8. Brodie
It was nine on a Monday morning, and the only business open on Main Street was the coffee shop.
Some things never changed. Though last time I lived here, that was a little bakery rather than the Kingu Kafe—an offshoot of a national chain—that it was now.
The pastries were better than I remembered and so was the coffee, so I hadn’t minded spending the last few mornings here. I tried to convince myself since I arrived on Friday that this was just a long weekend. Since I’d wanted to be house hunting instead, that didn’t work. It was hard to look at houses when there weren’t any available in the area I wanted to buy in.
I strolled down a street already filling with cars. This town didn’t do much business during the colder months, but it was a minor tourist stop in the summer. With this being the last week before school started, people were here to get their last-minute antique and kitschiness shopping in.
I looked like another one of them. A visitor. I didn’t fit in on this street I’d grown up near, because I wanted to. It had been too long since I felt like I belonged somewhere, and I wanted it to be here.
I tried to be okay this weekend with doing nothing, but I was fidgety. To fill the time, I’d gone over my list of people to catch up with. To check in on. To casually mention I was looking to buy farmland here and see if they could hook me up.
At one point, I thought about looking up Clint. Would it be weird to visit my old boyfriend? Hey. Missed you. By the way, I’m engaged.
Of all the people I’d kept up on after I left, I’d watched Clint the most. Maybe that was a little over the top, but when I left, he was so mad, swore he never wanted to see me again, that I didn’t dare reach out. Instead, I’d watched the newspaper announcement when he got married. Watched his career rise and fall, seen that he vanished from the public eye…
None of that meant it was a good idea to seek him out now. He and I were a long time ago.
This morning I’d forced myself to stay in my hotel room and pretend I was taking my time waking up. That it was normal for me to not do anything before nine.
I’d already failed on the ignoring work front. I’d emailed my assistant—former assistant—half an hour ago to make sure they didn’t need anything. She reminded me someone else was handling my job for now, and that I should enjoy my sabbatical.
The heartbreaking thing though, the piece of news that pushed me from something is off into this sucks territory was that putting me on hiatus did exactly what it was supposed to. Our company’s stock prices climbed this morning, after the announcement.
At the counter in the cafe, I ordered a large red-eye—coffee with a shot of espresso—and added cream. If I was going to climb the walls not knowing what to do, might as well enhance that feeling with caffeine.
I took my drink to sit on one of the stools next to the counter lining the window. People watching always helped me think.
As soon as Aubrey’s was open, I’d go visit her. Say hi to my fiancée. I’d wanted to take her away for the weekend, and spend some time with her in person. Take another two or ten of those kisses, like we’d shared when I arrived. I wanted to consume her time. Consume her.
But she had a life. Sylvie’s wedding to help plan.
And I had to find a way to buy property here. In between catching up with the people who lived here, I would occupy myself working on a different new idea, until I reached an impasse. The technology didn’t exist to do what I wanted—less expensive and less bulky offerings—and I had to figure out how to make it so.
As I stared out the picture window, at both residents and tourists, I couldn’t help but fall into a comparison of what was now versus what had been.
On the surface, a lot of the street looked like what I remembered. The antiques, hardware store, music… All of it was where it had been my entire life.
At a closer glance, the names and owners were all different. Gage’s Grub still had the same sign it always had, and so did Young Hardware. Both had been handed off to the younger generation in those families.
Youngerwas deceptive. Gage and Evie were forty, a few years older than me.
Deacon had changed the name of the antique store—Deacon’s Derelicts and D’art. Ludicrous name. I bet that made him giggle for a long time.
And Aubrey’s place next door was new. New to me, anyway. She’d taken over part of his property for her vintage clothing store, Pin-up Princess.
Joystick’swas new.
The bookstore was gone, but a sign in the window said it would be back soon, under new ownership. Granny’s Yarn was still there—I couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t. I couldn’t see either of those from my seat as they were next to the cafe, but I’d noticed when I arrived.
