Hello, Sunshine

by Laura Dave

  “So why’d you tell me about it?”

  Thomas shrugged. “Thought you’d like to drive by it on the way out of town.”

  I drilled him with a look, but then I heard a key in the lock.

  My sister opened the door. Sammy was sound asleep in her arms. She looked back and forth between us.

  “I don’t fucking believe this,” she said, straining to keep her voice low.

  Thomas raised his hands in surrender. “It was my fault,” he said. “I was asking a ton of questions.”

  “And whose fault are you?” she said.

  She stormed past us and put Sammy in her bedroom, on her bed.

  He laughed. “She is pissed!”

  “I wouldn’t laugh, some of that anger seemed directed at you.”

  “Nah. Just caught in the crossfire.”

  Rain walked back into the living room. She crossed her arms over her chest, turning first to Thomas.

  “I had to keep Sammy at the hotel my entire shift.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said.

  “Where’s Thomas?” she asked Thomas.

  I looked at him, confused. “I thought you were Thomas.”

  My sister pointed at him. “No, this is Ethan.”

  “You told me you were Thomas.”

  He shook his head. “I think if someone rewound the conversation, it was you who told me I was Thomas.”

  “So who are you?” I said.

  He held out his hand. “Ethan Nash. And you’re Rain’s sister. YouTube sensation.” He paused. “Kind of.”

  I stared at his hand, not taking it. “You could have corrected me.”

  “I could have.” He smiled. “Just one question. Why Macon, Georgia? It’s not a particularly lush farming community. Why not go to Texas? That still has a Southern feel.”

  “We clearly needed your help.”

  “Clearly.”

  My sister rolled her eyes. “Look, where is Thomas?” she said, completely uninterested in this. “He was supposed to grab Sammy at the hotel and take her home. She’s going to be exhausted!”

  Ethan turned toward Rain. “There was a small car accident.”

  The anger washed off her face and in its place was terror. “What?”

  “He’s fine. He’s totally fine.”

  She pushed Ethan. “For fuck’s sake, Ethan! Would you open with that next time?” she said.

  “He was on his bike heading to East Hampton to get Sammy.”

  I looked at them, confused. “He was going to put Sammy on the bike?”

  Rain put her hand up to stop me. “Really? Can you refrain from offering your opinions on my parenting skills?”

  Ethan shrugged. “Anyway, some teenagers were going too fast on Ocean and they threw him off. He may have a couple of cracked ribs. And his knee is toast.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Southampton Hospital. In surgery.”

  “What? How is that completely fine?”

  “Thomas didn’t want me to tell you tonight. He wanted me to just get some of his things.”

  She started running around frantically. “I don’t fucking believe him. That fucking bike.”

  “I can’t imagine why he didn’t want me to tell you,” Ethan said.

  She headed toward the bedroom. “I’m going to wake up Sammy. And we’ll head to the hospital . . .”

  “I can watch her,” I said.

  She stopped and turned around. “You’ll say anything to stay here,” she said.

  “Yes, that’s true. But I’m still happy to do it.”

  She looked back and forth between us, as if Ethan was going to weigh in.

  “But she doesn’t know you.”

  “It’s a good thing she’s sleeping, then,” I said.

  Rain looked down at her watch, out of any good options. “If she wakes up, which is never going to happen, but if she wakes up, I want you to call me. No, I want you to have her call me.”

  Ethan stepped past us into the bedroom, started filling his garbage bag with Thomas’s things.

  “She usually gets up around seven, seven thirty, if you’re lucky. Our friend Gena is watching her tomorrow. She will be here at six thirty A.M., will you not burn the house down until then?”

  “I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”

  “I’m pretty sure you can’t, but I don’t really have a choice right now,” she said.

  “You can probably be there when Thomas comes to, but you’re going to have to stop insulting me to do it.”

  Ethan walked back into the living room. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ve got to go now.”

  “Fine.” She was flustered, grabbing her purse, her keys. “What does Thomas need for the hospital, Ethan?”

  Ethan touched her shoulder. “I’ve got it,” he said.

  Rain stayed frozen in place, not sure she was willing to leave. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  Ethan heaved his sloppily packed garbage bag over his shoulder. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? I mean, it’s more ideal than waking the poor kid up and dragging her to the hospital.”

  She pointed at him. “You! Don’t talk to me.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You got Thomas the bike!”

  Ethan opened the front door.

  “We’ve got to go,” he said.

  Rain nodded and started to walk out. Then she turned back. She met my eyes, and I was thrown by it. What I saw there. It was a little bit of concern and a little bit of anger. But beyond that, there was something else. Something that looked like how Danny looked. Like she didn’t know me at all. And maybe she never was going to want to.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” she said.

  And with that, she was gone.

  16

  When I woke up in the morning, it took a minute to figure out where I was. I sighed loudly, thinking of Amber, feeling a crick in my neck from sleeping on Rain’s couch. The terrible last few days came screeching back. And I vowed that this was the only night I’d wake up in last night’s clothes, sleeping in my sister’s house.

  “Gena isn’t coming,” she said.

