Part Two

I am an over writer - I tend to write way to much, part of figuring out the plot and the characters - and since this is a rough draft, it is overwritten

looking

  

            “I didn’t see who it was,” grumbled Ben.  “She left before I could see who she was.  Damn it.  I hate thinking I know someone and can’t place a face with a name.”

            “You’re obsessed,” stated Piper.  She too thought the blonde looked familiar.  There had been a twinge of recognition when she’d looked at her, then again, maybe something more.

            “I am not,” said Ben.  He grunted.  He pointed his keys at the SUV and the door locks popped open.  “I just thought…”

            “Yeah, I know exactly what you, just thought.  She’s cute, but for goodness sakes she has to be at least ten years younger than you, Ben,” teased Piper. 

            She heaved her bag into the back of the SUV, and grabbed the keys from Ben’s hand as he put his own bag into the back of the SUV.

            “Come on, I’m not that old,” said Ben.  He slid into the passenger’s seat.  He pulled down the visor and looked at himself in the mirror.  Piper laughed.  “Am I that old?  I don’t have any gray hair, Piper.  I’m still vital.  Take me home and I’ll show you how young I am.”

            Piper started the SUV. “You are as old as I am, and I creak and pop when I do yoga, what does that tell you?” asked Piper.

            “Tells me that you shouldn’t do that yoda-yoga, you should practice some other type of physical exertion,” he said, “now take me home and we can go pop and creak together.”

            “Just means we are getting older.  The blonde was at least a few years younger than us.  Who knows, maybe you x-rayed her when she broke something, Ben you see hundreds of people a month.  A few faces are bound to ring a bell in that quick brain of yours,” said Piper.  She pulled out of the tight parking spot.  The blonde forgotten.

home

            “MOM!” yelled Abby as she barged into the house.   She left the door open.  She immediately rushed halfway up the stairs before her mother, who was below in the kitchen, answered her.

            “You’re late.”

            Her mother had an always calm voice.  She was never hurried.  Unlike Abby herself.  They were as different as could be: Abby had a flair for being dramatic, while her mother was quiet. 

Abby had always been very dual in her personalities, quiet at times and very loud at others.  Now, since college, the mouthy Abby made seldom appearances in her own life.  Reserved and withdrawn. Now, maybe it was the fresh air, maybe it was the fact that she was finally a doctor, but Abby was feeling alive for the first time in ages today.  Her career was finally coming together. 

            Abby stopped.  She back tracked three steps, leaned over the railing and met her mother’s gaze.  “I know.  I stopped at the Tastee Freeze, had a very good lobster roll.”

            “You live here now; you don’t have to stop there every time you pass by the place, Abby,” said Mrs. Bishop.  “I wonder how you were in school; you seem to be taking everything lightly at the moment, young lady.”

            “But, mom!  It’s sooooo good,” explained Abby.  She bounded up the stairs three at a time, thumping on them so hard that they creaked with each step.

            “Get dressed!” ordered Mrs. Bishop. 

            Abby darted back down.  She hung precariously over the railing again, her blonde hair falling into her green eyes. “Must I go?”

            “You must, your cousin, Claire, is getting married, and you well know that she wants you there.  Abby, the whole town is going to be there, for goodness sakes, get dressed.  I set out some clothes for you,” added her mother.  Denise wiped her hands on the dishtowel that was tucked in her back pocket.  Abby noted that her mother wasn’t yet dressed.

            “You….  Put…  Out…  My…  Clothes?” stammered Abby.

`           Abby had been gone for a long time, and having her mother treat her like a child wasn’t something she was accustom too.  Abby had grown up quickly when she’d gone away to college and her mother wasn’t used to Abby being an adult.  She thought of her like a child with a stethoscope, at least, that was how she felt at times.

            “I did, and I expect you to wear it,” said her mother as she mounted the stairs.  She graced the doorway of Abby’s room.  Abby met her mother’s matching eyes and she disappeared into the room she had claimed for her bedroom.

            She skidded to a stop.  There were times when Abby was so guarded that her own family didn’t know who she was.  That had come with college, the wall that she put up between herself and the world.  When she was playing doctor, she exuded calm proficiency, and skills that were unmatched.  Abby had been offered position after position, but had turned them all down to come back to the place where she’d always called home.

            Gideon was the larger town nestled between Riker’s Bend and Addison, it boasted the TV station and an office for the state newspaper.  It was lush county side, with the river to the east and the mountains to the west.  Riker’s Bend was to the north and Addison to the south.  Addison had the hospital and the sheriff’s department, and Riker’s Bend had the Hunter dynasty.

            Abby’s mother, Denise, was a native of the Tri-Valley where her mother’s modest house sat on the banks of the St. John River.  Denise had married Dennis Bishop, a young Air Force major, and after only ten months of marriage, Abby had been born. 

