Page 34 of Worth the Trip

“I was awake before now.”

“Lying before coffee is nasty work, as you and your sister always saying.”

“I was resting my eyes.”

“Go sit down before you add perjury to it.”

Breakfast passed without one discussion of Crème & Chill. Nana wanted to know whether I’d finished the book she mailed me in March, why I still hadn’t sewn the button onto my favorite pink blouse, and what I intended to wear to the waterfront festival. She rejected my first choice before I finished describing it.

“They’re comfortable.”

“They’re beige.”

“What does that have to do with comfort?”

“Nothing. Got everything to do with you leaving this house looking like you surrendered.”

“My feet aren’t making a fashion statement.”

“Those shoes already made one, and I don’t care for what they said.”

I wore the pink sandals.

Willow Run had begun celebrating before I reached downtown. Cars lined both sides of Bay Street while children tugged parents toward white tents gathered along the waterfront. Music spilled from a temporary stage near the marina, brass and drums mixing with laughter and vendors calling out candles, jewelry, fishing lures, paintings, pralines, and enough food to make breakfast feel like poor planning.

The town had changed since my childhood without becoming unfamiliar. The old bait shop now shared its building with a coffee counter, but the faded scales still hung near the entrance. The movie theater had become a performing arts center, its marquee restored instead of replaced. New restaurants occupied storefronts near the water while handwritten signs still announced whatever fish had come in that morning.

Willow Run had made room for new things without erasing everything that came before them.

I parked behind Franklin Books and entered through the side door. The bell above the frame announced me to a room dense with paper, polished wood, and cinnamon coffee. Shelves crowded every wall. Stacks rose from the floor in arrangements that looked accidental until somebody requested a title and Mr. Franklin retrieved it without hesitation.

He looked up from behind the register. “Well, I’ll be. The deserter returns.”

“I sent you a case of brown butter pecan last Christmas.”

“And I forgave you until February.”

“You ate twelve pints in two months?”

“Don’t come in here counting another grown person’s blessings.”

His daughter, Camille, emerged from the back, carrying a box of bookmarks. She hugged me and immediately started discussing a winter pop-up with Crème & Chill. Normally, I would’ve reached for my phone before she finished the thought, opened my calendar, found a date, and turned a casual possibility into something I was responsible for delivering.

Instead, I accepted her card and tucked it into my purse.

“Call me next week. Nyla and I can look at dates together.”

Mr. Franklin pressed his hand to his chest. “You letting your sister look at the calendar now?”

“She’s always looked at it.”

“That ain’t what I heard.”

“Why is everybody discussing my business?”

“Because your business got good ice cream and interesting management.”

I bought two novels, allowed Mr. Franklin to add a third after accusing me of neglecting my literary education, and wandered back into the festival.