Local Girls : An Island Summer Novel (9781416564171) (8 page)

“Just about.” He licked a glob of cream cheese off his finger and then pointed the finger at me. “You're working at the Willow?”

For a minute I thought Mona told him, that maybe she
was reconsidering her choice and asked Henry for some advice, but then I noticed where he was pointing. And Henry wasn't the type of guy to point at a girl's chest for no reason at all. He'd seen the logo.

“I just started this morning, that's why I'm here. I was sent on an errand.”

“So how's it working out?” Henry fell into step beside me as I headed to the baking aisle in search of real vanilla, not the imitation crap.

“I don't know yet, but it seems okay. There's mainly college kids, but Shelby Dennis works there. Remember her?”

Henry shook his head and we turned right down the frozen-food aisle.

“She's Winnie Dennis's older sister. Anyway, I'm sure my job isn't going to be as much fun as sleeping until ten and then hanging out at the beach all day.”

Henry popped the last piece of bagel into his mouth. “I guess I wouldn't know.”

“Right. The trout.” I shivered and rubbed the goose bumps on my bare arms.

“Cold? Here.” Henry unwrapped the gray sweatshirt from around his waist and started to hand it over to me, then took it back. “Wait, that's probably not a good idea. You don't want to go back to work smelling like bait.”

“Why, what do you use for bait?”

“Worms.”

“You're probably right,” I agreed. “But thanks anyway.”

“So what are we looking for?”

“Vanilla.”

“Over there.” Henry pointed to a sign three aisles away.

I followed Henry to the baking aisle and we walked up and
down looking for the vanilla. As we read the labels on boxes and discovered more kinds of sugar than I even knew existed, I wanted to ask about Mona, to find out her plans for the day, what she was going to do all summer now that she wouldn't be working, whether she'd told him I'd gotten her a job at the Willow. Instead, I reached for a small red and brown box and asked Henry if the bottle of vanilla in my hand looked okay.

“I'm no vanilla expert, but it looks fine to me,” he said, taking the bottle from the box and examining it.

It wasn't a resounding confirmation that Shelby wouldn't call me an idiot when I got back, but it was better than nothing.

Henry waited for me as I paid for the vanilla and took my change. I glanced over at him flipping through the free circulars on the newspaper bench along the wall, and for the first time I tried to look at him not as Mona's brother—or someone who once saw me eat raw cookie dough I'd dropped on Mona's kitchen floor—but as Henry, the guy Mona's Whittier friends saw. But I couldn't see it. He really didn't look any different than the guy I used to see at school. The thing was, even though he looked the same to me, it was hard to see him the way I used to. All of a sudden I was looking at him and thinking,
Is Henry hot? Did he really look that great at the beach?
It was like eating a bowl of cereal and then all of a sudden having somebody ask, “Does this milk taste funny?” Even though you've already finished half a bowl, and you know the milk tasted perfectly fine, all of a sudden you can't stop wondering,
Does
this milk taste funny?

Henry wasn't exactly a dairy product, but the same principle applied.

But as I watched him, hoping to identify what it was those
other girls saw, I couldn't see anything remotely different about Henry. He could have been any island guy. With him standing in the grocery store in cargo shorts and a blue T-shirt, it was hard to imagine him being anything else.

“Ready?” he asked, catching me looking at him.

I nodded and together we walked out of the store.

“You want a ride back to work?”

I didn't really feel like walking back and was about to answer yes when I shook my head instead. I imagined riding in the front of the shiny black Range Rover with Henry, or worse, Malcolm's Porsche. And then I pictured how ridiculous I'd look getting out of the car and walking into the kitchen to put on my apron and take breakfast orders.

“That's okay. I can walk.”

Henry didn't try to convince me. Instead, he said good-bye and walked through the parking lot to his car. Only it wasn't the SUV or the sports car. It was Poppy's faded green pickup truck, the tip of a fishing rod poking over the tailgate in back. And I could almost imagine for a minute that he was the same old Henry I'd known since forever, if I didn't know that he was heading out toward Katama to a six-bedroom house overlooking the waves of South Beach, with a Portuguese maid waiting to clean his fish.

