Romy and Juliet Page 2

  “We’re here,” Carrie whispered from a doorway. Juliet turned to look at her and shrieked as she felt Carrie’s arm on hers. She awoke with a jolt. Juliet realized the car had stopped at the entrance to the long driveway of her childhood home. “I need your key for the gate,” Carrie said.

  Juliet rummaged through her black Hermès bag and pulled out a key attached to a Princess Leia figurine. She rubbed her eyes, grateful she hadn’t reapplied her makeup in New York after her shower. Around the car were knots of ancient live oak trees surrounded by a mix of cacti so enormous they looked like sculptures. Tufts of long grass sprouted up at the base of the trees where she knew her brother couldn’t reach with their riding lawn mower. He was always so busy with the café in town he barely had the energy to do more than a quick pass with the machine. Edgers and lawn services were for rich people.

  Juliet had offered more than once to hire a service for her parents, but her dad was resistant. He was a proud man and she didn’t want to push him.

  Carrie got back into the car, the gate now open, and drove down the pitted dirt and gravel road that snaked up a modest hill. The house came into view. It was a little ramshackle, but it was home. It had been in her family for several generations, which was good because the land values had gone up significantly in the last decade and there was no way that her family could have afforded it if it hadn’t been paid off by her great-grandparents.

  Carrie parked the car under the carport and pulled their bags out of the trunk. Juliet stepped into the oven-hot air, balancing herself on the old rusted station wagon that her father used to drive to work. It was dusty and needed a good wash.

  “Jules?” A rough voice gravelly from too many years of smoking blared out from the doorway.

  “Grams,” Juliet said, dropping her purse on the dusty concrete and rushing over to the elderly woman wearing cowboy boots and grey hair down to her waist. She hugged her frail-looking but muscular body, smelling the patchouli coming off the old woman in waves. Nothing made her feel at home like being with her grandmother.

  “You’re a damn mess,” the old woman said, wiping Juliet’s face. “Buck up. She’ll be fine. It’s just an infection.”

  “R-r-really?” Juliet stammered. “Is she home yet?”

  Grams shook her head. “Not yet. Still at the hospital. Your dad is with her. We can go later, I promise. We don’t want to crowd her just yet, do we?”

  “The café—”

  “Sam is down there now. Don’t worry about it. Come inside, I made enchiladas.” Grams looked over Juliet’s shoulder at Carrie. “Who are you?”

  Juliet wiped a stray tear from her eyes, sure if she cried any more she would shrivel up in the blazing Texas sun. “Grams, this is Carrie. My assistant. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for her.”

  Carrie waved. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms.—”

  “Grams. Call me Grams. Come on inside, down the hallway to your left is the guest bedroom. Well, it’s my bedroom, technically, but I usually end up asleep in the hammock in the sunroom anyway.”

  Carrie stepped inside with the bags as Grams held Juliet back. “Carrie’s cute. Really cute.”

  Juliet rolled her eyes. “Grams. We’re friends and colleagues. Besides that: she’s not gay.”

  “Shame,” Grams said. “You know I’d feel better about you living in the city if you didn’t live alone.”

  “I know, I know. Having a twenty-four hour doorman and security isn’t enough for you. You always tell me that.”

  “Jules!” Carrie called down the hallway. “You want the bed or the sofa?”

  “You could always share a bed…” Grams said suggestively.

  “Sofa!” Juliet yelled back before turning to her grandmother. “Hey now, Grams. Maybe dial it back a bit? You’re going to scare off my very straight assistant.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I can’t believe you suckered me into helping you clean out an old house within half a day of my running into you again,” Nick sighed, lifting several boxes at once and stepping out onto the dusty path towards the barn.

  “You look good lifting things, does that help?” Romy replied with a grin. “And stop complaining. I’m feeding you tonight.”

  “Your catering staff is feeding me tonight, and I have to sit through yet another awkward family gathering of the Mitchells. I thought I’d met my quota of those a decade ago.”

