Her father wouldn’t be home until late afternoon, which left most of the day for her to figure out the best possible argument for her cause. She emptied her father’s ashtray beside the reclining chair and put his two empty beer bottles in the recycling bin. She made a chicken and rice casserole for his dinner, then scrubbed the kitchen floor, sink, and countertops until the old Formica gleamed. With vinegar and newspaper, she shined the kitchen and oven windows, the same way her mother had done so many years before.
“You got coffee on?” asked a sleepy Kyrstin, shuffling into the small kitchen around eleven and taking a seat at the four-person table by the newly cleaned window. Their mother had made the cheerful oilcloth curtains when her daughters were little, and though they were discolored with age, none of the Cornish girls had the heart to replace them.
“Three hours ago, yes. Now, no.” Laire glanced at her watch. “It’s almost noon!”
“Make me a cup?”
“Make your own.”
“My head throbs like the devil,” said her sister. “What time did I get in last night?”
“Heard you banging around at about two.”
“Remy and his brother made a bonfire on the beach,” said Kyrstin. “You could’ve joined us, Laire.”
“Was Brodie there?”
“Course.”
“Then it’s good I wasn’t.”
“Maddie Dunlop was all over him like a cheap shirt.”
“Maddie Dunlop is more than welcome to him. He isn’t mine.”
“You say that like you don’t love him!” teased Kyrstin. Laughing to herself for a moment, she sobered when she looked up and caught the expression on her younger sister’s face. “Okay. Okay. Make me a cup of coffee and I’ll quit teasin’.”
Part of her wanted to tell Kyrstin to go to hell, but she needed her sister’s opinion, and possibly her help. It wasn’t the time to pick a fight or be petty.
Laire turned to the counter and slid the coffeemaker out from the wall. She opened the cabinet, took out the grounds, filled the once-white plastic basket, then filled the well with water and pressed the on switch, pivoting back around to face her sister.
“I need something.”
Kyrstin looked up and narrowed her eyes, pushing a rat’s nest of hair from her face. “Is that right?”
Laire nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“What is it?”
She sat down at the table, folding her hands next to a butter dish shaped like a crab shell. “What do you think Daddy would say about me getting a job?”
“You have jobs,” said Kyrstin. “You take care of the house and help out at the shop. Plus, you make pin money with your designs.”
“I mean a steady job,” clarified Laire. “A real job.”
“Like at the Hen’s Nest? I heard they’re hirin’.”
The Hen’s Nest was the local day care for island children that was especially busy in the summer, when islanders took on seasonal work.
“No. I mean . . .” She winced. There was no good way to back into it. “In Buxton. At the Pamlico House B & B.”
Kyrstin raised her eyebrows, sitting back in her chair. “Off-island?”
Laire nodded, standing up to grab a clean coffee cup from the drying rack beside the sink, keeping her back to her older sister. “Yeah. You know that delivery last night? Met a lady there who does the hiring for the restaurant at the B and B. She offered me a job.”
“Just like that?”
Laire poured the coffee into the cup real quick, listening as the coffee pitter-pattered into the ceramic bottom. “Aye-up.”
Kyrstin eyed her sister with suspicion. “You trust her?”
“She’s a woodser from Cherry Point.”
“Hmm,” she hummed, her posture relaxing. “How much she offerin’?”
“Ten an hour.”
“Damn.” Kyrstin whistled low, nodding her head in understanding. “That’s a lot.”
Laire turned to her sister, setting the mug of steaming coffee on the table before her. “Tell me about it.”
Krystin looked at her thoughtfully. “How much you remember ’bout Mama goin’ for the college courses down at Carteret?”
“Not a whole lot,” admitted Laire, who, nonetheless, desperately admired her mother for being one of the few islanders at the time with a partial college education under her belt.
“Yeah, you were real little. But I remember. She fought daddy tooth and nail over it.”
Laire nodded. She wasn’t surprised.
Carteret was a three-hour journey from Corey Island, first by ferry to Cedar Island, then via highway along the fringe of the mainland. She couldn’t imagine her daddy was a big fan of his wife being away all day, first of all, let alone traveling such a long distance back and forth all on her own with three small children at home.
“But she still went, didn’t she?” asked Laire. “For two years?”
Kyrstin nodded. “She did. And if you want my honest opinion? Uncle Fox took a lot of her advice when he and daddy set up King Triton Seafood. She knew a lot about the summer tourists, settin’ the prices, gettin’ the word out to the hotels and restaurants all along the Banks. She was a smart lady, our mama.”
“I remember she was smart,” said Laire wistfully, aching from how much she missed her mother.
“What do you need that kind of money for, Laire?”
“You can’t tell Daddy.”
Kyrstin gave her a look. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”