            Raised everywhere in the States and abroad, Abby had seen the world from a very early age.  She’d also been very intelligent, and by the age of sixteen had gathered enough credits to graduate high school early.  Her one passion in life, medicine, and at sixteen she’d begun premed at the University of San Diego, at the ripe young age of twenty-three she’d graduated the top of her class.  After seven years of internship and a short residency, Abby was coming back to fulfill her own dreams, coming to the one place on earth that had always been home to her, Gideon Circle.  She could very well have gone to the hospital in Addison, but she wanted a one-room practice, something virtually unheard of.  It was back to basics, that is just what Abby wanted out of life, going back to basics.

            It had been, in part, a promise to her grandparents and mostly about Abby wanting roots again after having been moved all her life.  She hadn’t had time in med school or premed to set down roots, so she’d set her mind on going back to Gideon.  It was a magical place in her mind, but every time she set foot in town, it lost its magic and became real, which is just what Abby wanted and needed.

            Her father had lived long enough to see her graduate from medical school, and her mother had then come home again.  Denise had been overseeing the remodeling of the old looming house that was at the very edge of town as Abby’s soon to be home and office.  It had once been Abby’s grandparent’s home, the home that had been the one true constant in the wandering girl’s life.  When her grandparents had died, it had been willed to her, and all the land that came with it, it was as if her grandparents had known Abby would want to go home.

            Every summer, no matter where they were in the world, Japan, Turkey, Texas or Hawaii, Abby had come to Gideon Circle for three weeks every summer.  Usually she’d kept her grandparent’s company, seldom venturing out to play or meet the other children of The Circle, relishing the company of her grandparents.  She’d help her grandfather build his sanctuary in the woods, called Mizpah.

            Now, thirty-something Abby stood in the small bedroom, filled with boxes of her clothes and precious belongings, staring at the bed, which held one piece of clothes, a yellowish dress.  Wrinkling her nose, cocked her head to the left, narrowing her eyes at the sight that was before her, “Mom?”

            “Yeah,” said her mother from the doorway.  Hands on her hips, which told Abby that her mother did, indeed, think she was going to be wearing this dress to her cousin’s wedding.

            Turning, Abby slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans, “I’m not wearing that.  You know, as well as I do, that I, Abby Bishop, do not wear dresses.”

            “It’s a wedding,” her mother stated, crossing her arms over her chest. 

            “I know, and I’ll wear something… fitting.”

            “You most certainly will, you’ll wear something proper, something befitting the new doctor in town, something like a dress,” smiled Denise.

            “I love you, Mom, I honestly do.  But, face it; your daughter doesn’t do dresses.  I could wear my scrubs?  Now, that would be befitting the doctor in town?  I have some with Scooby-Doo on them,” offered the smiling blonde. 

            A long sigh from her mother’s lips, “Whatever you wear, do it now, or we’ll be late…,” the older woman turned on her heels and marched out the door. 

            Abby watched her go, a smile on her lips as she began to rip into the many boxes of clothes that were still packed and waiting to be moved into her new home sometime soon. 

GC 

            “It was beautiful,” smiled Abby hugging her cousin, Claire.  The young woman giggled, her curly blonde hair tickling Abby’s nose as they hugged, kissing Claire’s cheek, Abby pulled away.

            Claire had always been Abby’s favorite cousin, they were close in age, different in looks and attitude, but they’d always gotten along wonderfully.

            “Isn’t he cute?” asked Claire thumbing towards her blushing groom.  “I adore him, I swear I want to start popping out babies as soon as humanly possible.”

            “Hmmm, he’s your type all right,” chuckled Abby, not offering up anything more than that. 

            “What is this get-up?” asked Claire, grabbing at Abby’s suspenders.  Claire snapped them against Abby’s chest and they both laughed.  Abby felt the hot blush on her cheeks, she smiled sheepishly and turned away.

Abby was dressed in perfectly pressed pants, something from Prada or some other name that Claire wouldn’t remember, a crisp white shirt, buttoned halfway up, revealing a ribbed white shirt underneath, suspenders off the side, finished off with a just big enough jacket.  Her blonde hair was up in a messy ponytail.

            “Looks like clothes.  I was told that wearing them to a wedding was a smart move, I was going to come naked…,” eluded Abby with a bright smile.

            “God, you are so city,” giggled Claire as she was being pulled away towards another circle of people who wanted to talk to the bride.  Claire wave with her fingers and Abby laughed, waving back.

            “I am,” beamed Abby.  Hoping she wasn’t to city for Gideon Circle.

            That had always been a concern of Abby’s – that she wasn’t going to adapt well to Gideon, even though, to her it was the only home she’d ever really known.