No Attachments - By Tiffany King Page 0,11
kidding?" I bolted upright in my bed, peering at my clock in dismay. "How did it get so late?" I said, jumping to my feet and racing toward my bathroom.
"Why do you think we were freaking out when we didn't hear from you? By ten thirty I was ready to call in the cavalry, but Brittni convinced me the sane thing would be to check on you first. Didn't your phone go off from all the messages we sent you?"
"Frick, I'm not even sure where my purse is," I said, scanning the room for my purse. "Maybe Nathan only pretended to be interested so he could rob me blind while I was drunk and passed out. 'Nathan' probably wasn't even his real name."
"Chillax, girl. Your purse is on your chair," Brittni said, striding toward the chair to pick up my purse. "Your phone is here, but it's as dead as the road kill Creepy Freddy likes to eat," she added, holding up my phone.
"Damn, I better charge it," I said, glancing at my clock again.
"Go shower and we'll plug it in for you," Tressa said, shooing me toward the bathroom. "Text us after you get off work," she called out as I closed the bathroom door behind me.
Thirty minutes later I pulled into the dusty side lot of Smith's General Store. When I first arrived in town four months ago, I knew I wanted to work here. Not because I had some deep desire to stock shelves or bag groceries, but because it was a blast from another time. When I was thirteen, I was obsessed with the TV show Gilmore Girls. The show was about a young single mother raising her teenage daughter, and although the show delved into deep issues occasionally, it was the quirkiness of the small town that pulled me in. I'm sure some psychologist could have a field day comparing my attachment to the show with the loss of my mom. That was probably part of it, but after living in an overly populated city in Florida all my life, I'd always yearned for a small town. A town where friendships went deeper than just acquaintances you went to school with. I wanted friendships that couldn't be shaken, no matter what obstacles might get in the way. I wanted a town where if you got sick, people actually cared. Maybe they would even care enough to check up on you, or bombard you with soups and casseroles, or who knows what. The point is, they wouldn't shun you, or refuse to come near you because they thought they might catch something. Before I arrived in Woodfalls, I thought a town like that only existed on TV, but so far this place has lived up to my expectations. Woodfalls was charming and quirky and certainly not perfect, but that just made it even better. I fell in love instantly and was able to cross yet another item off my bucket list.
"You look like something even the cat wouldn't want to drag in," Fran greeted me as I entered the store.
"Well, I feel like something even the dog wouldn't want to bury," I replied, grabbing an apron off the hook behind the old fashioned counter where a dated cash register sat. Not that we actually used it, Fran kept it for nostalgia reasons. Even in sleepy Woodfalls, we actually had computerized registers.
"Rough night?" she asked with double meaning, eyeing me critically. Fran was the only person who knew why I was really here. I felt it was only fair to tell her the truth, since one day I may just disappear again. For all her feistiness, she is still a sweet lady. If she had concerns about me working here, she never let it show, and has always paid me under the table to keep me off the books. It was just a safety precaution because I wasn't sure if anyone would ever come looking for me. Truthfully, I really didn't even need to work. I had a trust fund that had been turned over to me the day I turned twenty-one. The days leading up to my disappearance, I'd gone to the bank each day and withdrew the allotted amount that wouldn't raise a red flag. My window of opportunity was short though, because once the monthly statement came in, the gig would be up. By the time that happened, I was long gone with enough liquid cash to keep me comfortable.
"Not like you think," I