by Gina Ardito
Ah, yes. Those kids. And that man. I pushed the rolling pin over the glob of dough on my floured cutting board. “Yes and no. The owner called Sam when his stepbrother brought the Jeep home with front end damage. He wanted to know if his vehicle had been involved in an accident.”
“That was nice of him,” Paige remarked. “He sounds like a decent, responsible guy—even if his stepbrother’s an ass.”
“You think so?” The memory of the odious Aidan Coffield filled my head. Unfeeling, privileged, arrogant…
“You don’t think so?” She inched closer, bumping her hip against the edge of the counter. With her hands clasped near the dough, she leaned toward me. “I get the feeling there’s more to this story than you’re telling me.”
I avoided looking directly at her, and focused on my rolling pin. Forward, back. Forward, back. “No. Of course not. Why on earth would you think that?”
“Because you’ve pretty much pounded that poor dough into the butcher block.”
I looked down and stifled a gasp. While thinking about Aidan Coffield, I’d taken out my frustrations on my dinner and rendered the dough too tough for use as anything but a door stop.
“Wanna try again?” Paige smirked.
“I can’t,” I said with a frown. “I don’t have any more dough made. And it’ll take too long to get another batch going.”
“I meant about what happened today. What’s got you so rattled? I mean, I know you had an accident, but you’re not hurt, your car’s going to be fixed, the owner of the other vehicle stepped up to take responsibility—”
“I’m stressed, okay?” To emphasize my emotion, I slammed the rolling pin on top of the ruined dough and sank against the counter’s edge. “I had a really bad day, and if I have to go through twenty-nine more like this, you’ll find me curled up in a fetal position in a padded room, babbling to myself, long before we reach October first.”
“Oh, come on.” Paige wrapped an arm around me and squeezed me against her side. “It’s going to get better, Nia.”
I eyed her with suspicion. “How do you know that?”
“I don’t know. Because it can’t get much worse?” she suggested. “Unless, of course, there’s an axe murderer lurking in the backyard.”
The giggle escaped before I could stifle it. Followed by another. Then another. Until we both collapsed to the floor in a puddle of laughter. I laughed until I couldn’t catch my breath and my eyes filled with tears. I have no idea why, really. Paige’s comment wasn’t particularly witty or insightful. It just felt so good to let go with someone. And who better than my twin?
“Forget the dough,” Paige said as she scrambled to her feet, then offered her hand to help me up. “Call Dino’s. Order whatever toppings you want. I’ll fly and buy.”
She and I had a long-standing agreement when it came to pizza. One person flew: drove to Dino’s to pick it up. The other person bought: actually paid for the pizza. If she was willing to fly and buy…? She must have been feeling mighty guilty.
I decided to push her a little further. “Can I get mushrooms on it?”
She flashed an exaggerated grimace and sighed. “Yeah.” I must have gaped at her because she waved a careless hand. “I can pick them off.”
A total lie. One of the things that made Dino’s pizza so special was the way he chopped ingredients fine enough to be embedded in his tomato sauce. And Paige hadn’t been able to tolerate mushrooms in her pizza since a slumber party when we were twelve where she came down with the flu two hours after consuming three ‘shroom and sausage slices.
Enough of the niceties. Time to get down to the truth. “Why exactly are you being so generous tonight? Did you win the lottery today or something?”
Her brows arched in twin peaks of disbelief. “Compared to you? Yeah, I guess I did. I won the luck lottery. The worst that happened to me was getting caught in the rain this morning. Well…that, and a couple of run-ins with Snug Harbor’s own Dudley DoRight.”
“Paige.” I offered her a warning glance and a wagging flour-coated finger.
“I know, I know,” she replied. “I’m dealing with Sam. I promise.” She pushed the cutting board to the farthest corner of the counter. “So, what do you plan to do differently tomorrow?”
This time I couldn’t stifle my gasp of outrage. “Are you kidding me?”
“Oh, come on, Nia. You’re not going to give up after one bad day, are you?”
I gave her an exasperated look.
“Okay, a miserable day,” she amended. “But still. We have to give this thirty-day thing a chance. Everything happens for a reason. I really believe that.”
