Live and Let Chai

by Bree Baker

  I stepped onto Main Street with purpose. This time, I’d paired my Sun, Sand, and Tea shirt with a long gauzy skirt and flip-flops. I’d painstakingly piled all fifty pounds of my dark curls into a whimsical and effortless-looking bun, then secured it with a tray of bobby pins and hair-sprayed the creation to within an inch of its life. All in the name of looking deceitfully carefree.

  First stop: the community bulletin board on the square. I pinned one of my flyers to each corner, then walked methodically up and down the grid of business streets at the center of town, leaving copies in windows and near cash registers when possible. If anyone was brave enough to make eye contact, I handed them a copy directly and invited them personally to attend. If that didn’t scare them off, I asked whether they knew anything about Mr. Paine. A teen couple in beach gear said I should ask the gossip blogger “because that dude knows everything.” Unfortunately, neither kid knew who ran the blog.

  A man reading the paper said Paine was a pain, which I already knew, and a lady wearing yoga gear and Birkenstocks told me his death was probably karma, then offered to clear my aura.

  Charm had either gotten stranger while I was away, or I’d simply never paid enough attention before.

  About thirty minutes later, a suspicious number folks started avoiding my eyes and staring down at their cell phones. The town blogger must’ve gotten wind I was out harassing the people again and updated his or her post. I kept my chin up and my smile on as I entered Molly’s Market for my grand opening décor needs.

  “Hey, Everly,” Mr. Waters called from the register. Fifty years of chain smoking had whittled his voice into a windy rasp.

  “Hello.” I stopped at the counter with a flyer. “It’s so good to see you. How’s Molly?” Mr. Waters had named the store after his daughter, my former babysitter.

  “She’s good. Four kids now.” He pulled a framed family photo from behind him.

  “Nice. What a beautiful family!” I pushed away any thoughts of Wyatt and the adorable kids we would have made together.

  “What can I do for you today?” he asked.

  “A couple of things, actually.” I showed him a flyer. “I’m hosting a grand opening and need to pick up a few things.”

  He put on his glasses and smiled at my handiwork. “Will you be at the street party this weekend?”

  I’d nearly forgotten about the annual street party. It was Charm’s last quiet hurrah before tourists made their way across the bridge for the summer. We didn’t get nearly as much traffic as other nearby favorites like Corolla and Nags Head, but there were enough rental homes in town to change Charm’s quaint dynamic from May through September.

  In a way, the street fair also kicked off the moneymaking months for many hometown businesses. Mr. Paine had hated the influx of tourists, but for many people, the money they made each summer was enough to keep their lives afloat the rest of the year, and everything else was just a bonus.

  I could only imagine.

  “I wouldn’t miss it. Do you mind if I leave a couple extra flyers on the counter?”

  He took a generous stack and winked. “Absolutely not, and you can count on the missus and me to be at your party. Now, what else can I do for you?”

  I checked for listening ears, leaning against the counter. “Do you know if Mr. Paine had anything unusual going on recently? Like an abnormally big fight with someone?”

  Or an ongoing beef that could’ve made the other party homicidal from sheer frustration?

  Mr. Waters rubbed his chin. “Not that I’ve heard, and I hear a lot. Only market in town and all.”

  That was exactly why I’d asked. “Okay,” I said, “How about his ex-wife, Lucinda? Can you tell me anything about her?”

  “I didn’t know Lucinda well, but I remember her. She always seemed a little too fancy for Charm, so I wasn’t shocked when she left Benedict. He was Charm through and through.”

  “Were they getting along lately?”

  Mr. Waters rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “I suppose. They’ve been divorced a few years now. Not much to argue about anymore. What makes you ask?”

  I gave him a sad smile. “I’m just trying to figure out who could’ve hurt him that night. The ex-wife is probably a stretch, but if they were still in touch, she might know if there was something big going on with him.”

  He smiled brightly, apparently pleased with my quest. “I’ve always liked a go-getter. Tell you what, I’ll keep my ears open and let you know if I hear anything.”

  “Deal.” If only everyone in town were so quick to believe I was innocent and offer their help.

  I filled my wagon with plates, cups, and bowls that looked fancier than they were, then went to get some toothpicks for hors d’oeuvres and sandwiches. I found some foam boards for displaying photos and added them to my growing pile.

  “What’s this?” A thick Russian accent turned me on my heels.

  “Hana!” I crushed her in my arms.

  We rocked side to side in our embrace, stiff-legged and jubilant, like a pair of eighth graders during their first slow dance.

  She stepped away first, eyeballing my wagon. “What’s this?” she repeated, stealing a flyer from the stack I was carrying. “You’re going to have a party without me?”

  “Of course not!” I laughed. “I planned to come see you tomorrow and invite you myself.”

  Hana was closer to my age than my great aunts, but the three of them ran in the same circles. Holistic, tree-hugging, naturalist circles. Today, she wore a silk headband with a Patsy Cline T-shirt and cutoff jeans. Her petite build and girlish figure was deceiving. I’d seen her carry feed sacks I wouldn’t have been able to budge with a dolly.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I’m going to put together the menu tonight, then come to your place with a list of ingredients. Is that okay?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She tugged the ends of her dark pixie cut. I could practically see the delight in her eyes at the idea of getting to provide fresh goodies for the party. She looked me up and down. “So, what’s new with you? Besides, you know…” She wiggled her phone, having clearly gotten all the Town Charmer details about my poisonous ways.

