I parked at the far end of Main Street. Instead of getting out, I slumped down in the driver’s seat of my leased sedan and considered turning around. The last place on earth I wanted to be was the sleepy little town of Murtaugh, but I had nowhere else to go.
The draining numbers of my bank account flashed across my mind, and I pressed my forehead to the leather stitching of the steering wheel. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning but I longed to crawl back into bed. Maybe it was all just a bad dream and when I woke up, I’d be back in my upper-floor West Side apartment. I tried to will it into reality, but it was too quiet. New York City and the life I thought I’d tied up in a neat little bow was two hours away and outside of my car, I could actually hear birds singing.
I hauled myself upright again and blinked owlishly at my hometown. No swerving cars, no towering buildings fronted by uniformed doormen, and no stylish clutches of people walking by while discussing the latest news. Murtaugh’s Main Street was empty except for an old dog watching me curiously from the door of the vintage clothing shop.
Drinks at Mathilde’s tonight, a friend texted me.
Out of town. Family thing, I texted back with shaky fingers.
Another lie.
It had been two months since I had been fired, and I hadn’t told a single soul. In fact, I had gone on as if nothing had changed, as if I hadn’t lost my sole source of income. At first, I had been confident I would find another accounting position and pass off my firing as a much-needed chance to move on. Then weeks had passed with my cover letters unanswered. I cringed, remembering how I’d kept up my normal schedule of expensive dinners, high-priced drinks, and twice-weekly clothes shopping with fashionable friends.
When I’d had a regular salary, I had kept it up without batting an eye. I’d even been able to put some money in savings each month but not enough. Between rent, eating out, shopping, and pretending nothing was wrong for two months, I was nearly flat broke.
The feeling reminded me of dozens of childhood days, but I couldn’t wave it off with a laugh like my free-spirited mother. I worried.
“Why worry, Cora?” my mother had always asked. “It only makes you suffer twice.”
I yanked my keys out of the expensive car and blinked back hot tears. I deserved to suffer for being so foolish. Two months of trying to be optimistic had left me jobless and desperate enough to come home.
Home. I took a deep breath but couldn’t appreciate the fresh air. Just the thought of hearing one of my mother’s flighty pep-talks was enough to make me dizzy. I needed my mother’s unflagging belief in off-beat miracles, but not yet.
Instead, I skirted around the vintage clothing shop and curious dog and headed straight for the record store. No one would be able to see me behind the poster-plastered windows, and I could get my bearings. The Murtaugh Tune-Up, with it over-stuffed rows of records and crowded shelves of rock memorabilia, had always been a refuge for me.
Faded posters of Ian Morris greeted me, and I paused on the sidewalk to smile at the familiar face. The rock legend, with his trademark long black hair and even longer beard, grinned back. Ian Morris was a god of rock ‘n’ roll for over two decades and the patron saint of my little hometown. I peered closer at the posters and spotted his landmark mansion, the site where he’d recorded his most famous album. All through my childhood, tourists had flocked to Murtaugh just to stand at those gates and hope for a glimpse of him. The rock star had always played it up, and his grand mansion was known for concerts and parties rivaled only by Hugh Hefner’s home.
I glanced around at the quiet street and realized those rock pilgrimages were becoming a thing of the past. Ian Morris, dead nearly ten years now, lived on in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame but his little hometown was a fading memory.
Faded. I rubbed my chest as I saw how well that word described Main Street. The once-lively cafe had removed all its sidewalk seating, the corner bar wasn’t even open yet, and the quirky little grocery store Ian Morris had immortalized in a song had boarded up its windows.
I stood rooted to the sidewalk. I’d driven two hours out of New York City, trying to escape my own failure, only to find my hometown was worse off than me.
A polite cough pulled me from my reverie. Strolling down the sidewalk was a tall, strikingly handsome man. Not handsome in the suited Manhattan style but undeniable attractive despite his ragged t-shirt and multitude of tattoos. His short-cropped hair shone blue-black in the sun and dark eyebrows arched as our eyes met.
“Excuse me.” He reached for the record store door.
“What? Oh, yeah.” I stammered, ridiculously thrown by his slate-gray eyes.
“Coming in?” He held the door open and gave me a chiseled-jaw smile.
He was clean-shaven, and I caught an intoxicating whiff of aftershave. “Yeah. I mean, yes. Thank you.”
Years of polishing off my casual, hippie-style upbringing so my manners fit Manhattan were undone after two minutes in Murtaugh. Or maybe it was just the way the corner of his mouth quirked up in a charming smile.
I slipped by the attractive stranger, my nose only reaching the V-neck dip of his black t-shirt. One second with him in the narrow doorway of the record store, and I was overwhelmed. Hard biceps had me breathlessly dropping my eyes down to his scuffed black boots. He was nothing like the striped-tied finance guys I’d been dating on and off in New York. They never remembered to hold the door open for me.