  Sammy. The sound of her voice surprised me. I looked down to find her sitting on the floor by the head of the sofa. She was fully dressed, in jeans a button-down shirt, reading a book, patiently waiting for me to wake up.

  I rubbed my eyes, confused and still exhausted. “You sure?”

  She held up her wrist, where she wore a little watch with SAMMY on the band in glitter. “It’s eight A.M. and she isn’t here.”

  “Doesn’t mean she won’t be.”

  “Actually, statistically, ninety percent of the time someone shows up within a half an hour of a scheduled obligation, or they don’t show up at all. Her half hour was up over an hour ago.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Thomas told me.”

  “How does he know that?”

  She shrugged. “You’re going to have to ask him.”

  I tried to will myself the rest of the way awake—to figure out what I was going to do with Sammy now.

  “So I guess we should call your mother.”

  She shook her head. “My mother called a little while ago and told me that Thomas had a boo-boo and you were going to watch me until Gena arrived. So I told her she already did.”

  “You lied to her?”

  She shrugged. “She’ll just worry, and there’s no sense in her worrying.”

  I tilted my head, took her in. “How old are you?”

  “Six.” She paused. “How old are you?”

  “Older than that.”

  She looked down at her book. “Obviously. Way older.”

  Rain and I hadn’t discussed what I should tell her about who I was—or who I was to her. Gena was supposed to be on duty.

  “Has your mom mentioned anything about your family?”

  “Not a lot, really. Just that I’m named after my grandpa.”

  I cringed, n
ot wanting to react in front of her, irritated to think of anyone being named after my father. “Has she told you anything else?”

  “Mom told me on the phone that you’re her sister. The one that sends the checks.”

  She seemed to have no discernable reaction to this, not needing or wanting any further information.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “The checks.”

  She looked confused by my slowness. Which gave me the opportunity to look away, my heart breaking a little at her gratitude.

  I threw off my makeshift cover (a throw blanket with the ABCs on it). “You must be hungry,” I said. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  “Cinnamon toast.”

  Toast. Great. My mind went to Amber and her terrible toasts. She’d recently done a special episode on sweet treats—and made her own version, which had cinnamon and nutmeg on seeded wheat, smothered in olive oil and butter. I had watched that episode, for some reason or other, and remembered her pride at the addition of the nutmeg. Like she had single-handedly reinvented the cinnamon-toast wheel.

  I got up, ready to cobble it together for Sammy. But then she stopped me.

  “I only get it at John’s. Eight thirty sharp.”

  I turned and looked at her. “Would you like to go there with me now?”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “No, you said you only go there.”

  “Samesies.”

  She looked back down at her book, and I bit my lip trying not to laugh at this confusing child, who apparently acted forty-eighty and eight in the same conversation.

  “Considering summer traffic, we will have to leave now if we want to arrive on time,” she said.

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  She looked up, taking in my wrinkled clothes, snug against my body. “Are you sure about that?”

  17

  The ride to John’s Pancake House, which took five minutes in the winter, was so far taking us five times as long.

  And we were less than halfway there.

  Sammy sat in the back, reading a book, unbothered. I was very bothered—not only by the traffic, but by what the traffic represented. Over the last few decades, Montauk had stopped being the one place in the Hamptons that was still undeveloped and became the place that prided itself on a different kind of development. It wasn’t quite as showy. It was more quietly fancy, drawing in the kind of wealthy people who thought they were better than their counterparts because instead of spending money on fancy cars, they spent it on their Priuses and perfectly done cottages filled with shabby chic furnishings. They purchased fluffy couches that cost twelve thousand dollars (the Montauk Sofa, that’s actually what they were called) and cast-iron pots that were never used. It was its own cult of obnoxiousness: the show that didn’t look like one, which was a show all in itself.

  The village reflected that. On the surface, it was less a glamorous beach town and more a town of yesteryear: surf shops and restaurants, all desperately needing a face-lift. And sprinkled throughout these Montauk evergreens were the fancier new additions: a yoga studio, an overpriced bar, a designer clothing boutique—all hiding their glamour with the same rustic chic exterior, the occasional six-figure sports car giving the whole enterprise away.

  And getting in my way.

  A Range Rover took a sharp right turn, forcing us to miss another light.

  By the time we actually pulled into John’s Pancake House’s parking lot, I was in a pretty surly mood, irritated by Montauk, irritated by all these people who were pretending to be something they weren’t. How was that any different from what I had done?

  Then I was reminded about what I had done. On the way inside the restaurant, we passed the newspaper kiosk, full of the morning papers. And there was the New York Post, front and center. And on the upper half of the cover, there was a headline. CELEBRITY CHEF REVEALED AS PHILANDERING FRAUD p. 10.

  I pulled a paper out, turning quickly to page 10.

  AIN’T NO SUNSHINE. No Stars for This Farm-Fresh Phony, the header read, right above a small (unflattering) photograph of me sitting in a vegetable garden.

  Sammy pointed at the photograph. “Why are you in the newspaper?” she said. “And why did they use that picture?”

