by Fiona Grace
“Let’s go this way,” Ali told Scruff, pointing up a palm-lined footpath that headed in the direction of the stores they’d driven past on their way in.
She and Scruff took the path, the gentle sound of breaking waves in the background. Wave Bay seemed more relaxed than its sister town Willow Bay. Even the seagulls were calmer here. Ali was used to them flapping noisily above her head while trying to steal her food. But the Wave Bay gulls were calm and placid, sitting in the trees and on the telephone poles, watching the world go by.
They reached the wide boulevard lined with stores, and Ali looked around searching for someone to speak to. Willow Bay would be full of tourists at this time of day, but in Wave Bay, there was next to no one about—just a woman jogging with a big dog galloping along beside her. She was tall and elegant, reminding Ali of her friend Delaney. Ali decided it was best not to interrupt her. Delaney hated being interrupted mid-jog, and she guessed the woman wouldn’t take kindly to it either. Besides, her dog was rather large and intimidating looking.
Just then, Scruff barked. At first, Ali thought he was barking at the huge dog coming toward them—and was about to tell him it was very ill-advised to start anything with a dog that large—but when she looked down at him, she realized he was facing the other direction.
She followed his gaze to discover a very pompous looking poodle a little way along the promenade.
“I see,” Ali said. “That’s who you’re barking at. I must say, a manicured poodle is a far more evenly matched competitor...”
The scrappy little stray cut her off with a more insistent bark, and this time he started weaving round and round her legs, as if in frustration.
Ali frowned, perplexed, and looked back at the poodle. This time, her gaze traveled along its leash and up to the middle-aged woman holding it. The pair were coming this way, she realized. Scruff had been barking to alert her to their approach!
“Oh!” Ali exclaimed, finally understanding what he was trying to communicate, that this was a good person to ask about her father. “Good spot, Scruff! You are a clever boy, aren’t you?”
She petted her canine companion’s head. He yapped proudly.
They headed off along the road in the direction of the woman. As they drew closer, Ali flashed her a genial smile to signify she meant no harm.
“Excuse me,” she said in the friendliest voice she could muster. “May I ask you a question?”
The woman did not return Ali’s friendly smile. Nor did she stop walking. In fact, she looked all the way down her nose at Ali with a pinched expression, before eyeing Scruff, blanching, and quickening her step.
“I don’t have any change!” she said, a tremble of fear in her voice as she raced past, taking a wide berth around them.
Ali’s mouth dropped open. Did the woman think she was panhandling?
“I’m not begging,” Ali said, feeling the sting of insult.
But it was too late. The woman was already hot-stepping it away from them, her poodle taking small, rapid footsteps to keep up with her.
Ali’s chest sank. “What a snob,” she muttered aloud.
She glanced down at herself. To be fair, there was flour and choco chips smeared on her jeans. And her shoes had gotten rather scruffy thanks to all the long hours she put in at the bakery. And then there was Scruff, the straggly stray, looking like he was long overdue for a trip to the doggy grooming parlor. Maybe they did look a bit like panhandlers?
Ali grimaced. What would her father think of her when they finally came face to face?
‘If we come face to face,’ she thought, anxiously. If everyone in Wave Bay ran in the opposite direction at the mere sight of her, she didn’t stand a chance of finding him!
Scanning left and right, Ali saw the streets were now empty. Far from the tourist buzz of the boardwalk, Wave Bay seemed like a quiet, sleepy place. With no real clue where to go, Ali picked a direction and began to walk.
The stores lining the streets seemed to be becoming increasingly up-market. Either that, or her experience with the snooty woman was making her see the town in a different light. The boutiques, jewelers and art stores seemed less boho to her now. Instead, they screamed wealth. Wave Bay definitely catered to a richer clientele than Ali had first considered. She began struggling to connect the memories of her free-spirit, dreamer of a father with what she was beginning to realize was a stuffy, snooty place.
“Maybe Teddy was wrong…” she mused aloud to Scruff. “Why would Dad settle down in a place like this?”
