by Eryn Scott
Of course, there was only one road into Pebble Cove. The dangerous coastline to the north and south of the town would make fleeing by foot impossible. So unless Tabby could get her hands on a boat, she’d have to take the road.
A response crackled through, though I couldn’t quite make out what it said. Then the chief returned his attention to Mike. He had cuffs on him before I could blink.
“Michael Smith, you are under arrest for the murder of Murray Fineman,” the chief said, and then he rattled off the rest of the man’s Miranda rights.
A sickening grin pulled at Mike’s lips. I couldn’t tell if his happy expression was more a defense mechanism to keep him from getting down about the fact that he was going back to jail, and this time, for a heck of a lot longer than the last stint, or if he really knew something that we didn’t about his arrest.
The latter possibility made a shiver rush up and down my spine.
Cuffing Mike, Chief Clemenson looked at us over his shoulder. “I’m going to need the two of you to come down to the station with me, so I can take your statements.”
We nodded and followed him outside when Officer Kennedy and Dr. Hall showed up to deal with Stephen.
“So you really weren’t bluffing,” I said as we stood waiting for the chief to load Mike into the back of his police SUV. “You really did text him.” I looked at Jolene.
She raised her eyebrows. “Actually, no. I typed out a text, but Stephen crushed my phone before I could send it. I was lying.”
We turned to the chief as he shut the car door and turned to us.
“How did you know to come to Murray’s?” I asked.
He jerked his head back toward the rocky piece of land separating Murray’s side of Misty Drive from mine. “I went to talk to you, actually, about to scold you for that meeting I heard you had with Geoff Byer. Before I could even knock on the door, Daphne poked her head out the window and told me you and Jolene had climbed over the hill wearing all black, and I figured this was where you’d come.”
I snorted. “So much for our outfits,” I said.
“Or the seventeen spiders and sticks I took to the face,” Jolene muttered.
I was still used to downtown Portland living, where even the people I rented the downstairs basement apartment from would barely be able to describe me, let alone what I did or where I went.
“Lucky for us, then,” I said with a nod.
With both our cell phones destroyed, we might’ve been able to locate a landline in Murray’s house. If not, we would’ve been running for a neighbor’s. I shivered to think of Mike chasing after us rather than running away like Tabitha had.
“Follow me there?” the chief asked.
Jolene and I tipped our heads in agreement. With two of us, riding with the chief would mean someone would have to ride in the back with Mike, and I knew I wasn’t going to volunteer for that short straw.
We walked in the dark, taking Misty Drive this time instead of the hiking route. Our shoes crunched on the pavement. The waves crashed ahead of us, signaling our proximity to the other side of Misty Drive.
“So that was pretty crazy.” Jolene spoke up after a moment.
“Understatement of the year.” I snorted.
She laughed. “You know, maybe it’s this whole almost dying with someone effect, but I feel closer to you.”
I smiled over at her in the moonlight. “Me too.”
“But seriously,” she said, “you’re so much different from what I thought you would be. I expected such a different person after hearing your story.”
Facing forward so she wouldn’t see me cringe, I prepared myself for her to tell me all about how I didn’t seem like someone who was so sick when they were little. The inevitable pitying tone would be used and a sympathetic head dip. I suddenly wished I hadn’t told her the truth, that I’d let her believe I’d grown up in a cult after all.
Jolene kept going. “I mean, someone coming in from the big city and ruining the whole structure of our small town is seriously a bunch of people’s worst fears, not to mention the plot of like more than half the movies on Hallmark. But I think you’ve been good for us, for me especially.”
The breath I’d been holding in anticipation burned in my lungs at the same time tears burned at the corners of my eyes. She’d surprised me yet again.
“I think you guys have been really good for me too,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as wobbly as it felt.
I needed to stop assuming these people were as hung up on my sickness as I was. My mother wasn’t here to dote on me and worry and warn people behind my back about how they needed to be careful around me.
My mother’s offer to come help me with the book club, and how I’d refused, came to mind. My refusal showed I was still harboring some hurt feelings about how Mom would talk to my class and tell adults when she didn’t think I was listening. It still stung remembering how she would deny sleepover requests and send any visitor with a cough away immediately because of my compromised immune system.
But really, could I have expected her to behave any differently?
I could see now that all the things she did that annoyed me the most, that made me feel the most alienated from my peers, were probably the things that had kept me alive.
And if I could see that, why couldn’t I move on?
The thought hit me that maybe I was the only one keeping this disease alive. What if Mom had moved on too? The truth was, I’d almost died a few months ago, and she hadn’t been clingy or overbearing in the least. What if her offer to help with the book club stemmed purely from the fact that it was squarely in her wheelhouse?
Maybe it was me who couldn’t move beyond my sickness. I was the one who kept assuming people were talking about my disease, thinking about it, treating me differently because of it.
“This place was just what I needed, actually,” I added, glancing over at Jolene as the warm lights of Daphne’s house came into view and we passed the lighthouse. “I think my grandma knew that when she left me her house.”
