Chapter 6: The Confetti Countdown

Samantha had offered her home as a place for the girls to get ready for the Confetti Countdown, but Abby had elected to dress in the solitude of her own room at Lottie's Lookout instead. She knew that the evening ahead would be full of crowds and chatter, and wanted to soak in as much quiet as possible before facing the onslaught.

Sitting in front of the vanity, she carefully arranged her hair, which she'd curled downstairs in the kitchen alongside three other young ladies. All of them had crowded around the stove, heating their curling tongs and chatting gaily about the Countdown, and though Abby had not been a particularly active participant in the conversation, there had been something undeniably infectious about the excitement in the air.

After securing a filigree clip in her curls, she gave her hair one last brush with her fingertips, then picked up the pearl pendant that she usually wore and fasted it around her neck. Each one of her sisters had an identical necklace, all of which had been gifted to them by their father several years ago, and though Abby had only started wearing hers recently, it felt comforting to have it nestled against her throat.

Once she had completed her ornamenting efforts, it was time to put on her dress. Gently, she unhooked the garment from its hanger, making sure that the bodice was fully unbuttoned before stepping into the swaths of fabric. The chiffon barely whispered as she slid the sleeves over her arms, and the lamplight gave the fabric a subtle sheen that hadn't shown up before in the daylight. After fastening the buttons down the bodice and cuffs, Abby did a little twirl to make sure that the pleated skirt fell correctly, then carefully pinned her hat to her hair and donned her coat before taking one last look in the mirror.

Her reflection stared back at her.

Three years of working in a fast-paced high stakes environment had molded her appearance into that of a confident young lady, but at this moment, she felt less sure of herself knowing that she was facing the prospect of a social function and not a normal day at the office. Intelligence and adaptability, two traits that had served her well in the workplace, would not get her very far when conviviality was required instead, and Abby knew that the gregariousness expected of her would take no small amount of effort to drum up, festive attire aside.

It shouldn't matter, she told herself. You're just a stranger in this town with no obligations or connections to speak of.

But the fact was that Cherin Cove had effectively stymied her earnest intention to remain aloof. Already she could count several locals whose names she knew and whose stories had become lodged in her memory, even if only in bits and pieces…

She knew that Lottie, who was like a mother to practically everybody in Cherin Cove, had borne no children of her own because of a health condition that had rendered her unable to conceive.

She'd talked with Thad, the hard-working owner of the Book Nook, about his dream to become a published author one day with the memoir that he'd been working on over the past fifteen years.

She could name all of Samantha's family members, including her cat and the pet pigeons that her children kept in a makeshift aviary behind their house.

She'd learned about Ada's business struggles and the loved ones who were depending on her income.

And she knew that Sherwin, who was still grieving the loss of his sister, had once been a fun-loving, hardscrabble Brooklyn newsie, and that his favorite color was green.

Abby smoothed the pleats of her dress, her fingers skimming the ripples of fabric like a water strider gliding gently across a pond.

Green…

She certainly hadn't picked the garment with Sherwin's preferences in mind, but now she found herself wondering (for reasons not entirely clear to her) what he might think of it. Perhaps he'd find it fetching, or perhaps he would think it rather dull, or perhaps wouldn't have anything to say about it at all. It wasn't as though she had been very pleasant company during their last encounter, and if he'd chosen to eschew further conversation with her as a result, she wouldn't blame him in the slightest.

"Our outfits would clash horribly anyway," Abby heard herself say aloud. "We'd look like a couple of misplaced Christmas carolers."

The pronouncement came off sounding less matter-of-fact than she'd hoped.

It was ridiculous, of course, to be frittering away any thoughts on this young man (and his ubiquitous red sweater), for he was just another inhabitant of Cherin Cove with no special significance whatsoever…but despite this logical assertion, she had to admit that she was hoping to see him again. She ought to apologize for her curt words during their lunch date and to try harder to be cordial, for she owed him that much after he'd made an attempt to befriend her.

Realistically speaking, you're sure to run into him tonight, especially with Sally around, Abby thought, both heartened and a little annoyed by the prospect. She knew that her former classmate would be eager to scope out the field for the best looking young man to attach herself to, and Sherwin would no doubt be in the running if he wasn't already her primary target. It didn't help that Samantha had spoken of him in such positive terms, but even if she hadn't, his looks would have been enough to speak for themselves, and once Sally saw him, she was sure to make an attempt to secure him.

Of course, if she did succeed in her scheme, Abby wouldn't be able to get a word in edgewise, and an apology - or any sort of conversation - would be out of the question…

But there was nothing that could be done about that.

