I going to meet the elusive Doctor McCall?"
"Soon," the other girl replied. Lydia watched as a grin spread over her friend's face at the thought of the certain vet working at Beacon Hills Animal Clinic and Shelter. Lydia had never met Allison's boyfriend Scott, even though they recently celebrated their first anniversary. The pair had met when Allison's family just moved to (and finally settled down in) Beacon Hills and were quickly smitten by each other. Allison had promised to introduce him on Skype a few times, but Lydia never got to see more than pictures of the guy.
"Could soon mean today?" she probed. "Or does he have another escapade for work again, perhaps in Alaska this time?"
"Hey, that trip to Mexico was real, okay?" Allison said defensively. "His ex-boss needed some help for a while. And for the record, he wants to meet you too."
"Why? What things about me have you told him?" Lydia joked.
Allison smirked. "That you could give his plaid flannel fanatic friend some fashion tips."
They finally reached Beacon Hills just after sunrise and although Lydia usually had no problems waking up early, she had always been more of a night owl, and the effect of watching all those in-flight movies were catching up to her. As soon as they pulled up in front of the Argent household, Lydia dragged her luggage up to the spare room, mumbled a greeting to Allison's father, and collapsed on the bed.
The sun was still somewhat high in the sky when she woke up, but this was summer. Lydia guessed it was around four o'clock. Maybe five. She rolled over and picked up the watch she left on the bedside drawer. Yep, 4.32 pm.
She swung her legs off the bed, sliding onto the floor next to her luggage. She pulled out a set of clothes, set them on the bed, then pushed herself onto her feet and crossed the room to the closet. Once she mentally mapped out the arrangement for her clothes, she unpacked most of her belongings into the closet. Except for the shoes. Those were lined up next to the door. Make-up and related items on the vanity. And her stationery and books on the desk. Then she grabbed the clothes on the bed and headed for the shower.
Allison came into the room just as Lydia came out of the shower, towelling her hair.
"Oh, you're awake," the brunette said. "I was thinking we could go out for dinner tonight."
Lydia smiled. "Woke up just on time then."
"Nah, there's still time. I was just checking on you," Allison said, waving an arm. "But since you're already up we could head out early and then I can show you a place after."
"You pretty much want to show me every square feet of this town," Lydia joked. "Just let me get my hair dry and change to some nicer clothes."
"So where is this place you think I should really check out?" Lydia asked as they drove out of the lot in front of The English Village, a small diner which claimed to serve "the finest English-style fish and chips", backed up by Allison and apparently, Scott too. Lydia had been to England once when she was a little girl, and could not remember what the fish and chips there tasted like. But the food at The English Village really was good.
"It's called the Nemeton," said Allison. "And it's sort of like a pub-slash-cafe-slash-nightclub."
"And how exactly does that work?"
"In the day it's like a nice little watered-down starbucks, serving your morning coffee et cetera. In the evening the bar opens, they clear half the tables, and turn on the strobe lights," the dark haired girl explained. And they screen lacrosse games and some bigger baseball or NBA ones. Lacrosse is pretty popular here," she added.
Lydia frowned. "I'm confused. We're going to watch a sports game? Or are we going clubbing?"
Allison grinned. "That's the best part. On Friday nights the bar opens later and they have this little thing called 'Love Shots'. We're going speed-dating!" she sang. A little too enthusiastically for someone who had been in a serious relationship for a year.
When Lydia pointed out just as much, her friend simply laughed. "Sorry Lydia, I made a mistake. We're not going speed-dating. You are."
"That is ridiculous," Lydia responded calmly with her signature eye roll. Although in her head she had immediately shrieked "What?!"
"What's ridiculous is how long you've stretched your, I quote, 'short break from guys'," Allison said matter-of-factly. "Three years isn't short, Lydia. You've probably forgotten how to date."
"And the oh-so-romantic atmosphere of this little hybrid cafe club is going to help me relearn the all-important life skill which is dating?"
"You're gonna spend two and a half months here, Lyds. Two and a half months, with no work to distract you," Allison said. "Maybe you'll meet a really cute guy, one who is actually nice this time, and you can write about it for your blog."
"Haha. I doubt desperate guys drooling over my body are aesthetically pleasing enough to be 'eye candy'," the redhead deadpanned.
