Chapter 1
January
Only when I parked my battle-scarred car not far from the semi-mansion in swanky Wayford, I realized that while it wasn’t the same house my mother had cleaned for years, it belonged to the same family. Or rather, the only person left from that family.
Oliver Madden.
Would he recognize me? Remember me?
It’d been years. Worlds even.
The house itself wasn’t enormous, but it faced the ocean and had all the marks of a design magazine beach house—a driveway that was now packed with cars, white balustraded porches, French windows, a fancy iron-cast mailbox at the front that revealed the owner’s name, an L-shaped garden that most likely encapsulated a pool, and beautiful lights everywhere, including fairy lights in the trees. I could only imagine the view that welcomed those looking through the ocean-facing windows inside.
The caterer’s van and my ten-year-old lighting-blue Ford Fiesta, which looked like it’d been hit by lightning, were the only outliers parked at the back among new Jeeps and Town Cars. I was almost tempted to park Pretty—I nicknamed her Pretty to boost its confidence—closer to the neighboring house, a much humbler one, like the houses in the town I had just driven from.
The back door was held open by a box carrying the caterer’s logo.
“I came as soon as I could. Where can I change?” Panting, I put my hand on Amy’s shoulder to let her know I arrived. Amy Locke, the Mean Bean café and the catering business owner, had texted me earlier to ask if I could help with waitressing at an event she was hired for. “Sure. Address?”I had texted back. That was how much I needed money. I didn’t even ask for a name or anything, just the address.
“January! Thank you! You’re a lifesaver,” Amy said without stopping her work.
If she had told me whose house this was, would I still be here? Yes. But I would have had the drive from Riviera View to try to control the twist in my stomach and the race of my heart.
“Over there. But hurry up, please, I’m two people short. Can’t trust anyone to show up these days.” Amy pointed at a side door that opened from the kitchen then handed me a white server’s apron.
It was a little office. These big houses often had a working kitchen, which was behind the day-to-day kitchen the families used, and adjacent to it was a storage room slash little office.
I was already in a black blouse, so I just had to put on the pair of black stockings and matching skirt that I had brought, then the apron. It wasn’t my first time taking on extra work with Amy for extra income.
As I pulled the pantyhose up, hobbling around the small room, I gazed at the walls and desk, looking for some evidence—pictures, notes, something—that would verify that this indeed was Oliver’s house; something that would tell me what he looked like now, what had become of the boy I had played with as a kid, who had stood by me in middle school. The one whose pain and rage I soothed with my body in one unforgettable incident.
There was nothing except a cleaning company’s card, the caterer’s menu, and a few brochures. Like many things in Oliver’s life—the Oliver I had known—the office was functional but void of warmth. My heart clenched. As far as I knew—and that was how I had pictured him all these yearswhenI had time to think—he had built a life away from it all, somewhere among the jet set. I hoped he had found happiness.
The pantyhose were a bit small and chafed my thighs as I walked back to the kitchen.
“Hey, January,” a friendly voice greeted me. Anne from Breading Dreams was placing three large boxes from the Riviera View bakery’s goods on the metal counter.
“Hey, Anne.” I approached to help her. She was one of my favorite people in Riviera View, the town we had both grown up in, a year apart in age. Slender, tall, and pale as she was, you could always find her working hard. I used to come in at the end of the day when the leftovers were on sale. “So, Riviera View is catering Wayford events?” I said with a smile to both her and Amy.
“Especially events where Patty Delaney is involved,” Anne said.
“She’s here somewhere.” Amy gestured with her head in the direction of the music and party chatter that reached us from the other side of the kitchen door. Patty was now a Wayforder, but the Delaneys had been from Riviera View originally, and her two sons lived there.
“Okay, I have to go. I think you’ve got everything, Amy,” Anne said, waving to us as she left.
“Start with this,” Amy said, pointing toward an horsd’oeuvre tray.
I ran a hand over my hair, ensuring no unruly orange—“dark bronze, not orange,” my mom used to say—curls escaped, and hoped my makeup was still intact after a full-day shift at Sandy Hills senior citizens residential facility. Grabbing the tray, I took a deep breath and, with my racing heart to keep me company, stepped out of the kitchen and passed through a short corridor.
One more step, and I was out in the large, open hall that some would call a living room but was the size of the apartment I used to live in. The muffled music and murmurs I’d heard from the kitchen were now on full volume, echoing against the high-ceilinged space and reverberating from the large windows that faced the ocean. On another side, French doors opened to the garden and swimming pool, which to my surprise looked empty.
It’d been a while since I’d seen the people of Wayford in their natural habitat—a party or fundraiser of some sort. Working and living in Riviera View with no more travels here, I’d grown unused to this crowd, a crowd I had gone to school with, thanks and no thanks to my mother and the favors she had pulled when she’d cleaned houses here and had been part of the local school’s cleaning staff.
I had never been ashamed of my quainter origin, but I wasn’t looking forward to waiting on or even meeting anyone I knew from back then. Except Oliver.
Regardless, I smiled, and not the fake smile that was expected of a server’s job, but a real one. As my mother always said, though later she had changed her tune, people were people, regardless of how well-dressed or deep-pocketed they were. She’d know better than anyone, as she had cleaned every nook and cranny of their homes.
Despite my size which, especially among this crowd, wasn’t too small and never had been, I knew how to sail unnoticed among the groups of people who stood chatting and laughing without drawing attention to anything but my smile and the food on the tray I was carrying.