The clock on the vanity chimed, warning Abby that it was time to leave, and she turned away from the mirror, bending down to lace up her shoes. Once she'd tied them and secured her handbag under her arm, she left the room, the fabric of her dress swishing softly against her legs as she descended the stairs to the lobby. Several festively-attired boarders were already trickling out the door, and she joined them, heading down the hill in the direction of the town square.

To her relief, the evening air was cool but not frigid, and the lights twinkling on all over Cherin Cove made the town look rather magical in appearance. Everything was bathed in the glow of the setting sun, and the brightly-dressed revelers looked like a host of colorful fireflies flitting home through the twilight. All of it was so quaintly cheerful that Abby couldn't help but feel her spirits rising, even as the slightly-stoic side of her tried not to get too caught up in the moment.

As she drew near the square, she could hear the sounds of a band playing, and saw that the area designated for the festivities had been sectioned off by activity, banners denoting the places where attendees could enter the baking contest, save seats for the program to come, or browse the many handmade items for sale at the crafts show.

Abby elected to start with the latter, making her way over to the line of tables where the vendors were displaying their wares. Wicker baskets of all sizes were available for shoppers to place their purchases in, and she found a pretty oval-shaped one with a crimson bow and looped her arm through it.

At the first vendor's table, she recognized Dan, the host from the Rudder and Relish, who was selling a selection of handmade glassworks. His merchandise was as beautifully elegant as it was unique, and Abby quickly decided to purchase a bowl for her mother, a decorative vase for Judith, and some exquisite-looking marbles for David.

Moving on to the next table, she greeted Lottie, who was there with an array of fluffy shawls and afghans. Abby found a blanket that would be perfect for her sister Lilly and added it to her basket, then selected several packages of dried fruits and nuts from the next vendor's table as gifts for John and the youngest members of the family.

All that remained after that was to find a gift for Sadie, and after making her way past a few more tables with no success, Abby finally saw it: a lovely hand-dyed scarf the color of sunshine and apricots, soft and inviting and exactly the sort of thing that her third-oldest sister would enthuse over. Abby tucked it into her basket, ignoring the sudden pang of sadness as she turned away from the smart-looking handkerchief sets displayed on the table nearby. A year ago, she would have been carefully looking through them to find the handsomest pick of the lot for her father, but instead she found her shopping spree abruptly at an end.

Don't think about it, she told herself as she moved along. You came to this party to avoid brooding, so don't go and spoil things now.

The vendor at the very last table was Ada.

"Miss Abby, you look wonderful!" she exclaimed, hopping down from her perch of a stool to examine Abby's dress more closely. "That shade is perfect for your hair and eyes, and you've paired it so nicely with the rest of your outfit. It looks even prettier on you now than it did in the shop!"

"The effects of the twilight, I'm sure," Abby replied, though inwardly she was pleased by the praise. "How have your sales been?"

"Oh, excellent," Ada chirped. "The leather goods especially have been selling like hotcakes. I only have a few of the wallets left, and the Countdown hasn't even started yet!"

"It seems like your vendor will need to bring you more inventory."

Ada nodded enthusiastically. "I'll have to tell him so when he shows up. I haven't seen him yet, but he told me that he was coming, so I'm sure he'll be along soon."

No sooner had she said this when a customer approached her, greeting her by name and good naturedly haggling about the price of a beautiful hand-carved leather belt, and Abby bid the seamstress goodbye, then left her to her negotiations, glad to see that business was going well.

She paid for the items she'd selected at the cashier's, then stopped at the holds table, which had been set up as a place where shoppers could leave their purchases while they enjoyed the Countdown festivities. After checking in her basket, she headed towards the other side of the square, thankful to be able to continue on unencumbered (and slightly awed at the trustworthiness of the small town community that allowed for such things to be common practice).

If the craft show had been the picture of a bustling mini-marketplace, the area for the baking competition looked more like an attraction at a county fair, beckoning all to come and partake of the treats awaiting within. A wooden arch, decorated with greenery and colorful ribbons, stood like a gateway for the guests to pass through, and in front of the archway, a petite orange cat wove its way amongst the legs of the new arrivals as though personally welcoming them to the culinary fête. Abby stopped for a moment to pet the feline, admiring its bow-bedecked sweater and the little cluster of flowers at its neck that made it look every bit as festive as the best-dressed human attendees.

Only in Cherin Cove, she thought, giving the cat one last pat before rising to walk through the archway.

Dozens of tables lined the pathway ahead, each table exhibiting a different type of confection, and Abby quickly caught sight of Mabel showcasing her trademark macaroons. Though she elected not to elbow in among the crowd at the table, she was happy to see the other woman's cookies getting the attention they deserved, and could tell that Mabel was completely in her element.

