Thursday = NEW CHAPTER DAY!!!

I have a lista-mungo of things to talk about but I don't feel like I like them very much. So instead I think I'll make Thursday... New Chapter Day!!!!!!

Oh yes friends... it's finally here. The day where I share with you my first bad romance novel. Don't steal it, it's not that good. So first I'll post Chapter 1, see if you want more. If not I totally understand cause who wants to read a bad book? I've actually caught myself like half way through romance novels before & I'm like "hey self, you're not enjoying this at all & if you knew her, you would punch the heroine!" so I had some self control and stopped. Only happened twice though, means I'm glutten for punishment or I reaaaalllly like romance novels.

Just so everyone knows, I'm not looking for editors or critics, this is all just in good fun. So just say yay or nay regarding if you want more. Not trying to be a biotch, just not in the mood.

Anyway!!! There's no time like the present, here we go!

Dockside by Janice McCrostie

Chapter 1

They rode bumper to bumper up over the bridge, hitting the breaks when the workman flipped his sign to “stop.” The ten hour drive seemed to be lasting days as the sun inched toward the ocean.

“Gaaaaaaaaaa!” came over the two-way. “So close! Yet so far away!”

Maeve laughed into her radio and clicked off. Her sister Clare had been making these sly little comments on and off throughout the whole trip. Joking about the slow car in front of them or the red midlife crisis convertible that just passed by. Most commonly was the “I have to pee” that came once every two hours or so. Both sisters had extremely small bladders.

Maeve and Clare had never been close, but at the same time never distant. They knew about things that went on in one another’s lives but never really what was going on in one another’s heads. To the casual observer the two were as different as apples and oranges. Maeve was taller, with dark hair, bigger boobs that she often hid behind loose sweaters (much to Clare’s begrudging) and a very docile demeanor. She was a self-declared goofball and an honorary dork, because she had never gotten very high marks in school.  Clare on the other hand was thinner and shorter, with blonde hair that included chunks of black underneath. She was partial to clothes that showed off her form (and minimal breasts), wearing tight jean to accentuate her cute little butt. Clare’s makeup was an art form to her, and to Maeve, as she had never seen such pieces in the Louvre.

Maeve reached across the console and grabbed a Dorito from the bag on the passenger seat.

“I saw that.” Crackled out of the radio.

“What I’m hungry?”

“Fish chowder. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

The orange clad man in front of Maeve flipped his sign to “slow.” A silver Mercedes Convertible passed with a young couple obviously named Muffy and Chad from the Upper East Side.

“I got it, you don’t even need to say it.” Maeve buzzed into her two-way. “Muffy and Chad.”

“I was going to go with Alexaaaaaaaandra and Manley, but I like that better.”

Maeve laughed out loud again and breathed a sigh of relief. This is going to work she thought it has to.

When Clare had told her about her idea to move to Maine after graduation, Maeve had at first thought it ludicrous. She asked why a suburb born self proclaimed city girl would want to move to a fishing island on the northern coast of Maine. The simple answer was “That’s where my inspiration is drawing me.”

To people like Maeve the idea of having “inspirations” was an unknown entity. You didn’t have inspirations; you had plans and goals, goals which you then set out to achieve using your plans. Maeve planned to go to college, get a degree, hopefully meet a nice guy, marry, work for a while until kids became and option, raise her family and live happily ever after. Even at this moment she had no idea what she had “planned” on doing if her strategy had not worked out. Maine was never an option, that was until it became and option for Clare.

“I just need a year.” She had said. “One year to go up there and live and veg’ and take photographs and get my portfolio together.”

“But where will you live?”

“Gram’s room.”

“She needs to rent that, she needs the money.”

“Oh. Well I’ll figure something out. I mean it’s not like we don’t know anyone else up there.”

“I just think you need a little more preparations before moving up there. Maybe a month, I mean a week after graduation?”

Clare had scoffed at the word, preparing for things was lame. Imagine her shock at graduation when Maeve informed her that she was coming along. With parents guffawing in one ear, Maeve explained her reasoning.

“I just need a year.” She looked squarely in Clare’s eyes. “A year to get my head together, work.”

“Maybe write.” Clare had whispered.

There were certain secrets that only sisters told, whispered across pillows at ungodly hours. And that was Maeve’s.

“I know it was your adventure, but I was hoping it could be ours.”

“I’d love it.”

“Well that’s good because I’ve already quit my job and rented a place for us to live right outside of Stayton. We’ll have to stay in a B&B the first week because the spring tenant won’t have vacated yet and Gram’s room is already booked, but I’ve already made the reservation so…”

“Maeve.” Clare interrupted the beginnings of a panic attack. “That’s great. Thank you for doing all that. We leave next Saturday?”

“Next Saturday.”

Clare tapped on the steering wheel as they passed over the threshold onto Moose Head Island. She sang along to Leaving Las Vegas as her stomach grumbled something fierce. Clare had refused to eat anything for last five hours of the trip with the knowledge that once they arrived they would be taking Gram out to dinner at one of few restaurants on the island. But with all restaurants on a fishing island came fish chowder and Clare was ready for a heaping bowl.

The wind whipped through the car and reminded Clare of the hurricane they had “survived” fifteen years ago. It had come on quickly and the whole family hunkered down in grandma’s living room, candles set all around the room. They had played a game of monopoly to distract from the rain beating on the window, but it hadn’t help Clare. She tried to play tough, because she didn’t want Maeve to know that she was scared, because to the little sister, the opinion of the big sister meant the world.

