The Charmed Friends of Trove Isle

CHAPTER TWO - LIZ

CHAPTER TWO

LIZ

Liz Dawson blew out a breath and tried not to panic. Her younger sister Rose was only a couple of minutes late. Sixteen was too young to have a driver’s license, in Liz’s opinion. Too young to have a car. Why did their parents agree to let Rose have one, especially before deciding to leave the country?

The bell on the bakery’s door chimed. The Bitery closed at six in the evening, but Liz hadn’t locked up because she was waiting for her sister. The story of Liz’s life, starting with when she was twelve years old and her parents had sat her down to tell her they were pregnant. Since that time, Liz had been waiting for Rose in some form or fashion.

“Hey, thought I saw you in here,” Danette Rhodes said. Danette owned The Book Whore next door. She was pushing ninety years old, walked with a cane, and shook like a bobble-head doll when she spoke. “Saw you didn’t park your bicycle out front today. Need a ride, Lizzie?”

Liz smiled as she weighed the risks of that offer. Danette had less business driving on the streets of Trove Isle than Rose did. “No, thank you. My sister is actually supposed to be driving us home today.” Supposed to being the key words.

Danette frowned, which only made the deep lines of her face contort and twist like unruly rivers on a desperate search for their ocean. Liz understood that search. Her entire adult life she’d been twisting and curving on her path, looking for something. Her path seemed to be one big loop though, keeping her in the familiar. In safe territory. At least it had felt safe until her parents had dropped everything to spend the summer in Ecuador where Liz’s maternal grandmother, Mami, lived.

Mami had what doctors called a transient ischemic attack. In layman’s terms, a ministroke. That had necessitated her parents leaving the country three weeks ago to visit a place Liz had never known her parents to go. Liz’s grandmother had come to the states in her twenties and she’d had Liz’s mother here in Trove. Liz had grown up with her mom always wishing out loud to return to her mother’s homeland, especially after Mami had moved back, but between family and running her own business, there’d never been time.

It wasn’t exactly the perfect time now, either. Not with Rose still in school. But illness didn’t make appointments. Inconvenient or not, Liz’s parents had left Rose in Liz’s care. Liz was an adult after all. And Rose could take care of herself—in theory.

Her mom had also left the bakery under Liz’s care. It was a huge responsibility and a lot of pressure that Liz wasn’t sure she could shoulder. Not that she had a choice in the matter. So here she was, babysitting a teenager and tending a bakery, when all she really wanted to do was disappear behind the lens of her Canon and spend her evenings editing her photographs.

“Is Rosie old enough to drive?” Danette asked.

“According to the law,” Liz said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster. Liz, on the other hand, had her doubts about a sixteen-year-old hormone-ravaged teen girl operating a motor vehicle.

A horn beep-beeped beyond Danette.

Liz blinked the bright-red car into focus. Expelling a breath, because yes, she’d been slightly worried that Rose was upside down in a ditch somewhere, she glanced at her watch with a touch of annoyance. Fifteen minutes late. She guessed she should be grateful because, by teenager standards, that was practically early.

“Looks like your ride is here,” Danette said, her head wobbling with each word. “I’ll see you tomorrow, hon. Stop in The Book Whore if you have time. I’m having a sale.” Danette liked to work in her store name as often as she could. For shock effect, Liz suspected.

“I will. Goodnight, Danette.”

“Night, Lizzie.”

The horn honked again. With a sigh that bordered on a growl, Liz collected her purse from below the counter and headed toward the door, her gaze moving to the latest black-and-white photograph that she’d taken of the south isle pier, framed and hanging on the bakery’s wall for sale.

The walls were full of Liz’s monochrome photographs, all for purchase. The money they brought in was good, but not enough to support Liz as a full-time photographer. That would require that Liz be able to take jobs working various functions and celebrations that took place outside of Seagull Street. And that would require that Liz have access to a reliable form of transportation.

A bicycle with an oversized front-hanging wire basket didn’t count.

Liz locked up the shop, cut across the sidewalk, and dipped into the passenger seat of the sporty red car. After pulling her seatbelt across her body, she faced Rose. “Why isn’t your seatbelt buckled?”

Rose’s brown eyes narrowed slightly. While Rose had gotten their mother’s dark brown skin, Liz’s skin tone was lighter like their father’s. It blushed too easily and far too often. Liz had also inherited her father’s mousy brown hair and his nearsightedness. Thus, the rounded glasses she was wearing. “Seriously?” Rose muttered. “We’re just going down the road. Your house is, like, three minutes away.”

“Ten. And accidents happen.” Liz pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Mom and Dad always say—”

“Mom and Dad are in Ecuador. And they left me in sister-jail with you.” Rose jerked the steering wheel and swerved the car onto the street. And no, she didn’t buckle up first. Liz wasn’t even sure Rose had checked to make sure there wasn’t oncoming traffic before she’d pulled out.

“Put your belt on.” Liz stiffened the way she always did inside a vehicle in motion. “And slow down. The speed limit is forty-five.”

For spite, Rose pressed the gas pedal a little heavier. The little car’s motor roared louder and the speedometer climbed to forty-eight. Forty-nine.

