by Mary Frame
“Yay,” she deadpans.
“Who peed in your Cheerios?” Seriously. Does every teenager on the planet emit the negative force of a black hole?
“It’s nothing.” She starts walking.
“Paige. We’re supposed to be happy,” I call to her back.
“I am happy,” she says in the unhappiest tone she can muster.
I jog a little bit to catch up with her. “This is supposed to be exciting. A new start. No more worrying about . . .” I don’t have to finish that sentence. “What gives?”
“It’s just— I can’t— I don’t know.” Her voice is frustrated.
We continue to walk in silence. I know better than to push. She’ll let it out eventually. We talked about escaping from our parents for years, making ourselves practically giddy with anticipation. But ever since we left, Paige has seemed anything but.
We stop at the general store for a quart of oil and it isn’t until we’re home and working on the car that she finally spills.
“What if no one likes me?” she asks while we’re trying to fashion a funnel out of tinfoil. There was no other way to get the oil in without spilling it everywhere, and the neighbor is still pretending to not be home.
“What?” I ask, having nearly forgotten our earlier conversation.
“What if I go to this school and all the kids hate me? Or think I’m lame? I don’t know how to be cool. I don’t know how to be anything.”
I stand up straight from where I’ve been hunched over the engine. Paige is sitting on the stoop, her head in her hand and her dark hair gleaming in the spring sunshine.
My hair is the same color, normally. My parents made me dye it. They said blond girls were more attractive. I was never quite attractive enough. Paige and I look a lot alike, but I think she’s prettier. Her eyes are a dark blue, as opposed to my brown ones, but we do have the same pert nose and full lips.
“No one is going to hate you, Paige. You’re awesome. I would know, we’re related.”
“You don’t understand. You’ve never had to hang around a bunch of hormonal teenagers and actually . . . be yourself. It’s almost easier when you have a role to play or you know you won’t be there long. You can pretend like it doesn’t matter.”
I put the bottle of oil down on the ground and sit down next to her on the bottom step of the porch.
“You’re right. My entire adolescence was spent in a new place every month with a new name and personality. And it was terrible. This will be better.” I wrap my arm around her thin shoulders. “We have to believe that.”
She nods.
“Now why don’t you work on the car,” I hand her the lumpy foil, “and I’ll go down to the boardwalk to see if anyone’s hiring. Maybe I can get a job at that candy factory we saw on the way in and you can have licorice for dinner three nights a week.”
She rolls her eyes but then smiles slightly and stands. “Deal.”
~*~
It takes less than five minutes to walk to the boardwalk. It’s still pretty early, barely nine thirty, so there aren’t many people wandering about. Just a few tourists and hungover college-aged kids.
The first three stores I stop at aren’t hiring. Neither are the next three, or the five after that.
My final shot is at the restaurant. I ignore the sinking sensation in my stomach. I can get a job somewhere else in town, I suppose, but it would be nice to find a place within walking distance since the car is a question mark.
After getting the bad news from the hostess up front—not hiring—I head around to the back of the restaurant and stare out over the water, letting the salty sea breeze blow away my troubles.
The boardwalk sits near the top of the actual cove. Curving to my left, after the boardwalk ends, are a few houses and some larger buildings in between little snippets of beach. Beyond the buildings, there are more ribbons of beach sand, and in the distance, just before the land arcs to a stop and the sea begins, there’s a grassy knoll and the remnants of a stone building. That must be the castle that Castle Cove was named for.
I didn’t have a chance to do much research on the town before we moved here. Once I saw free rent and a population slightly under three thousand, I knew we had found a place to go. It was like the universe had pointed us in this direction, if I believed in that sort of thing.
The town itself is located in southern Oregon, on the coast. It’s as far away as I could get us from our parents without living under the sea. Paige loves the water, but it freaks me out. I can’t swim to save my life.
I’m gazing at the seagulls, wondering how easy it would be to hunt them for food and if I could convince Paige that it’s actually chicken, when I hear people talking.
“George, this product is expired,” a voice complains.
“It’s not expired,” George replies. “The boys just caught them yesterday.”
I can’t see them, nor can they see me, but at the empty section of the walk, their voices bounce around and hit me with perfect clarity.
“Don’t bullshit me. I can smell it from here. I can’t use this.”
There’s silence and then, “It’s spring break. I have reservations booked through the entire week. How am I supposed to feed people with expired fish?”
I grimace. Gross.
“Well, I can make another run and bring it back but—”
“Forget it. That would take three days and I can’t afford to lose business. Someone stole an entire box from my last delivery. And I’m not paying full price either. Bring it into the . . .” Their voices fade as they enter the building.
Note to self: don’t eat at the pier this week.
Not that I could afford it anyway.
I continue walking down the pier, leaving the restaurant and voices behind.
Toward the end of the boardwalk, before the shops peter out and the water extends to the horizon, there’s a boarded-up storefront. The outline of the faded inscription on the building says it used to be the World’s Greatest Sock Emporium.