  “Oh, not much, just trying to solve a murder and launch an iced tea shop.”

  She nodded, as if this was a normal set of goals.

  “Did you know Mr. Paine?” I asked.

  “Yes. He didn’t like me selling produce from my home. He said to go to the farmers’ market. I said I am a farmers’ market. End of story.”

  I gave her a sympathetic smile before hugging her goodbye and promised to get my produce order to her as soon as I could. A few minutes later, my wagon was four shopping bags heavier and my wallet was sixty-three dollars lighter, but I had gobs of disposable cups and plates for my party, and I’d chosen the beachiest of decorations to up my shop’s already great look—shells, starfish, sand dollars, and buckets. It would be a party no Charmer would soon forget.

  Maggie, the scruffy white cat, tailed me back down Middletown to the boardwalk, trotting stealthily alongside me in the tall grasses.

  “I can see you,” I said, turning to look at her. “It’s okay to like me. I’m a nice lady.”

  Maggie froze.

  I smiled. “You’re white, and you’re trying to hide in the very green grass. Come on out here,” I urged.

  She didn’t budge a muscle.

  I squatted and clucked my tongue, wiggling my fingers as if I had something in my hand she might want to see.

  She didn’t.

  “Fine.” I dropped my hand and straightened to my feet. I’d wear her down eventually. She was already interested, so I had that going for me.

  Amelia was peering into one of her little libraries when I lifted my eyes back to the boardwalk. She brushed sand from the top and inside shelves, th
en lifted books from a pile stacked on the ground into the tiny structure. When she glanced up at me, I was struck by the sadness in her eyes. She looked as if someone had stolen her puppy.

  “Hey.” I let my wagon roll to a stop. “What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, you know. Everything.” She wound a length of stick-straight hair behind one ear. The rest hung loose in a chin-length bob. “How much time do you have?”

  I smiled. “Are you going my way? Maybe I can keep you company.”

  “That sounds really nice.” She stared along the boardwalk toward my home and her next Little Library. “My ex-husband is a total creep, and he lives in town, and he remarried last weekend. They’re home from their honeymoon now. You know where they went? Hawaii. You know where he took me? The B&B on Bay Street.”

  “You were eighteen,” I said, rubbing her back as we began to walk. “Do you still love him?” I couldn’t even think of Amelia’s ex-husband’s name. They’d had a whirlwind romance our senior year, then married that summer. I remembered a bonfire on the beach and some underage drinking, but that was all. I was home before curfew, playing cards with Aunt Fran until dawn, marveling over how two people my age had agreed to such a commitment when I’d had trouble committing to a summer lifeguarding job.

  “I don’t love him anymore,” Amelia said. “The divorce is just a point of failure that I’ll always have to live with. Like a black mark on my record or something. Being young and stupid is awful. His new wife will always think of me as the loser who couldn’t keep him.”

  “You don’t want him.”

  “Not the point!” she growled.

  I pulled my hand back so I wouldn’t lose it. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. I think I’m just extra irritable because someone keeps filling all my Little Libraries with sand at night. People open the doors to see what’s available and get five gallons of sand dumped all over them. It’s wrecking some of the books. Makes me so mad.”

  I had no idea who’d want to vandalize a place to get free books, but her story about her ex-husband reminded me of my quest. “Did you know Mr. Paine’s ex-wife?”

  Amelia raised her brow. Her pale blond hair nearly matched her fair skin. “No. Why? You think she’s doing this to my books?”

  “What?” I looked at her sand-dusted sundress. “No! Not at all. I spoke with Sam Smart yesterday about Mr. Paine, and Sam said Mr. Paine’s ex-wife was a real pill. That maybe she had reason to hurt him, or she might be able to tell us who did.”

  “Oh.” Amelia’s narrow lips pulled low into a frown. “Well, have you talked to her?”

  “Not yet. I don’t know her or where she lives. I still need to look her up. Sam said she has a jewelry store in Duck.”

  Amelia’s downturned mouth flipped up. “I love Duck. We should take a road trip as soon as possible. We can use my car.”

  I smiled. “Yeah? How about tomorrow? We can leave early and spend the day.”

  “And shop?” She clutched her hands to her chest.

  “Sure.”

  “Yes, please!”

  I wasn’t sure I had the funds for shopping, but I definitely wanted to take a girlfriends’ road trip and question my newest lead in Mr. Paine’s murder investigation.

  Amelia spun, skirt flying out around her, one palm raised for a high five. “That’s a date.”

  We clapped hands, then parted ways at the next Little Library. I went home to work up a menu for my party and list of questions for Paine’s ex-wife. All the good questions had to come first, in case she wasn’t cooperative and decided to throw me out.