Liz loved her younger sister. She really did, but their parents couldn’t come home soon enough.

Liz turned to look at Rose in the driver’s seat, noticing the glint of something shiny on Rose’s eyebrow. “Is that . . . is that a piercing in your brow?”

Rose glanced over, one side of her mouth quirking upward.

“Eyes on the road!” Liz practically yelled. Once her sister was facing forward, she continued her lecture. “Who told you that you could get your eyebrow pierced?”

“No one,” Rose said with a shrug. “I didn’t ask.” She appeared to press the gas pedal harder, effectively silencing Liz as Liz white-knuckled the door handle.

As the speedometer reached fifty, an oncoming car veered into their lane. Rose screamed, yanked the steering wheel right, and swerved onto the roadside. But not in time to clear the path of the other vehicle. It scraped along the entire driver’s side of their mom’s car, the sound screeching in Liz’s ears.

Rose slammed the brakes and the car jerked to a halt, sending them both lurching forward. Liz’s body jerked to a stop after a couple inches, secured by her seatbelt, and then slammed back against her seat. Rose’s body, however, sprawled across the steering wheel.

The air whooshed out of Liz’s lungs. She stopped breathing for a moment, clutching the side door so hard that her nails were pulling off the flesh at her fingertips. Memories of a night long ago crashed into her mind. Metal screeching and then an eerie silence except for the ringing in Liz’s own ears. Were her ears ringing now or was this a flashback?

Rose peeled herself off the steering wheel, seemingly unfazed and unharmed. “The nerve of that jerk!” she screamed as she slammed her hands against the dash. “That was not my fault! You saw that car come into our lane, Lizzie! Not. My. Fault!”

Liz still didn’t say a word. Maybe she was like one of those animals that died from sheer terror.

“Liz?” Rose poked the side of her arm. “They barely touched us. I mean, the mirror and the paint job are probably jacked, but . . . Liz? Are you okay?”

Liz finally exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. Okay, she was still alive. She hadn’t died of fright.

She turned to look at her sister and blinked. This was why she didn’t drive and rode her bike whenever and wherever possible. But Rose was a new driver and among her mom’s many requests before leaving the country was that Liz supervise Rose when she was driving.

It was a poor decision on her parents’ behalf. Liz had gotten her own license when she was seventeen, but she’d barely driven before the accident that made her hang up her keys forever.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen. Are you about to have one of your freak-outs?” Rose asked.

Liz pulled a hand to her chest where her heart was hammering twice as fast as Rose had been speeding. One of her “freak-outs” as Rose had called it wouldn’t help things right now.

“Do you need, like, a bag to breathe in or something?” Rose looked more alarmed by the second.

This made Liz smile just a touch. Rose was a brat, but there were times—not often—when she let on that she actually cared. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to hyperventilate.”

Rose gave her an unsure look. Then her gaze flicked to the road. “Oh, the driver is coming. I am going to have some major words with that woman.”

Liz touched Rose’s shoulder. “No. I’ll talk to her.” Liz was the adult after all. Technically, Rose was still a child. They had twelve years between them, but that might as well have been a universe.

Liz pushed the car door open and stepped out on wobbly legs. Her body was still shaking as she walked to the front of the car and approached the woman who’d driven them off the road.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said as she walked toward Liz. “That was totally my fault.”

“Damn straight it was your fault!” Rose called from the rolled down window.

The driver continued to ramble. “My bracelet got caught on the gear. I’m not even sure how that happened.” She shook her head, her dark hair tossing around her shoulders.

Liz was speechless for a moment. Unable to believe her eyes, she blinked several times. When she had one of her panic attacks, her vision sometimes got distorted. For a moment, she thought she was staring at Alyssa Palmer. But that couldn’t be right. Alyssa had red hair. And Alyssa was dead. Nine years ago this June.

Instead, Liz was staring at Alyssa’s older sister Melody. Melody had rich brown hair. She was taller, thinner, and she’d been Liz’s best friend from third grade until their senior year of high school. Melody might as well have been dead too. Liz hadn’t seen or heard from her since that same June. One night. One swerve. One dead.

“Melody?” Liz’s first inclination was to run over and throw her arms around her long-lost friend, but something kept her feet cemented to the road. She couldn’t even muster a welcoming smile. Her heart and her brain were at war on how to react right now, and it seemed her brain was winning. “What are you doing here?”

Melody was wearing black Capri pants and a form-fitted cotton top. It was simple, but she wore it well. In some ways, she looked exactly like she had in high school. In other ways, Liz could see the imprint of the past decade in Mel’s hazel eyes and slightly rounded posture. Her shoulders hung by her sides as if she was carrying a heavy backpack.

“I just found out about Jo,” Melody explained. “I would have come sooner, but I didn’t know.”

Liz had heard Melody was living in Charlotte, about four hours northwest of Trove Isle. Liz had tried to reach out many times that first year after Melody had moved away. All of Liz’s calls had gone to voicemail though. All her texts were unanswered. Melody didn’t even have a Facebook or Insta-gram account that Liz could find her at. Melody’s only online footprint was a website for Memory Lane Events, a Charlotte-based business that Melody appeared to co-own with another woman.