I glanced back to thank him again and caught sight of myself in the front windows. My short blond hair was illuminated pink from the record shop’s neon ‘open’ sign. It waved out wildly from my head like cotton candy, and I tried to tame it down with one casual rake of my fingers.
“Speak of the devil!” a voice called from the back of the shop. “Bobby’s here already. Where have you been?”
“Excuse me,” the wickedly magnetic man said with a wink.
I retreated to my favorite row, only to find the used records had been rearranged, and I was now standing in the death metal section. He strode through the crowded store with ease and slipped behind the counter. I watched as he disappeared through the office door, obviously more than a regular customer.
Alone for the moment, I quickly brushed my fingers through my perpetually messy hair and tried to calm down my pulse. Tall, dark, and tattooed was not my type, no matter what my body wanted. That kind of guy didn’t scream stability and responsibility and there was nothing else in the world I wanted more.
“Cora? Cora Sinclair? Is that really you?” The voice from the office was back and belonged to my childhood friend, Rick.
“I was just wondering if I would see you, Ricky!” I cried and rushed to the counter to give my friend a hug.
Rick Martin was just the staid, practical, and plain man I had always envisioned myself marrying. All through our free-range childhood, Rick had been the one to hang back from wild adventures. He’d gotten a job at the record store at the age of twelve and dedicated himself to the daily grind of small business. By the time we’d all headed off to college, Rick had bought himself a ramshackle little cottage at the end of Second Street.
“You look amazing, Cora. Really amazing. New York City must be treating you right,” Rick said.
I shied away from his kind, brown-eyed glance and echoed his favorite phrase from high school. “Who needs New York City when there’s rock ‘n’ roll?”
Rick chuckled and leaned on the music store counter. His shoulder-length brown hair was still tied back in a low ponytail, but it looked thinner now. He scrubbed at his stubbly goatee and smiled up at me. “If you ask me, my bottom line could use a little more of it around here these days.”
“So, you finally bought the Tune-Up?” I asked.
“Yup. Now all this is mine.” Rick gave the cluttered record shop a grand gesture and a self-deprecating laugh. “Glorious, isn’t it?”
I breathed in the lingering scent of incense and sighed. “You have no idea how glad I am to find this place hasn’t changed.”
“Speaking of change, how’s that big-time corporate accounting job?” Rick asked.
I froze, afraid for a second that he somehow knew of my misfortune. Then I forced myself to shrug it off. “People still think it’s weird that this is how Caroline’s daughter turned out, don’t they?”
It wasn’t a question, but Rick nodded with a rueful grin. “I, for one, am glad that the apple fell far from the tree. Too bad you had to fall all the way to the Big Apple.”
I squeezed his arm across the record store counter. “You’re sweet, Ricky. Always were.”
“Sweet on you,” Rick said quietly.
I felt bad that Rick’s feelings had never been returned beyond friendship, but it was comforting all the same. “Come on, you’re married by now, right?”
Rick snorted and moved along the counter to fiddle with the ancient cash register. “Not even close. You see a lot of available women around here?”
“It’s a little quiet around town,” I observed.
“The old-timers are glad to have their sleepy little town back,” Rick joked, but he shrugged uncomfortably.
I tapped the glass case next to the counter. It was full of memorabilia from Ian Morris’ rock legacy. “It was always amazing how he could pull in the tourists even after he was dead and gone.”
“And his son helped,” Rick said.
“Oh, don’t worry. I didn’t forget Storm Morris. You wouldn’t believe the way my college friends freaked out when I mentioned my hometown.” I started humming a few bars of the mega-hit song that had dominated my teenage years.
“Still catchy…”
“Just a bit overplayed,” I finished my friend’s comment with a laugh. “So, Mr. One Hit Wonder left town and never looked back?”
Rick slumped against the counter again. “He came back after we all graduated from college. Opened the house up for parties and tours. Storm got a great series of concerts going a few years back, but the fans just aren’t the same.”
“And it’s really affecting the town that badly?” I asked.
“First people just cut back on hours, you know, open weekends only and all that. It’s been a slow decline for a while now and now the market’s good, so people are selling,” Rick said.
I looked around his crowded record store, all jumbled up with memories. “Please tell me you aren’t closing.”
Rick brightened. “Me? Nah. I’m too smart for that. Started a great online blog a while back, and I make a good amount selling collectors’ items and rare albums.”
I grinned at that. “You always were the smart one, Ricky. So, big plans for the weekend?”
“Well, funny you should bring up Storm and the mansion and all.” Rick leaned forward and whispered, “I hear rumors there might be a party there this weekend.”
I giggled. “Should we hang around in the back orchard and plan some party-crashing?”
“Or you could just have dinner with me.”
“You’re sweet, Ricky, but I gotta check on my mother before I make any plans,” I said.
Rick nodded his head with the same smile everyone in town had when they thought of my mother: a mix of admiration and embarrassment that was most people’s reaction to an exuberantly eccentric artist.
“Good luck with that. We’ll catch up later,” Rick said.
I squeezed his arm again and squared my shoulders. It was time to visit my mother.