Anything But Extraordinary (Extraordinary Series Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  About the Author

  Anything But Extraordinary

  Mary Frame

  Copyright © 2017 by Mary Frame

  Cover design by James @ Go On Write

  www.goonwrite.com

  Editing by Elizabeth Nover at Razorsharp Editing

  www.razorsharpediting.com

  eBook formatting and design by Jenn Oliver

  http://sidekickjenn.com/

  Any errors contained herein are likely the result of the author continuing to change/edit after the line edits were completed. I have problems. Don’t judge me.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination and have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author.

  This book is dedicated to my children, Cole and Lorelai, for whom I would do anything.

  Except clean your bathroom because you guys are gross.

  Chapter One

  Making a deal with a teenage girl is like swimming with sharks. Minus the cage.

  “I know it stinks, Paige, but you have to stay hidden. You have to promise. Pinky swear.” I hold up my hand over the cracked center console between us, pinky curved in the universal symbol for sisters everywhere.

  I glance over at her in time to see the eye roll, a gesture that’s been occurring with more and more frequency with each mile that we’ve put between us and our parents.

  “I’m not going to ruin this, Charlotte. I’m not an idiot.” But she links her pinky with mine for a brief shake before returning to what’s been her permanent pose for the last eight hours: staring out the dusty window with her knees drawn up to her chest.

  “I know you’re not. But I also know you can’t sit still for more than five minutes and this might take a while.”

  “I don’t get what the big deal is. I’m not a little kid.”

  She’s not. She turned thirteen six months ago. There’s no more baby fat, just gangly limbs contrasting with her slightly curving figure. My little sister isn’t so little anymore, much to my chagrin. It was so much easier only a few short years ago when her biggest concern was how much candy she could sneak from her Halloween stash. Now she’s wearing bras and stealing my makeup.

  “I know.” I avert my eyes from the road long enough to see her dismayed expression. “But we can’t risk losing this opportunity.”

  The ad was very clear, as was Ruby when I talked to her on the phone briefly. No children. No pets. Free rent in exchange for maintaining and preparing the property for when the owner returned from her hiatus.

  We couldn’t pass up this deal. A solid place to stay, a roof over our head for four months. Even if the place turned out to be a dive, anything would be better than the seedy motel we had been occupying for the last two weeks. After we bought the car, a withered old sedan without a radio or air conditioning, we didn’t have much left. Almost nothing.

  Paige blows out a breath that sends the long, dark lock of hair always hanging in her face momentarily airborne.

  “Fine,” she says. “But you owe me.”

  I don’t respond. We’re both silent when we turn the corner and head down the main street of the town we’ll call home for the next four months. To our right is the boardwalk, littered with bright dots of people and charming shops. Beyond that is the ocean.

  Castle Cove is like one of those towns you see in magazines about the best places to live, with shiny pictures of happy people and quaint streets.

  This is where our lives will truly begin. A place where we’ll be safe. Normal.

  “We’re almost there.”

  “Ugh,” Paige says, but she climbs into the back seat and lies on the floor, covering herself with a blanket without me having to ask.

  Only a couple of blocks past the boardwalk, I park in front of a small brick house. It’s a narrow two-story with a sagging porch and a yellowed lawn, but it’s real and it’s ours. Definitely not something our parents would have chosen to live in. There’s nothing that screams wealth and luxury. If it spoke at all, it would be a faint hum of meek and tiny.

  I take a deep breath.

  This is our new life. It’s going to be great.

  ~*~

  Ruby Simpson isn’t what I expected. I imagined the owner of a new age shop would be older, with fuzzy hair and a horde of cats. But Ruby is young and petite, with blond hair like mine, except hers is a natural golden that flows around her shoulders like waves of honey. Mine came from a bottle and probably looks like it hasn’t been washed in three days.

  Because it hasn’t.

  She’s probably only a year or two older than my own age of twenty-one.

  I wish I could be travelling, touring the world without a care. People my age are going to frat parties and making bad decisions. I’m raising a teenager.

  “I’m so glad you could be here on such short notice, Charlotte,” she says. “I wish I could stay and open the shop. Tourist season is coming, but I couldn’t turn down the Dalai Lama.”

  She’s wearing flowy clothes and a mess of colorful bracelets that jangle on her wrists when she waves them around, completely distracting me from her words.

  I nod and avoid direct eye contact.

