“I am, Tess.” Kate leaned over the counter, bartender-style. “Whatcha havin’, little lady?”
“I heard there’s decaf and gossip.”
“Plenty of both,” she said, turning to fill the order while Vivien sat next to her, glancing around.
“What happened to Jonah?” she asked. “He was just here.”
Kate sighed. “Atlas cried, so he went downstairs. Meredith went to find the Baby Bjorn to take the little nugget to the beach.”
“That always calms him,” Vivien said. “Nothing like a pink-tinged sky and lapping waves. Kid lives the life, I tell you.”
“Funny how we know that little man already,” Kate mused. “He’s lived here, what, a week or so?”
“Lived here?” Tessa scoffed. “He runs the place.”
The others laughed, but no one argued. Life had been turned upside down by the nine-pound screamer, but they all loved him so.
“Still, I worry about Jonah,” Kate said.
Vivien nodded. “He was so quiet during dinner and barely ate. I remember barbeques when he was a kid, able to put away three ears of corn.”
“Well, we were talking about things that happened in the last century, long before he was around,” Tessa said. “Maybe he was bored.”
“Maybe.” Kate poured three cups of decaf. “He’s supposed to start classes later this week. He might be preoccupied with how he’s going to balance school and fatherhood. And we haven’t heard from Carly’s parents yet, so that’s on his mind.”
Tessa nodded and glanced around, noticing that her mother and Maggie had also disappeared. “And the sorority sisters?”
“They went up to the apartment to rest.” Kate slid a cup of coffee toward her and the bottled creamer she liked.
A beat of silence passed as Tessa fixed her coffee.
“Sooo…” Vivien dragged the word out with a playful song in her voice.
“Dusty Mathers!” Kate and Tessa replied in perfect unison, making all three of them laugh.
“Seriously,” Kate said, leaning over the counter like she’d been dying to start the conversation. “It’s like he’s not the same kid. Well, obviously he’s a fifty-two-year old man, but he’s so grounded and sensible and warm. Nice-looking, too.”
“And he brought me a purple Boogie board!” Vivien exclaimed, making a face. “How sweet of him to remember he broke mine.”
“That was too cute,” Kate said. “He’s just awesome.”
“He’s been through a lot,” Tessa said. “His wife died, and I get the impression she was sick for a while.”
“Oh, that’s so sad,” Vivien said. “But he seems so…stable. Knowing him as a teenager, I would have expected…”
“Jail time,” Tessa finished with a snort. “And I say that as the current owner of one of your diaries.”
They both gave her questioning looks.
“I flipped through it looking for his name today,” she confessed. “Do you remember the time he showed up on the beach drunk in the middle of the day?”
“He barely had one beer today,” Kate noted.
“He said there were ghosts,” Vivien said softly, sitting up as she remembered.
“Yes! That’s what you wrote in your diary. What did he mean?”
“I don’t know, but I never forgot it,” Vivien said. “I remember the hairs on the back of my neck standing. I was a kid. I thought he meant real ghosts.”
