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So, with me forcing myself not to expect things, I really didn’t think too much of my new neighbors. Sure, they caused one huge fuss that rivaled the one the day Sandra Connors’ granddaughter had a baby, but I didn’t think anything would come of it beyond that. Now, looking back on it, maybe I should have. Or maybe I shouldn’t have. I don’t know, and quite honestly, I don’t care, either. The past is the past, let it rest. These days, Pops and Aunt Laura will say I should care about it, but I don’t. They didn’t do a damned thing to anyone here except annoy the old geezers, so who cares what they did in Boston?
Matthew, Steven, and Lena Curtis roared into Westchester in the middle of early June, during a heat wave broke all the old records across all of upper New York State. Or according to the people on the Weather Channel, as they pointed blankly at the green screen at where they assumed New York was. Westchester was never on their maps, it being a town with a population of less than a thousand and outshone by its eastern neighbor Clarksville. I had rushed outside, in that godforsaken heat to, cool my head, ironically enough. I could still hear Aunt Laura bitching about how rude and ungrateful I was to my father through the open windows of the living room. Pops didn’t say a word, as he knew that Laura and I never had gotten along before. He was marrying Laura in September, though, and he had tried to bring us together for a little nice breakfast when all hell broke loose between the wicked witch and myself.
So, now here I am, leaning up against my old wooden pillar and getting splinters in my back as a reward. My eyes watched the small crowd of neighbors gather on the front lawn, even though we have one of those idiotic ‘Stay off the Grass” signs. People, I swear. We should have just gotten a ‘Beware of Dog” sign instead. The mere thought of a huge fleabag with razor sharp teeth and a penchant for the human flesh would have instill a whole lot more fear in the neighborhood than a polite little sign asking people to get their worthless selves off our lawn.
But, Dad can't (or won't) be mean even if his life depends on it. He is one of those guys that could easily be typecast by a Hollywood agent into playing the role of friendly neighbor. Not too bright, but always smiling and cracking jokes and letting you borrow his lawn mower. What Dad lacks in book smarts, he makes up for it in his wit and humor. Of course, since he was my Pops and I am the ungrateful, spoiled, bitch of a daughter (according to dearest Aunt Laura) I have to roll my eyes at some of the things he says. But, he knows I'm never being serious with the eye rolling. Eye rolling isn't really my thing. Dead stares, maybe, but not eye rolling. I don’t think I can roll my eyes all that well, anyway.
“Katherine!” Missy Connors, Sandra Connors’ grandniece yells for my attention, and when I don't give it soon enough she walks up and cuffs me on the back of my head.
“What the bloody hell did you do that for?” I say it with a British accent that I've picked up from watching the BBC off the satellite dish. I figure it will make Missy smile, but it doesn't.
“To get your attention,” she replies, flicking a piece of copper colored hair out of her eyes. Missy isn't pretty at all, but any girl in all of Alfred J. Memorial High would give her eyeteeth for that hair. The hair makes Missy feel like a goddess, I figure, and she feels like it gives her the right to be a conceited little bitch and a half. But, whatever, she's one of the few people in Westchester who didn’t try to understand me so I consider her a friend, or something like that. “New people in town. Three people, two boys and a girl. Probably all older than us.”
I'm fifteen, Missy's a year older. She was held back in kindergarten when she was just a little kid. She's none too bright, either. “So?” I reply brushing sweat off my forehead.
She looks like she's going to hit me again, so I duck to avoid her fist.Instead, her knuckles brush up against the pillar and she makes a disgusted face. “We never get new people in Westchester, Katherine.”
“Will you stop calling me by my full name, damnit?” My parents must have been smoking crack when they decided to name me after a soap opera character. “My name is Kit. K-I-T. Kit. Not Katherine.”
Missy replies by rolling her eyes. “You cuss to much, Katherine.” She drags out the syllables in my name. To piss me off of course, because Missy knows she can. “We never get new people in town.” she repeats.
“Where are they?”
“Hmm?”
“You heard me. All these people,” I wave my hands over the front lawn. “Are here to see the new people. Well, where are they?”
“Inside. They saw everyone and freaked. Danny helped them carry in the boxes though. They didn’t come with much stuff.”
“Has anyone even said hello to them?”
“Auntie brought over a casserole for them. The girl looked at it like it was poison.” Missy frowns. “She’s the youngest, obviously. One of those white trailer trashy types. Skimpy clothes, bleached hair, painfully thin.”
I stay silent; amused at the thought that Missy is judging someone else when she in fact has no room to speak herself.
“But the guys,” She whistles under her breath. “They don’t look too bad. One of them needs a haircut in a bad way, but the other…”
“Totally off the scales hot for you, eh Miss?” I raise a questioning eyebrow. It doesn’t take much for Missy to consider a person good looking. I mean, her choices are limited to Westchester and Clarksville after all, and we have the most ugly people per square mile in the world. Not that I’ve a raving beauty either. In fact, I’m the farthest thing from it and I know it. Mom, now, she was beautiful. Too bad I didn’t inherit her looks. Aunt Laura has the same features, but they look odd on her.
“Well, duh. Are you doing anything right now?”
“No. I need to be at Killer Trash at noon though,” I work in Pops’ store during my summer break. Not my choice, but given that a) we’re completely understaffed and b) I have no life whatsoever, I don’t mind all that much. Of course I did the required eye-rolling act when Dad told me he needed me to work there, but I really didn’t care either which way. And Killer Trash isn’t all that bad. Not like some of the places some of the people I go to school with are working at. I shudder at the very thought of having to bus to work in 98 degree weather wearing polyester and asking people if they want to supersize that. Yeah, it’s the stuff of McNightmares. “Which reminds me, Dad asked me to ask you if you wanted a job there.”
“Me? Working at Killer Trash? At a thrift store? No way in hell, Kit. No offense.”
Conceited, self-image obsessed bitch. It’s a bloody thrift store, not a trash heap. Even though the name might brand it otherwise. “Well,” I decide to drop the subject, knowing Missy wouldn’t change her mind. She would have made me do all the work anyhow, but it would have been nice to have a friend to talk to rather than all the old biddies with blue hair that tromped through Killer Trash daily. “What do you want to do? I have three hours before I need to be--”
I’m interrupted by the sound of glass shattering from inside and Aunt Laura’s tone rising up loud enough so that everyone can hear her insane ratings. I’m aware that my ears are burning, which is a give away sign that my face is crimson. “Oh, screw it. Just get me out of here and get me back in a reasonable hour, Missy.”