It was much more difficult to bypass the displays that followed. Abby sampled snickerdoodle pie, chocolate potato cake, rum raisin bars, lemon icebox cookies, and even a colorful five layer confetti cake that the cook from the Rudder and Relish had whipped up. Each confection was more delectable than the last, and all of it was so lovingly presented that even Manhattan's finest restaurants would have been hard-pressed to compete.

After sampling a myriad of sweets, Abby came to the end of the path, her stomach satisfied and her hands a bit sticky from the toffee cookie that she was still finishing. As she nibbled the last of the treat, she noticed Samantha and her family sitting on some benches nearby, but before she could walk over to greet them, a figure in a stylish hat and a tiered frock with more layers than the Rudder and Relish's confetti cake abruptly obscured her vision.

"I've been looking all over for this dock hand of yours, Abby, but Samantha said she hasn't seen him yet!" Sally exclaimed by way of greeting. "I may have to go for that curly-haired fellow over there instead, though he's not as handsome as I would hope for."

Abby had learned long ago that it was best not to respond when her old schoolmate was in this frame of mind, so she simply finished eating her cookie in silence.

"You don't have anything to say?" the other woman demanded, raising a perfectly-arched eyebrow as Abby brushed the crumbs from her lips with a napkin. "From the way you were talking at our luncheon a few days ago, I'd have thought you'd be miffed at me having designs on your fellow with his 'dark hair and broad shoulders and perfectly straight teeth.'"

"He isn't mine," Abby said coolly. "Far from it. We've only had a few conversations and one lunch date together. That's hardly an understanding."

Sally twittered a high-pitched giggle. "With that kind of attitude, dear, it's no wonder you're still without a beau!"

"Not for lack of opportunities," Abby clarified, "but I do have standards."

"Of course you do. You always were too good for the ordinary boys we went to school with. You'll find yourself an aspiring politician or a college professor and live happily ever after, I'm sure…" Sally trailed off, her eyes following a tall young man who had just walked by. "In the meantime, it seems you have no objections to me fishing in this pond?"

Abby pushed her glasses up her nose, more than ready to be done with the conversation. "Fish as you please, Sally. I've no more claim to anyone here than you do."

The other woman smiled. "Excellent! Not that I need your permission, of course, but it seems only right to make sure I'm not cutting in - even if you've never been bothered to do the same for me."

Before Abby could reply, Sally gave a little wave of her fingers, then minced off, following the young man who'd passed by just a minute before.

Abby let out a breath of frustration, then turned and walked in the opposite direction.

What else did you expect? she thought. Sally hasn't changed; her world still revolves completely around men and the business of catching their eye, and it's a fool's errand trying to have a normal conversation with her.

It wasn't that Abby minded the subject of men, per se. She was far from indifferent to the draw of a handsome face and could appreciate a well-favored build as much as the next girl (even if she privately maintained that the men in books regularly proved to be more interesting than the ones in real life), but Sally's remarks grated, and Abby had no interest in being drawn into the sort of emotional eddies that the other woman took pleasure in stirring up. If Sally was still holding a grudge from the past, that was her business, but Abby wasn't about to get pulled into that current of manipulation any time soon.

Shaking off her irritation, she continued walking, skirting the edge of the square until she came to the place where the book raffle was to be held. Thad was hard at work unloading several boxes of novels, and Abby waited until she'd caught his attention before saying, "Can I help you? That's a big load you have there."

The bookstore owner must have heard the eagerness in her voice, for he stopped unloading books and stood up, wiping the sweat from his brow with a grin. "It wouldn't be right of me to ask you to get your hands dirty," he replied, "but if you're wanting to pitch in so you can scope out the raffle prizes ahead of time, then be my guest!"

"I've been found out," Abby confessed, smiling as she bent down to place a stack of books on the table. "I do love looking at covers and imagining what stories lie within."

"I've got some especially good adventure tales in here somewhere," Thad told her. "Maybe you'll get lucky and snag a few. Oh, and there's another copy of The Locket and the Bridge, that novel you helped Skip find."

"Where is he, anyway?" Abby couldn't help asking. "I thought he'd be here, but no one seems to have seen him yet."

"Your guess is as good as mine," Thad shrugged. "It's not like him to miss a party."

Abby frowned. "Do you think something came up at the docks?"

Thad shook his head. "It's possible, but I doubt it." He hooked a thumb in the direction of a group of men who were standing near the archway. "See those fellas over there? They're Skip's crew. If anything had gone wrong at the docks, they'd all be absent. That said…" the bookstore owner reached down for another stack of books, "Skip knows everyone in this town, and everyone knows him. He probably just got to talking with someone and ended up lagging behind to shoot the breeze. I wouldn't worry about him."