  Ruby is a spiritualist. She’s opening this new age shop, Ruby’s Readings and Cosmic Shop—the sign should be coming soon, she tells me—but she can’t stay. She’s been invited to an ashram in India to meditate with the Dalai Lama. Hence the need for a renter, and quick.

  So quick she arrived in town yesterday and she’s leaving . . . hopefully soon. I feel terrible that Paige has to stay in the car under a blanket. Thankfully it’s cool enough this time of year that I don’t have to worry about her dying of heatstroke.

  Ruby had me sign the lease agreement and employment forms, then made copies of my ID and social security card�
��fake, naturally. Now we have less than an hour for her to show me around and tell me what I need to do while she’s gone.

  “This is where the shop will be,” she says, indicating the dusty front room with a sweep of her arm that sends her bracelets jingling. “There’s inventory being shipped within the next week, but this space will need to be cleaned before everything is set up. Through here,” she walks toward a side room and I follow, “is where I’ll be doing the readings. I want to put up a row of beads in this doorway . . .” And so she continues, showing me the house and what she wants done—what Paige and I will be doing—until she returns.

  Under the dust and cobwebs, the house is cute, and it’s furnished. The downstairs is where the main business will be, which really takes up no more than two rooms—the front room for the shop and behind it a reading room, a small space where she’ll need no more than a table and a few chairs. Beyond that, there’s a homey kitchen, a living room with a fireplace and wide, built-in bookshelves, and a garden in the yard out back. There’s some furniture in the downstairs living space, a worn but fluffy-looking sofa and an old TV.

  Upstairs she’s showing me the office when a thump sounds from the bedroom next door.

  “What was that?” she asks.

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  Dammit, Paige. I should have been more specific. Instead of stay hidden, I should have said stay hidden in the car. She used to sneak around all the time, eavesdropping on our parents’ planning sessions. They would often keep us in the dark about the cons they were running, even if they had us working the job with them.

  There are no more strange noises as Ruby shows me the software she uses for the business on a computer set up in the office. She also goes over how to scan in invoices and receipts. She’s hooked the computer up to satellite—it’s already been paid for. She had to splurge a bit for the better connection but the only other option in this area was dial-up.

  The set-up is nice. I can tell with just a glance. All top of the line computer equipment, a surprise considering the rest of the surroundings.

  Then we head to the master bedroom.

  “I’m so glad you found me. It’s amazingly hard to find renters on short notice without kids or pets. It’s not that I don’t like kids or animals,” she hurries to explain. “But I need a clear space when I return, and unnecessary auras will affect the feng shui.”

  There’s a muffled giggle from the closet and I cough loudly, trying to mask the noise.

  “I totally understand,” I say loudly. “Kids are unpredictable and, man, so annoying.”

  An offended gasp escapes the confines of the closet and I stomp on the floor to cover it. “The floor is real sturdy,” I say, practically yelling.

  Thankfully, Ruby must not be as psychic as she claims because she doesn’t seem to notice.

  I ease us toward the doorway. “You said you had a list of things downstairs?”

  I’m going to throttle Paige once Ruby leaves.

  Downstairs, Ruby goes over the list of items she’s expecting, where everything needs to go, phone numbers to call if certain shipments don’t come in, plus a list of things to do.

  There’s an emergency number where I can leave a message, but since there are no phones at the ashram, the number belongs to a store more than a mile away. If I have to call her, it’s likely she won’t be able to get back to me for a week or more. Just in case, she also gives me a business card for her family’s accountant. It’s a simple but thick cream card with a fancy font. Definitely old money, I think, fingering the card.

  When I go to plug the various numbers into my cell phone, I notice that there’s no service.

  “Right.” Ruby nods and frowns apologetically when I ask. “There’s no cell tower nearby. But there’s a landline phone in the kitchen and another one upstairs in the office. Feel free to use that if you need to call anyone,” she tells me.

  I can’t really complain. Living off the grid is a good choice. The better to hide away. One of the big draws to Castle Cove—other than the free rent—is the fact that it’s practically the middle of nowhere.

  Once we’ve finished all the basics, I help her carry her bags out front, where a long black town car waits to take her to the airport an hour and a half away. She has four giant bags. One for each month?

  When Paige and I left for the rest of our lives, all we brought was one small bag apiece.

  “Charlotte,” she says, squeezing my hand and smiling at me like we’re best friends, “thank you. I feel like you were meant to be here. You have such a wonderful energy.”

  I’m not sure how she knows that, considering I’ve barely spoken since we met and there’s probably nothing positive about my energy at all, but whatever.

