“I can’t believe you moved us here,” Austin grumbles from the seat next to me.
In the rearview mirror, I watch Dad’s lips smash into a tight line. Even though I don’t echo the sentiment, I secretly agree with my twin. What the hell was Dad thinking? How are we supposed to go from living in an overcrowded metropolis to this? A town with—count them—three stoplights.
My gaze fastens on to the window and the storefronts beyond as we roll down Main Street. People stop and gawk, turning our way with a mixture of curiosity and hostility shining from their eyes. It’s like they know who we are. Or maybe they’ve never seen out-of-state plates before. Who knows? Whatever the reason, it’s creeping me out.
There’s a tiny theater with a single box office window in the center of town. The old-time marquee is surrounded by bulb lights and advertises a movie we saw two months ago.
“Are you seriously shitting me?” Austin exclaims as he catches a glimpse of the sign. “Not only are you moving us to bumfuck nowhere, but you somehow went back in time.”
I snort and press my lips together to stifle my laughter.
“Language,” Mom snaps, irritated with our unfiltered reaction to our new digs.
“It’s a theater that plays last chance movies for cheap,” my father mutters.
“I think it’s charming,” Mom soothes, attempting to put Dad at ease.
Austin is right. This is horrific. Would you like to know who we have to blame for this?
Grandma Rose. Her death is the gift that keeps on giving. We found out after the funeral that she left the family company to Dad in her last will and testament.
Sounds like amazing news, right?
Wrong.
In order for Dad to claim his inheritance, which was appraised at a hundred million dollars, he has to move here to run the company. Condition number one, he can’t sell the business for ten years. Condition number two, he can’t sell the family estate. If Dad attempts to get rid of either property, all proceeds revert to a trust which then gets dispersed to the charities of Grandma Rose’s choosing.
Pretty fucked up, huh?
Instead of giving Grandma Rose the middle finger like she so richly deserves for trying to control us from the grave, we’ve been forced to uproot our lives. No way Dad was going to turn his back on all that money. Not when the two of them have spent most of their adult lives scraping by. I can’t totally blame my parents for making that decision. It would be awfully difficult to pass up, but still…
I’m about to start my senior year of high school and had everything planned out. Summer volunteering. College visits. A course at the local university. And it was all blown to shit with one ill-timed phone call.
Not to mention leaving all my friends behind.
I glance at Austin. My brother is beyond pissed off. He had the starting QB position locked down tight. He’d reached a certain level of popularity because of his position on the team. Now he’ll have to claw his way to the top all over again. As a senior. And then there’s the academic challenges he faces.
Sure, I’m mad. But he’s the one I feel most sorry for in all this. Even though I’ve tried to put on a good face, telling him it won’t be so bad, it hasn’t worked. I have a feeling it’s only a matter of time before my brother blows like Mount Vesuvius.
A suffocating silence descends over the car. Mom breaks it when she swings around and forces a cheerful smile to her face. “How cool is it that they named the town after us?”
The town, in case you’re wondering, is named Hawthorne.
Austin doesn’t make eye contact as he slumps on the seat and broods. “Super cool, Mom.”
I glance at my brother, knowing I’ll have to ratchet up the excitement for the two of us. “It’s pretty neat. Why is the town named after our family again?”
She glances at Dad before rubbing his shoulder. “Because your great-great-grandfather was a real entrepreneur and founded Hawthorne Industries almost a century ago. I believe they manufactured engine components or something like that for the car companies in Michigan. After about a decade, the town sprung up around it and has been thriving ever since.”
“You might want to rethink the word thriving,” Austin mumbles under his breath.
Ignoring him, Mom looks at Dad. “Isn’t that the way the story goes?”
“More or less,” he mutters through stiff lips. If she’s expecting him to shade in a few more details regarding our family history and the town, she’s in for disappointment.
“Hmmm,” I say in lieu of an actual response. Again, I have to agree with Austin on this point. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of thriving going on. It’s small with a handful of stores and shops. A few restaurants dot the main drag. Compared to where we came from, it’s sadly lacking.