Trying to get over Presley has been hard. Especially when Scout keeps shoving pictures of her in my face. Mostly paparazzi shots of her walking down a street, sunglasses on, her hands in the pocket of a hoodie.
I keep telling myself it all worked out how it was supposed to with Presley, that it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe if I say it enough, someday I’ll believe it.
I started working yesterday, which has been a much-needed distraction. I met with Jack first, and the two others we were previously working with are on board as well, but won’t be joining us until next month. So, we discussed our plan of attack, and then I spent the rest of the day coding some of the features for the software, fixing bugs that were never fixed the first time around, and testing the program to make sure it runs smoothly. It felt incredible to be working again. To be doing something I enjoy.
“Okay, Carl will be here any minute,” my mom says, coming out from behind the counter to the main area of the shop. “How do I look?”
“Mom,” Scout says, her voice annoyed. “We already said you look pretty.”
“I know, but tell me again.” She fans herself with her hand. “Ahhh, I’m nervous.”
“For Carl?” Scout asks, sounding appalled.
“Just to be doing this again,” my mom says, looking from Scout to me. “I never thought I’d be dating again.”
She gives Scout a sad smile, and Scout gives her one back, a moment of grief moving through the room like it often does, popping up in an instant.
My mom clears her throat. “What will we even talk about?”
“I bet he could go on and on about refrigerator-repair manuals,” I say, offering a bit of levity to the moment.
“Stop,” she says, but she’s laughing. She turns to my sister. “Scout, you be home by nine, okay?”
“Nine?” Scout protests. “I’m fourteen, not ten. Everyone at the party will make fun of me.”
“Fine,” our mom says. “Nine thirty.”
“That’s not much better.”
“Or you could not go to the party at all,” Mom says, a stern look on her face that both Scout and I know well.
“Fine,” says Scout. “I’ll be home by nine thirty.”
The bells on the door ring as it opens, and as a family, we all turn our heads toward it, expecting to see Carl, but instead we see . . .
“Presley,” my mom says, greeting her with a sort of wobbly smile—like she’s not sure if she should be smiling, but also doesn’t want to be impolite.
“Hi,” Presley says, giving us all a little wave. She’s wearing a pink summer dress, a small purse over her shoulder. No hoodie covering her head, just sunglasses, which she slides up to rest on top of her head.
She looks amazing and I’m staring. I blink my eyes and look away, but they move right back to her.
“What brings you back to the island?” my mom asks her.
“I’m just here for today. Right now . . . this evening,” she stammers. “It took me longer to get here than I thought it would, and I have to take the ferry back tonight. I just came to talk to Briggs,” she says, before giving me a closed-mouth smile full of so much meaning.
“Well, okay,” my mom says, looking around for something. When she spots her purse on the counter, she grabs it and puts the strap over her shoulder. “Come on, Scout, let’s give Briggs and Presley some space.” She walks toward the door, waving at us before she opens it.
Scout has her arms folded as she follows my mom out the door, but as she passes by Presley, she gives her a dip of her head and says, “Parsley,” before walking out the door after my mom.
The door shuts behind them, and Presley turns to me. “Did . . . she call me Parsley?”
I nod, just once. “She did. She’s . . . protective.”
Presley smiles, but then her face falls. “You told them what I said . . . about the pictures.” She says this as a statement, not a question.
“Would it bother you if I did?” I ask, confused.
She wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her upper arms with her hands. “No, I did say it, after all. It just doesn’t seem like something you’d tell them.”
I look away then. “Well, you’re right. I . . . didn’t tell them,” I admit, and then push my glasses up the bridge of my nose.
She gives me a rueful grin. “I’m glad you didn’t, because I was wrong,” she says.
“You were . . . wrong?”
“Yes.” She nods. “I was incorrect in my assumptions.”
“How could you know that?” I ask her.
“It’s sort of a funny story, actually. I ran into a mutual friend of ours. Or, not really a friend.”
I pinch my brows together, not following.
“The woman—the strange, demanding one that we’d see around town. The one with the big hat.” Presley mimes a large hat on her head with both hands.
“I don’t . . . understand,” I say. What does that strange woman with the strong sense of smell have to do with the pictures?
“I know this is weird,” she says. “But as it turns out, she’s a paparazzo.”
