Read Online Greetings from Nowhere by Barbara O'Connor - Free Book Online Page A

thought.
    Everything had happened so fast. Clyde Dover had only arrived yesterday. Why was he in such an all-fired hurry—making lists and yakking with that inspector and driving her down to the bank to sign more papers? Why couldn’t they just slow down a little bit?
    Signing her name on all those papers over at the bank had made her head hurt and her stomach queasy.
    Agnes Duncan.
    Agnes Duncan.
    Agnes Duncan.
    Over and over again.

    Each time feeling worse than the time before.
    And then Agnes Duncan on the very last page and the Sleepy Time Motel wasn’t hers anymore.
    Aggie shuffled around the office in her bedroom slippers. She tidied up the postcards and straightened the stack of maps and then she noticed something. Down at one end of the counter. A pair of sunglasses. Some pens. A yellow folder with Motel scrawled on the front with a black marker.
    Clyde Dover’s folder.
    Aggie switched on the lamp with a shaky hand. A jacket hung on a peg behind the counter. A denim jacket that wasn’t hers and wasn’t Harold’s.
    Clyde Dover’s denim jacket.
    â€œWell, now …” she said.
    She pulled back the dusty curtains and peered outside. The Sleepy Time Motel sign glowed in the darkening sky.
    â€œWell, now …” she said again.
    She went outside to sweep the sidewalk in front of the office.
    â€œHey, Aggie.”
    Aggie looked up to see Loretta running toward her.
    â€œWillow said you sold the motel,” Loretta said. “How come?”
    Aggie dropped into the lawn chair by the door. “It’s a long story and a short day,” she said.

    â€œOh.” Loretta sat beside her, swinging her legs, slapping her bare feet against the sidewalk.
    Aggie took a deep breath of the cool night air. She watched the lights flick on down in Kirby’s room. She admired the glow of the Sleepy Time Motel sign. Then she sat back and listened while Loretta told her all about Dollywood. About the rides and the wigs and all. Every now and then, she reached into her pocket to feel the little china horse that Willow had given her.
    â€œAnd I bet my other mother tried on a wig, too, don’t you?” Loretta said.
    Aggie nodded. “Most definitely,” she said.
    â€œHer name was Pam.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œWell, maybe …” Loretta clapped her hands at a mosquito that flitted around in front of them. “Or Patsy,” she said. “Maybe Patsy.”
    Aggie was glad to have Loretta sitting there next to her, swinging her legs and jangling her bracelet and chattering on and on about her other mother in that happy way of hers.
    And so it seemed like that bad day was going to end as a good one.
    Or at least a not-so-bad one.
    But then Clyde Dover came over and asked Aggie for a key to the office.

    A key for him.
    A key so he could lock up, since, you know, his stuff was in there now.
    And the whole time Aggie was looking for that spare key that she knew was in the junk drawer somewhere, he was rambling on and on about all the things he was going to change. Paint the office. Move the soda machine. Maybe even pave the parking lot.
    â€œAnd there’s something else I’ve got in mind,” he said, “but it’s a surprise.”
    Aggie’s not-so-bad day was turning back into a bad day.
    That night, she slept sitting up in Harold’s old lounge chair again, clutching the little china horse and dreaming about Dolly Parton.

Willow

    Willow’s life wasn’t almost perfect anymore.
    It wasn’t even close to perfect.
    In fact, it was far, far from perfect.
    Her worries were piling up, one on top of the other, like bricks on a wall.
    First, her father had bought a new life and their old life was history. They weren’t going back to their little brick house in Hailey ever again.
    Willow’s next worry was Dorothy.
    Dorothy was with her sister down in Savannah, Georgia.
    Savannah, Georgia, was a long way from