What a shame it’s closed.
I peer into a gray-stained window, but it’s too dirty to see inside. Walking around the building, I find a door without a handle and push it open. I can immediately see why it got shut down. Even with just the illumination from outside coming through the dirt-caked windows, it’s easy to see this space is unusable. It smells like mold and decay and the wood floor is rotting in spots.
Behind some kind of old, crumbling shelving unit, the front half of a child’s red shoe sits alone and conspicuously bright amid the clutter in the dark and dirty building, making the surroundings a bit surreal.
A child’s laugh echoes through one of the walls, and I’m immediately creeped the eff out.
That can’t be real. It must be coming from outside, but a quick glance behind me reveals an empty boardwalk.
“Is anyone there?” I call.
There’s no answer. I move further into the building, then stop and listen.
Nothing, except the sound of my own breathing, the quiet beat of the waves outside, and the occasional squawk of a seagull.
The wood shifts beneath me, groaning as if someone is walking along the corroded boards, but I’m the only one here and I’m not moving.
“You’re not supposed to be in here.” A loud voice startles me into a short and awkward shriek. I jump back, my stomach dropping somewhere in the vicinity of my toes.
There’s a man in the doorway. Not just any man. It’s the runner that passed us this morning, still in his gray sweats and black shirt. Cute butt man. He’s even better looking from the front, I realize through the pounding of my heart.
I take in his features quickly, incongruous as they are. His nose is perhaps a bit too large for his face, and his lips are rather thin, but he has a strong, square jaw and intelligence in his too-close-together eyes that make it hard to pull my gaze away. When you put it all together, he is surprisingly attractive.
Then I realize I’m staring at him and he’s
staring at me and probably expects me to respond somehow.
“There’s a red shoe,” I say through a dry mouth.
“What?”
“Um.” I can’t look at him.
His expression is clearly wondering if I have a screw loose and I think that maybe I do. I switch my focus to the wall and bite my lip.
Why did I say that?
“I thought I heard something.” Okay, that was marginally better.
I finally lift my eyes to his.
“It’s not safe in here,” he says. “Someone must have removed the no trespassing sign.” His narrowed gaze clearly implies that I’m the one that did it.
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” I say, defending my actions even though I’m doing nothing more than standing in an empty building. But those eyes are piercing me like he can see every deep, dark, and bad thing I’ve done in my entire lifetime. And maybe the faded pink granny panties I’m currently sporting.
Heat rises up my neck.
“Except trespassing,” he finally says.
“I didn’t know.”
“Doesn’t make it any less illegal.”
My defenses rise. What is this guy’s deal? It figures the first person to actually talk to me is a big jerk. “What are you, a cop?”
“This building is condemned. It’s not safe. It’s being torn down next month.”
“But I thought I heard—”
“I can’t stand here and argue with you all day.” He steps back and motions for me to come out. Even though I hate to comply with such a belligerent if unspoken command, I follow him into the sunshine breaking through the early morning fog.
When I turn around to face him, he’s already jogging away.
Chapter Three
A few days pass, and I still don’t have a job.
And we’re running out of food.
And Paige needs new clothes because she apparently grew an inch since last week and her jeans are turning into capris.
We finally met our neighbor though.
His name is James Bingel. The postman delivered his mail to us by accident, and when I went to deliver it to him, he actually opened the door to take his mail.
Then he slammed the door in my face without saying anything else.
A definite improvement.
I sort of expected Castle Cove to be like the movies. Neighbors would immediately show up with cookies and invites to tea. Precocious children would offer to mow the lawn and do odd jobs. A handsome yet brooding stranger would fix the car or move in next door or . . . insert romantic trope here.
Instead, less than a week in and I have a reclusive neighbor, a sullen teenager, and a broken car. And the brooding stranger yelled at me instead of asking me out. This is not how it’s supposed to happen.
Although, I’m not surprised. My life has never been the stuff of romantic comedies. More like a tragedy.
I had no idea finding work would be so hard. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I have no referrals or legitimate work experience, but people have to start somewhere, right?
Other than spending my time being rejected at every place I’ve looked for a job, we’ve also spent most of the last few days cleaning up the house and setting up Ruby’s stuff.
We’ve gotten a few shipments so far. The first thing we put up was the sign out front. It was formed from some distressed wood and painted a burst of colorful reds and yellows. Ruby’s Readings and Cosmic Shop, it reads in a whimsical, flowing font.
There were a few boxes of books, crystals, and some packaged herbs for clearing the air of spirits or something, which we’ve unpacked and put in the display cases in the front room. “I’m hungry,” Paige says, sitting in the chair on the other side of the reading table while I flip through one of the books that came in about palm reading. We’ve decided the reading room is our new favorite place. We set up tapestries and wall sconces, as well as the beaded curtain in the doorway. It’s almost homey.
“Are you sure you don’t have a tapeworm?” I tease, but the truth is that I’m starving, too. We’ve been subsisting on ramen noodles and peanut butter.
