There were two certainties about summer in Rapid Bay: the unbearable heat and the unbearably wealthy. Neither was particularly pleasant to deal with, but both were an unfortunate necessity for my mom’s small beach café to survive. This summer was no exception, as the vacationing elite descended on our coastal town and briefly transformed our simple, sleepy home into a bustling hive of activity.
I’d spent most of the break helping my mom by working at the café. She’d never had the money to hire extra hands for the busy season, so I’d been chipping in since I was old enough to carry a tray of food. I usually quite enjoyed the madness of a busy day serving customers. The chaotic, frantic energy made the summer days pass by in a flash, but I couldn’t say the same today. Today, it seemed nothing was going right.
“Oh, sweet heaven,” Norma groaned. “That penny-pinching plastic panther is back.”
I looked up from the stubborn stain on the counter I was cleaning. A woman had just entered the café with her husband and teenage son in tow. I immediately recognized them as they had eaten here several times this week already, and the woman’s face was pumped so full of chemicals it was kind of hard to forget.
The father and son were dressed casually and looked ready for a day out on one of the expensive yachts docked at the marina. The woman appeared to have missed the memo though. Her sky-high wedges didn’t look very seaworthy, and her fitted leather dress must have been sweltering in the heat. She wore a broad-brimmed hat, even though she was indoors, and was holding the same striking panther’s head handbag she’d been toting around all week.
It had only taken one encounter for Norma and me to realize these people were the worst type of vacationers who visited our town. The father and son ignored us entirely while the woman rarely made eye contact. She wasn’t much taller than me but seemed to stand a little straighter and tilt her head up so she looked down her nose when she spoke to me. She slowly dragged out the words as if she thought I wouldn’t understand otherwise. I might have been waiting tables for the summer, but I was at the top of my class at school and definitely smart enough to know a job didn’t equal someone’s worth. It didn’t help my opinion of the family that they hadn’t tipped us once.
“I think it’s your turn, Isobel,” Norma said as she hurried out back to the kitchen.
I turned to object, but she was already gone.
“Traitor,” I hissed under my breath. Norma might have been in her sixties, but she sure was quick. She’d been working for my mom as a waitress for as long as I could remember, and she was as much a part of the café as the mismatched colored chairs or the seagrass lanterns that hung from the ceiling. She was practically family, which was probably why she felt no guilt fleeing difficult customers and leaving them to me.
“I need three coffees.”
I turned to find the panther had arrived at the counter. The woman had barely acknowledged me. Instead, her eyes were fixated on the phone her manicured nails were tapping against. Her husband and son weren’t much better. The man was loitering by the front door on a phone call, and the son was laughing at some video he was watching on his own phone. I was completely invisible to these people.
Despite the fact she wasn’t looking at me, I gave the woman a warm smile. “If you’d like to take a seat, I can bring those right over to you.”
The woman defied the Botox that froze her forehead to lift one eyebrow as she finally glanced up at me. “We won’t be eating today. It’s a million degrees in here. You can make those coffees to go.”
My cheeks flushed under her condescending gaze. She was looking at me as if it were my fault the air-conditioning was broken. It had needed replacing for a while, but Mom never had the money for that. All summer, the old girl had been coughing like she needed a good thump on the back. Usually, a well-aimed knock to the side of the box did the trick, and her droning mechanical purr would return, but no amount of force seemed to be working this morning. I really wished she hadn’t chosen the hottest morning of the summer to rasp her last dying breath.
The whole café was stifling, only made worse by the ovens and cooktops blazing in the kitchen. We had a few portable fans cranked up to their maximum power, but they were fighting a losing battle. They simply pushed the hot, humid air around the building without providing any relief. We’d only had a handful of customers all day, and like this woman, most of them had ordered their drinks to go.
“Sorry, yes, it’s a bit unpleasant in here at the moment as our air-conditioning is broken. I’ll grab those coffees for—”
I was interrupted as the teen son started to grumble. “Mom, this is ridiculous. I know this place is closer, but it’s like waiting in a furnace. Let’s just go to the Starbucks down the road.”
