Kyrstin shrugged, but her eyes were merry. “Why would he make it up?”
To trap me, thought Laire, shoving the white fabric off her lap and standing up. She turned away from her sisters, looking out the picture window over the couch. Their father’s one-story, two-bedroom house was directly on the water, and she looked out at the harbor, seething. Fishing boats, coming in from a long day of catching or crabbing, pointed toward Corey Island. One of those boats was her father’s. Had he heard this rumor that she’d let Brodie touch her intimately? She sucked in a horrified breath.
Her father was a strict, religious, old-school islander. He loved his girls more than anything, but he was proud and he wouldn’t stand for that sort of loose talk unless it included some sort of respectable commitment between the participants—a commitment Laire didn’t want from Brodie or any other island boy.
“It’s a lie,” she said again.
It wouldn’t be the first time a local boy had compromised the reputation of an island girl to push her into a relationship. But damned if Laire would let it happen to her.
“Well, I think Brodie’s cute. Filled out real nice. And his daddy’s boat is newer than most of the—”
“No!” growled Laire, still staring out the window. I don’t want to be trapped here forever!
“Little Laire better get off her high horse,” advised Isolde, her voice taking on an edge. “Eighteen years old and never had a boyfriend. You could do a lot worse’n Brodie.”
Damn Brodie Walsh to hell and back!
With twenty-one kids in the entire high school and only six in Laire’s graduating class, the pickings for a prom date had been slim. Not to mention, she mostly looked at the island boys, whom she’d known since infancy, like a bunch of jerky brothers. At least Brodie, whose mama was the daughter of the pastor, seemed to have some manners. At the time, she had considered him the least disgusting of her choices, but now? Gyah! She could just kill him for spreading rumors about her when she’d kept her reputation lily-white for eighteen long years.
Laire looked over her shoulder, shooting her oldest sister a dark look. “I didn’t let him touch me. There’s no understanding between us. It’s a lie and that’s that.”
“Hope Daddy don’t catch wind of it then,” said Kyrstin, giving Laire a shit-eating smile over the rim of her tea.
They don’t understand, thought Laire, crossing to the front closet to grab a hanger for the dress. They think it’s a game.
She hung the dress carefully on the bar, at the back of the closet, behind Mama’s old winter coat, and closed the door. She’d work on it later. She didn’t trust herself with the delicate material and beadwork right now. Her hands were shaking with fury.
She loved her sisters, but they were both content to marry local boys and be fishermen’s wives. They’d have a bunch of kids—the eleventh generation of Cornishes—who would grow up together here on Corey, which had a static population of just under nine hundred souls. Isolde and Kyrstin would end up running Bingo Night at the United Methodist Church and rope the altar with fir greens at Christmastime. On their tenth anniversaries, their husbands would take them on a big weekend to Raleigh or Myrtle Beach, and they’d talk about it for decades after.
Remy took us on down to Myrtle, but I felt fair quamished by all the lights and smells.
You want t’talk smells? she imagined Isolde exclaiming. It’s right yethy in Raleigh with all the bus fumes!
And all the other women organizing bins of clothes at the village secondhand shop for the annual sale would tut and nod in agreement: Off-island might be interesting for a visit, but Corey was home.
And the thing is?
It was a good life. A respectable life. A fulfilling life. Hell, it had been her mother’s life, and Laire loved her mother more than anyone else in the world, living or dead.
But it just wasn’t the life Laire wanted.
She had a very different plan for her future, and it included being part of the off-island world. Specifically, the world of fashion.
Not only had Laire made Kyrstin’s wedding dress from scratch, but last summer she’d made Isolde’s as well. Her passion for clothes had started when she was nine or ten, after her mother had passed. Her sisters had had no interest in their mother’s old Singer sewing machine, but Laire, who’d spent many happy hours listening to it hum, had found profound comfort in teaching herself how to use it. She imagined her mother’s fingers on the bobbin, threading the needle, lining up the presser foot on a seam, and felt her presence keenly.