The dog barked and stopped walking. A poster in the window of the grocers had caught the little pup’s attention, and he was now wagging his tail.
Ali paused too as she realized it was an advert for his favorite Jumbo bone.
“Yes, of course, I’ll get you a bone,” she told him with a chuckle. “It’s the least I can do since you’re being kind enough to support me today. Besides… I can ask the vendor if they know my father, since they won’t be able to run away!” She rubbed her hands gleefully at her cunning new plan. “Wait here,” she told the dog. Then she pushed open the door to the grocer’s and went inside.
A cool blast of air conditioning hit Ali. She scanned the store until she found the bright red cardboard display shelves for the Jumbo bones. It was right beside the counter where the female store clerk—a red-head in a dark green apron—was neatening the gum display.
Remembering her uncomfortable encounter earlier with the poodle lady, Ali swallowed her self-consciousness. Then she marched right up to the counter, took one of the bright-red wrapped Jumbo bones from the display and put it purposefully on the counter.
The female clerk peered up. She cast a slightly wary eye at Ali.
“Is that everything?” she asked, picking up the bone and scanning it into the till with a bleep.
Ali tugged at her collar. “Actually, there is something else. I wonder if you might be able to help me? I’m looking for someone.”
“Oh?” the woman queried, sounding decidedly suspicious now. “I can try. It’s a small town. Most people know one another here.”
“His name is Richard Sweet,” Ali explained.
The woman looked blank and shook her head. “No, sorry. I’ve never heard of him.”
“He might go by the nickname Rich now.”
The woman looked momentarily contemplative. “I don’t know any Richards or Rich’s,” she said, tapping her chin. “But for some reason that name does sound kind of familiar.”
Ali felt a spark of hope in her breast. “Kind of familiar” was a huge step up from “I don’t have any change!” as far as Ali was concerned.
“Can you think of another place that might be good to ask at?” Ali said, hopefully. “Is there a coffee shop or something where the locals go?”
“Sure,” the woman said. “There’s an inn on the corner. Just that way.” She pointed out the window.
“That’s great,” Ali said, hopefully. “I’ll try there. Thank you so much.” She dug in her pocket for some change for the Jumbo bone. “How much do I owe you?”
“Three dollars,” the clerk replied.
“Oh, I’m just getting one,” Ali told her.
“Uh-huh. And it’s three dollars. For one.”
Ali’s gaze snapped up with surprise. Jumbo bones were over double the price in Wave Bay than back home! She was about to say something but decided against it. She was too excited by the lead to waste any time quibbling over the price of a dog treat, and so she handed the clerk the money, grabbed the bone up from the counter and hurried back out to Scruff with a spring in her step and renewed hope in her chest.
As soon as he caught sight of the distinctive crinkly red wrapper, Scruff jumped up at her legs. Ali unwrapped his Jumbo bone, her gaze fixed on the inn on the corner, her heart pounding against her rib cage.
“Apparently that’s the place to ask,” she told him, as she placed the bone between his teeth.
Scruff was too busy wolfing down the Jumbo bon
e to pay her any attention. But as soon as he was done, he looked up at her, licked the crumbs from around his furry lips, and barked as if to say, “Let’s go!”
Ali swallowed the lump of apprehension in her throat and began to walk toward the inn.
But just as Ali reached the corner where the inn was located, her gaze went down the other road, a fully pedestrianized street lined with stores with wooden signs jutting out. She spotted a sign that looked like a vintage candy store and remembered the small clue she’d found back in Willow Bay, that her father had expressed an interest in opening his own candy store. A sudden feeling of compulsion overcame her, drawing her to the sign like a magnetic pull. Making a snap decision, she passed the inn and headed straight for the candy store instead.
Scruff followed with an inquisitive look on his face, and Ali as she drew to a halt outside the store, she gasped with shock. The sign above the door was written in opulent gold writing, and it said: Rich Sweet.