Normally, Abby wouldn't have worried, but it struck her as odd that this was the third person who seemed to have no idea where Sherwin was. Samantha had called him "the heart of Cherin Cove," but how central and indispensable could he be if everyone was perfectly content to go about their business without him?

It's just a metaphor, Abby reminded herself. People say those things all the time without really meaning them.

Trying to shake off her uneasiness, she finished helping set up the Book Nook's display, receiving Thad's thanks and an extra raffle ticket for her trouble. The lottery wouldn't take place until later that night, so she tucked the tickets into her handbag, then went to go find Samantha to say hello. Her friend had found herself a seat in front of the stage where the program would take place, and she was contently munching on a bag of popcorn and keeping an eye on her two sons who were playing tag nearby.

No sooner had Abby greeted her, when the mayor of Cherin Cove took the stage and invited all of the guests to find their seats for the official opening of the Confetti Countdown. Sally and Mabel reappeared, the former looking noticeably vexed that she was still unaccompanied and the latter grinning from ear to ear, no doubt buoyed up by her macaroons' success at the baking competition. Abby let both of them pass by her, electing to keep her seat at the end of the row in the interest of having more space.

The mayor's welcoming speech ended up being far less plodding than expected, and the dramatic reenactment of the town's founding that followed was surprisingly entertaining. Abby had never paid much attention to Long Island's history, but the amateur troupe of actors bringing it to life wove a colorful tapestry of narrative that completely befit Cherin Cove's lively, whimsical atmosphere and held her attention from start to finish.

The poetry reading that followed was disappointingly bland by comparison. Abby found herself growing more and more antsy with each new recitation, trying not to let her dissatisfaction show. Perhaps it was the newspaper editor side of her that was too fussily exacting to appreciate the charms of home-grown poetry (or perhaps she simply didn't have the temperament to appreciate the lyrical delights of verse over prose), but the predictable rhymes and seemingly-trite sentiments galled her, and she soon found her mind wandering and her eyes idly scanning the crowd, looking for any sign of Sherwin's trademark red sweater. When a thorough visual search yielded no leads who looked even remotely like him, Abby was convinced that he still hadn't arrived.

She spent the remainder of the poetry reading debating with herself over what she should do in response to this information. The reasonable course of action would be to do nothing and stay put. There was still the book raffle to come, and more live music, and perhaps an opportunity to resume her curtailed conversation with Samantha. Even more compelling was the fact that this function was supposed to be a safeguard against the melancholy that she was determined to escape. Did she really want to risk stepping away from all the color and noise and distraction when doing so would give the grayness another invitation to encroach? It wasn't as though she had a special connection to Sherwin that would obligate her to seek him out…

But he had taken the time to show interest in her and to listen to her thoughts and feelings when she'd been no more than a stranger to him, so shouldn't she make at least a cursory attempt to return the favor?

Always opt for kindness whenever you can manage it, her father's voice admonished gently. You never know how much good it might do.

The pragmatic side of Abby was tempted to assert that there was likely very little good that her meddling could do (for what purpose was there in going off to search for a young man who probably didn't want to be found?).

And yet…

Sometimes it helps being with other folks when you're feeling sad. You oughta consider going to the celebration so you won't be spending New Year's Eve alone.

This time it was Sherwin's voice interjecting, and Abby could still remember the kind and earnest way that he'd said the words to her down the street from the Rudder and Relish after their lunch date.

Well, she'd taken his advice and shown up at the Confetti Countdown, but he wasn't here, so she ought to try to find him, if for no other reason than to jokingly berate him for his hypocrisy.

That settles it, Abby thought. This will be an adventure, like a side quest in a fantasy novel or like the rising action in a mystery narrative. There's nothing to be lost if I fail to find him, and if I do find him…

…well, what then, exactly?

It was a question that she would have to answer when the time came.

Having made her decision, Abby waited impatiently until the poetry reading came to an end, then quietly slipped out of her seat amidst the crowd's applause. Pulling her coat close around her, she hurried away from the town square, leaving the gaiety of the Confetti Countdown behind and heading in the direction of the docks.

A/N: And the plot thickens. Marginally. (If this was a different type of story, we could be in for a dark turn, but this fic is attempting to pass itself off as a tale of the Hallmark variety, so there will be no terrible surprises or horrific fates awaiting our leading lady. She is, by nature, a confident and independent gal, so her approach wouldn't be completely off-base even in a more realistic story, but I that feel it is my duty to invite you raise an incredulous eyebrow at her choices if you so desire ;)).