The bell dings once, softly.
“Don’t,” I say without turning around. “If you’re here to tell me he lookedpositively ediblein sweatpants again, I’m going to start an anti-gossip jar and fund the teen reading program for a decade.”
“Rude,” says a voice that is not Mrs. Winthrop. “And weirdly accurate.”
I spin. Lila stands in the doorway, raincoat half zipped, cheeks flushed. There’s a streak of applesauce on her cuff, which means motherhood is still winning on points.
She holds out a paper cup. “You look like you haven’t hydrated since you graduated from high school.”
“I’ve had coffee.”
“Not hydration.” She sets the cup down, peels off the raincoat, and folds herself into the stool Daisy vacated. “So. How’s your morning not-thinking-about-my-brother going?”
I take a long drink of actual hydrating water and try for mild. “Fine.”
“Define ‘fine’.”
“Functional. No sobbing into Classic Literature. No narratively convenient power outage.”
“Yet,” she says, and bumps my knee with hers.
I could lie. I could dodge. I could make a joke about restraining orders for family members who ask invasive questions in my place of business. Instead, I blow out a breath and lean back against the shelves.
“He was kind,” I say, surprising myself with the word.
“Yeah,” Lila says softly, like that was her favorite answer, and she didn’t want to sway the judge. “He has been lately. Past couple of years, actually. It’s unnerving.”
“It’s disorienting,” I admit. “Like somebody tilted the town ten degrees and forgot to warn us.”
She tips her head. “You know you don’t owe anybody a performance. Not me. Not him. Not Mrs. Winthrop’s thirst.”
“What I owe them is hazardous to my hazard plan.”
“That’s because your hazard plan involves hiding in a lighthouse like a particularly literate sea witch.”
“Sea witches have boundaries.”
“Sea witches also steal voices.” She grins. “Don’t make me dangle your karaoke performance of ‘Jolene’ over you as blackmail.”
“That was one time.”
“It wassomething.” She reaches across the counter and squeezes my hand. “Dinner Saturday. You. Me. Ivy. No boys. We’re going to eat pasta, drink wine, and discuss your feelings like civilized women.”
“My feelings are feral.”
“Perfect.” Lila stands, shrugs back into her coat, then hesitates. “He asked about you, by the way. Not…bluntly. But he wanted to know if you were okay. He always…asks.”
I busily straighten an already-rectangular stack of notecards. “He could askme.”
“He would, except for the past five years, when he comes anywhere near you, you scatter away like you’ve left your flat iron plugged in and turned on,” she says simply. She flashes me a smile that lives somewhere between mischief and loyalty. “Try not to redecorate the place to spell out ‘go away’ in book spines before then.”
I watch her go, the door swings shut behind her, hissing in a goodbye of its own.
The rain thickens, fogging the windows. The bay becomes a watercolor with the edges licked away. I make a lazy loop of the shop, checking for leaks—a reflex I’ve developed the way some people develop a sixth sense for when their toddlers go quiet. The west eave holds. The old glass in the lantern room sulks but stays intact.
At noon, I turn the sign on the main door to BACK IN FIVE and take my lunch to the covered porch. I carry Daisy’s quiche disguised as respectability, a book I’ve read twelve times, and a blanket I pretend I don’t keep out here to feel like I’m starring in the slowest indie film ever made.
The porch boards are slick, the air that tender, icy kind that smells like clean metal and far-off fireplaces. I tuck my feet under me and open the book, trying—failing—to make the words behave when my brain is still up on a roof with a boy who became a man without asking anyone’s permission.