The woman gave a short exhale as she considered her son’s complaint. “Yes, dear, you’re probably right. If I wanted to go to a sauna, I’d book an appointment at the spa.” She placed a hand on his arm and started to guide him toward the door. “You can cancel that order,” she called over her shoulder to me, once again not bothering to look my way.
I slouched down on the counter as I watched them leave. They might not have been the nicest people, but at least they were customers. Something we were seriously lacking today.
“What happened?” Norma asked, conveniently returning as soon as the woman and her family were gone.
“Apparently, this panther isn’t a fan of the heat. She decided to go hunt down a coffee at the Starbucks instead.”
“Ah.” Norma nodded. “I don’t really blame them.”
“This heat really is getting ridiculous.” I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead.
Norma shrugged. She must have been struggling just as much as I was, but she gave no hint of being bothered by it. She wasn’t even slightly flushed; meanwhile, I was sweating like I’d just run a marathon. I had to wonder if Norma’s spitfire energy somehow combatted heat waves.
“Well, sugar, be grateful you won’t be here past lunch. Not with that big trip you’re going on—”
“Let’s not talk about the trip.” I rushed to cut her off. I was determined not to think about where I was headed after work today until I absolutely had to. I still had a couple of hours of my shift left, and I fully intended to make the most of the blissful remaining moments when I could pretend the trip wasn’t happening.
Norma tutted. “Denial isn’t going to make it go away.”
“I’m not in denial. I’d just rather live in the moment.”
“Sounds like denial to me.”
I chose to ignore her. “Anyway, getting back to this heat,” I said before she could continue to poke holes in the happy illusion I’d created for myself. “Surely, there’s something else we can do to get some cool air in here?”
“I think we’ve tried everything, but I could always head outside and do a rain dance?”
I might have laughed, but Norma looked dead serious. “Uh, maybe we use the rain dance as a last resort. We don’t want to ruin the last few days of everyone’s vacations.”
“Ah, that’s right, summer’s almost over. School starts next week, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t remind me,” I muttered. I normally didn’t mind the start of a new school year, and I’d always thought my senior year was going to be the best year of my life. But everything was different now.
“Perhaps you could take one last look at the air conditioner?” I suggested. I knew I was probably pushing the friendship, seeing as Norma had already tried to fix it several times this morning, but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. If anyone could bring the air conditioner back to life, it was Norma. Almost everything in the café was a million years old, but she knew the tricks that got even our most stubborn appliances to work.
She shared a doubtful smile with me. “I have a feeling it’s not long for this world, sweetie.” Norma often had feelings about things and had been proclaiming for years she was a psychic. She was almost always wrong when it came to her predictions, but she was probably right about this. “But I suppose I could see if some more Norma love will do the trick.”
“Thank you!” I exclaimed. “Just maybe don’t throw a wrench at it this time.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Norma winked before heading out back. She was a firm believer in tough love when it came to getting appliances to work, so I imagined she was off to see if there was a baseball bat or something equally as sturdy she could use to bludgeon the machine.
There were only two customers in the café, so I made sure to cover their tables while Norma was gone. The place should have been full at this time of day, and I knew the lack of customers was really going to set my mom back. The café had been struggling ever since the new Starbucks opened down the road.
The familiar chime of the doorbell sounded, and although my ears perked up, I didn’t bother to glance at the door immediately. I expected to hear the chime sound again as the customer quickly realized it was so hot you could barely breathe in here and tried to backtrack as fast as possible.
It was only after several seconds had passed without the sound of a second ding that I looked up from the table I was wiping down. The rag in my hand dropped to the ground, and I drew in a ragged breath when I saw who had entered the café.
What on earth were they doing here?
I wanted to escape into the safety of the kitchen, but I couldn’t seem to move as I watched my ex-boyfriend walk hand in hand across the room with the girl who used to be my best friend. Could this day get any worse?