Shelby didn't serve. She stayed in the kitchen orchestrating the behind-the-scenes activities, making sure everything that left the kitchen wasn't just cooked perfectly, but looked like something you'd see in a magazine.

She remembered every order, every special request for hollandaise sauce on the side or blueberry pancakes without the blueberries.

The two hours we served breakfast flew by as I shadowed Camille, one of the college girls, and learned how to take and serve orders. Because breakfast was included in the guests' room rate, there was no calculating checks at the end of a meal, just a tip left behind next to the plate of soft butter and jellies.

Before I could even glance up at the grandfather clock by the front door, it was ten o'clock and breakfast hours were over.

The dishes were washed, the tables cleared and set up for tomorrow morning, and we were all putting away the pots and pans and plates when Wendy came into the kitchen to hand out our tasks for the rest of the day.

“Kendra, while everyone else takes care of planning guest activities and special requests, I was thinking you could help Shelby with the lunch orders. How's that sound?” Wendy asked, and I couldn't help but think it sounded a lot like what I'd thought I'd gotten out of when I told Lexi I wouldn't be working at the deli.

But instead of relaying that thought, I told her, “Sounds good.”

“Great.” Wendy agreed. “Shelby will tell you what you need to do.”

The rest of the servers threw their aprons into the hamper by the door and followed Wendy out of the kitchen.

And then I was alone with Shelby, who didn't seem in any rush to begin telling me what to do. Instead, she continued flipping through the cookbook on the counter, stopping only to write things down on a yellow legal pad she'd taken out of the top drawer.

“So what's Winnie up to this summer?” I asked Shelby, taking a seat on the stool in the corner of the kitchen.

“Babysitting,” she answered, and then scribbled something on the pad.

“Sounds like fun.”

Shelby shrugged. “I guess. She seems to think so.”

“So when'd you get back from school?” I asked, knowing full well that Shelby had been back on the island for months. There was always speculation whenever anyone went away to school and then landed back on the island earlier than expected—pregnancies, drugs, failing grades. Nobody just came back because they wanted to. If they wanted to be here so badly, they never would have left in the first place.

“I started at the Willow in April,” she told me, not exactly answering my question. “See those picnic baskets over there?” She pointed to a stack of rectangular wicker baskets by the supply closet. “Go to the front desk and ask for the lunch orders. We have sandwiches to make.”

I hopped down from the stool and headed toward the door, barely resisting the temptation to raise my hand in salute to her on the way out. “Yes, sir,” I muttered under my breath. So much for small talk.

By four o'clock I'd served breakfast to five tables, prepared six picnic lunches, helped Shelby prepare and put out the afternoon snacks, and done pretty much anything else anybody asked me to do, including delivering a bottle of vanilla bubble bath to room 3, where I was greeted by a seventy-year-old woman in a towel turban, fuzzy slippers, and not much else.

As I walked toward the front door on my way out, it occurred to me that while I got a blister on my left heel, a cut on my pinky from a paring knife, and an eyeful of a seventy-year-old bathing beauty, Mona had probably gotten a tan—or at least Mona's pink version of a tan.

“Thanks for your help today, Kendra,” Wendy called out to me from the front desk, just as the grandfather clock gonged for the fourth time. “See you tomorrow!”

In fourteen hours my alarm clock would go off and I'd do today all over again. But even though the idea didn't thrill me, I tried to match Wendy's enthusiasm. “See you tomorrow, Wendy.”

One day down, so many more to go. Walking to the VTA stop on Church Street, I almost envied Ryan. All day he just sat around and waited for people to come in and request a mountain bike or a ten-speed or whatever. The most effort he had to exert was adjusting the strap on some little kid's helmet. And that wasn't exactly difficult and it certainly didn't involve sharp objects.

I put my pinky in my mouth and sucked on my cut. It stung. Almost as badly as the fact that I didn't have a single dollar to put into the manila envelope in my dresser drawer. I knew I probably wouldn't be handling a ton of tables on my first day, but I certainly hadn't counted on having to shadow Camille all morning, watching her collect the ten-dollar bills the guests left behind while I was “learning.”

