After losing her job and her girlfriend, it's time for Annie Abraham to admit defeat and move back in with her parents. She has hardly been back to her tiny Montana hometown since the unforgettable summer before her senior year of college, when she...
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I get to Cowboy first, after a refreshing twelve-hour sleep that has brought me back to life, back to myself. I'm not me when I'm tired. Now, rested and showered and feeling like a person again, I recognize myself again. My hair is washed and brushed and back to its natural waves rather than the snow-soaked staticky mess it was yesterday. Rather than black leggings and the crumpled maroon Montana Grizzlies sweater I'd been in for more than twenty-four hours straight, I'm back in pink.
Pink is my happy place. My favorite color. I shunned it for a while when I was in middle school and high school and I thought it was cool not to like pink, when I wanted to separate myself from other girls. Now I love being like other girls. I want to be like other girls. I've grown to love everything I used to think was basic. My wardrobe is full of pink clothes and I spend too much money on make-up and pumpkin spice latte season is the best time of year. I listen to Taylor Swift on repeat and I watch noughties romcoms and I love my Ugg boots.
It's a little warmer than it was yesterday. Not much, still below forty degrees, but it's enough that the pale sun has melted yesterday's snow and ice, warm enough inside Cowboy that I can shrug off my coat. I have a bit of a coat obsession, and the best part about being in Montana is that it's totally justified. I'll need one every single day for at least the next three months. This one is baby pink and fleece lined with a fluffy hood. Underneath, I'm wearing one of my favorite winter staples: a corduroy dress in dusty pink over a long-sleeved t-shirt with tights and my lace-up boots.
I spot Liyo across the road, through a clear patch in the steamed-up windows of the coffee shop, and it tickles me how opposite we are. She's in her usual get-up: black boots; black tights; a black t-shirt tucked into a gray plaid skirt, and a black cardigan unbuttoned beneath her – you guessed it – black coat. Black is Liyo's color. It suits her to a tee. Her hair, naturally black, falls to her chin in a thick, wavy bob, exploding out from under her beanie. Which is ... yellow. Huh.
Liyoni Silva commands any room she enters without even trying, an effortless scene stealer even though she'd rather fade into the background. In any city she'd blend in, but in a town as small as Deer Pines where she's pretty much the only person of color, she stands out. How her parents ended up here from Sri Lanka, I'll never understand, and I guess they didn't get it either because they moved back.
I shouldn't complain about the journey I took to get here when for Liyo to see her parents, she has to drive to Kalispell, fly to Seattle, get on a plane to Istanbul and then a connecting flight to Colombo before a three hour train to Matara. The entire journey is more than thirty hours and eye-wateringly expensive, so she has only seen her mom and dad twice since they returned to their home country five years ago.
She crosses the street and swings into Cowboy and in lieu of a greeting, she says, "What the hell brings you back here?"
"I got bored of city life," I say.
She raises one eyebrow at me. Liyo has masterful control over her enviably thick eyebrows; she can raise each one individually, make them dance. "I don't buy that for a minute, Annabelle. You will tell me more, but not before I get us something to drink. Peppermint mocha?"
