Rainy Day Sisters by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online

Lucy’s stomach clenched at the memory. There had been an outline of a breast, complete with pointy nipple, scrawled on her locker in permanent pen before first period.
    In second period a popular boy in eighth grade called her Boob Girl; by lunchtime everyone in the school was calling her that.
    By November she was throwing up every morning from stress, and begging her mother to let her switch schools. Her mother had sighed, looking sympathetic for about a millisecond, and then refused.
    â€œIf you can’t stand up to petty bigots now, Lucy, you never will. Trust me, I’m doing you a favor.”
    Her mother had done her a lot of favors over the years. She’d endured three more months of teasing, sitting alone at lunch and walking through corridors with a determined smile on her face, as if she could appreciate the joke they were all making endlessly at her expense, until people had finally, thankfully, grown tired of it, and even better, the sculpture had been taken down.
    Eighth grade had been better. Her mother had had no major commissions.
    But things were different now. She was starting school, yes, but she was twenty-six, not twelve, and her mother was on a different continent. Her boss might have his doubts about her, but she could prove him wrong. Prove herself capable. And best of all, no one in Hartley-by-the-Sea, except Juliet, knew about what had happened in Boston. None of them would have read Boston’s newspapers; they probably hadn’t seen the blogs and editorials online. They might not have even heard of Fiona Bagshaw.
    Smiling a little at the thought, Lucy rose from bed to get ready for the day.
    Washed and dressed, she entered the kitchen to find Juliet busy making fry-ups for another group of walkers who had come in last night, two high-flying couples in their thirties with expensive equipment and a van service that would ferry it for them so they could walk with just their day rucksacks.
    â€œLuxury walking,” Juliet had told her last night with a wry twist of her lips, almost a smile, and when Lucy had smiled back, she’d almost felt as if they were complicit in something.
    She wanted to get along with Juliet so badly, but it wasn’t coming easily. She’d been here for four days and besides that surprising admission at the beach café, they’d barely had a conversation. Lucy had tidied her room, worked up the courage to ask for the Wi-Fi password, and spent several gluttonous hours on Facebook, gorging on the details of everyone else’s far more interesting lives. She’d returned her car to Workington, a dismal-named town if she’d ever heard of one, and taken the train back that ran along the coast, gazing out at the endless, choppy gray sea and feeling as if she were teetering on the very edge of the world. It wouldn’t take much to fall right off, she’d thought, just one good push.
    The next day she’d walked up to the post office shop, half-hoping to find a potential friend in its cozy interior, but the man behind the counter was surly and six feet four with tattoos up both arms, and when Lucy had attempted a cheery conversation opener, telling him she’d just moved into Tarn House, he’d simply given her a flat stare before silently putting her change on the counter. Although he looked to be roughly the same age as Juliet, he clearly wasn’t one of her friends.
    Lucy wasn’t actually sure Juliet
had
any friends. She seemed to be consumed by the bed-and-breakfast business, churning out full English breakfasts every morning and making up beds and tidying endlessly in between walking the dogs. Lucy had, tentatively, offered to walk Milly and Molly, to which Juliet had pursed her lips and said, “Wait till they get used to you.”
    And now she was starting her job and despite her stomachache, she was clinging to her optimism. She could meet people at the school, teachers who would be far friendlier than