Nina and Levi slid into one of the booths, laughing at something one of them had said. The sound sliced right through me and seemed to pierce my heart with unnerving accuracy. Neither of them had noticed me, but how could they when they seemed incapable of taking their eyes off each other? I couldn’t understand how I’d found the room to be so hot only moments ago because suddenly my skin felt ice cold.
My eyes darted toward the back of the restaurant, desperately searching for Norma. Nina and Levi were the last people in the world I wanted to serve. The two of them had been cheating together for months before I found out. Months. And the only thing worse than their betrayal was the fact I’d lost both my boyfriend and my best friend on the same day. The last few weeks of the school year had been agony, and seeing them again only had me reliving the heartbreak all over.
By some miracle, I hadn’t encountered them at all during the summer break. But that was set to change when school started next week. I thought I still had a few more days before I’d have to face them again, but it seemed today’s bad luck was catching.
I looked for Norma one last time before I gave up hope of any rescue and forced myself over to their table. Each step felt a little heavier than the last, and even though I did my best to put on a brave face, it was impossible to stop my hands from shaking and ignore how my legs felt powerless beneath me. Sweat clung to the back of my neck and beaded at my brow—and for the first time today, it wasn’t entirely caused by the heat.
I had no idea how I was going to survive my senior year.
When I arrived at Nina and Levi’s booth, it took me a moment to gather my wits enough to speak. They looked perfect together, like some picture out of an Abercrombie catalog. I’d always felt out of place around them because they came from the wealthy side of town. There weren’t many locals in Rapid Bay who could compare to the rich tourists who appeared every summer, but Nina’s and Levi’s families owned houses on the foreshore. They didn’t have to worry about how their parents were going to make rent each month or how they would pay for them to go to college. Levi’s parents even owned a few of the vacation homes on the beach that they rented out to our wealthy visitors.
As I looked at them together now, I realized just how laughable it was that Levi had ever been interested in me. I must have been a phase for him. Some kind of rebellious teenage moment when he’d decided to slum it with the girl who wore clothes from thrift shops and spent all her free time working at a café just so she and her mom could get by.
“What can I get you?” Somehow, I got the question out without my voice breaking, and I was able to keep my tone neutral, almost disinterested. My expression was just as bland, and I managed to prevent the pain from showing in my eyes. The last thing I wanted was for Nina and Levi to see how hard it was for me to face them. The only hint of my true emotions was the notepad that began to bend as I gripped it tightly in my hand.
“Oh, Isobel, I forgot you work here.” Nina pretty much sang out the words in the condescending tone she so often used. I’d heard her throw it at other girls a million times before but never at me. I guessed that had all changed now I wasn’t the one dating the star of the school’s football team.
She looked me over in one quick, assessing glance. She’d always had a talent for making me feel self-conscious without saying a word, and today was no different. The slight twitch of her lips was enough to show she didn’t approve of the black apron I was wearing over my jean shorts and work T-shirt. It had the simple Beach Street Café logo printed across the front of it in blue-green lettering, and it was hardly offensive.
“How was your summer?” she asked. “I see your hair’s still allergic to the heat.”
I gave her a tight smile and resisted the urge to pat at the flyaway hairs I could feel frizzing about my face. I had both the luck and misfortune of inheriting my mom’s blonde and somewhat untamable locks. People always commented on how beautiful my natural curls were, but the compliments vanished when there was a lick of moisture in the air. Nina must have loved the fact she’d caught me on a bad hair day.
“My summer has been fine,” I replied, but it absolutely killed me to be even slightly cordial. “And my mom owns this place. I’ve worked here as long as you’ve known me.”
Nina tittered out a laugh and flicked her long brown ponytail over her shoulder before placing a hand against Levi’s chest. “Yes, of course, how silly of me. We’ve been away at Levi’s lake house all summer, so it must have slipped my mind.”