Allison laughed and pulled into a row of public lots at the side of a street. "Just because you've always attracted the crappy ones doesn't mean there aren't decent guys in the world. And maybe you've already run out of bad guys. I promise, if you don't meet at least one nice guy tonight, lunch is on me tomorrow."
One guy in, and Lydia was already holding Allison to that lunch. She sat across a polished wooden circular table from a Peter who was probably a generation older than her. Well, the (surprisingly large amount of) people who showed up for some 'Love Shots' covered a pretty vast age range, so Lydia was unfazed when an older man got to her table. She had figured he was here for the older ladies.
Peter did not talk much. In fact, he'd been polite at first. He was clean shaven and looked fairly intelligent. If Lydia were her mother's age she might have found him good-looking. But he never once touched his coffee. He asked more questions than he answered, and even his answers were vague. And the whole time he stared at her intensely. Lydia felt like his eyes were trying to bore into her mind and uncover all her weaknesses. When the bell dinged to signal the end of the first session, she let out a breath she had not realised she was holding.
Speed dating was pretty slow, especially when one was not interested. Kind of like rush hour, when everyone was moving at snail's pace together as they rushed to or from work.
Lydia plowed her way through boys and men alike. Some were polite at least, some were shy, some blatantly checked her out. She remembered a few names here and there. A Josh, Taylor the mechanic, some engineer - Stan, she thinks, and Jack Smith. She remembers that name because, well, as common as those names are reported to be she's never encountered anyone with a name like Jack Smith who wasn't made up.
Jack nearly made a good impression when he initiated a discussion about ethics in science. But then he'd been too eager to impress. He'd made a point, Lydia would challenge him, and he'd concede. Every time. At least he was slightly more entertaining than the average guy she'd met so far.
To be fair, she did check some guys out too. Like Aidan, who looked to be around her age and the chiseled jaw, leather jacket and carpenter jeans thing going for him. He had nice dark eyes, broad shoulders and his tight shirt didn't leave much to imagination. She would have jumped him should this have been high school. But this was a odd-concept club and she was a twenty-five year old postgrad who had outgrown the bad boy type a decade ago. He mentioned he was only passing through for a week anyway - what was there to date?
The bell rang and Aidan left for the next table. Lydia checked the large basketball-style digital clock on the wall. Four more dates to go. Then the bar would open, clubbing would start, and people would try to dance with the dates whose company they enjoyed/desired.
Her next date was a middle-aged man, William who admitted he was here because he lost a bet. It was a breath of fresh air in this uneventful night. He and Lydia shared some horrible bets they had made and he commended her commitment to academics. When the session ended he thanked her for helping him feel better about the dumb bets he had made in his life.
Lydia was having her coffee refilled when the next date sat down opposite her, so she didn't notice him until the waitress moved away. The man had a rather youthful look, but his eyes held a more mature gaze that lead Lydia to guess he was probably on the corner of turning thirty, just lucky enough to look good while doing so.
The man smiled. "Good evening."
She returned the greeting and introduced herself. "I'm Lydia. And you are?"
"Parrish. Jordan Parrish."
"Nice to meet you, Parrish - "
" - Jordan's fine, really."
"oh okay then. How old are you?"
He let out a small chuckle, as if he'd been asked this several times before and found it amusing. "I'm coming to thirty-two," - aha - "but I've been told I look twenty-four, and when I was twenty-four I was told I could be in high school."
Lydia let herself laugh. Jordan seemed nice and genuine. He had been working in law enforcement for ten years and spent the last eight in Beacon Hills. ("You could have used your looks to your advantage and infiltrate the schools to catch delinquents." "Oh, the Sheriff might have threatened me with that once or twice." "Threatened?" "Well, I'd have to study and take exams all over again, wouldn't I?") He asked about Lydia's postgrad work and gave her directions to the largest local bookstore.
"I'll see you around," he said brightly when the bell rang, already getting out of his seat.
The last guy dashed over to the table and quickly slid into his seat as the waitress (shot girl in another ten minutes) came over to replace the empty coffee cup left behind by Jordan. He too looked young and perhaps still a little baby-faced, with bright blue eyes and dull blonde hair that seemed to turn light brown in some of the lights. Probably two or three years younger than Lydia. He gave the waitress and small wave and laughed nervously as she rolled her eyes before moving on. Lydia met him with a raised eyebrow when he finally turned to her.
"Oh, hi," he said, sounding like he forgot he was on a speed date. "I'm Liam." His eyes flickered over to the waitress, now two tables away. Lydia fixed him with a questioning face. "That's Hayden," he told her. "She's cool. I've been trying to talk to her tonight but she's determined to do her job."