Ali’s breath caught in her lungs. She peered through the windows, her gaze scanning over ornate chocolate sculptures encrusted with gold leaf and a chocolate fondue fountain. This was some kind of high-end, expensive candy store, nothing like the vintage type that her father had supposedly wanted to open. And yet there was his name above the door as clear as day.
As she stared, open mouthed through the window, Ali caught sight of a figure moving behind the counter in the darkness at the far end of the store. A man. With gray hair. Her father would have gray hair now.
Ali’s heart leapt in her chest.
“Scruff,” she squeaked. “It’s him. It’s my dad.”
As the dog let out a joyful bark, Ali pushed open the doors and raced inside.
CHAPTER FOUR
The bell tinkled musically above Ali, but she hardly even registered it. Her entire focus was on the counter of the candy shop, and the gray-haired man she’d seen through the window. He still had his back to her, busy stacking boxes of elaborate looking chocolate animals onto the rustic wooden shelves behind.
Ali’s heart pounded as fast as her footsteps as she grasped the counter with both hands and cried, breathlessly, “Dad?”
The man flinched, freezing in place with one of the large ornamental chocolate animals in his hand, poised to be placed on the shelf. For the first time, Ali noted what he was wearing—a silk caftan in bright turquoise, with Chinese print, certainly not the sort of thing her father wore. And then slowly, the man turned around to face Ali and she immediately realized her mistake.
This was not her father. The man’s face showed signs of every plastic surgery procedure money could buy—with big pouty lips, Botox-high sculpted eyebrows, and fat-injected cheeks. His skin was stretched, giving him a feline-like appearance.
Ali’s stomach sank with a sense of pure disappointment like she’d never felt before, and she reeled back, almost as if burned by flames.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered, feeling thoroughly embarrassed. “I thought you were someone else.”
The man eyed her warily, before placing the box containing the ornamental chocolate sculpture down on the counter. It was a ridiculously expensive Swiss chocolate owl, decorated with nuts and dried fruits, the antithesis of Ali’s sparkly, rainbow swirl cupcakes.
“We all have daddy issues,” he said, leaning on his elbows and peering at her curiously. “But trust me when I say I’m no one’s dad.”
He chuckled, and Ali nodded, sadly, the feeling of pure disappointment threatening to completely overwhelm her.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” she mumbled.
She was about to back away, tail between her legs, when she caught sight of the man’s name badge. It did not read Rich as she assumed it would, but Julian.
A surge of desperate, last-ditch hope overcame her. If this was not Rich Sweet, the store owner, but instead an employee of Rich Sweet the store owner, then the person who owned the store, who’d named it after themselves, could still very well be her Rich Sweet! She might still find her father, yet!
“Actually, maybe you can help me?” Ali said, hearing a sudden spark in her voice. “Rich Sweet. The owner. I’m looking for him. Is he here?”
The man paused and blinked at her. Then a small smile appeared at the sides of his lips, twitching upwards as if he was making attempts to suppress it. Then a small snort sounded from his nose. At the sound of his own laughter, the expression he’d been trying to stifle burst onto his face, and a big, wide, sneering grin stretched from ear to ear. He began to cackle like a hyena, and there was a very nasty quality to it that Ali did not like one bit.
“Rich Sweet isn’t a person, darling!” he drawled, like she was an imbecile. “It’s the name of the store!”
He grabbed a small, folded cardboard product menu from beside the counter, with gold gilded lettering on the front, and handed it to her. For the first time, Ali saw there was a dot between the word Rich and the word Sweet.
She frowned with confusion.
“Get it?” the man said condescendingly, tapping the gold words with his finger. “Rich, because you have to be rich to shop here. And Sweet, because it’s what I sell.” He gestured around to the ornate chocolate animal sculptures as if to iterate his point.
Ali did not need any further explanation. She fully understood the mistake she’d made, and a whole host of emotions began vying for attention inside of her—embarrassment, shame, disappointment, sorrow.
She took a self-conscious step back from the counter, fighting down the tears and the urge to turn on her heel and run away.