  I heard a knock on the window and looked up to see Karen McCarthy, a girl from high school—twenty pounds lighter, and twenty years older—but it was undeniably her. She kept waving through the windowpane.

  “Get your ass in here!” she mouthed.

  I quickly tossed the paper as Sammy froze.

  “Oh, no,” she said.

  I held the door open, but Sammy shook her head. “I don’t like to sit in Karen’s section,” she said.

  “I have a feeling you’re not going to be alone in that,” I said.

  Sammy looked upset. “I’m serious. She lets the toast get cold.”

  But it was too late. Karen ran over. “As I live and breathe!” she said. “Sunny Stephens!”

  She squeezed me toward her. Then she patted Sammy on the head. “And Sammy Stephens too.”

  Sammy patted her hair back in its place. “Please don’t touch me.”

  Karen laughed. “Right. Sorry, Sammy,” she said.

  Then Karen folded her arms and turned back toward me.

  “How long has it been?” she said.

  “A long time,” I said. “You look fantastic!”

  “I know, right?” She looked me up and down as if figuring out a way to return the compliment. “What’s going on with you? Returning home in infamy?”

  I flinched. “So you heard?”

  She tilted her head, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  And for a great moment, I actually thought Karen had no idea. It was one of my favorite things about Montauk. It was suffocating when you lived here—everyone in everyone else’s business. But if you had the gall to leave town, you stopped existing. It was entirely possible Karen had not picked up the Post that morning and had no idea about what had happened with A Little Sunshine—or maybe she didn’t know about A Little Sunshine in the first place.

  Karen leaned in. “If you believe that, I have pancakes from yesterday that I’m happy to serve you!”

  Then she started laughing, beyond amused at her sense of humor. I made myself a deal that she had thirty seconds to stop laughing or I would swipe Sammy’s book and hit Karen across the head with it.

  She caught her breath and smiled. “Of course I know. We are in the same biz!”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “Well, not anymore!” she said. “But you had a good run before the hack. I mean, thanks to our loyalty.”

  I looked at her, confused.

  “Everyone.” She motioned around herself—I assumed to encapsulate all of Montauk. “We all assumed you pretended to be from somewhere else to protect your father’s legacy. So we weren’t going to out you. I mean . . . he was famous. He couldn’t exactly have a daughter doing what you were doing.”

  Was she seriously saying that having hundreds of thousands of A Little Sunshine viewers would embarrass him? Or was it selling 150,000 cookbooks? Perhaps it was having so many loyal followers that the Food Network had decided to feature me prominently in prime time? But then I realized the part that would embarrass him. The part where I couldn’t cook. The part where I was only pretending to be who I told everyone I was.

  “I’m hungry,” Sammy said. “I want to sit and I want to eat.”

  Karen looked down at Sammy. “Sit! By all means, sweetie,” she said. “Can I get you your toast?”

  Sammy looked back toward her book, turning the page. “I don’t know. Can you?”

  Karen laughed again. “You’re a hoot, Sammy!” she said. Then she turned to me. “We’ll catch up, okay? And, man, I should have reached out when it happened. I’m sorry about your father. He was truly a great man.”

  I felt a tightening in my chest. I didn’t know what to say, never kn
ew what to say when someone talked about my father. Especially someone like Karen, who seemed committed to talking about him as long as I would let her. Karen, who probably knew as much about him as I knew. He came to John’s every morning to read his paper, to enjoy a short stack of buttermilk pancakes. Not the usual three they brought. Bad luck.

  “We still miss him around here,” she said.

  “Oh, well, that makes one of us.”

  I was unnecessarily harsh, but I was pissed off about her takedown, and I didn’t have the energy to pretend my father wasn’t who he was.

  Karen stepped back. The insult of my father was apparently something she took personally.

  “I’ll tell the hostess to get you guys menus,” she said.

  Then she walked away.

  On the upside, Sammy smiled. “Wow, you really told her,” she said.

  She apparently liked rudeness directed toward her chilly-toast nemesis.

  “Was she talking about Grandpa?”

  I nodded. She had never met him, and yet there was a familiarity to how she said the word. What had Rain told her?

  “Can we sit by the other windows now? Alisa is a way better waitress.”

  “Great idea,” I said.

  18

  The story about my father was one I hated telling. He wasn’t an alcoholic. He didn’t hit us. He didn’t do much of anything, which I guess was the best way to describe what was wrong with him.

  Steve Stephens. His parents had actually named him that, which he liked to say explained something about how he had grown up. I thought it was more telling that he was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, above his parents’ restaurant. They had planned for it to only be a lunch spot, but no one seemed to like their food. So, to make ends meet, they started dinner service as well. No one liked the food then, either, but they served alcohol, which everyone liked. They would play old ballads on the stereo, and people would stay late drinking, the music drifting upstairs into my father’s childhood bedroom until two A.M. If this sounds romantic, he didn’t consider it to be. My father would always say that it made him long for quiet.

  Wouldn’t you consider it ironic, then, that he went on to become a famous composer? He was most notable for his film scores, composing the scores for eighty films. And he won all sorts of awards, his little gold statues and magazine covers lining his music studio.