Back I go to prison and another sucky summer.
Briggs
“Briggsy,” my mom says, looking up from her phone where she’s been searching images of Presley James for proof. If it is her, the entire island will know by tonight—she’ll make sure of that. “Can you run down to the bakery and get me an iced coffee?”
“Sure,” I say, having just had the thought that some fresh air would do me good. Somehow Marianne has always been able to read my mind, generally when I don’t want her to. She knew right away when things had gone south with the start-up in Fort Lauderdale. I’m not sure how she does it.
“Oh, and let’s be daring today . . . How about one of those cookie-croissant thingies,” she says, smiling brightly before her eyes move back to her phone, a finger moving up her screen as she scrolls.
“Sounds good,” I say.
The bell above the door rings as I exit the establishment that my mother has aptly named The Book Isle and walk down the street toward the bakery, taking my fogged-up glasses off my face and hanging them on the collar of my shirt. Freaking humidity.
I pass the pet store, a tourist shop, the candy store, and the bank before turning the corner toward the bakery. I look to my left and see the top of someone’s head bobbing up and down across the square—curly hair under a massive visor. I can’t see who she’s talking to, as the fountain’s blocking whoever it is, but I recognize that hat. It belongs to an older lady, newer to the island, I think. I can’t remember her name, but she was in the bookshop last week and was quick to offer a lot of unsolicited advice. Don’t you think that chair would look better over there? You really should get some sort of air freshener in here—it smells like books. There was more, but I sort of tuned her out, especially after the book-smell comment. I’m pretty sure that’s a universally loved scent.
Best of luck to whomever she’s talking to. Or perhaps she’s talking to herself, offering unwanted opinions.
The small downtown area is pretty serene today, not a lot of people out and about. I forget how quiet it is on the island during the summer months. It’s more touristy in the late fall and especially during the winter when people are dying to get out of cold weather. Spring can be pretty busy too, and then around the end of May it all sort of dies.
I’m assuming it’s because people think that, like most of Florida, it gets unbearably hot and humid here. But what they don’t know is Sunset Harbor gets a lovely sea breeze from both sides, which keeps the island kind of perfect during the summer. Still hot and humid, but nothing like you’d find on the mainland. It’s probably a best-kept secret around here, and for the most part we hope to keep it that way. It’s nice to take a break from all the tourism we get during the rest of the year.
I open the door to the quaint bakery that is decorated like you’d expect for a shop that sells a variety of pastries and coffee on an island—various shades of blue on the walls and framed pictures of seagulls and watercolor paintings of seashells.
My senses are immediately filled with the smell of baking bread mixed with coffee and other sugary confectioneries. Is there a person in the world that hates this smell? I doubt it.
“Briggs.” A bright-eyed woman named Amparo smiles when she sees me. She’s standing behind a large metal table, rolling out some dough. She reaches up and swipes her brow with the back of her gloved hand, leaving a small trail of flour. There’s also some on her T-shirt and some sprinkled in that nearly black hair of hers, which is pulled up into a bun atop her head.
“Hey there,” I say, giving her a gentle smile.
“What can I get for you?” she asks with a slight Mexican accent, walking up to the bakery case which is full of different kinds of breads and pastries.
“Can I get a couple of iced coffees, and one of these croissant-cookie things?” I ask, pointing to the top shelf of the glass-covered case.
She nods, removing her plastic gloves. “Just give me a minute,” she says.
I take a seat at one of the small round tables and pull out my phone to see a missed text from Jack. My shoulders slouch of their own accord. Anytime I get a text from Jack—one of the friends I started AssistGen with—I feel something dark in the pit of my stomach. I’m using the term friend loosely; I have no idea where I stand with Jack. And based on the argument we had before I left town, I’m thinking it’s not a good place.
Jack: Let’s get on a call tomorrow
I let out a breath, my cheeks puffing out with my dramatic exhale. I’ve been mostly avoiding Jack since I got back to Sunset Harbor. The way I see it, there’s not much for us to talk about. Not unless he’s figured out a way to get some funding. And hopefully he’s not trying to get ahold of me to tell me that we owe more money, because that would not bode well for my current circumstances, working only for room and board at my mom’s bookshop.
I stare at my phone screen for a bit before clicking out of my messaging app and setting it down on the table. Every time I get a text from Jack, I feel a pang of hatred for my phone. I wish I lived in a time when people weren’t so accessible.
“Here you are,” Amparo says from behind the counter, two cups of iced coffee and a white paper bag folded over at the top in front of her.
“Thank you,” I say as I walk up to her. I pay for everything and then tuck the bag under my arm, and with a drink in each hand, I give her a little head bob and a smile before turning toward the door. Just as I go to use my hip to open it, someone else enters. It’s the opinionated lady.
She scrunches her nose.
“Can I help you?” Amparo asks, a smile on her warm, welcoming face.
“Yuck. You should consider some kind of air freshener in here,” the older lady says. “It smells like bread.”
Amparo lets out an uncomfortable-sounding chuckle, unsure if this woman is being serious or not.
I give her a nod, nonverbally telling her that I see and understand the crazy she’s about to experience before opening the door with my hip and walking out into the humid air.
It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight, and for a second I wish I had a pair of large-rimmed sunglasses on my face, ones like she-who-might-be-Presley-James was wearing.
Then I wish I hadn’t thought of her, as I get firsthand embarrassment over our interaction and my inability to act like a human.
My eyes adjust and I start my walk back to work, feeling the sun on my face and admiring the clear blue sky overhead. I wish I didn’t have to spend the day at the bookshop and could play in the water and wriggle my toes into the sand for a while, but unfortunately my bank account would dictate otherwise. How I’ll ever dig myself out of the mess I’m in is not something I like to think about, but it creeps into my head often, like a story I can’t seem to stop telling myself.
Maybe if Jack would stop texting me and reminding me. Stupid Jack. Stupid phone. Wait . . . my phone.
I curse under my breath when I realize that I’ve left my phone at the bakery. I spin around to head back to the store and end up running directly into someone.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” the woman screams because not only have I run into her, I’ve also spilled both cups of iced coffee all down her front.
And to make matters so, so much worse, it’s her: Possibly Presley James.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, averting my eyes from her shirt because I’ve just doused her with cold coffee and the shirt is completely soaked and it’s a bit . . . um . . . see-through. So much so that that I can see a perfect outline of her bra. Or, I could. If I were looking. Which I’m not.
“It’s so cold,” she says, holding a cross-body bag and also the plastic one full of books I sold her not that long ago in one hand, and attempting to pull the wet shirt away from her skin with the other. It makes a sort of squelching sound as she does.
“I’m just . . . so sorry,” I say, at a loss for what I can do for her. I have no napkins, or anything, on my person. I don’t even have a croissant-cookie thing to offer as penance because I dropped it on the ground in the shuffle.