  “Consider it you repaying me for making me think I was walking in on the former Dr. Bell earlier. You scared the shit out of me.” Romy stopped at the side door of the barn and opened it up, flicking the light switch. There were long, neat shelves filled with carefully labeled boxes. Large fans ran along the top rafters to suck out the hot air. “Just drop them wherever.”

  Nick paused. “You seriously don’t want me to carefully slide them onto a shelf?”

  “No, screw my mom,” Romy replied. “Seriously, I don’t care if you break everything in there. Drop it and go. We only have an hour before we need to shower and get ready for cocktails.”

  They spent the next hour clearing out the majority of the boxes from the cottage and moving Romy’s stuff into the living room. Romy was pleased to see that her grandfather’s possessions had been left intact. Even his drafting table in his little office hadn’t been touched. It looked like he could walk in at any minute and yell at her for trespassing. She felt her eyes fill with tears, but she swallowed them down.

  Nick appeared behind her holding a garment bag over his shoulder. “You want to shower first?”

  “Go head, I need to unpack my clothes,” Romy said. She sat down at her grandfather’s desk and smiled. This space was hers now.

  ***

  “Romy, be a dear and get Grant to top up my champagne.”

  “I can do it myself, Mother,” Romy said, standing up and leaning over the table. A few people gasped at the impropriety but she didn’t care. She was wearing sweats and an old college t-shirt to the family dinner; the scandal had already occurred.

  Romy’s sister Mae tugged on her shirt. “Sit the fuck down,” she hissed. “You’re going to give Mom a heart attack.”

  Romy rolled her eyes and downed the rest of her champagne, ignoring the meal on her plate. Mae’s four children were all kicking each other under the table, the boys’ hair gelled down and shirts buttoned up to their necks. The girls were wearing picture-perfect pigtails in curls along with their sundresses. Romy wanted to go over and muss up their hair to make them look like actual children instead of models, but she held back.

  Her brother, Derek, was across the table ignoring his fiancé, a woman so perfect Romy wondered if he’d ordered her from a catalog. She was sitting ramrod straight with a smile plastered across her face, a giant diamond on a certain finger, her pale skin seeming to radiate sunlight.

  “I thought you weren’t eating anything beige?” Romy asked Janelle, staring pointedly at the woman’s plate that was covered in gourmet soul food, including macaroni and cheese and biscuits.

  Romy knew that she shouldn’t be such an ass to Janelle; her brother’s fiancé was actually a kind person. But she was so infuriatingly proper and just perfect that Romy couldn’t help herself.

  Janelle swallowed a tiny bite of her food. “I’m trying to not be too restrictive with my food. But I do want to stay in shape for the wedding after all.”

  “Right. As we all know, there’s nothing worse than being fat,” Romy said drily. She felt her own belly rolls peeking out of the bottom of her t-shirt. The weight she’d gained in Montana had been an issue with everyone other than her. The room was so quiet all that could be heard was the ticking of the clock and the occasional thud of a shiny, tiny kid’s shoe hitting a shin under the table. Janelle’s face was glowing a bright red, and Nick was trying not to laugh into his biscuits. Satisfied that she’d made them all duly uncomfortable, she offered a reprieve. “So, any news from the town?”

  “The Hudson woman is in the hospital with an infection,” Mr. Mitchell
said, his salt-and-pepper head bobbing side to side.

  Romy felt her stomach drop through her feet at the name Hudson. She tried to not show any visible signs of reacting but Mae kicked her under the table.

  “Shame. Hospital bills will be enormous,” Mae said.

  “We could offer to pay,” Mrs. Mitchell said automatically.

  Romy tried not to roll her eyes and failed. Nick grinned at her. He knew as well as she did that her mother’s ‘charity’ always came with strings.

  “I highly doubt the Hudsons would take Mitchell money,” Derek said. “Not after everything y’all did to them.”

  “Business is business, Derek, I keep trying to tell you that. And look how it’s all turned out. Downtown is thriving.”

  Nick cleared his throat skeptically and Romy kicked him under the table. “How were the Founder’s Day celebrations?” Romy asked, all but begging for a subject change. It was one thing for her to make her family uncomfortable; she could handle it. Nick wasn’t ready after a ten year absence to meet her parents’ wrath.