Clare knew her place in the family. She was the dreamer, the illogical one, the artist. So her trip up to Maine was exactly for the purpose of playing the part. The idea of moving back into her parents’ house was worse then the desolation of an island an hour from a mall. Two hours from what Maine masqueraded as a city.

“Oh fish chowder! You came and you gave without taking!!” Clare sang through the radio to the tune of “Mandy” by Barry Manilow.

“Freak.” Came back as they pulled into the driveway.

Clare threw her 1996 purple Saturn into park, turned off the ignition and hopped out.

“You know you dig it,” she yelled to her sisters BMW. She knew her sister was just as much of a spaz as her, she just never had the chance to show it. Maeve was always playing the part of older sister, just as Clare played hers.

“Yeah sure…”

“Grandmother!” Clare sang as she walked up onto the screened in porch. “Gram?”

The door swung open and a smile spread across Clare’s usually macabre face.

“Hey there hot stuff, long time, no see!”

Their grandmother had always been a breath of fresh air in their upper middle class NYC suburb life. Both girls wondered how there father could have come from her. She would tell stories about how Dad used to run around the commune naked, weaving in between the flowing skirts of her “sisters.” She was a great mother, sending him to the public school to get his education all the while teaching him about life at home. When he turned eighteen she asked what he wanted, he said college, so she sent him. Though Gram had kind of hoped he would have said “start a band.” Now he was a partner for one of Manhattan’s most prestigious lawfirms, hard to imagine him bare assed in a field.

Looking at her now both girls knew that her garden wasn’t just for squash and tomatoes, that there was something special hidden under all those branches.

Gram kept her silver hair long, in a loose braid down her back. She still wore her peasant tops and long skirts and had broken out her sandals in the new crisp May weather. Her face had the lines of a life lived.

“Oh I am just so excited to have you girls here! It’s going to be fucking awesome!”

Clare let out hoot at her grandmother’s exclamation, but Maeve flinched. She never got used to Gram’s potty mouth.

“Are you ready for dinner?” Maeve asked “We’re pretty starving.”

“I am. I am. Let me just grab my purse. I have a friend meeting us if you don’t mind.” She slipped inside the house before allowing an answer.

“A friend,” Clare said, in a happy whisper “she’s still got it after all these years.”

“It could be Mary.”

“It’s not Mary.”

“It could be.”

“She would have said ‘Mary is meeting us for dinner’ if it was Mary.”

“Touché.”

Gram came bustling out the door with her huge bag bouncing off her hip. “I’ll drive, I’m sure you girls have had enough of that to last you a few days.”

Clare sat up front and the two chattered on. How was senior year, the boys, the parties, the booze? Maeve sat contently in the back listening to stories of blurred nights that one would not conventionally share with their grandmother. She had always envied her sister the ability to be impulsive with the little things. It was easy for Maeve to by a plane ticket to Florida or splurge on that little Beamer, but going home with the hottie at the end of the bar was never an option. A big change was somehow more acceptable to Maeve then the fear of the morning after.

They pulled into the restaurant and Gram hopped out, waiving to someone waiting by the front door. Clare whipped around in the front seat and bore her eyes into Maeve’s head before pulling her back into the car.

“Don’t you recognize who that is?” she hummed in a fierce whisper.

“Oh my Gosh.”

“Who would have thought Gram would shack up with Dad’s old best friend?”

“Ha!” laughing Maeve got out of the car; somehow this did not surprise her at all. “Nice.” She said to her sister as they walked toward the entrance.

Gram had her arm tightly around his waste and he looked down at her like she was the last woman on the planet.

“Girls, you remember…”

“Mike McGuire,” Clare interrupted with that glint of deviousness in her voice. “Good to see ya!”

“You too Clare, Maeve.” He held out his hand to both the girls.

“Shall we eat?” Maeve broke the awkward silence that so rarely came between the three Mac Ardle women.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Mike gave her a thanking grin.

Once they were sat everything returned to normal. It was obvious, at least to Maeve that though some scandal may lay behind the relationship, they truly cared about one another. And both girls had unceremoniously decided not to drown Gram in questions until they were safely in the car. It was mostly unceremonious because Maeve had to win a game of rocks papers scissors to get Clare to go along with it. So she sat and pouted while Maeve contributed to the conversation.

They discussed life on the island and how the summer season was looking for fishing and tourist. Any part time jobs that he knew of that were still open. He did know that the hotel was still looking for maids and that Estelle Montrose was looking for someone to mind the small gift shop that she owned off the dock. It was general polite, “I know your sleeping with my grandmother but we’re staying far away from that topic”, conversation.

“So Maeve, your grandmother told me about your break up, I’m sorry to hear about it.” It was just like a man to think he was being kind when he was actually being a moron. There was a muffled thump from under the table where Gram had kicked him.

“Thank you.” Maeve answered.

“You know…” Mike tried for a swift recovery. “Do you remember my boy Keaten? He’s just going through the same sort of thing.”

“Oh I’m sorry to hear that.” Now Clare was the one who kicked Maeve under the table.

“How is he doing?” Clare’s fake concern was only noticed by the double X chromosomes at the table.

“He’s doing all right, working on the boat a whole lot more. You know she met some New York City vacationer and just lost interest. Sometimes I just don’t understand…” He trailed off, suddenly remembering that he was out numbered. “Well you know how things happen.”

“Absolutely.”