As she paced back, Julian’s gaze went slowly down to her dirty jeans and all the way to her scuffed shoes. He sneered.
“Sorry I can’t help you,” he said, thinly. “But you’re clearly not in the right place.”
Ali gasped, realizing immediately what he was implying. He was insinuating that she was too poor to shop in his store! Just like the woman with the poodle had insinuated she was a panhandler!
A new emotion sprang up into her gut—offense. What a terribly rude thing to say! She did not deserve to be insulted by these strangers. She especially did not appreciate Julian’s callous attitude, considering he at least semi-understood her situation!
“I see,” she said with a haughty huff. “I won’t take up anymore of your valuable time.”
Keeping her head held high, she turned on the spot and marched for the exit. The man’s cruel cackles followed her all the way out of the door.
As soon as she was back out on the streets, she let the facade slip. Feeling like her heart was breaking, she peered back over her shoulder and noticed for the first time that there was indeed a dot between the words Rich and Sweet on the store sign. How had she missed it before? She must’ve been so desperate for it to be her father’s name, her brain had created a blind spot, ignoring the dot right before her eyes. Eyes that were now welling with hot, embarrassed, unhappy tears.
Scruff yipped at the sight of her and pushed his furry body against her ankles. As if sensing her growing distress, he nuzzled his wet nose into her palm affectionately. Ali smiled with sorrowful gratitude.
“Let’s get out of this awful place,” she said to him.
Side by side they hurried back along the streets, retracing their steps all the way to the car. Ali wasted no time unlocking it and slumping inside, her body heavy with demoralization. Scruff jumped in after her and settled into the passenger seat, watching her with concerned brown eyes, as if wondering what happened.
Ali wasn’t quite ready to talk about how Teddy’s lead had been a dead end. Rich Sweet was not a person after all, but a store, run by an incredibly rude man. She was back to square one.
She swallowed her disappointment and gunned the car to life. She backed out of the lot, then put the pedal to the metal and sped out of Wave Bay, determined to never look back.
Only once she was back on the coastal road and heading in the direction of Willow Bay, did she truly allow herself to process what had just t
ranspired.
“I was silly to get my hopes up,” she mused aloud to Scruff as she began the drive back along the coast.
Ali felt heartbroken by what had transpired at the chocolate shop, and like all hope was lost.
“It was wishful thinking, wasn’t it, Scruff?” she murmured. “To think I’d find my dad just like that.”
Scruff whined with sympathy.
“Maybe Teddy’s right about it not being worth looking for him,” she added. “He doesn’t want to be found. Maybe it’s for the best. I mean, I’ve survived this long without him, so what exactly can he bring to my life now?”
Scruff barked.
“I have plenty of family—Teddy, Hannah, and Mom. And I have my friends, and my bakery. I don’t need a dad. Especially one who doesn’t want me!”
She was determined now and tightened her hands on the steering wheel.
“You know what,” Ali said. “I’m going to put it all out of my mind. My mom’s visiting soon. And she’s all the parent I need.”
As she passed the bakery, heading for her apartment’s parking lot, she spotted a very grumpy looking Emilio sitting outside the pizzeria next door. The swarthy Italian was sporting an entirely different appearance than normal. His long brown hair had been cropped short, and his goatee had been shaved off. Perhaps he regretted it, and that was why he was looking so miffed? Or, more likely, his twin brother had copied him and that was why he was so furious!
She slowed her car and tooted her horn. Emilio glanced up. As he trotted toward her, she rolled down the window.
“Is everything okay?” she asked as he drew up beside her car.
“No,” he replied. “I’ve just received some very bad news. News that doesn’t just affect me, but you, too.”
Ali frowned. It could only be something to do with the stores. Along with Marco’s pizzeria, Ali and Emilio were the only vendors with stores on this little offshoot of the boardwalk, tucked just slightly back from the main road. If there was something bad that affected the both of them, it must be to do with the stores. Perhaps a problem with the trash bins they shared in the alleyway out back, or an issue with the WiFi or telephone line?