  Derek laughed and Nick joined in.

  “What?”

  Her sister stepped in. “You thought you were clever, coming home after Founder’s Day. But the celebrations were postponed due to rain.”

  “It’s always indoors,” Romy protested.

  “This was a hell of a storm. Roads were flooded, trees down and blocking the road,” Mrs. Mitchell explained, dabbing at the corner of her perfectly lipsticked mouth. Somehow, her mother always managed to eat a full meal without messing with her makeup, not even her lips. It remained a mystery to Romy.

  “The dance is tomorrow night,” Mae said. She patted Romy on the back. “Just in time for your arrival. The theme this year is masquerade.”

  “I don’t have anything to wear—”

  Janelle piped up. “Oh, Mae and I went shopping last week and picked up something for you in your size.” She paused, looking edgy around the words ‘your size.’ “It’s gorgeous. We even had masks made especially for it.”

  “Wonderful,” Romy muttered, her stomach turning over at the thought of a party with the entire town. She was barely home and already looking for a way out of Sterling life. This didn’t bode well.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I’m telling you, sweetheart, you have to go,” Mrs. Hudson said from her hospital bed. The monitors beeped and she had a cannula going into her nose. Her thick, glossy black hair cascaded across the pillows and she looked well to Juliet, considering the circumstances. “Someone has to represent the family, and god knows your brother won’t be going.”

  Juliet winced, picturing Sam in his apartment above the family garage, empty beer cans strewn across the floor, his Xbox controller upside down on a Cheeto-dust-covered couch cushion, the TV flickering with images of fictional warfare. “Grams is going, right?”

  “Grams? Going to a town function?” Mrs. Hudson laughed so hard she started coughing. “Bring me some water, Jules.”

  Juliet poured some liquid into a paper cup and handed it to her mom, who took it gratefully. “I have nothing to wear. It’s a masquerade.”

  “I’m sure Grams has something in that endless closet of hers. Go dig in there for something vintage. And I’d bet a large amount of money that I don’t have that there’s at least one mask in there somewhere. Go. Have fun. Meet up with your old friends.”

  “Right,” Juliet groaned. She squeezed her mom’s hand. “There’s nothing else I can get you?”

  “Go. I’ll see you later. I’ll just be sleeping anyway until the nurses wake me up again and start poking and prodding. I love you, buttercup. Tell your dad not to come until tomorrow. He needs his sleep.”

  Juliet kissed her mother’s forehead. It was warm. “Love you, Mom. See you tomorrow. I’ll sneak in some of Grams’ breakfast casserole for you.”

  “Jules?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you don’t go, I will know.”

  Juliet closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re the worst.”

  “I know, dear. I know I am.”

  Juliet took the back roads home, avoiding the highway at rush hour; people were pouring out of Austin to get home for the night. The sun was still high in the sky, heating up the ground with its relentless rays. Driving down the back roads stirred up a lot of old memories for her, some pleasant and some much less so. She turned up the radio, one of the dozen country-only stations that reached Sterling. She only ever listened to country when she was back at home.

  Carrie was waiting for her in the carport. Unlike Juliet, who still wore fancy New York business clothes, Carrie had settled right in. She was in jeans and a t-shirt with a pair of cowboy boots Juliet recognized as belonging to Grams.

  “All you need is a cowboy hat and questionable politics and you’d fit right in here,” Juliet quipped as she stepped out of the car.

  Carrie grinned. “I’ve been doing some closet shopping with Grams all afternoon. She’s a badass. Did you know she used to ride a Harley?”

  “I did know that. Because she used to sneak me out on rides when I was little and my parents were working at the café.”

  Carrie hopped off the low stone wall that formed the base of the carport and brushed off her jeans. “We’ve got to get you into your Cinderella best, Juliet.”

  She groaned. “God, not you too.”

  “Just call me your fairy fucking godmother.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Romy tugged at the neckline of her dress, pulling it up higher.

