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Turned out to be a good thing that the laptop
wasn’t in the kitchen, because a minor war broke out amongst my
brothers about what tasted best on eggs, ketchup or Tabasco sauce,
and it took Mom standing over them with a Look of Doom upon her
face to get them to stop trying to shove their personal choice upon
each other and myself. Unfortunately, she was unable to save the
table and by the time she had subdued them the extreme amounts of
red made it look like they had dismembered a small pig for
breakfast.

They finished up the rest of their food
quickly and tore off to grab their book bags while I cleaned up the
mess. I decided that I was going to swear off ketchup and Tabasco
sauce for the rest of my life as I mopped up red, red, and yet more
red. Mom had pulled out the newspaper and was glancing through it,
but gave me a sharp, extremely pointed look when I finished and
headed towards the door.

“You’re coming straight home from school
today,” she said.

I fought the urge to stiffen and scowl as I
gathered up my purse, checked my phone quickly to see if I had
missed any texts and grabbed my car keys from their hook by the
door.

“I can’t, Mom,” I said. “I have to work this
evening, remember? I’m doing close down tonight.”

Mom’s face darkened a little, and despite my
best effort my shoulders tensed. “Someone else needs to take over
close down duties, I only want you working on the weekends until
further notice.”

“We’ve been over this, Mom, there is no one
else because Mr. Baker is a miser and refuses to hire more help,” I
argued. “I asked him about hiring someone else to help out and give
him more time off, but he looked at me like I had suggested that he
cut off his own leg. The man hates to part with his money.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed, and she opened her mouth
to retort but before she could say anything the twins barreled back
into the kitchen, book bags in place and danced from foot to foot
as they demanded that we leave, and leave NOW before they were late
for school.

“I’ll be calling the store,” Mom warned as I
ushered the boys out the door, very thankful for their general
chatter because it meant I could sigh without being heard. Mom
meant what she said, she was going to call the store later that
evening to make sure that I was where I said I was going to be.
Ever since they cut back the hours at the library where she was
Head of Acquisitions, she had been looking for ways to keep herself
busy, and after my latest mess up I was providing that service.

I piled the boys into the backseat of the old
Honda Accord that I had inherited from my dad on my sixteenth
birthday and made sure they were safely buckled in before I
carefully backed out of our driveway onto the curvy mountain road
that we lived off of. I told myself that I had no right to resent
Mom for checking up on me; it was, after all, my own fault that she
could no longer trust me.

Instead I tried to focus my attention on the
glory of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They were slowly being cloaked
in their fall colors of burnished gold, brilliant reds and fiery
oranges as the seasons changed. The sun was just peeking over the
horizon as I carefully navigated the turns, and the mists and
clouds were tinged with a soft, lavender light that gave everything
an almost mystical glow. If I rolled down the window just a bit I
knew that I would breath in clean, crisp air that carried a hint of
the apples that were ripening in the orchids along with a faint,
biting tinge of winter, but it was too cold to do so. Instead, I
contented myself with a glance out of the passenger window when we
hit an area where the trees opened up to the splendor that
surrounded us. I thought now, as I had many times before, that it
was no wonder people found the mountains to be a source of
inspiration and peace, for I could feel my own emotions settle in
the strengthening light.

I glanced briefly into the rear view mirror
at my brothers; identical in every way except for the way they wore
their hair. Chad favored a spiky, more modern haircut, while Kelly
tended to leave his auburn locks shaggy and long, a fact that made
Mom despair whenever it was time for a haircut. I was struck again
by how much they resembled Dad, and while their faces still had the
rounded cheeks and chins of the really young, I could see faint
hints of Dad’s strong jaw line and rugged good looks. I didn’t envy
the girls when these two discovered them, because they didn’t stand
a chance against Dad’s looks and Mom’s eyes.

I returned my attention to the road. My major
mistake three weeks ago had affected my brothers just as much as it
affected me, a fact that they resented greatly, but did their best
to curtail because they didn’t want to be on the receiving end of
Mom’s ire, either. Still, it was my fault that they had to ride
with me to school every morning instead of riding with their friend
Ryder from down the road, and their disappointment hung heavy in
the air despite the small favor of their not giving voice to the
emotion.

And they were small favors, and probably ones
that I didn’t deserve. It really wasn’t fair that my brothers were
being punished right alongside me, but I guess Mom figured it was
the best way to keep me out of trouble to and from school, though
on days like today, when I have to perform the close down duties
for the small bookstore I work for, the boys get a little bit of a
break from babysitting their big sister. Besides, they have their
own sports and such that they play, both loving soccer and rapidly
becoming their team’s most valuable players. So really, it was more
the mornings that were a chore to them than the afternoons, but
they still resented having to ride with me, and I resented having
to take an extra thirty minutes out of my morning to get them to
their school. That was thirty minutes of potential sleeping time
that was wasted.

I stifled a sigh. My fault. After all, I’m
the one that nearly got arrested for shoplifting, and if what
happened after that wasn’t bad enough (here I resisted the urge to
lightly touch my chest where the bruises were still healing), I had
accidentally sent a brief explanation text to Mom about what
happened instead of to Maria, who had been the intended recipient
because I had wanted to explain why I hadn’t shown up at our
favorite meeting place on time. Thankfully, I didn’t go into detail
beyond, “Sorry I’m late, I almost got arrested for shoplifting,
please call”, but still, the damage was done and the repercussions
had been extensive. Talk about a perfect mishap to send into
“wrongnumbertexts.com” or even “fml.com”, but it sucked that it had
happened to me instead of a nameless random person that would have
prompted a giggle at their expense. That was the type of fame,
virtual or otherwise, that I just did not want, thank you very
much.

