The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel - By Sarah Addison Allen Page 0,3
trust fund, he’d decided they should bring in renters for extra money, so he’d put a long curtain at the top of the staircase and said, “Voilà! Instant apartment.” Then he’d been surprised when there were no takers. Men of thoughtless actions are always surprised by consequences, Stella always said. The last year of his and Stella’s marriage, he’d started leaving a fine black dust on everything he’d touched, proof of his black heart, Stella claimed. When she’d discovered the black dust on other women—sprinkled on the backs of their calves when they wore shorts on summer days, and behind their ears when they wore their hair up—Stella had finally kicked him out. Afterward she got her brother to put a door at the top of the staircase, and a sink and an oven hookup in one of the bedrooms, hoping something good might come from finishing something her lousy ex-husband had started. Julia was her first tenant.
Initially, Julia had been uneasy about renting a place from one of her old high school enemies. But she’d had no choice. Stella’s apartment had been the only place Julia could afford when she’d moved back to Mullaby. She’d been surprised to find that despite their pasts, she and Stella actually got along. It was an unlikely friendship, one Julia still didn’t know how to explain. Stella had been one of the most popular girls at Mullaby High, a member of Sassafras—what the elite group of pretty, sparkly girls had called themselves. Julia had been the girl everyone avoided in the hallways. She’d been sullen and rude and undeniably strange. She’d dyed her hair bright pink, worn a studded leather choker every day, and used eyeliner so thick and black that she’d looked bruised.
And her father had tried so hard not to notice.
Julia walked down the hall to her bedroom. But before she turned on the light, she noticed a light coming from Vance Shelby’s house next door. She went to her open window in the darkness and looked out. All the time she’d lived in Stella’s house, all the sleepless nights she’d spent staring out this window, and she’d never once seen a light in the upstairs bedrooms next door. There was a teenager on the balcony. She was just standing there, as still as snow, staring into the woods behind Vance’s house. She was willow-branch thin, had a cap of yellow hair, and a sad sort of vulnerability was wafting from her, making the night smell like maple syrup. There was something familiar about her, and that’s when Julia suddenly remembered. Vance’s granddaughter was coming to live with him. This past week at Julia’s restaurant, it was all anyone could talk about. Some people were curious, some were fearful, and some were outright mean. Not everyone had forgiven this girl’s mother for what she’d done.
Julia didn’t like the thought of what the girl was in for. It made her feel stiff and anxious. Living down your own past was hard enough. You shouldn’t have to live down someone else’s.
Tomorrow morning, Julia decided, she’d make an extra cake at the restaurant to take to her.
Julia undressed and got in bed. Eventually the light went off next door. She sighed and turned on her side and waited to cross another day off her calendar.
AFTER HER father’s death almost two years ago, Julia had taken a few days off work to come back to Mullaby to get his affairs in order. Her plan had been to quickly sell his house and restaurant, then take the money and go back to Maryland and finally make her dream of opening her own bakery come true.
But things hadn’t gone exactly the way they were supposed to.
She’d quickly discovered that her father had been deeply in debt, his house and restaurant mortgaged to the hilt. Selling his house had paid off his home mortgage and a small part of his restaurant mortgage. But even with that, she would have barely broken even if she’d sold the restaurant then. So she came up with her now-infamous two-year plan. By living very frugally and bringing in more business to J’s Barbecue while she was there, in two years she would have the mortgage paid off and could sell the restaurant for a tidy profit. She’d been perfectly up-front about it with everyone in town. She would be staying in Mullaby for two years, but that did not mean she lived here anymore. She was just visiting. That was all.