Perfect Life

Allie’s [POV]

I could tell from the look on my mother’s face that she was not impressed with my new place. Disgusted might be a better word, or maybe that was a pity; with her, it was hard to tell sometimes. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and the blueberry muffins I had picked up earlier from Brown Bag Bakery were still slightly warm. The butter was organic and local, from grass-fed cows. All the sorts of things I would’ve thought she’d appreciate. The kitchen floor had black and white tiles and glass door cabinets with little panes that made me feel like the cups and plates were outside a window, looking in on me. I chose not to share this thought with her; she’d probably tell me it was clear that thinking something like that meant I was going insane because I’d been living out in the country for too long.

“It’s so...” My mother made a face. “It’s so quiet. What on earth are you going to do with yourself up here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been managing all right so far.”

She broke a piece off from one of the muffins, the gold bangles on her wrist jangling. “You say that now, but you’ve only been up here a week. Just wait until the newness wears off—then you’ll be crying to move back to the city, where, you know, life is actually happening. Are there any restaurants? Delivery? What happens if you don’t want to cook dinner one night, but no one will deliver because you live out here in the sticks?”

I moved up to Chapin, Maine from Boston because I couldn’t deal with city life anymore. I had never lived in a rural area like this, where the trees outnumbered both the people and the buildings, but so far, I liked it. I liked the feel of all the space around me, of the clean fresh air, of the relative quiet at night.

I’d searched on Craigslist and found my own little house, too. It was a winterized cottage, a small two-bedroom with blueberry bushes and a split rail fence. There was an overgrown garden in the back that I’d been thinking about maybe doing something with. I just liked the fact that I had a yard, even if it meant a lawn that I would have to mow. I’d never mowed a lawn before, but I didn’t care; I loved that the place was mine, that it was a dwelling not attached to any others, and that I wasn’t above or below anyone.

I took a sip of my coffee and chose not to tell her a large part of the reason I had fled Boston, to begin with, was because I couldn’t be in her vicinity anymore. Not that I didn’t want to be around my mother, but I simply couldn’t stand being around my stepfather, Bill. It had gotten worse over the years, though my mother was somehow blind to it all. How was that possible? The few times I had tried to talk to her about it, she had gotten irrationally angry and said that I was jealous and ungrateful. That Bill had provided for us over the years—more than just provided for us, allowed us to live a very well-off existence in a Beacon Hill brownstone—and that I couldn’t seem to appreciate the fact that there were probably a million other girls who would be willing to trade places with me in a heartbeat.

Bill, for his part, always gave me this wounded look whenever my mother was around, but when we were alone (which I tried to make sure never happened), that wounded look would change to something more predatory, though he hadn’t tried to make any moves on me since that night when I was 15.

“You just wait,” my mother said. “Once the novelty of this place wears off, you’ll be—” She stopped and straightened, looking out the window. “Now who is that?” she said.

My next-door neighbor had just stepped outside. The houses in this part of town weren’t right on top of each other, but they were close enough that friendly neighborhood interaction was a requirement.

“I assume that’s one of my neighbors,” I said.

My mother craned her neck, squinting. “He’s very handsome. You haven’t met him yet?”

“No.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t come over to introduce himself.”

“I think he’s pretty busy. He’s a doctor.”

“A doctor?” She sounded surprised like it was unheard of for a doctor to live anywhere but in a bustling metropolis. “He looks young to be a doctor. How do you know he’s a doctor if you’ve never met him?”

“My other neighbor, Diane, told me. I have met her.”

“Well.” My mother picked up the paper napkin and dabbed it at the corners of her mouth. She stood up. “No time like the present.”

“Mom—” I started, but it was too late, she was already pushing out the side door, striding across the yard, her blue Jimmy Choos stabbing the lawn as she went.

“Shit,” I muttered as I stood up to follow. It would be easy to hide in here, but I wanted to make sure she didn’t say something ridiculous.

By the time I caught up to her, my mother was already shaking his hand, laughing.

“Allie,” she said. “This is Cole.”

“Hey,” he said, extending a hand to me. Up close, he was extremely good-looking—almost uncomfortably so—but I just pasted a smile on my face and shook his hand. My stepfather was good-looking too, and for the majority of my childhood I’d watched the way women had fallen over themselves around him. I imagined that people did the same for Cole, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to be one of them.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

My mother beamed. “Allie just moved in.”