Infused Divination was the same too, though Sebastian had taken over after his trouble.
I’d known all of this before I arrived. No matter how many times I’d tried to tell myself over the years that I was leaving this place behind for good, I couldn’t help keeping tabs. Maybe I was meant to come back, maybe I should have just forgotten it.
I was here now, and being in the middle of it, the past easily overlapped the present. The quiet, wallflower of a kid I was then compared to who I was now.
Regardless of what came next, I’d left that boy behind. That was what mattered.
Stores were opening. That was my sign that it was time to climb out of my head and get moving. I downed the rest of my coffee, not caring that there was more than half a cup left and it scalded going down.
A moment later I was walking through Aubrey’s front door.
She was talking to someone. A younger girl behind the counter, someone I didn’t recognize, greeted me with a warm smile. “Hi, can I help you find anything?”
“No. I’ve already found her.” I couldn’t tear my gaze from Aubrey. She was channeling early 80’s Madonna this morning, with her hair teased into organized chaos. Her pale sweater was too big, and slid off one shoulder to reveal a black tank top strap.
Delicious.
She glanced up at my voice and gave me a faint smile, but quickly returned her attention to the woman she was talking to. “Let me grab what I have. I can modify some of it if you need, and probably get the rest quickly.”
“That’d be great,” the customer said.
The girl behind the counter stepped in front of me. “They’re talking about costumes for a movie. She might be a while.”
Damn it. “No worries. I’ll come back in a bit.” I spoke loudly enough for Aubrey to hear, and she gave me another brief glance—acknowledgment.
Time to go mingle.
I headed onto the street again, and stopped into shop after shop, to say hi and catch up. These people had barely been acquaintances before, and were too busy this morning to make time for me now. I didn’t blame them. I didn’t want to start making appointments to have friendly conversations, though.
I was at the end of the street, near Infused Divination, and still didn’t have a direction. The coffee was kicking in, clawing through my veins and reminding me I didn’t have an outlet for it.
The extra shot of espresso had been a bad idea. I could see if they made a tea to fix that.
Really I wanted to talk to Sebastian. If anyone would understand what I was going through, it would be him. He’d come up with a huge breakthrough in software a few years ago, and his business partner had stolen the idea, cashed in on it, and left Sebastian with nothing.
When I walked into the store, he looked up from his spot behind the counter. The wall behind him was lined with wooden boxes that had little wooden doors. Some were labeled with brass tags that I couldn’t read from here, and others had labels taped on, with handwritten words like Lavender and Peppermint and Mistletoe.
“Hey.” He gave me a reserved smile. “Another prodigal son returns.”
“That’s me.” I’d been in the same clubs in school as Sebastian, but we hadn’t been friends or enemies or anything. When we graduated, we both moved out of state, and there was no reason to keep in touch.
Except that he’d been a huge name in tech for a while, and I’d tracked his trajectory until he was pushed out.
The store was exactly what I remembered. Glass cases and wooden shelves dotted the floors. Some held tarot and oracle cards and books, and others sparkled with assortments of crystals. Teacups. Dream catchers.
New Age music played softly over the sound system.
“I’d ask what brings you back, but the tentacles of this place yank us all home eventually.” Sebastian’s tone was an odd blend of sarcasm and teasing.
That hadn’t changed either.
I shrugged. “What do you have for don’t know what the fuck to do with myself?” I nodded at the sign on the counter promised Custom Tea Blends for What Ails You.
“Depends,” Sebastian said.
“On what?”
“What you’d rather be doing instead.”
Working. Creating. Spending enough time with Aubrey to see if we worked together as well in person as online, and putting down roots here, and seeing what came next. “Not sure.”
Sebastian turned to the display behind him, and his head moved back and forth for a moment. “I can give you a blend that will make you drowsy.” He kept searching. “I’m guessing you don’t want to sleep this off. I could give you something that would make you wired, but you probably already have excess energy.” He faced me again. “Or you can head down the street to Deacon’s, and ask to see his vintage magazine collection.”