Jolene smiled.
As we walked the rest of the way, I thought about Asher. If I could move beyond my past and become a better version of myself, then maybe he could too. I hoped he saw it that way as well wherever he was.
“Think the chief will believe any of the crazy stuff we have to tell him about what went down tonight?” I asked as my house came into view.
“He’ll have to,” Jolene said matter-of-factly.
“Why?”
Jolene rubbed her hands up and down her arms as a cool burst of air blew in off the water. “Because as lovestruck and dumb as he’s been acting over the last week, he’s a smart man. A good man, and he’s got a conscience like no other. I could see the change in him, actually, tonight, when he realized he’d lost Tabitha.”
I tsked. “Yeah, there’s no way that lady’s coming back. You didn’t feel the bag, but it was heavy. There had to be a lot of diamonds in there.”
Jolene inhaled. “No, I don’t mean he physically lost her. Though he did that too. What I mean is that he lost the girl he fell in love with all those years ago. I was younger, so I didn’t really know them, but I remember her being smart as a whip, resourceful, and loyal. I think he’s been fighting to get that girl back this whole time.”
My own fears about letting Asher go when it was his time had plagued me all week—heck, for the past couple of months, if I were being honest. But I finally saw what Jolene was talking about.
“Just because he let her go doesn’t mean he lost that person forever, though.” I looked out into the pitch-black night, hoping Tabitha would finally find the peace she’d been searching for, the one she’d given up so much to create.
We arrived at my house, and I sighed, contented. I headed for my car. Jolene did the same since she lived in the opposite direction and would want to go home after our time at the station.
“Meet you there?” I said.
She nodded.
The
n we both took a moment and glanced up at the silhouette of Daphne in her upstairs window, looking down at the front of my house. We waved. I figured it was the least we could do when her nosiness had probably saved our lives tonight.
26
A month later …
Mom washed her hands at the kitchen sink. “I’m so excited.” She squeezed her shoulders up as she dried her hands on a towel.
I smiled. “Me too. I can’t wait to hear what the rest of the book club thought about the book. It was such a great choice, especially for our first one.”
Our two copies of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman sat on the table in between us.
Mom puffed out a breath onto her nails and then rubbed them on her cotton T-shirt. “Why, thank you. It just happens to be my job, so I’d better be good at it.”
“You know what I mean,” I said as I plated the dozen mini scones Jolene had made us for the meeting.
Regretfully, my business partner wouldn’t be joining us today, but it was for a good reason. Our whole near-death experience had done more than make the two of us feel closer. It had also reminded Jolene that life was fleeting and precious. She’d reached out to her estranged sister a week after, and they’d finally been able to meet with each other today.
Even with all the prep work I was putting into the first monthly meeting of Tea by the Sea’s book club, I kept her in my thoughts and hoped their talk went well.
“How many people are we expecting?” Mom asked, eyeing the tray of scones as if she’d like to pop a couple in her mouth right now.
“Seven signed up,” I said, offering her the tray. “Jolene made me two dozen just in case people wanted seconds.”
She took one of the scones and bit into the crumbly treat. “Yum.” She closed her eyes as she chewed and swallowed. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
Before I could tell her about how Jolene was planning on coming over for dinner tomorrow for just that reason, the bell on the front door jingled.
“Oh, sounds like the book club is starting to arrive.” I balanced the tray of scones on one hand and grabbed a teapot that had been steeping with the other.
Mom picked up the other teapot and our two books from the table. Just as I set foot in the tearoom, however, I felt like turning around right away. At least a dozen people crowded around the tables, each of them holding their own copies of the chosen book.
They turned to us as we entered, smiling.
“Hi, Rosemary!” a few of them called.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I told a friend about the book, and they just had to read it and wanted to come too,” Daphne said, pointing to a middle-aged woman next to her.
Many nods around the room signaled that this had been the case in more than one situation.
Rosemary, the girl who’d just barely survived, who lived her life in solitude, would’ve most likely run back into the kitchen to hide. But Rosie, tea-shop owner and amateur sleuth, smiled. And when I went back into the kitchen, it was only to grab the rest of Jolene’s treats and another display tray.
When I came back in, Mom was chatting with Daphne and her friend. The others chatted as they chose their seats. Talk was overwhelmingly focused on The Pines. After sitting vacant for the last few months, it was finally getting new tenants. Talk around town was that they were rich as sin, something confirmed yesterday when a veritable convoy of heavy machinery had made its way up the hill toward the old farmhouse.
“I hear they’re tearing the whole house down and starting from scratch,” one woman said.
“Not that beautiful house. It has to have historical significance,” the man next to her said.
“No, no.” Another woman leaned toward their table. “They’re keeping the house, but they’re using the machinery to clear the land so they can build other houses on it.”
