With Mickey and Wesley’s contact information in hand, Cece thanks him and takes her leave as quicky as possible. She has the distinct feeling that if she’d stayed for a moment longer, Bob would have offered her a beer from his secret cooler he has hidden somewhere.
On her way back to her car, Cece instinctively glances toward the trailer. The blinds are drawn, but there’s movement, she thinks. Wishful thinking, Cece reprimands herself. Focus on the job, she thinks. Keep your shit together before you start thinking about anything else. That’s what had gotten her in trouble the first time around. She’d do things different this time around. She’d do them right.
So lost in thought is Cece that it takes her a moment to recognize Lacy standing before her. Cece looks around wildly, trying to identify the illusionist who’s playing tricks on her.
“I saw you from the trailer,” Lacy says, as if to allay Cece’s fears of the supernatural.
“Oh” is all Cece can manage. She wonders how much if anything Morgan has told his daughter, his daughter who is back, which means he hasn’t lost the custody battle just yet.
“What’re you doing here?”
“Two guys were fired a few weeks ago. I’m going to offer them jobs at Rayburn—now that we’re expanding.”
“That’s nice of you.”
Cece can’t tell if Lacy’s being facetious. The girl had undoubtedly noticed her absence the last few weeks, but had Morgan given a reason? “They’re good workers. They deserve jobs.”
“My dad is always saying work makes the man.”
Cece can’t resist. “How is your dad?”
Lacy ponders the question, crossing and uncrossing her pale, gangly legs. Cece is happy that at least she’s been wearing sunblock at the beach. “About the same as the last time you saw him.”
Cece doesn’t know what she wants from the conversation, so she scrunches up her nose and looks into the sun.
“Is it because of my mom and dad?” Lacy says finally. “Is that why you don’t come around anymore? Is it because of that lady who knocked on our door and told you about the cops getting called?”
“What? No,” Cece says, and she squats down so she’s eye to eye with Lacy. “That’s not it at all.”
“Then why are you acting weird all of a sudden?”
Cece searches the ground for answers. She wonders if Morgan is watching them from inside the trailer. From somewhere deep within the hangar, a hammer clangs. “I made a mistake,” Cece says, meeting Lacy’s gaze. It is a strange and unnerving sensation to admit your faults and shortcomings to a thirteen-year-old. “I took your father for granted. I wasn’t a good friend.”
“I fight with my friends all the time, especially when they borrow my favorite outfits without asking, but we always make up.”
“What’s your secret?” Cece asks.
“That’s easy,” Lacy says, like it’s the most obvious thing inthe world. “You just have to admit you were wrong. And eat some humble pie, at least that’s what my dad always says.”
“That simple, huh?”
“That simple,” Lacy says cheerily and skips back to the trailer.
To put offspending the evening cooped up in the drab motel room (she still hasn’t found a decent apartment), Cece picks up Bernard, who is none too pleased about his cramped confines, and drives directly to the Whaler after work, where she’s become a folk hero of sorts. Or at least, someone who doesn’t have to buy her own drinks for a while. Word got out quickly about what she’d said at the town hall, and now everyone at the bar, including the bartender, won’t let her spend a penny. She’s also personally classified Bernard as Cece’s service animal, which means he can preside over the Whaler’s modest craft beer selection for as long as he pleases. Cece feels a modicum of satisfaction at her acceptance by the local clientele. For once, she’s a part of something; she’s welcome—shortcomings and all.
The work crowd hasn’t quite arrived yet, and Cece elbows up to the near-empty bar and orders a beer, something cheap and easy to drink. On the television, the Yankees are in the playoff hunt. The game hasn’t started yet, but the pregame show is on, the talking heads rattling on about what storylines to follow. Two plumbers sit at the far end of the bar complaining about the price of gas. At a high-top table, an old-timer sits hunched over her whiskey straight. Strange, Cece thinks, how fast things happen,how they can come together in an instant, a moment of pure random chance, and then fall apart just as quickly, like they meant nothing at all. The bartender puts a bowl of mixed nuts in front of her. Craving something stronger, Cece orders a seven and seven and fires off a message to Richie, telling him she set up interviews for Mickey and Wesley. They seemed thrilled by the prospect of a steady gig.
There’s a voicemail from Wynonna, no doubt concerning their father. Cece should listen to it right away, but instead, she stuffs the phone deep into her jeans pocket and takes a long drink, sucking the sugary goodness through her teeth. It numbs her forehead, and she holds the cool glass against her cheek, ice sloshing. It can wait five minutes.
There are pressing matters (Where will she live? Is Richie’s faith in her unfounded? Who’ll take care of Barry when Kim inevitably leaves for good? What’ll her family say when they find out Cece’s left Jonathan for the second time?), but for now, all she can manage is the decision to sit in this local bar and feed Bernard cashews from her outstretched palm. For all her successes this summer, all her victories, big and small, Cece can’t ignore the nagging emptiness that irritates her like a single grain of sand in a bathing suit—a constant reminder of where she’s been, where she’ll never go again. Soon, it will be autumn, and Cece doesn’t know how to make sense of it all—time passing, the seasons changing with relentless predictability. She has the distinct and terrifying sense that she’s lost or losing something.
“Everything all right here?” a familiar voice says.
Cece closes her eyes and dares not open them, lest it be adream, a hallucination. She doesn’t believe it until the bartender says Morgan’s name. She feels him sit down on the stool next to her. Bernard whines, struggling against his leash.
“Funny seeing you here.”
The serendipity is all too much for Cece. “How did you know…”