Remember in The Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch wrote “Surrender, Dorothy” in the skies over Oz? I didn’t need a burning broomstick to get the message. I was fighting a losing battle. Paige wouldn’t let me off the hook for this thirty day challenge if I was bleeding from my eyes. My muscles sagged beneath the weight of my capitulation.
“How about you pick me up for work tomorrow?” I suggested. “Since I don’t have my car, we can kill two birds with one stone. Or better yet, spend the night tonight and drive tomorrow. That’ll double our chances.”
Paige frowned, then slowly shook her head. “I’m not sure. I mean, yeah, I’ll definitely give you a ride to work until you get your car back, but I think we have to focus our challenges on new and different stuff, not just our everyday commute.”
A chill zipped up my spine. “What’d you have in mind now?”
Was it my imagination or did my sister’s smile grow devious? “After work tomorrow, let’s skip the usual Friday night account settling in favor of specialty martinis and appetizers at The Lookout.”
The Lookout?! That tourist trap attached to one of the priciest hotels on the Atlantic strip?
“You did win the lottery,” I accused. “Either that, or aliens abducted my real, fiscally responsible sister and replaced her with a spendthrift lunatic.”
“It’s Labor Day weekend,” she reminded me. “The Lookout’s doing a last-week-of-summer blowout with two dollar mixed drinks and half-priced appetizers until ten p.m. tomorrow night.”
“It’s Labor Day weekend,” I reminded her. “Meaning I work until ten p.m. tomorrow night.”
“That’s my point, sister-mine. You don’t have to. Break the rules. Let Iggy close up, leave the credits and debits ledger for another day, and come out with me. We can ask Francesca and Terri to join us. Girls’ night out. Drinks and appetizers, then maybe hit a dance floor. Just a teeny-weeny change to our routine, boring lives. Simple.”
Simple. Again. I was soooo going to regret this. I knew it even before I sighed and said, “Okay.”
Paige clapped like a four-year-old promised ice cream for dinner. “Yay! Now, let’s order that pizza.”
Chapter 6
Nia
Friday morning and afternoon passed without any unfortunate incidents. As Sam had predicted, my back and neck muscles ached whenever I sat or stood still for too long. Fortunately, despite a blistering sunny day—perfect for beachgoers—business inside my shop boomed, leaving me little time to feel any pain. Briana rang up so many customers, she broke three of her gel nails, which, apparently, was a major league tragedy requiring an emergency appointment with her manicurist immediately after work. Poor Andrew probably strode more miles than a runner in training for a marathon. He barely exited the storeroom with one box of merchandise before I sent him back for another. Items practically flew off the shelves. Even the wind chimes—not my most popular souvenir by any stretch of the imagination—sold out for the first time ever.
Ordinarily, I’d have been thrilled with the day’s receipts. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something ominous loomed on my horizon. As if the universe was setting me up for a date with disaster. I feared the Fates planned to get me all calm, lull me into a false sense of contentment, then whammo! Hone in for the kill.
The great white shark of doom circled me all day. I kept loo
king over my shoulder and peering around corners while the Jaws theme played in my head on a continuous loop. Da-dum. Da-dum.
Yet, the bite never came.
Therefore, it was with no small trepidation that I prepared myself for Paige’s Girls’ Night Out event. Since this was the “thing we did differently” tonight, I suspected my shark would attack at The Lookout.
“I can stay ‘til closing if you want to go home,” I told Iggy as the clock inched closer to the moment when I’d have to leave the safety of my shop. “You could get a jump on your studies. Or start some of your homework.”
Iggy stopped rearranging the last few glass Christmas ornaments on the tabletop artificial tree to stare at me. “Nia, it’s the second week of school. I don’t need a jump yet. I don’t even have all my books yet.”
“So, go get your books. There you are.” Eagerness sped up my speech pattern. An out. Iggy needed books. I had an out. Even Paige would understand if I had to stay behind for Iggy’s sake. “I’ll close up tonight. You pop over to the university and take care of your study materials.”
“You’re being foolish.” He rubbed a hand over his bald pate.
