“Tell themyouare,” quipped Martha. Then they all laughed, because that was far from the truth.
Nadine isn’t the “person in charge” type. She tends to be more the quiet, unobtrusive, “fade into the background” type. Unless she’s singing. When Nadine is singing, she isn’t quiet or unobtrusive, and she doesn’t fade into the background. She “comes out of her shell,” as her mama says. Nadine wants to come out of her shell more often. It’s just hard to find the opportunity. People expect her to be a certain way. Case in point, Stacy and Martha expected her to go along with their scheme, and that’s exactly what she did.
Through the front windows of the post office, Nadine sees Martha’s car pull out of the parking lot and tries to remember if she’d told them to add onions to her hot dog. It doesn’t matter anyway. She will get what she gets. She can live without onions. She just hopes they remember that she’d said no mustard. Her mama always taught her never to say “hate” about anything, but Nadine does hate mustard.
Restless, she stands up from the little stool she usually sits on and stretches her back, lifting her arms up into the air as she reaches for the ceiling, then dipping all the way down toward the floor before standing back up again. It feels good to stretch and take some deep breaths. She is tired from staying late at Wednesday night karaoke last night. She knows she should’ve gone home at a decent hour, but she’d been having such a good time. It was hard to leave knowing she was only going home to her little,empty house. And, she will admit, she likes the compliments she gets from people when she sings, telling her she has a good voice, telling her she should go onAmerican IdolorThe Voiceor some such. Like she ever would.
Don’t get her wrong. She loves to sing. But she’s pretty sure she doesn’t have that kind of talent. She’s good enough for a church solo, which is how she got started singing back when she was a little bitty thing. But even though she likes singing, she knows she shouldn’t have gone out on a weeknight when she should’ve been getting her rest.
The job at the post office is exhausting. There is so much to learn, so much to remember. It is not easy keeping up with all the rules and regulations attached to mailing a simple package. Nadine doesn’t think she’ll ever learn it all. Stacy, who’s taken her under her wing and been so nice to her ever since she got here, says she’ll get the hang of it before she knows it. She hopes so. She needs the job now more than ever, even if it overwhelms her.
At least she has the weekend to look forward to. Tomorrow is Friday! TGIF! Nadine checks the clock to see how much longer till she can go home. She lets out a long sigh. There are still five hours to go. Martha, who hasn’t taken Nadine under her wing and isn’t really the type to take anyone under her wing, says that if you want to make time slow down, just hang out in the Sunset Beach post office. Martha isn’t wrong. Martha rarely is, and she’s the first to let you know it.
Wait. She looks back at the clock, registering the time as her heart lifts a little. By now he has the papers. By now he should know. It is a good sign, she decides, that she’s gotten no calls or texts. She feels a little glimmer in her heart, the faintest stirring, the stardust but not the whole shooting star. Still, it is enough. It is still hope.Maybe, she thinks,everything will be okay.Just like her mama said it would. But Mama doesn’t know the wholestory. There are some things Nadine doesn’t want to burden her mama with yet.
Before she can think on it anymore, the entry door opens and a woman comes in carrying a large box, struggling under its weight. The door doesn’t swing closed behind her because another woman comes in right on the other woman’s heels. Customers. Nadine swallows back her nerves, hoping she can take care of whatever these ladies need without having her coworkers here to back her up. She hopes Stacy and Martha won’t dillydally, but she isn’t counting on it. Now that they have escaped, they aren’t likely to rush back. Not on a day like today.
The customer hoists the box up onto the counter between them, blocking Nadine’s view of her and cutting off any chance that the woman can see the helpful smile Nadine tries to offer. Later Nadine will recall that moment, how she thought to herself,It’s showtime.
And what a show it turned out to be.
Chapter 3
Just a little ways down the road from the post office, a woman is running. Not for her life, but for her health. The woman is Hope, the person, who doesn’t necessarily like to run but does so because she knows she should since she’s not old but she’s not getting any younger either. She is also running because she is bored and she knows a run will kill some time before she can shower, then walk the short distance from the place she has been calling home to the place where she works.
She rounds the corner and her heart sinks a little at the sight of the house. She mightcallit home, but it is not her home. Hope has a home, but it is halfway across the country from where she is now. She left that home to come to Sunset Beach, to the trailer everyone in her family refers to as simply “108.”
Hope’s family has made 108 Live Oak Drive their second home since 1980, not all that long after Sunset Beach was established, which was in 1958. (If you want to fact-check that date, just look at the T-shirts the tourists wear, and you’ll see.) But it’s a long time nonetheless, especially when you consider that 1980 was almost fifty years ago, which, for many of us, is hard to accept.