"Don't you find it ironic that you're participating in a cafe speed-dating service to speak to an employee instead of potential dates?" she asked.
Liam shrugged. "I came to be my friend's wingman, but he seems to be doing fine on his own and I saw Hayden here, so I jumped on it. It's easier than trying to get her while she's handing out shots in a crowd."
He spun his chair around to watch the girl, Hayden, line up a row of shot glasses on the counter. He didn't talk to Lydia for the next five minutes.
Lydia watched the timer slowly count down the seconds to the end of the 'Love Shots'. She promptly stood up when the final bell rang, startling the young boy in front of her when she bumped into the table. She waved it off and jerked her chin towards the bar. "Good luck," she said, and watched as Liam scurried off to try to talk to Hayden.
Allison appeared beside her as soon as she entered the just cleared-out area already teeming with dancing people. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" she shouted in Lydia's ear as a song blasted through the speakers.
Lydia sighed. "It wasn't as bad as I expected but it was still boring and definitely pointless."
"Well, at least you can have fun now!" Allison yelled, bobbing her head.
"You know I'm not the clubbing kind!" Lydia yelled back.
Allison rolled her eyes and grabbed Lydia's wrist. "Fine, but at least try a drink. They have some good mixes here."
Lydia had a few shots of a glowing pina colada in a mini volumetric flask, ignoring the bartender's attempts at flirting, and the girls ordered take-out chilli cheese fries (seriously, that place sold glowing alcohol and cheese fries at the same time), before leaving.
Allison shoved the carton box into Lydia's hands as they stepped into the cool night air, the bass thumping faintly behind them. "Wait here," she instructed. "I'll bring the car over. And don't finish all the fries."
Lydia made a big show of eating the largest, cheesiest fry she could find in the low light. The taller girl just rolled her eyes before stalking across the road to the car parked two streets down.
There was a buzz in her pocket and Lydia wiped her fingers off to retrieve her phone. It was probably a message from her mother to see if she had settled down in California.
Lydia looked at her phone screen and frowned. It was a text alright, but where a number or contact would have been listed it just read "Unknown". And the message said:
Whatever happens, don't run.
Lydia was confused, but she ignored the text and looked up, scanning the street for Allison. She spotted her friend along the main road, just one street away from where they had parked. Allison's figure walked up to a T-junction. And then when she reached the corner, a dark shape flashed out from behind a building.
"ALLISON!"
Her scream left her throat before Lydia could comprehend what was happening. Her legs moved on their own accord, taking off down the street and across the main road. Bright lights flooded her vision and she heard the growl of an engine before something whooshed past her, causing her to spin in alarm and drop the box of cheese fries on the road. Startled and disoriented, she stumbled onto the sidewalk and the rogue car sped off into the distance. Lydia collapsed against the side of a the building and looked around. The streets were empty, the only lights coming from the Nemeton across the road. Her phone buzzed again and she jumped.
that must hurt
What the hell? Then it buzzed again.
told you not to run
Confused, scared and still panting, Lydia snapped her head up and ran to the T-junction. No Allison. Just the girl's wallet and keys, which she must have dropped while struggling.
Two buzzes, one after the other. Lydia looked down.
forget about your friend.
and don't tell anyone
Lydia crouched on the street corner, the only signs of her best friend lying on the cement in front of her. Her breaths came up short. Her heart was pounding. Her head was spinning. And then her phone buzzed for the final time that night, this time with a multimedia message.
Lydia took one look and gave out a strangled cry.
The image was dark and grainy but she recognised the dark, wavy hair and pale skin, stark against the black gag. She recognised Allison's outfit underneath the rope bindings.
or else
Author's Note: The diner "The English Village" is fictional to the best of my knowledge, but it was inspired by this place called "The Village" in the town of Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds, England. All the food there is good, not just the fish and chips. If anyone reading this happens to live in the area, it's worth checking out. The surrounding town is also a nice place for a stroll. As long as you're not afraid of ducks.
The name Jack Smith is a reference to the book Eye Candy by RL Stine, which the TV show was very very VERY loosely based off. In that story, one of Lindy's dates is this guy called Jack Smith whom Lindy finds really boring but he seems quite into her, and she keeps wondering how anyone can be named that. In real life, I do actually know one Jack Smith.