How the man could make a shaved head look downright sexy, I had no idea. But the ex-Marine had women—young and old—flashing doe eyes as they sighed dramatically when in his presence. The guy was textbook hunk, all six-foot, three inches of him. An action figure come to life. Throw in silver-hued eyes with lush, sooty lashes, and that rock-hard physique, and Iggy could have any female he wanted with one heart-stopping smile. But Iggy didn’t want any female. Raised by his uber-romantic Polish mom, Iggy waited for his soul mate. Oh, he wasn’t celibate by the loosest interpretation. He shopped around for his soul mate, sampling the goods whenever possible. He just hadn’t found The One yet.
“You wait,” he chided me with a wagging finger. “Tomorrow morning, you’ll stroll in here to tell me you had a great time and can’t wait to do it again.”
He meant Girls’ Night Out. He had no idea what “it” really was. I hadn’t told anyone about the thirty day challenge. I mean, I wasn’t insane. Imagine the daily ribbings and probing questions from my well-meaning friends who’d wonder if anything exciting had happened every time I did something different. No, thank you.
“The Lookout’s a fun place to kick back on a Friday night,” Iggy continued. “Well, the bar area’s fun. That’s where you’re going, right?”
I couldn’t muster up an iota of enthusiasm. “Uh-huh.”
“Then relax. You’ll have a blast.”
Da-dum. Da-dum. The Jaws theme echoed louder, drowning out Iggy’s happy prediction. With a defeated sigh, I pulled off my apron and grabbed my purse seconds before my sister strode into the store.
Paige wore a purple tank top embellished with embroidered silver butterflies and sequins over a black tube skirt and sky-high needle heels. I took a quick look from my royal blue silk t-shirt and white crop pants down to my flat sandals with chunky plastic jewels across the toe band. Clearly, one of us was inappropriately dressed. But I’d bet my whole store my ensemble better fit in with the bar’s regular clientele. I couldn’t outshine her enthusiasm, though.
My sister’s face glowed with excitement. “Ready to go?”
No. But I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?
Fifteen minutes later, at precisely six o’clock, we walked into the waiting area of The Lookout. A crush of other dining parties milled in the lobby. Some dressed to impress; others couldn’t care less. Easy to discern Snuggies from tourists in this crowd.
Gleaming expensive sports cars that halted beside the curb of the front door to discharge their designer-clothed and accessorized passengers all belonged to the visitors. The wealthy tourists sashayed inside on a breeze of exotic cologne and strolled to the podium, where the snooty maitre’d confirmed their reservations. A waitress would then escort them to the high-priced dining room, past a wall of windows overlooking the ocean. For extra ambience, a tuxedo-clad pianist tickled the ivories of a white Baby Grand. Entrees were a la carte, and dinner for two generally cost more than I took home in a week. Seriously. The least expensive menu item was a ten-dollar cup of coffee. Coffee. Not a latte or cappuccino. Plain old ordinary brewed coffee.
Locals, like us, poured out of late model vehicles parked in the rear lot. Most of us still in our work clothes, we bypassed Mr. Stiff and his clipboard of exclusivity on our way to the bar area, which had a spectacular view of the hotel’s maintenance garage. There, a jukebox thumped out classic rock and the latest Top Forty hits to whomever dropped in a few coins. The same cup of coffee in the bar cost three bucks. Well, not exactly the same. Restaurant patrons sipped their coffee out of delicate bone china cups with matching saucers. We consumed ours from sturdy ceramic mugs or Styrofoam cups to go.
Terri and Francesca were already seated on high stools at a corner table when Paige and I walked into the bar area. They were hard to miss. Terri’s cinnamon-colored hair, cut in a choppy bob, bounced as she bopped to the song blaring out of the jukebox. I recognized it as a Top Forty song about feeling sexy on the dance floor, overplayed on the local radio station. Francesca, who looked like she just stepped off an old lady’s cameo pin, sat across from Terri, her dark hair a storm cloud of curls around her perfect face. The four of us had been friends since elementary school.