Hope’s grandmother used to own the trailer, and when she passed it was left to Hope’s dad. But he doesn’t come here muchanymore. So when everything happened and she needed somewhere to land, it made sense for her to land here. She planned to stay a few weeks, but that was eight months ago.
Hope slows her pace as she nears 108, allowing both her and her running partner, a Rottweiler named Rufus, time to catch their collective breath. She can hear Rufus panting as they walk, but she does not make eye contact with him. She knows she probably ran farther than he would’ve wanted had he possessed the means to say so. Rufus is not old, but he’s not getting any younger either. He does not love to run no matter how good it is for him. As they walk the remaining distance to the trailer, Hope reminds Rufus of the benefits of running. She discusses the effects of cardio on heart health and weight loss. She does not say that Rufus could stand to lose a few pounds. She doesn’t want to hurt his feelings.
A little truck drives past them, and they pause before crossing to the driveway of 108. “Plus, I have to go to work soon,” Hope continues, “and you’ll be in your crate the whole time I’m gone.” At the wordcrate, Rufus comes to a stop. But Hope tugs gently on his leash to keep him moving. “Now you’ll be good and tired and the time will go by faster because you’ll be asleep while I’m gone. So really, I did you a favor.”
They make their way up the driveway together, Rufus taking his sweet time until they hear the crunching of tires on the gravel and turn in unison to see the same truck that just drove by suddenly there, behind them. She hears the driver put the truck into Park, and her heart rate spikes in tandem. She reminds herself that this is Sunset Beach, not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There is no need to be alarmed.
Rufus, however, does not see the distinction and begins barking and lunging at the driver, who is really, she sees as he emergesfrom the truck, just a boy. A boy who immediately flattens himself against the truck at the sight of the dog, his eyes wide as he says something that sounds like, “Uhhhh?”
Hope struggles to apologize to the kid and wrestle with Rufus at the same time. It takes all of her strength to restrain the beast. Rufus is a sweet dog, but he is trained for Hope’s safety and takes that job very seriously.
Once Rufus is still, she scolds him for good measure, using her authoritative voice. She knows that if Rufus could roll his eyes in response, he would. She goes to take a step but discovers that Rufus, in his efforts to get at the truck’s driver, has somehow wound the leash around her legs. If she actually needed to run away, she would not be able to. So, in that respect, Rufus has not been thinking of her safety. She alternates between trying to unwind the leash from her calves and maintain control of Rufus. Once freed, she yanks the leash in such a way that Rufus has no choice but to head with her toward the trailer.
She calls out over her shoulder, “Let me just put him up,” without even checking to see if the kid is still smashed up against the truck. Inside the house, she unclips the leash, freeing Rufus to go stick his head in his water bowl, which he does, making loud, grateful slurping noises. Hope could use some water too, but first she needs to get rid of the kid in her driveway. If he is even still there. He might’ve fled after his run-in with Rufus. No one would blame him.
She turns and goes back through the door, running smack into someone as she does. Except she hasn’t run into a person. She’s run into a massive bouquet of flowers. A floral scent fills the air around her, reminding her of the way the church sanctuary smelled on her wedding day. For a moment she feels dizzy, disoriented.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” says the kid, who is now in her doorway holding the flowers. If Hope had looked closer, she would’ve noticed the florist’s logo on the side of his truck, but she was distracted by her dog. “I just thought I’d bring these on in to you. Are you okay?”
“Sure, sure,” she manages to say. “I’m fine.” She takes the bouquet from the boy’s outstretched hand and gives it a once-over. It seems fine too. No flowers were harmed in this collision.
The kid points at the card that is fastened to the bouquet. “Hope,” he says, reading her name aloud.
Hope nods. “That’s my name,” she says. She does not saydon’t wear it out, but she thinks it.
“Huh,” he says. “That’s the name of this bouquet too.” He points again at her name on the card as if it is proof. “We call it the ‘Hope Bouquet.’ My mom came up with it.” He gestures to the flowers, the wide array of incongruent colors and shapes clustered together. “She puts in all the different flowers that are supposed to symbolize hope, you know?”
She does know. It had been her husband Alex’s idea to fill the sanctuary at their wedding with all the flowers that are meant to symbolize hope: lilies and crocuses and cherry blossoms and irises and daffodils. It was a loud, mismatched, beautiful mess. In keeping with the theme, she’d danced with her father to “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty as her mother stood off to the side watching, persistently catching her tears with a tissue to preserve her full face of makeup.