  “Stop it, you’ll ruin the sequins,” her sister Mae admonished. “That dress cost—”

  “More than six months of living in Montana, I’m guessing,” Romy replied. The sun was rapidly setting but the temperature wasn’t budging an inch. She swatted mosquitos out of her face as she waited in line to get inside the large barn that served as the recreational space for Sterling.

  “Masks on!” Janelle cried out as they flashed their tickets at the gatekeepers.

  “Here, take the car keys,” Mae said, shoving the sleek black plastic and metal dongle into Romy’s hands. “I’m getting shit faced tonight.”

  Romy slid her mask onto her face, trying to not get the back elastic tangled in the elaborate updo that had taken the hairdresser two hours to do at Mae’s insistence. Romy could already feel her makeup melting off her face from the heat and humidity, and was happy she had refused to wear the body-shaping underwear Mae had thrown at her. “I’m not a fucking sausage,” Romy had shot back, much to Mae’s chagrin.

  Romy was beyond relieved to feel the icy barn air on her face as she stepped inside.

  The barn had been renovated a decade ago thanks to a donation from her own family. It now had a polished concrete floor, four industrial air conditioners, a state-of-the-art chef’s kitchen, classrooms, and industrial lighting. But tonight, the lights were off except for thousands and thousands of low-hanging twinkle lights. A country band was playing George Strait covers on a tiny stage, and the perimeter of the room was lined with multiple tables full of booze.

  She glanced around looking for Nick, but it was shockingly hard to tell anyone apart with the masks on.

  Part of her was grateful; she hadn’t wanted to spend the evening having people gape over how different she looked after her time in Montana. She wanted to avoid the awkward questions of why she left in the first place, and why she was returning now.

  The masks were a blessing. Janelle and Mae had disappeared into the crowd of people sipping cocktails, which meant Romy could slip out unnoticed. She pushed through the throngs of folks chatting happily to each other, and went up the iron spiral staircase in the back of the room up to the loft. This was where she’d disappeared during prom when her migraine had started.

  She wasn’t surprised to see she wasn’t alone in the slope-ceilinged room that was packed with boxes of decorations. Nick was standing by the window holding an unlit cigarette in one hand and wearing a tuxedo, his mask dangling off his arm.
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  “I had a feeling you might be up here,” Romy said, lifting her floor-length dress up and clicking her borrowed Louboutins across the dusty floor.

  Nick grinned. “You want one?” He motioned to the unlit cigarette.

  Romy reached into her bra and pulled out her own, sticking it between her lips. She sighed and sat down on a short pile of boxes, sliding her mask off her face. “I miss smoking.” This was the routine she and Nick had come up with together all those years ago; holding onto cigarettes but never lighting them. It helped but only a little.

  “Same. I’m glad we swore to stop when we turned eighteen, though. I don’t miss smelling like an ashtray.”

  Romy took the cigarette out from between her lips and exhaled. “I think it’s a little early in the night to be up here, isn’t it?”

  Nick sighed. “Yeah.”

  “What’s going on with you?” Romy asked.

  A painful look crossed his face. “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing.” Romy held out her hand and he took it, squeezing it. “I used to be your best friend. I’d love to get back to that place.”

  The light from the sunset was dim across Nick’s face, but it illuminated his expression enough to see that Nick was crying. “Romy—”

  “Romy! What the fuck? Are you smoking again?” Mae marched over and grabbed the cigarette out of her hand.

  “It’s not even lit, relax,” Romy replied wearily. “We were kind of in the middle of something here, Mae.”

  Mae glanced at Nick. “Ah, I see. Well, get downstairs because the mayor is looking for you.”

  “Nick, let’s talk later, alright?”

  Nick turned away from her. “Right. Later.”

  Downstairs, Mae pulled her through the crowd towards the mayor, who was wearing his signature ludicrous black cowboy hat and a mask covered in peacock feathers.

  “Well, well, well! If it isn’t my favorite little mischief maker!” The mayor grasped both of her hands. “You look stunning! I’d never know it was you if your sister hadn’t pointed you out.”