I was up at the crack of dawn: eight-thirty. My body ached. My head throbbed. Even with the house warm and snug against the October cold, it was hard to drag myself out of bed. I showered. I dressed—my usual getup, which meant a gamer tee (it said CLASSICALLY TRAINED and showed an Atari controller), my canvas jacket, jeans (which Deputy Bobby had once called hipster drainpipes, and Keme had laughed so hard that soda had come out of his nose), and my Mexico 66s (white).
I made my way down to the kitchen. Today, more than usual, the house had a vast, echoing quality, like every sound I made was magnified. Part of me knew that it was only because the house was empty; when Indira and Keme and Fox and, especially, Millie were here, the house felt alive. And part of me knew it was also because I had found Gerry Webb after he died, and I was still processing everything from the night before. In that regard, Hemlock House was probably the perfect place to be—ideal conditions for brooding about mortality and death and dying and the inevitability of dying. If you love damask wallpaper, pocket doors, weird Victorian taxidermy under glass cloches (one was of a tabby cat playing croquet, I kid you not), and a constant reminder that all things must pass and that we, too, are dust returning to dust—well, have I got a place for you.
When I got to the kitchen, the only sound came from the refrigerator’s motor. I did not spy a single treat, cake, cookie, crumble, Danish, or other unspecified breakfast pastry. Which was, of course, totally fair. Indira wasn’t my servant or my employee. She was my friend, and she loved cooking and baking, and I, of course, happened to benefit from that. But I also wasn’t sure I was brave enough to risk making something for myself. A few weeks before, I’d finally worked up the gumption to break out the toaster. Indira hadn’t gotten mad—well, she hadn’t raised her voice at least. But we’d had a long—LONG, as Millie would put it—conversation about, among other things, toast sweat.
I still hadn’t heard anything from Deputy Bobby, so I tried his phone again. It rang until it went to voicemail. I debated leaving a message, disconnected, and sent him a text instead: Are you okay? Very smooth, if I do say so myself.
I grabbed my keys, got the Jeep out of the coach house, and headed into town. It’s not a far drive; Hemlock House is still technically within the city limits, even though it feels like we’re out in the middle of nowhere. That’s because of the old-growth forest between Hemlock House and Hastings Rock proper: spruce and pine and cedar, their branches strung with fog and moss, ferns bristling at the side of the road. Today, the fog was the exact color of the sky. Yesterday’s perfect weather had disappeared under the blanket of clouds that had moved in overnight, and the light had a thin, streaked quality that made it impossible to tell the time. (The clock said nine, and honest to God, how did people get up this early every day?)
When I’d first moved to Hastings Rock, I’d believed (thank you, phone) that Chipper was the town’s only coffee shop. That wasn’t technically true—coffee was part of the culture in the Pacific Northwest, and even a town as small as Hastings Rock had multiple options. But Chipper was the only coffee shop in a normal building. The others were drive-thru coffee stands, little frame structures the size of a garden shed, and they were all over the place—in the Box Bros lumber yard’s parking lot, next to the Shell service station, on the side of the road just before Bay Bridge.
And because Chipper was the only coffee shop where people could, you know, go inside, it got the bulk of the tourist traffic, and a large share of the locals as well. It didn’t hurt that it had a prime location: on Main Street, a couple of blocks from the water, with a great view of Hastings Rock’s adorable downtown: a hodgepodge of Victorian and modern coastal and even a few Cape Cods (one was a toothache-inducing pastel pink).
Chipper lived up to its name. The building was painted bright yellow, inside and out, and patrons were invited to draw on the walls—the unofficial theme was smiley faces and/or shining suns. Pretty much every inch of available space was covered, but that didn’t stop people from trying. Today, for example, JaDonna, who occasionally did clerical work for the county and whose husband worked at the timber yard and who had what I thought of as church hair, was helping a little boy trace a circle on the wall (presumably, the beginning of either a sun or a face). Driftwood accents made the space feel cozy, and the booths and seating clusters were all occupied, even though tourist season was over. Cyd Wofford was holding his morning Marx study (like a Bible study, but, you know) with Brad Newsum (Newsum Decorative Rock) and Princess McAdams (who was not, disappointingly, a real princess, but who did always carry a loaded shotgun in the rack of her old Ram). Aric Akhtar was reading on his iPad (The Oregonian first, then the Los Angeles Times, and then Us Weekly). Somehow, he was impervious to the clamor. The sealed concrete floor and the large open area meant that Chipper was noisy—the screech of the espresso machine, the overlapping voices, some sort of soft pop that made me think my inner teenage Dash would have loved to come here to wear a beanie and read poetry. The air smelled like good coffee and warm carbs and just a hint of the sea.
“DASH!”
Did I mention the acoustics?
Behind the counter, Millie was jumping up and down. Waving. With both hands. And then, in case I missed her, she cupped her hands around her mouth and—
“DASH! OVER HERE!”
Every eye turned toward me. I was so busy trying to crawl inside my own jacket that it took a moment to register Keme, who was sitting on a stool that he’d pulled over to the service counter. (Tessa, the owner, wouldn’t allow him to hang out with Millie in the employees-only area.) Keme looked like he was enjoying my latest round of social panicking; he found a lot of pleasure in the little things.
“Hi, Millie,” I said, and I even offered a tiny wave—which only made me blush harder—as I worked my way over to the counter.
Tessa offered a sympathetic smile. She looked tired, but then, she usually did—it might have been a homeostatic response to Millie’s constant caffeinated buzz. “Morning, Dash. What can I get you?”
“As a famous artist once said, ‘Life is meaningless, and I’ve wasted the precious seconds I’ve been given, and we’re all just sand running through the hourglass of fate, please pass the bacon.’”
“Fox was having a day, huh?”
“Honestly, I don’t even know if it was a bad day, but they certainly ate a lot of bacon.”
“Bacon, egg, and cheese on Asiago?”
“Yep.”
She started to key it in.
“Actually,” I said.
Because Keme is a traitor, he groaned.
“I was thinking about some sausage.”
I couldn’t hear him, but I knew Keme must have said something because Millie burst into uncontrollable giggles.
“Never mind,” I said, “I’ll have the farmhouse.”
“Not the bacon, egg, and cheese,” Tessa said. “Or the sausage.”
“That’s right. The awesome avocado.”
“It’s not his fault,” Millie said in answer to more of Keme’s groans.
Tessa must have taken pity on me because she smiled and said, “Tell you what: I’m going to make you the Dash special. How does that sound?”
“Terrifying. And probably like it stays up too late. And it needs to spend more time brushing its teeth.”
She laughed, but apparently she took that as a yes because she asked, “And what about something to drink?”
Keme groaned again. Dramatically.
“The caramel apple latte did look good,” I said, “but, on the other hand, there’s a case to be made for the salted caramel mocha, and—”
“I’ll bring you something you’ll like.”
“Does it come in Big Gulp size?”
She laughed, and she took my money, and she shooed me away. Which is to say, Tessa knows how to run a good coffee shop.
I dragged a stool over to the counter, ignoring Keme’s death glare. Millie came around to hug me—I swear I heard my ribs creak—and then she said, “Dash, are you okay? We were so WORRIED! Keme ALMOST CRIED!”
Keme’s eyes got huge, and he shook his head frantically.
“That’s so sweet,” I said.