I clenched the notepad tighter. Just a few months ago, Levi had been trying to convince me to take time off from work so I could join him at his lake house. He had been upset I didn’t want to abandon my mom, and Nina knew it. There was nothing holding her back though, and she seemed more than happy to rub it in. I couldn’t understand how I’d been friends with her for so long.
I decided to focus on my ex-boyfriend’s face instead, but that didn’t make me feel much better. We’d dated for almost a year, but looking at him now was like staring at a stranger. There was no warmth in his eyes, and the smile he’d been giving Nina dropped as he looked up at me. His appraisal of me was cold and hard and left me feeling like I was nothing more than a waitress to him now.
It was clear he no longer loved me. He probably never had. I’d always wondered how the boy the whole town adored could possibly want someone like me, and I finally had my answer: he hadn’t.
“I’ll have a coffee,” Levi said, breaking our awkward stare-off. Even if I hated him, I was grateful he’d placed an order before Nina had a chance to keep shoving their relationship in my face.
“Me too,” Nina added. “With quinoa milk.”
Was that even a thing? I’d heard some pretty obscure coffee requests in my time, but this was a first. Nina had always drunk her coffee with low-fat milk, so I knew she was being difficult for the sake of it. She was probably hoping to force a reaction out of me, but I didn’t bite. I swallowed down my irritation before responding. “We don’t have quinoa milk.”
“Oh, really?” She looked thoroughly put out. “I guess I’ll just have water then. It’s so hot in here. Did you know that?”
“No, I hadn’t really noticed.” I forced out a smile. “I’ll be right back with your order.”
I walked from their table in a daze.
“Oh, sugar,” Norma said as I entered the kitchen. “I just saw who was out there. You should have come and got me when those two came in. You know I would have covered their table for you.”
I slowly nodded, feeling like I was waking from a bad dream. I’d somehow managed to get through my first encounter with Nina and Levi, but I still couldn’t bear the thought of facing them every day when school started next week.
“How am I going to do this?” I whispered to Norma. “How am I going to live with a whole year of this?”
I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Not when I was stuck at a school that worshiped the ground Levi walked on. Not when Nina had both stolen my boyfriend and made sure my other friends wanted nothing to do with me too. Why did high school have to suck so badly?
Norma rubbed my arm and gave me a sympathetic smile. “You made a lot of progress over the summer.”
“Did I?” It was hard to agree with her, but when I thought about how I’d felt at the start of the break, I knew she probably had a point. I’d barely been able to get out of bed, let alone crack a smile. I’d been like a zombie slowly dragging my feet through each day, but I was feeling a little more human now, and the days were a little less painful.
“You did.” She nodded. “And this year will fly by in a flash. You’ll be off at college before you know it, and it won’t be long before you’re a fancy doctor or a famous lawyer or something, and those two will be a distant memory.”
I let out a sigh and shook my head. “I’ve told you all summer I don’t want to go to college anymore.”
“Sure, you don’t.” She raised her eyebrows at me like she did every time I claimed I’d changed my mind about my future. I’d wanted to get out of Rapid Bay and go to college for as long as I could remember, but not anymore. College was the silly dream of a kid who didn’t realize just how much it would cost or how hard it was to get a scholarship. Besides, Mom needed my help at the café, and I knew I couldn’t abandon her.
“I’m serious,” I replied, as convincingly as I could. “I love it in Rapid Bay, so why would I ever leave?”
“Okay, honey, if you say so.” Norma’s expression had changed, and her eyes were now filled with concern.
I hated when she looked at me that way. Like I was too young to know what I wanted. Like she thought I was throwing my future away. Like I had a choice.
“Besides, I just want to concentrate on finishing high school right now,” I quickly added. The last thing I needed was another lecture about my future. I loved her to bits, but Norma was never afraid to tell me her honest opinion. And I got enough of that from my mom. “College is forever away, and anything could happen in the next year. Who knows, maybe I’ll even learn to stop my heart from shattering every time I see Nina and Levi together.”