“Vintage magazines?” As in porn, or Good Housekeeping?
“Playboy. Hustler.”
Yeah, okay. “Why wouldn’t I go online for dirty pics?” I was curious. Amused.
“Online isn’t vintage.”
I did like a woman in a sexy old-fashioned outfit. A specific woman. But I also had a feeling this was about more than porn. “So I go get myself a couple old magazines, and then what?”
“Up to you.”
What was I missing? Or was I reading too much into this? Was he really simply suggesting I occupy my mind with jerking off? “Let’s say I enjoy myself. That takes like… five minutes? Then what?”
“And then you’re back to bored, and checking your watch to see how long until you can do it again. Not because you’re horny, but because you’re used to punishing yourself, and can’t figure out a better way to do it than to beat your meat raw over and over again.”
His tone was casual, almost joking, but there was a hitch of darkness underneath. A resentment I recognized because I felt the same thing. Sebastian’s sounded more callous. Less fresh. Made sense, given he went through his upset a few years ago.
His was worse than mine in some ways. I saw my downfall coming. Worst case scenario, I’d still walk away with a bigger severance than most people made in a lifetime. The way I understood it, Sebastian’s being forced out came out of nowhere when he was betrayed by a business partner, and he lost everything.
I wasn’t going to ask if he was speaking from experience, about the masturbation. “I’ll pass. For what it’s worth, you got screwed.”
“You have no idea.” Any levity vanished from Sebastian’s voice, and his scoff was hard.
I would tell him my situation was different, that I hadn’t been pushed out, I was just taking a long vacation, but I knew that wasn’t true and suspected he did as well. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell that was my path from the news, but if he’d been paying attention, he’d recognized the signs.
From the nature of the conversation, I assumed he recognized the signs.
Sebastian turned to the teas behind him again. “I do have a blend I recommend. It starts sweet, with hints of berry and lemon, leaves a bitter aftertaste, and has enough caffeine to keep you wired all day and long into the night.”
That sounded less than desirable. It also sounded exactly like what I was in the mood for. “What’s it called?”
“Betrayal Berry Black Tea.”
Nice. My chuckle slipped out before I could stop it. “You know what? Give me half a pound, or however it is you sell it, plus a mug and a strainer.”
“Infuser.” Sebastian was already scooping various dried plant bits into a paper bag.
“Besides that, how have you been?” I asked as he finished wrapping up my purchase.
He glanced at me for a heartbeat, eyebrow raised, and went back to what he was doing. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend we’re long-lost pals who have been missing each other forever.”
Fair enough. “What would you prefer I do?”
“Are you and Aubrey really engaged?”
“Yes.” I didn’t hesitate with an answer.
“You could do me a favor.”
“You don’t even want to know how I am, and we’re friends enough to ask for favors?” I teased.
“I know how you are. You’re being forced out of the CEO position of a company you founded, by people who are only rich because of your ideas. It’s an easy favor. Do what you can to keep Sylvie away from here?”
What? Weird. “I don’t have any control over what Sylvie does, but I’ll make an effort. Why?”
Sebastian handed me a paper sack with everything in it. “This is on the house.”
I opened my mouth to protest, when the front door to the shop swung open and Aubrey stepped in.
“Thank God you’re here. Hey, Bas.”
“Hey.” Sebastian gave her a quick nod. His tone was friendly.
“Are you all right?” I gave Aubrey my attention.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Grandma wants to take”—She glanced past me—“Lunch.”
Ah. She was trying not to mention Sylvie in front of Sebastian. But why was I invited? “All right?”
“She said, and I quote, You can come along too if that wonderful man of yours is free.”
Seriously. What was that woman’s problem with Aubrey? The irritation about work that I’d been trying all weekend to redirect slipped in, with a new source to be directed at. “I’ll drive.”