That line of thought led to the other
unexpected repercussions that had happened that night, but before I
could sink too deeply into my own thoughts we arrived at the boys
school and I dropped them safely off. I winced a little, as I
always did, when I took in the monstrosity that was their main
building. It had started out nice enough, I suppose, being a large,
two story structure with wide front doors, but a few years ago
someone had decided to paint it a horrible orange color as a
Halloween prank. The culprits had never been caught, and the
principal had decided that he liked the color so much, and that the
pranksters had done a relatively decent job, that he requested that
the paint be left alone. I had heard through the grapevine that the
real reason the school board voted to leave the building orange was
because of budget cuts, but we all liked to think that they
indulged in the principal’s rather eclectic preferences when it
came to color schemes (as opposed to going along due to whatever
economic crisis was happening at the time) and the school was
affectionately nicknamed “The Great Pumpkin” by everyone.

My phone rang as soon as I got back on the
road. I glanced at the Caller ID even though I knew who it was.

“Just dropped the boys off,” I said when I
answered, knowing it would just cause more problems if I ignored it
than it was worth.

“Call when you get to school,” was the reply
before Mom hung up. Even though I knew it was my fault, even though
I knew she was justified in how she was handling things, I still
couldn’t keep that small, angry ball of resentment from making
itself known in my gut. Mom didn’t know the whole story, she didn’t
know that I was paying for my crime in another way, one full of
guilt and whispered nightmares, but I could never tell her. I
couldn’t tell anyone, for the truth was too horrible to contemplate
and I preferred trying to forget it.

I passed the remainder of my drive in
silence, not even turning on the radio to give me the illusion of
company. Instead, I was content to catch glimpses of the mountains
as they changed their misty morning colors for the usual faint,
smoky blue that made up their normal appearance. After a few more
turns I entered the main thoroughfare that would take me into the
heart of the Town of Appleton, population in constant flux around
10,000 and located somewhere between Asheville and Boone in the
Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. It was one of those small
towns that tended to grow in size at the rate of one new family
every other year, though it did balance out, for every one family
that came in meant that another one was usually on the way out.
See, we’re a tourist town and rely heavily on the Blue Ridge
Parkway to bring in outside revenue, but we don’t have all the high
quality mainstream stores that most other large towns or small
cities have. For that type of shopping you were required to go a
few miles down the Parkway into Asheville, which wasn’t a bad thing
but usually meant that you had to make it a day trip. Asheville
isn’t the type of place you can just pop in for an hour because it
tended to draw you in with gentle arms that clamped upon you like
bands of steel and refused to let you go, something Maria and I had
experienced many, many times over the years. Before you knew it,
you would be exiting the city with more in your trunk than you had
planned and far less in your bank account than you started out
with.

Still, Appleton has it’s own charms. We have
the required antique shop or two, a lot of small businesses similar
to the bookstore that I work for, a large park that contained more
trees than grass, a pond that was a summer home to a rather cranky
flock of geese and small mom and pop type restaurants that had been
part of the town for generations; all favorite haunts of both
tourists and locals alike.

I tapped my fingers on my steering wheel as I
waited for the light to turn, and eyed the building that was just
across the intersection from where I sat. Unlike the boy’s school,
Appleton High (home of the Ravens and NOT Johnny Appleseed, which
someone told me had once been suggested for our school mascot. The
horror!) was an elegant building that gave the impression that it
was trying very hard to pretend that it was some type of glorious
plantation instead of an institution for containing teenagers and
teaching them “the facts of life”. Really, if it weren’t for the
parking lot, the entire campus would succeed in its attempt to look
like one of the glorious mansions of old, with columns lining the
front of the main building and the classrooms sprawling out behind
it like some long bridal train just waiting for someone to step on
it as it makes its way up the stairs.

Once at school I parked in my designated
parking spot, something the school assigned to every driving
student in an effort to cut down on demolition derby style battles
for certain locations. The seniors were given the choice places
near the school entrance and the freshmen the ones furthest away. I
dragged my book bag out from the passenger side and heaved its bulk
onto my back. My stomach clenched with nerves as my eyes ran
quickly over all the other teenagers who were hanging out in front
of the main doors, waiting for friends and classmates to catch up
with them. I quickly called home and told Mom where I was, but the
knot of dread tightened the longer I waited and I prepared to fire
off a semi frantic text message after I hung up. Where was she?

“Jane!”

I sighed and closed my eyes as that familiar
voice rang out over the din and chatter of the other students, and
I turned with a smile to great my oldest and best friend, Maria
Dupree. I quickly ran my eyes over her, taking in her appearance as
my tense muscles relaxed and I met her warm gaze. We had known each
other since birth, born in the same hospital two days apart to
families who happened to live beside each other for the first nine
years of our lives until my family had moved across town to the old
church. Maria was tall, willowy and graceful with jet-black hair
that hung arrow straight down her back and chocolate brown eyes
that almost always seemed to hold a smile.

“Hey,” I greeted. “I was beginning to worry
that I had missed you.”

“Not a chance,” Maria said, though I saw her
eyes narrow slightly at the relieved tone of my voice. “Just
running a little late because I decided I just HAD to have Dunkin
Donut coffee on my way here.”

“Ooooooh, I’m jealous,” I moaned as I spotted
the travel mug in her hand that she had once declared would never
be touched by any other coffee but that of the chain currently
under discussion.

“Don’t be, I brought you one, too,” she said
and pulled her other hand from where it had been hidden behind her
back and handed me my own lovely travel mug of caffeine
deliciousness doctored just the way I liked it.

“You are a life saver,” I moaned as I took my
first sip and sighed in pleasure as the thick brew warmed me from
the inside out.

“I know,” Maria smirked as we began to walk
into the hallowed halls of Appleton High School, home to the best
Softball team this side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.