“Yup. Go for it,” Buck urged.
And…
Rip.
People!
Not a big crowd, for sure, but there were at least half a dozen interested parties waiting on the sidewalk for them to open.
Trask and Buck took care of the paper over the large, plate-glass windows, tearing it down in hopes that more passers-by would be curious and come have a look.
But for the few who stood outside now…
“Hello, hello,” Tabitha’s cheerful voice greeted the six who eagerly, without urging, walked in. “Welcome to Diver Downeast,” she told them. “Please, feel free to take a look around and have some food. We’re all here to answer any questions you might have.”
The entire restof the day went by in a blur.
There was never a moment when there weren’t at least three or four people checking things out and asking what their new business offered. At times, the place had even been so packed that walking around meant knocking into elbows and saying a lot of “excuse-mes”.
Jett, along with Tabitha, had talked so much, she feared she’d go hoarse, and her face was almost numb from smiling.
But what a thrill.
By the end of the day, they had fifteen people signed up for diving lessons, ten of those for the discounted winter training they’d offered.
Another score was that two local business owners were interested in having them make a long overdue dive on asmall container of goods that had gone overboard off a ship down in Searsport just before Christmas which had never been retrieved. The vendors had been paid the insurance money for the inventory they’d lost, but they were now interested in seeing if any of it remained salvageable.
Sheila had booked that job for Monday.
By the time they closed up, they’d met probably half of the towns’ population with whom they’d been welcomed with open arms, and all the food they’d laid in had been picked clean.
A huge success, by anyone’s standards.
And now…
Crap.
Jett had to get up the nerve to talk to Trask about where, if at all, their association was headed.
She’d just decided to retrieve her coat and urge him to take her home, when?—
“Who wants to celebrate our killer of a day with dinner and drinks?” Buck suggested gleefully. “I just called Bobbie, and she’s up for joining us. Of course, no cocktails for her,” he grinned.
The couple had told everyone, just a few weeks earlier, that Bobbie was expecting, and had made it through her first trimester with flying colors.
“I’m in,” Trask replied. “You?” he looked at Jett.
“Sure.”
Saved.
Jett welcomed the reprieve. A couple more hours of nonconfrontation sounded damned good to her.
Tabitha and Spence looked at each other and shrugged.
What was…?
“We, uh, actually have some news.” Spence suddenly looked like a puffer-fish; his chest expanding almost comically.
