Chapter 20
Aya
“Mrs. Irving called,” said Aya’s mother. She was sitting at the end of Aya’s bed, as she had when her daughters were little.
Aya blinked. As a graduate student, she’d gotten used to having her own schedule.
Sure, she had to teach a class here and there, but most of her work involved research.
Ever since coming home, though, she had been woken early.
Twyla had become an obsessively early riser as a reporter, and she didn’t think that her sister’s night-owl nature needed to give way to her own drive to meet deadlines.
And their mother was physically incapable of letting a morning go by without cooking breakfast for her daughters.
So each morning, the sounds of water boiling, the kitchen fan running, and bacon sizzling all conspired to wake Aya up.
She could have used earplugs, but she couldn’t bear not to come down for breakfast when her mom was going to so much trouble to make it for her.
“Did you tell Mrs. Irving I didn’t live here anymore?” moaned Aya. “Please tell her I’ve left the state. Or the country.”
Her mom smiled. “She’d find you, Aya. She doesn’t miss a trick, as you know.”
Aya did know. She supposed she should have been thankful that Mrs. Irving had taken over as president of the Zion Creek Memorial Museum board.
She’d done absolutely everything she could to shore up the museum’s finances, and without the grants she’d gotten, they already would have closed.
Even the cost of heating the place through the winter would have proved overwhelming.
But Mrs. Irving was an expert at alienating people, and they were not likely to get many local visitors back on their side when they had a tyrant at the helm.
“I guess I have to call a meeting,” mumbled Aya. “I’ve failed at getting the festival in line. She’s going to kill me.”
“If she really killed people, Love Hollow would be empty,” said her mother. Then she paused. “Aya, I’m sorry about the dress. At the time, I didn’t think…”
Of course her mother felt the dress had been too skimpy, and after a couple of decades of constantly feeling she was too fat for nice clothes, Aya didn’t want to hear it.
She couldn’t stand talking to her mother about fashion.
Theirs had never been a home where she was allowed free rein to wear what she liked.
If it didn’t make her look good, it had to go.
Aya remembered how red she had gotten the year her mom stopped letting her wear spaghetti-strap shirts.
There was a green dress she had loved, but when she talked to her mom about her plan to walk back from Chang’s with her friends, it had been forbidden.
Apparently, it wasn’t good enough for the people of Love Hollow to see.
“It’s fine, Mom,” she said. “Don’t worry. I won’t wear it again.”
“Aya,” she said, but Aya was already getting up and heading to the bathroom down the hall.
“I also don’t need to be in the dance,” she called back. “You should have Twy do it, then maybe Noah will agree to the interview.”
Her mom said something else, but Aya didn’t hear her. If she was going to face Mrs. Irving, she needed to shower, and she definitely needed at least one cup of coffee in her before she tackled that conversation.