  Just before sunset, I changed into the outfit I’d worn to paint the inside of my house and stuffed my messy bun into a ball cap. I needed to paint my newly repaired steps, but success was in the timing: start the job too early, and be burnt to a crisp, wait too long and ten thousand nighttime bugs would be dried to the paint before dawn.

  I moved the brush expertly along the new handrail, rehearsing my questions for the ex-Mrs. Paine and rethinking my desserts for the party. An easy whistle lifted from my lips as I worked. For the first time in a long time, I had abundant purpose and renewed hope as a restaurateur.

  Even if local kids were daring one another to try my samples.

  Chapter Eight

  Amelia was on my doorstep at 8:00 a.m. with a cheery smile and two iced coffees. “Ready?” She nearly vibrated with enthusiasm as she passed me a cup.

  “Thanks.”

  The scruffy white cat watched us from the edge of my wide-planked porch.

  “Hi, Maggie,” I said to the cat. “Would you like some milk before I go?”

  She arched her back and darted away with a loud hiss and complaint.

  “That’s my cat,” I told Amelia.

  She laughed. “She seems lovely.”

  I’d put food out for her last night after she’d followed me along the boardwalk. The bowl was empty in the morning, so it was official: I’d claimed her. She just hadn’t reciprocated.

  I stared at the steps and willed my feet to move, but second thoughts had been my morning companion. I knocked wild curls away from my face and squinted indecisively against the balmy ocean wind.

  Amelia’s smile fell. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m about to drive to another town to badger a grieving woman. Is this such a great idea? Maybe we shouldn’t go.”

  “No,” she dragged the word out for several syllables, then hooked one hand under my elbow and hauled me toward her car. “I’m driving. You’re in pursuit of justice.”

  I laughed. “My mistake.” I stopped short of opening the car door, finally noticing Amelia’s adorable ensemble. “You look amazing.” I plucked the flowy fabric of my peasant top away from my midsection. “I look like I’m going to hunt seashells.”

  Amelia’s black capris and white sleeveless blouse were classic and sophisticated. She’d tucked her sleek blond hair beneath a silk polka-dotted scarf and hung a huge leather hobo bag from her shoulder; I’d dressed in worn cutoffs and a shapeless top with flip-flops. Her pumps matched her bag, lips, and nails; my lips and nails were the color God made them, and my bag was a wallet with a leather strap that hung from my wrist. “I should change,” I said, stepping back toward the house.

  Amelia wrenched the passenger door open and nearly shoved me inside. “If I could pull off youthful and sporty, believe me, I would. My style has been stuck somewhere between I Love Lucy and librarian-chic since middle school. I finally quit fighting it.”

  I climbed into the passenger side of Amelia’s red convertible, wrangling my untameable locks into a ponytail before buckling my seat belt—otherwise my hair would’ve become the size of an orbiting satellite before the first stoplight. “I didn’t know you had a convertible.”

  Amelia eased the sporty little car onto the road and slowly picked up speed until the tails of her silk scarf whipped behind her like a banner. “I bought it last month on a whim. I thought it’d make me feel like a movie star.”

  “Does it?”

  She pushed large, white-framed sunglasses over her bright blue eyes. “Sometimes.”

  “I’m going to buy a golf cart,” I told her. “Hopefully it won’t make me feel like a retired dentist.”

  I stuck my hand into the whipping wind, enjoying the beat of it against my palm and inhaling that indescribable island scent. Salt and sand. Sun and seagrass. “Thanks for doing this with me.”

  “Glad to,” she said. “I haven’t made spontaneous plans like this in a long time.”

  I bit my tongue against the oxymoron of spontaneous plans. Amelia had always loved lists and order. I’d bucked the concepts for nearly three decades, but lately I was seeing the benefits of having some kind of life plan.

  “I found the perfect place for lunch,” Amelia said, “and there’s an iced tea shop we should probably check out.�
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  “Duck has an iced tea shop?” That was bad news. Sun, Sand, and Tea was supposed to be one of a kind. “I didn’t know that. Maybe it’s just a café that happens to serve sweet tea.”

  “It’s not in Duck,” Amelia corrected. “Kitty Hawk.”

  “Kitty Hawk!” I squawked. That was worse. Kitty Hawk was ten miles closer. “And you want to go there?” Personally, I kind of wanted to go home and breathe into a paper bag. I had no idea there was another iced tea shop so close to home.

  “It’s good research,” she said. “You should know your competition and how they compare.”

  I let that thought settle in. “Do you know anything about market analysis?” I’d just read about the concept online yesterday.

  “I have a business degree.” She smiled. “It was a condition of my parents cosigning my first business loan. They wanted to be sure I knew what I was getting into. I paid them back in a hurry, but the student loans are another story. I’ll probably die with those. What about you? Is culinary school expensive?”

  “I had a scholarship.” I rubbed my forehead a little too roughly, annoyed at the reminder of another thing I’d thrown away to follow my heart. The logical move would have been to finish school no matter what, but the sting of Wyatt’s rejection had sent me running home to lick my wounds. Now that I was here, I couldn’t imagine leaving.

  “Hey.” Amelia batted at my shoulder as we slowed for a stop sign. “Whatever happened to that cowboy? Remember him? The two of you practically lived on the beach the summer he was here.”