The chatter continued like this. In true small-town fashion, everyone had heard a slightly different story and felt the need to share their version at least three times. Those who'd actually seen something with their own two eyes were treated like royalty in the discussion.
“Okay, I think everyone’s here,” I said, moving to the front of the room.
The conversation quieted, and everyone’s attention moved to me. We all jumped as the front door opened, boots clomped down the hall, and the chief ran into the room.
My heartbeat ratcheted up. I dropped my book and walked toward him. “Is everything okay?” I asked, breath suddenly hard to come by. “Is something wrong?”
The chief furrowed his brow at me. He tugged out something that had been tucked under his arm. It was a copy of our book club pick.
“Just here for the club.” He grinned warily in a way that reminded me so much of how my father used to smile when he played us a new song on his piano and wanted to know what we thought.
I nodded. The chief took his seat.
“Okay, hi, everyone,” I said, standing at the head table. “This is my mom, Kate. She’s the smartest person I know, and this book was her pick, so I asked her to join us for our first meeting.” I gestured to my mom, who stood and planted a kiss on my cheek.
“Thank you, Rosemary. And thank you to the townspeople of Pebble Cove for being so warm and welcoming to my daughter. I really feel like she’s in good hands here.”
A series of “aww”s sounded around the room, and there was even one sniffle.
“So how I thought this could go is that once we’ve all had a chance to get tea and something to eat, we’ll open the floor for general discussion, but we have a few prepared questions if we need them.”
The book club members nodded in agreement. They’d each paid a flat fee to come, which included their tea and treats, so it was more of a buffet than my usual a-la-carte style ordering.
This was going to be fun.
“Eleanor shows us we can move beyond our past and make something great even from the ashes,” my mother said, looking to Harriet who’d just made a similar observation.
Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I caught a glimpse of a tweed pant leg, the corner of a suspender moving around the corner and into the library. I sucked in a breath. Excitement pricked up my skin in goose bumps, and I felt my mouth tug into a huge grin. It had been a long month without my friend, and I couldn’t wait to see how he was doing.
“Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” I said, getting up and scooting into the library.
The room was silent and empty. The worn leather couch looked inviting, with a soft cotton throw laying across the arm. Asher’s favorite chair in the corner made my chest tighten with longing for the nights we’d spent talking and reading. Outside the large picture windows, the garden was luscious and green even through the warm summer we were having. Glittering blue waves rolled toward me in the distance.
I tiptoed through the tearoom and into the kitchen, hoping Asher would be there. When he wasn’t, I searched upstairs, whispering his name as loud as I dared with so many guests just downstairs in the tearoom.
I returned to the group slightly downtrodden, but the uplifting conversation soon picked up my spirits.
“Just like the back of the book says,” Harriet was adding as she flipped her book over, “‘Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than … fine?’ I love this because to me it’s all about living our lives rather than surviving them. And most of the time I think that means opening yourself up to caring about others and letting them care about you.”
Murmurs of agreement made way to another half hour of discussion. The warmth of the successful first book club, as well as the knowledge Asher was back, stayed with me until most of the book clubbers were gone.
Mom and a few of the members were helping me clean up when I glanced out at the brilliant sea and spotted a man walking along the beach. Well, he wasn’t walking as much as standing, staring out into the waves, his hands shoved into his pockets, the suspenders attached to his pants pulling against his broad shoulders. My
chest fluttered in the best way, in a way that felt like seeing your home again after a long vacation.
I swiped at my forehead, hoping I looked like someone who was too hot and would need a quick walk on the beach.
“Mom, do you mind if I go get a little fresh air for a moment?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t ask to come with.
“Sure, honey. I’ll stay here and oversee the rest of the cleanup,” she said, her eyes cutting to the kitchen, just as the chief walked out holding a cloth to wipe down the tables.
My attention lingered on the way Mom smiled at him and wondered if she saw the same similarities to Dad, as I had, but kept my mouth shut. I was too excited to see my friend.
Outside, the wind whipped up off the ocean and thumped against my chest, stealing my breath for a moment. I leaned forward and walked toward it anyway, squinting against the hot evening sun. The salt in the humid air stung at my nostrils only to be blasted away by a burst of wind a moment later. But I kept walking.
My shoulders relaxed when Asher stayed put even as I made a ton of noise in my approach with my feet slipping and crunching over the pebbled beach. A smile as wide as the horizon pulled at my lips as I came to a stop.
“Hey,” I said, once I stood next to him. “Missed you.” I peeked over at him.
“Hi.” He turned to face me. “Rosie, there’s so much I need to explain.”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
Eyebrows jumping up in surprise, his mouth parted.
“Ash, you don’t have to explain anything. At all. I’m here if you want to talk, but please don’t ever think you need to explain to me. I know you heard our discussion in there.” I pointed to the tearoom. “That book, it’s about moving beyond whatever terrible things happened in our past, becoming a better version of ourselves, not because we have to or because we’re expected to, but because we can. I’m trying to, and I believe you can. You are kind and wonderful and one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”