“Oh, Isobel.” Norma gave me a sad smile. “You might not believe me, but sometimes the sweetest things in life flourish from the hardest. I have a feeling everything is going to be much better before you know it. You’ll see.”
“I hope so,” I murmured, but I wasn’t convinced. It was far more likely this was another of Norma’s doomed predictions.
“Do you want me to take over their table for you?”
“No, it’s okay. I need to do this.” It would have been so easy to agree, but I had to face Nina and Levi if I ever wanted to move on. Plus, I was far too stubborn to let them know they’d gotten to me.
“We can always spit in their coffee, if that will make you feel better?”
I laughed. “No, I have to believe much stronger karma than a bit of spit is coming their way.”
“That’s my girl,” Norma said. “But, if you change your mind, I have no problem getting in trouble with your mama for a little revenge. In fact, this might be the one time she’d be okay with it.”
“Thanks, Norma. I’ll keep that in mind.”
I took a deep breath before I headed back out onto the café floor and did my best to switch off my mind as I got back to work. My body seemed to move on autopilot as I did everything in my power to quell the surge of emotions trying to drag me under as I served them their drinks.
I wasn’t sure how I managed to survive the rest of their stay at the café—especially when it seemed Nina was going out of her way to paw at Levi whenever I was close by. It was a miracle I didn’t lose my composure, and I had to bite my tongue several times to stop myself from uttering the cutting remarks that so easily came to mind.
I thought the torture was finally over when the pair paid their bill, but as I headed down the hallway leading from the café to the kitchen, I heard my name being called out.
I stopped and turned to see Nina marching toward me.
“You’re not supposed to be back here,” I said as she stopped in front of me.
Nina shot me a strained smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You never had a problem with me coming back here before.”
“Well, things were different back then.”
“Yes, I guess they were.”
I folded my arms over my chest, struggling to keep my cool. “Is there something I can help you with?”
The smile fell from her lips as she eyed me. “Look, I came here hoping to bury the hatchet between us before we start our senior year, but I don’t know how you expect me to do that when I saw the way you were looking at Levi. I just wanted to make sure you’re not going to try anything.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s not your boyfriend anymore, Isobel, and it’s pretty rude that you were making eyes at him when I was sitting right there.”
“Are you serious?” I scoffed. “I wasn’t making eyes at him.”
If anything, I had been trying my hardest not to show how wounded I felt. The last thing I had on my mind was flirting with the guy who’d broken my heart.
Nina folded her arms over her chest, mirroring my stance as she stared me down. “You obviously were. It’s sad enough that you haven’t moved on from him, but it’s clear I’m going to have to spell things out to you. Levi doesn’t love you. He loves me. And I don’t want you getting any ideas once school starts.”
She was looking at me as though I was some evil mastermind who had spent all summer planning my revenge rather than licking my wounds.
“So, let me get this straight,” I said. “You steal my boyfriend, tell lies about me to all our friends, and, as if that’s not enough, you now feel the need to come and warn me not to do the same thing.” I shook my head, disgusted with her. “Is that why you dragged Levi in here this morning? You must be feeling pretty insecure about things between the two of you if you felt the need to shove your relationship in my face and threaten me.”
“I’m not insecure about us.”
“Right.” I raised my hand in front of her as she opened her mouth to continue. “I’m sorry, Nina, but I don’t have time for this. I have to get back to work.” I took a step to leave but paused and looked over my shoulder. “If you’re already worried about your new boyfriend dumping you or cheating on you, then perhaps you should have a think about the kind of guy you’re dating. What’s that line? Oh yeah, once a cheater, always a cheater.”
I walked away before she had a chance to respond and could practically feel the wrath radiating off her as I left. Thankfully, she didn’t follow me for round two. Although I was certain she’d have something in store for me on Monday, right now, I didn’t care. That was Monday’s problem, and I had far more pressing issues to worry about. Like the fact that while Nina had been yelling at me, my shift had ended. And that trip I’d been trying not to think about? Well, I’d rather face my ex-boyfriend again.