What had I been thinking when I walked into the Willow and told Wendy I wanted a job? My thought process seemed so stupid now. Completely ridiculous in hindsight, and yet at the time it had seemed almost rational.

Because you know what I was thinking as I walked to the Willow for my first job interview? Two words: canopy bed.

Yes, I fell victim to the very illusion I should have known better than to believe. I lived here. I knew the glossy brochures showing quaint bed-and-breakfasts were merely a sales tool. They always showed the houses in bright sunlight with two-hundred-year-old trees and emerald leaves hanging down as if paying homage to their cozy front porches. It was never gray or raining or, God forbid,
off-season
. It was always summer. There was always a picture of a sitting room with a chintz-covered couch and a delicate tea set placed just so on the coffee table. And there was always a photograph of a canopy bed.

You know the kind, with four delicately carved posts rising from a dark polished wood base, connected with softly curving arcs at the top and covered with sheer, slightly yellowed lace or eyelet. Of course, it's an antique—nobody nowadays has a canopy bed like that. And somewhere in the corner of the picture is a fireplace, its mantle playing host to some sort of flower arrangement and maybe a few candles captured midflicker.

If I was going to be honest—and at this point I had nothing to lose, with my best friend ditching me, Shelby acting like I was a total incompetent, and a grease stain over my right boob where I dropped a pat of butter—then I had to admit that it was the whole canopy bed thing that got me. Sure, I knew I'd be serving breakfast, but it would be like those brochures, with warm syrup in heirloom ceramic pitchers waiting beside plates of perfectly round pancakes, and flanking a centerpiece of small clusters of bluish purple hydrangeas. When breakfast was over I'd be straightening up the books in the parlor, fanning them out next to the tea set so guests could see just enough of the covers to make a selection. And then I'd head upstairs to the
rooms, and the canopy beds, delivering extra bottles of shaving cream to guests who'd forgotten to bring some from home.

So, yes, I should have known better. I should have known the brochures never show the cramped bathroom with the shower stall that's so small, you can't shave your right armpit without your left armpit hanging out over the bath mat. But I fell for the canopy beds, and the rest is history.

Only now it was real. Even though the last thing I felt like doing was admitting that I wished I'd never stepped foot at the Willow, I'd promised Mona I'd call. And even if I didn't feel like sharing the details, like how Shelby made me feel totally incompetent when I mistook orange marmalade for peach jam, I did feel like seeing a friendly face. My best friend's face. And I still thought of Mona as my best friend; that didn't just change because she'd moved away. Or because she could afford a designer purse. Or because her friends had never heard of a tan line.

So on my way to the VTA stop, I called Mona.

“How was it?” She sounded like regular Mona. I could almost picture her sitting on her bed, picking at her toes.

I hadn't even realized how tense I was until my shoulders relaxed. Whether it was the eight-hour day or fear that Mona was just trying to be polite when she said to call her, it didn't matter. Work was over and Mona sounded like she used to.

“Long, but not so bad.” I tried not to make Mona feel too guilty. After all, it wasn't like it was her fault she didn't have to work. “Want to do something?”

“Sure. When do you think you'll be home?”

I looked to my left just as the number 8 bus turned the corner onto Church Street. “The eight is coming, I could just take it to your house.”

“That's okay, I can go to your place.”

“No, I'll come by,” I told her.

Mona hesitated, or at least I think she did. Maybe my reception was cutting out. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I'm on my way.”

Walking up the driveway to Malcolm's house, I kept my eye on the large brass knocker hanging from the front door. I remembered thinking how funny it was, the brass knocker in the shape of a pineapple, the first time Mona took me to the house. I knew I'd like Malcolm without even meeting him because of that brass pineapple door knocker. I figured he had to have a sense of humor. I hadn't figured he'd be so tall, about a head taller than Izzy. The first time I saw her kiss Malcolm I noticed she had to stand on her tiptoes.