She sticks her tongue out at me and drums her fingers on the table.
“Here,” I say, reaching into my pocket for our last twenty-dollar bill. After this it’s pocket change until I find something to support us with. Or decide to trap some seagulls for dinner. “Go get us something for dinner from Stella’s.”
Stella’s is a diner on the other side of the boardwalk. We almost drowned in our own drool the other day walking by and smelling the burgers. By unspoken agreement, neither of us said anything about the heavenly smell, knowing we didn’t have the funds to splurge. There’s something about being so close to rock bottom that’s making me reckless.
“Really?” Her face lightens. It’s almost worth facing certain starvation to see her smiling again.
“Really. Go. Be careful. Don’t talk to strangers.”
She rolls her eyes but bounces out the door.
A few minutes later, I’m still sitting at the little table, perusing Ruby’s book about palm reading—do people really believe this shit?—when the doorbell rings and I nearly fall out of the chair.
Through the beads that line the doorway between the reading room and the shop, I spy a couple of college-age looking girls peering in the front window.
They aren’t neighbors holding casseroles, but I’ll take it.
I open the door, but before I so much as open my mouth, one of the girls is speaking.
“Are you giving readings?” She’s short and blond, her haircut is stylish, and her jeans are expensive. The other girl is a darker blond, with longer hair and a closed expression.
We are probably about the same age. They must be spring breakers.
“I don’t—”
“This is stupid, Cassie,” the darker-haired girl interrupts.
“You’re such a killjoy. It’s fun.”
“It’s bullshit.”
Her friend is right, but I’m not going to defend her.
Cassie faces me. “Please? I’ve always wanted a reading, like, so bad. I’ll pay double whatever you normally charge.”
I’m about to open my mouth and tell them that I’m not Ruby, that I don’t do readings, and I can’t tell the future any more than the rock in the front yard can get up and twerk all over the front lawn, but something stops me.
I could do this.
No, no. I just lectured Paige about our new beginning. No cons. No lies. But we could really use the money. Honestly, if I don’t find income of some kind soon, we’ll be begging for food and I don’t think Mr. Bingel will feed us.
Just once can’t hurt. I have at least thirty minutes before Paige gets back. The walk to Stella’s takes ten minutes and it will take at least fifteen for them to cook the food. I can take this nice girl’s money, maybe even help her out a little bit, and then she’ll be gone. No one will know. I can play psychic for thirty minutes. I’ve done worse. Besides, I was just reading Ruby’s book and it’s just a lot of vague statements and unprovable predictions anyway.
My mouth opens. “The shop is closed, we’re under construction.” And then my mouth keeps moving. “But I’ll make an exception if you’re willing. Double my rate is two hundred dollars,” I say, instead of what I should say, which is the truth. Part of me hopes that the price will be too steep and she’ll just leave and I can forget any of this ever happened.
But the price doesn’t even make her blink.
“Great!”
No going back now. I step back and she walks into the shop.
“There’s no way,” the friend says, still standing on the porch, shaking her head. “I’ll meet you at the boardwalk when you’re done.”
She leaves and I smile at Cassie and lead her into the reading room.
I light a few candles on the table and take a few slow breaths, trying to get into character. What would a psychic say? I need to get Cassie to relax and also give me some hints about hers
elf that I can use to convince her I’m legit.
“Is there anything specific you would like to ask or know about?” I ask, hoping she’ll give me some clues to go off of without realizing she’s doing it.
Cassie contemplates the question, her brows furrowing as I sit down in front of her. “I don’t know.”
Not helpful.
“Let me see your hands,” I say.
She opens her palms face up in front of me and I reach for her wrists, taking a moment to look over her hands when I’m really thinking about what the hell I’m going to say next.
I lead with the obvious.
“You have some big changes coming.”
Who doesn’t?
Her eyes widen and she nods.
“Graduation?” An easy guess. She’s the right age, and it is spring break. A tactic my mother taught me at a young age: most of the time, you can make generalized statements and assumptions based on what people are wearing or their age. If you give them even the tiniest hint that you might know something about them, they grab onto it like you know everything. More often than not, they’ll even drop more hints about themselves without even realizing they’re doing it.
“Yes.” She nods eagerly, leaning forward.
“This worries you for some reason.” I frown down at the lines in her palm, like they will tell me anything. More telling is the slight indentation on her ring finger.
“You recently dissolved a relationship,” I say. “A very serious one.”
She gasps. “Yes. How did you know?”
I smile at her. “It’s my job.” To look at your hands and pretend like I know what I’m talking about.
“Oh, right,” she laughs.
“You were together a long time,” I venture.
“Since high school.”
She seems sad. A barb of guilt stings my chest. Even if I’m a crook, I might still be able to help her.
“Don’t worry about this guy. I know it seems like you’ll never find someone better, but you will.”
She scoots forward, peering down at her hands, which are still lying open between us. “It says that?”
“See this?” I point to a line that spans her palm. “This is your heart line, and according to this, your love life is not over yet.”