Francesca Florentino was the middle child of five noisy siblings. Years of being surrounded by crises made her the perfect emergency room physician: calm, level-headed, and smart. She’d come inches close to the altar five years ago, only to have her fiancé accept a job offer in Oregon without consulting her first. Despite the Pre-Cana classes they’d attended as a requisite for their church wedding, Francesca had never realized Michael didn’t value her career or that he expected her needs to take a back seat to his. So, rather than flying off to Hawaii for a honeymoon, she drove Michael to the airport for his flight to Portland. Only her three closest friends know she’d come home from JFK and cried herself into near-dehydration. Typical Fran, “never let them see your worries.” Nowadays, she focused solely on her patients. To be honest, I was surprised she’d agreed to attend tonight’s soiree. Then again, she’d probably say the same thing about me. Which only proved my sister had some mighty powerful methods of persuasion.
The last member of our quartet, Terri O’Mara, had arrived in Snug Harbor at the age of twelve to visit her aunt and uncle. She’d never gone home again. Only years later, as adults, did Paige and I learn that her parents had died in a murder-suicide during her fateful respite in our sleepy town. Even after two decades of therapy, she still had a tendency to numb her pain with a little too much alcohol and food. I worried about her sometimes.
“Looks like they started without us,” Paige grumbled and grabbed my arm. “Come on.”
We meandered our way through the noisy crowd of local bargain diners to their spot. A gigantic round platter filled with fried calamari, bruschetta, and stuffed mushrooms sat front and center on the table, between a pair of brightly colored drinks in martini stemware.
“Hey, girls!” Terri lifted her Pepto-Bismol pink cocktail in salute as we neared the table. “You better catch up. We’re two ahead of you already.”
“What is that?” Paige asked as she jumped up onto the stool on Terri’s right.
One of the benefits of my height: I only needed to stretch on tiptoe to slide onto the leather-cushioned seat of the high bar stool between my sister and Francesca.
“A cotton candy martini. It’s the coolest thing ever.” Terri’s overly bright green eyes glittered like wet marbles, and I stifled a wince. Her glassy eyes did not bode well for the evening’s festivities. “After the vodka’s shaken with ice, Gary actually pours it over a tuft of cotton candy. The candy melts and changes the clear liquid to a bright color. He can do pink or blue, if you want. Or both, maybe. Or would that make purple?” She held up the glass, tilting it toward the track lighting overhead. “Isn’t it pretty? Like babies in a n
ursery. Yummy boy and girl babies.” She tickled the bowl of the glass with her index finger. “Koochie-koochie-koo.”
I took a good look at my inebriated friend, then turned to Francesca. “We’re only two drinks behind?”
She offered a shrug, hands outstretched, palms up. “Well, that depends on who’s doing the math. See, between four and six o’clock, the drink specials here are two-fers. Since Terri and I got here about a half hour ago, I’ve had one Diet Coke. The other drinks were all hers.”
I blinked once, twice, and a third time while realization sank into my brain. “You mean she’s on her second round of double cotton candy martinis in thirty minutes?”
“Actually, those are drinks five and six. She’s already two rounds ahead of you. I ordered the platter of appetizers before you got here, hoping I could get Terri to put something besides alcohol in her stomach.” Placing her chin in her hands, she sighed. “No such luck, though.”
Well, Terri definitely needed to eat, if for no other reason than to absorb all the vodka she’d swallowed. I speared a plump brown mushroom with a fork, set it on a white plate, and passed it to Terri. “Here. Crab stuffing. Your favorite.”
Much to my relief, Terri picked up the mushroom and took a small bite. A sharp inhale later, she spit it out onto the plate. “This is ice cold,” she exclaimed and flung the untouched portion across the room.
The mushroom landed in Ted Gadsen’s lap.
“Hey!” On a screech of chair legs against scarred wooden floor, Ted shot to his feet. “What the—?”
Hoping to smooth things over quickly, I immediately stood, hands raised in surrender. Pain sluiced down my spine, but I stifled a wince and kept my expression placid. “Sorry,” I told Ted. “It was an accident.”
My apology might have had a more positive effect if Terri hadn’t burst out laughing. “Omigoddidyouseethat?”
“Terri,” Francesca whispered fiercely. “Shush. It’s not funny.”