The Sullivan Sisters - Kathryn Ormsbee Page 0,7

it with the next:

Hey Rebecca,

One last reminder that this gift will arrive AFTER Christmas, as indicated by my Holiday Shipping Guidelines. I hope you or your recipient enjoy this one-of-a-kind, handmade piece. Thank you for your business!

xo Claire @ Silver Lining Boutique

She hit the send button and moved on to the next:

Hey Madison,

Lance,

Zoe,

Finally, she reached number nine. The ninth last-minute, frazzle-brained customer who’d bought an online boutique gift less than a week before Christmas. Based on experience, Claire expected six of the people to not respond, two to send back a chipper I understand, thanks!, and one Unenlightened Settler to write that she was affronted, and what terrible customer service, and she had no idea.

Before Claire had started watching Harper Everly, she would have straight-up called that last person a bitch. But Harper had taught her that “bitch” was a Settler’s word—a cheap stand-in for how you actually felt about another woman, and certainly not helpful in the grand scheme of things. “Bitch,” said Harper Everly, was decidedly antifeminist.

So Claire called bitchy customers Unenlightened Settlers instead, and she used intelligent words to describe their actions: entitled, oblivious, ignorant. Maybe those weren’t as satisfying to say, but they were true, and ultimately, those customers rarely requested a refund. It simply wasn’t worth the effort at Claire’s price point. They could write their nasty messages, but Claire was the one who ended up with their money. The joke was on them.

That’s how it worked, Harper had taught her. “Settlers shout loudest. Excellers live loudest. It’s a long game, and Excellers win out.”

That had been true of Claire’s business, a dainty jewelry shop she’d set up at fourteen using only her phone and cheap supplies from Michael’s. Since that time she’d made good money—more than she could ever make at a minimum wage job like Eileen’s or Mom’s. Thousands of dollars and counting, which she was saving up for college. Thus far, she’d been a success.

All that success … to what end?

What was the point of a modestly successful Etsy shop if its profits had nowhere to go? Of succeeding as a budding entrepreneur if, in the end, you failed at the one thing that mattered most?

Ahead at the counter a woman with two screaming toddlers was screaming herself, telling a beleaguered worker how a post-Christmas delivery was “unacceptable.”

An Unenlightened Settler, indeed.

Claire’s eyes drifted from the drama to the limp, green tinsel garlands draped on the walls. Overhead, a near-dead fluorescent flickered. Behind Claire a man hacked a phlegmy cough. If hell was real, then it was a post office on December twenty-second.

Normally, Claire didn’t spend much time here. She had a system: pack and weigh mailers at home, print labels from the family computer, and ship packages weekly, on mailing day—a simple drop-off with no waiting, no hassle. Yesterday, though, on printing day, she’d discovered the printer was out of black ink.

Claire had her suspicions. She was sure Murphy was to blame. Excellers didn’t blame, though; they rose above. So here she was, rising above in the ninth circle of hell.

“Delusional,” she whispered again.

Delusional to come here today.

To think these bubble mailers of twenty-dollar infinity bracelets and threader earrings could one day save her.

To presume she could get in to Yale.

To imagine a life outside her dumpy town.

This didn’t feel like rising above. It felt like sinking down.

Down.

Down.

Claire had to focus. Her thoughts were spiraling, getting her nowhere. She opened her phone again, tapping on a familiar text thread labeled “Ainsley Internet.”

Claire knew her full name now: Ainsley St. John. Seven months ago, when the two of them had first met on an online Harper Everly group, she’d simply been username “AinsAGoGo.” She and Claire had connected over—what else?—their love for Harper Everly, both of them self-professed “Harperettes.”

Ainsley had commented on a post of Claire’s about good consignment shops in the Portland area.

I lived in Portland for fourteen years! Hopefully, these gems are still there:

Then Ainsley had listed those gems, and she and Claire had got to talking, tangent turning to tangent, and posts leading to DMs. That was how it had begun. They’d discovered their shared obsession with thrifting, The Great British Baking Show, and Bette Midler. They’d talked about growing up in Oregon, and how Claire was living in Nowheresville and Ainsley’s family had moved cross-country to Cleveland, which, according to her, wasn’t much livelier. They’d discovered they were both stressing about the SATs, and then they’d shared with each other that they were gay.

And that had been it. Claire,