On Friday, I take a nature trail that runs along the creek. I think of it as a run to clear my head, but since I stopped at Little Croissant beforehand and am also incredibly unathletic, it’s really more of a mosey or an amble.
A productive one though.
I decide to pitch structuring the book like a call-and-response. The rumors in the gossip rags of the time, followed by Margaret’s confirmation or rebuttal.
When I’ve finished the walk, I drive over to the enclave and wander the colorful gift shops, picking out small presents for Bianca, Cillian, and Priya—tiny hand-painted wooden turtles—along with a postcard to send Audrey, since anything larger than that will just be something she has to find a way to store or send home.
Afterward, I cross the drive to get an iced decaf and take up my post in the garden patio beneath Little Croissant’s raised platform. Other than a couple in yoga gear and a teenage Bible study, I have the place to myself and a fully charged laptop.
I’m more focused than I’ve been all week. The hours fly by, and it’s nearly four p.m. when a jolly “Well, hey there, stranger!” jolts me out of work mode.
I blink against the sunlight until a gap-toothed smile resolves in front of me, along with a bulbous nose and a bucket hat.
“Cecil! Hi!” I rise to hug him on instinct, despite having absolutely never hugged this man before.
He takes it in stride, hugs me back like we’re the oldest friends in the world. “How you been? Missed you at my half birthday.”
“Oh, sorry about that.” I drop into my seat and wave for him to join me.
He does. “No, no worries. Honestly, I hear I had a bit too much to drink and did the Macarena on the bar, so it’s probably for the best you weren’t there.”
“Now you’re really making me wish I’d stayed.”
His wispy brows flick up. “So you stopped by?”
“Yeah, we were there for a while, but then something came up.”
“We?”
My cheeks heat. “Oh, my friend Hayden. I guess you met him?”
He snaps his fingers. “The other writer!”
“Right,” I say.
“So he missed the bar-top dancing too?” he asks hopefully.
I laugh. “He did. Although I think anyone reading about that would only be more excited about Little Crescent.”
“Oh, no.” He waves a hand. “Not the four p.m. dinner crowd. Most of them know better. I’m lucky I made it through the night without breaking my new hip. Now tell me, Alice: How are you finding our little island?”
“It’s great,” I say honestly.
“You did okay with the storm?” he says.
“That sprinkle the other night?” I say.
He guffaws, slapping the table as he lumbers to his feet. “Knew I liked you. Hey, if you see your friend Hayden, tell him I found that picture we were talking about.”
“Picture?” I say.
“An old photograph,” Cecil says. “He and I got to talking, and I told him about how I used to have hair down to my waist in the seventies. He wanted to see the proof.” He stops and laughs gruffly to himself. “I’m sure he was just humoring an old man, but…”
I’m torn between trying to get more information and feeling like that’s somehow cheating in this strange competition Hayden and I have found ourselves in.
Because if I know anything about him, he’s not just humoring Cecil. He doesn’t do that. Which means he had a real reason for asking to see this picture. Or else he didn’t ask at all and Cecil just volunteered it, another distinct possibility, though with how direct Hayden tends to be, I’m really not convinced that’s what’s going on.
I tamp my curiosity down. “I’ll tell him,” I promise, and Cecil raps his knuckles on the table before turning and strolling away.
Hayden lowers his fork from his mouth, the bite of diner hash browns still dangling from it. “A picture?” he asks.
“That’s what he said.”
One side of his mouth inches up. “And you just let that go, did you?”
I fold my arms atop the sticky table. “Actually, I did. It felt like cheating.”
He sits back, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “I don’t want you to do your job any differently because of me.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s a lead you chased down.”
“I never said it was a lead,” he points out.
“Is it?” I try to arch my brow at him.
A quiet grunt of laughter escapes him. “You’re bad at that.”
“Well, I can’t be perfect at everything, I guess,” I say wistfully.
He sits forward again, his hands settling over my kneecaps under the table. “You could’ve asked him.”
“What if I ask you instead?” I say.
His head tips, and he draws in a breath between his parted lips.
“Never mind!” I say.
“Ask to see the picture,” he says intently, then adds, “It might not mean anything to you. It might not mean anything, period. But I’ll tell you why I wanted to see it. After.”
Not after you see it, I know, but after we know how this ends.
I stretch one hand out over the table, another handshake agreement in a series of them.
His hand eclipses mine, and I pull it across the table to press a kiss to the back of it, the only way I can keep myself from blurting I love you. The tender expression that dawns across his severe features makes me think he heard the words all the same.
On Saturday morning, on my way out the door, I run back inside and dig through the stack of junk by the front door until I find Captain Cecil’s card.
I fire off a quick text, and then I head over to Margaret’s.
Since Hayden’s and my arrival, she has apparently let her regular exercise fall to the wayside, which is how she convinced me that today’s interview should largely be conducted from her swimming pool.
I wish I’d packed a sensible one-piece, but being me, I’ve only brought a skimpy hot sauce–red bikini. The least professional swimwear, arguably, but we’ll make do. I sit on the edge of the sun-drenched pool, my legs in the water, and set up my recording devices beside me.
At the far end of the pool, she shrugs off her robe and tosses it onto a lounger to reveal a canary-yellow tankini, and I’m instantly less self-conscious about my own sartorial choices.
“I love your suit,” I call to her as she descends the steps, clinging to the metal handrail.
“Right back atcha!” she says. “I tend to trust people who love color. Shows good judgment, don’t you think?”
I can’t tell if that’s a compliment to me, a jab toward Hayden, both, or neither. Stranger, I can’t tell which I want it to be.
It’s a good thing if she trusts me. I want this job. But if she’s implying that Hayden in his understated, monochromatic wardrobe isn’t trustworthy, then I’m having a hard time not being a little offended.
Shit. Maybe he’s been right all along. Maybe this is all stickier than I realize.
It’s just one more week. Either way, things will be settled very soon.
I grab my notebook and pen and stack them on my thighs as Margaret begins wading back and forth, arms akimbo. “So,” I say, clearing my throat, “we’d just gotten to—”
“Cosmo,” she interrupts, still sloshing back and forth. “We’d finally gotten to Cosmo.”
