Chapter Eight
Cade
There was no riddle at the mermaid statue.
Except for Lena. She’s soft-hearted, guarded, and I want to kiss her. Badly.
“How’s the tour going, Trouble?” That voice.
I turn to face Marina, my arms dropping from around my tour guide.
Marina looks nearly the same as yesterday—gray hair in a long braid, maroon paisley dress, cream-colored fisherman’s sweater. And the way she looks at me hasn’t changed either. To her, I am the devil.
Lena shifts away from me, looking self-conscious. “Cade ate all the eel pie.”
The elderly woman waves Lena’s information away. “A stomach of iron just means a heart of iron.”
That’s annoying.
“Wow.” I smile unkindly at Marina. “I was just saying you look like the mermaid here.” I gesture to Serena.
“Really? I’ve never had anyone say that before.” Marina’s smile is secretive. But then she looks a bit more like her grouchy self. “I would have thought Trouble would liken the mermaid to Lena, in the hopes of charming a kiss out of her.”
“Right. I’d love to stay and chat, Marina, but we’ve got a tour to finish.” Lena leads me away from Marina and toward the Penny & Dime Arcade without another word. No excuses for Marina’s comments. No reminder of her No Dating policy. And no update on my point total.
My mind is reeling, making me lightheaded, because I don’t like not knowing where I stand with a woman. I don’t like not knowing where I stand with anyone, really.
Or perhaps it’s the eel pie coming back to taunt me.
Before I can decide, Lena opens the door and we enter the Penny & Dime. “Penny? We’re here for the tour.”
No one answers. The place is empty.
The Penny & Dime is an old time arcade. Machines are operated on pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
There’s an old wooden fortune teller in a glass display (fifty cents), a pinball machine (twenty-five cents), a black and white movie experience (ten cents).
None of the machines here are high tech.
There’s not even a Pacman machine. This is one of the businesses I’ve targeted as an easy sale.
An old woman appears in an open doorway at the back. She’s dressed in blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Her silver hair is short and flyaway. Like Albert Einstein’s, it stands on end.
The businessman in me notes: except for Lena, every business owner so far has been retirement age.
In my experience, the older the business owner, the more logically an offer is received and accepted.
Deals with the retirement generation are easier.
Or I’d expect them to be, if not for this tour.
This tour implies determination to run a business until death do they part.
“You’ll be wanting a game of air hockey.” Penny turns toward an air hockey table that is already on and humming. Two cats are batting a hockey disk back and forth. “When Laurel and Hardy are done with their game, it’ll be your turn. But first, a riddle.”
Another riddle?
I roll my eyes. “Hit me with it.”
One of the cats scores on the other. The puck clatters through the goal slot.
“Tie game. Next to score wins.” Penny retrieves the puck and pushes it across the table toward the brown and black tabby. “Now, for the riddle… What kind of coin never jingles?”
“There are two answers to this,” Lena blurts. Her eyes widen. “Oops.”
“No hints.” Penny frowns at Lena. “We don’t go soft on the tour.”
“Sorry.” Lena moves to peer at the fortune teller machine.
“Your answer?” Penny asks me. “Lena is right though. You’ll need two answers.”
“The most obvious answer is a wooden nickel.” At Penny’s nod, I glance around the arcade once more, searching for inspiration for the second answer. “Aren’t you going to tell me the history of your arcade? Has it been here for generations?” Like the other businesses we’ve been to on the tour.
“Yes, of course.” Penny beams at me. “My family has been here for six generations. It began as a vaudeville theater.”
“It’s not very large for a theater.” I’d seen larger footprints at a pizza take-away shop in downtown Berkeley.
“People were smaller back then.” Penny sniffs as if I’ve offended her. “Your answer.”
One of the cats thwacks the air hockey puck into the goal.
“Winner, winner. Chicken dinner.” Penny lifts the felines off the table. “Congratulations, Laurel. The tour participant can play now. You’ll need coins.” She nods toward the change machine, which only takes dollars, not ATM cards.
How much more old school can this place get?
An old man enters with a pair of young children. “Hello, Penny. My grandkids helped me clean house. I paid them in dimes.”
Each child has a small, red velvet bag bulging with what I assume are coins. The little girl is cradling hers to her chest but the boy is banging his against his thigh. The bag sounds more like Scrabble tiles than coins.
“Dimes,” I mutter. “Dimes don’t jingle like sleigh bells.”
“That’s right. They’re too small.” Lena smiles at me. It’s a sad smile.
“He had help solving the riddle,” Penny gripes. She presses a small wooden coin into my palm. “This is for later. If you make it to the end.”
“Let’s have that game,” Lena says quickly, almost as if she believes Penny has spilled too much herself.
“I’d rather pay for the kids to play.” I can be a bit cutthroat and I don’t want to compete with Lena. I want us to be on the same team.
Strike that. I need us to be on the same team.
But given we’re of different minds about what’s best for Mermaid Bay long-term, that wish will probably never come true.