  She scans my face and then the house behind me. “Don’t worry about anything,” she tells me. “It will all be wonderful.” She hugs me then, her jangly bracelets digging into my side.

  I pat her on the shoulder awkwardly.

  “See you in four months!” she says, all bright exuberance. Then she’s gone, sliding into the back seat of the town car and disappearing into the night.

  Chapter Two

  “We’re registering you for school, not signing you up for a drag queen contest,” I tell Paige before she can make it all the way down the stairs.

  She’s dressed normally enough: jeans, a T-shirt that’s a bit too tight, and old, worn Converses on her feet, but her face is rouged and lined like she’s going to be selling her wares on the corner.

  “You’re so annoying,” she says, stomping back up the stairs.

  I may be annoying, but at least she listened and I won’t be walking into the school with a mini-harlot.

  I’m standing at what will eventually be the checkout counter, perusing the supply magazine Ruby left. Crystals, herbs, books about enhancing your psychic abilities. What a joke. I flip to the next page.

  A few minutes later, Paige returns. She still has makeup on but she looks more like Malibu Barbie than Hooker Barbie, so I’m happy.

  The happiness doesn’t last out of the driveway.

  Whee-whee-whee-whee-whee. Turning the key in the ignition for the twelfth time yields the same result. The car won’t start.

  Paige and I exchange a glance and then I pop the button for the hood.

  She gets out to assess the damage.

  “We need oil,” she calls from behind the hood of the car. “But my bet is on the battery. The cables are corroded.”

  “Of course,” I grumble. I hop out of the driver’s side and glance around. There’s no garage attached to the property that might be hiding tools or other potential car-saving items. There’s just a tire path to park the car on the side of the house. But our neighbor has a garage. Surely they have a bottle of oil to spare.

  I jog up the steps to the neighboring house and rap on the door. From the outside, the house appears almost exactly like ours. Or Ruby’s, I should say.

  The curtain in a window beside the door flickers, but after a minute of standing around, no answer. I knock again.

  Still nothing.

  I frown. “No one’s answering,” I call out to Paige. She slams the hood shut.

  “Now what?”

  I grab my purse out of the front seat. “We walk.”

  The sky is gray and foggy as Paige and I head down the sidewalk.

  “The view isn’t that great,” Paige says, her arms crossed in front of her chest, a frown on her face.

  “It’s early. The sun should burn off the fog eventually.”

  A runner in gray sweats and a black, long-sleeved shirt runs around us. From the back, he looks young, with a high and tight haircut, broad shoulders, a slim waist, and strong muscles flexing with every stride.

  “The view looks good to me,” I mutter.

  “Gross,” Paige says, but she laughs and nudges me with her elbow.

  We walk in silence for a few minutes, turning away from the boardwalk and further inland to where the mi
ddle and high schools are located.

  The streets of Castle Cove are tidy. I can’t help but wonder who lives behind each well-maintained yard and picturesque brick home. It doesn’t seem like there are many residents out and about this morning, but it’s still early. One elderly woman is watering flowers, and an old man sits on a porch, rocking next to a floppy-eared dog. None of them look like they’re worth anything. The houses are too old, the flowers too cheap.

  I focus my gaze on the sidewalk in front of me. None of that matters.

  “I don’t have to go to school, you know.”

  “Yes, you do. We’ve talked about this, Paige.”

  It was one of the biggest, most compelling reasons to leave in the first place. I want to give Paige a stable place to live. A normal life. The ability to stay in the same school for more than a few months at a time. Maybe even friends. All things I never had and she’s never had the opportunity to experience.

  “I know,” she says. “But we also need money. I should get a job.”

  “You’re too young.”

  “I could do, you know, other kinds of jobs.”

  I halt her progress with a hand on her arm. “We are not doing other jobs. We left for a reason. We’re not going to be like them. I’ll head down to the boardwalk later and find a job. There’s a ton of stores. I’m sure someone is hiring. Our rent is covered. We just need enough for food and essentials. We can save up for a place of our own. It’s going to be fine. No, it’s going to be great.” I smile broadly even though I’m not really sure it’s going to be great. But it has to be better than what we left behind. It has to.

  “We’ll need to fix the car, too,” she grumbles.

  I choose to ignore her.

  The school is closed for spring break. The sign on the door indicates they’ll be open again this coming Monday for classes.

  “We walked all the way over here for nothing.” Paige scuffs her shoe against a crack in the sidewalk.

  “Not nothing. Now we know when you start.”