Guilt swirled around in Liz’s chest. Maybe she should have tried to reach out to Melody after Jo’s passing, but Melody’s lack of contact over the years had made it obvious she’d forgotten this town and everyone in it.

“Apparently, I inherited a store,” Melody said.

Liz had wondered who Jo would entrust her business to. “Jo left Hidden Treasures to you?”

“That’s the one. I just met with Mr. Lyme to make it official.”

A horn honked as it approached the small collision even though there was still a lane the driver could use to bypass the scene. Liz and Melody stepped further out of the way. A moment later, a deputy sheriff’s cruiser pulled up and parked behind them.

Perfect.Today had promised to be a smooth, uneventful, maybe even boring day. The kind Liz liked best. But it had derailed with Rose’s reckless driving and was ending with a bang, literally, an old friend, and an encounter with Deputy Matt Coffey.

Matt lived down the street from Liz. She’d known him her entire life. They’d kind of grown up together, although he was about five years older. He was already working as a deputy sheriff when she was a senior in high school. He’d worked her accident. Not this one. The first one that had also involved Melody. And Bri. And Alyssa.

Matt stepped out of his vehicle and headed toward them, looking at Liz first. “Everything okay?” His dark brown eyes hung on her too long, concern knitting his brows. “You were driving, Liz?”

Liz shook her head, which made her feel a little dizzy. Her ears were still ringing too. “Rose was driving.”

“Not my fault!” Rose hollered out the window again.

“It was, um, my fault,” Melody explained. “I was trying to change the radio and my bracelet caught on the gear. I’m not even sure how it happened,” she told him, just like she’d done with Liz.

Liz thought Melody seemed a bit dazed and confused too. Perhaps she’d hit her head in the accident.

“Your bracelet?” Matt glanced down at her wrist, but Melody didn’t show them the piece of jewelry that Liz assumed she was wearing under her sleeve.

Instead, Melody nibbled at her lower lip and looked at Liz. “I’m very sorry. I hope you’re okay.”

Physically, Liz was fine. Emotionally, that was a different story. How often did you see the ghost of your long-lost friend and that ghost’s sister who was once your very best friend? “Rose and I aren’t hurt.”

“Good.” Melody looked as unsure about what to do right now as Liz felt. There hadn’t been this horrible fight between them. Melody had just left, cutting off all contact, as if her friends and family meant nothing. Maybe it would have been better if there had been a nasty blow-out. There’d been nothing though. Not even a goodbye.

Matt seemed to suddenly recognize Melody. “Mel? Is that you?”

Melody half grimaced, half smiled as she turned her attention back to him. “Guilty.”

“When did you get back in town?”

“This afternoon.” She glanced at Liz who quickly looked away. “I was hoping to make a quiet entrance.”

Liz suspected Mel had wanted a quiet exit as well. There really was no hope in entering or exiting Trove Isle without someone noticing though. There was only one way into the small isle town and one way out—the bridge.

Matt looked around as if to make that very point. “No such luck. There are people around here who act like it’s their job to know all the goings-on in Trove Isle. The welcome wagon should arrive at your place within the hour. You staying with your dad?”

“I tried to get a room at the Seagull Inn, but it was booked. So, I guess I’ll be at my father’s. Just for two weeks. I have to get back to Charlotte as soon as possible.” Melody looked at Liz with something akin to apology in her eyes. Was she sorry for slamming into their car? Or sorry because she’d had no intention of even saying hello to Liz while she was here? Probably both. “I’ll fix your car.”

“It belongs to my parents.” Liz shrugged as if the tiny bang up were no big deal. Her mom would probably flip out over the damage, but it served her right for leaving Liz here to watch over her sister.

Liz could feel Matt inspecting her, undoubtedly deciphering if she really was okay. “Want me to drive you home? I can come back and get the car for you.”

Liz shook her head, making it spin again. “It’ll still drive. It’s just the paint.” She knew that wasn’t why he was asking though. Everyone in town was aware that she hadn’t been comfortable in cars since the accident. Driving with her sister right after a fender bender might send her into a full-fledged panic attack—something else that most people knew about her. Liz was always one heartbeat and one breath away from letting her anxiety win. She’d always had anxiety, ever since she was a kid, but it had gotten so much worse since the accident. “It’s just down the road. We’ll be fine.”

Matt nodded, uncertainty playing on his expression. Then he looked at Melody. “Welcome home, Mel.”

“Oh, I’m not home,” Melody said a little too quickly. “Just visiting.”

“Right. Well, it’s good to see you. I’ll let you ladies work out the details of this little scrape-up.” Matt looked at Liz again. Liz wanted to reiterate that she was fine, but she wasn’t sure that was the truth. Instead, she offered a wobbly smile and waved, still keeping her eyes a notch above, below, beside, anywhere except his warm brown eyes which seemed to see right through her. They always had.

Matt was a good friend and possibly, in another life, he and Liz would have been more than that. She couldn’t see dating a guy who reminded her of one of the worst days of her life though. It wasn’t his fault; he was actually her hero that day.

Liz watched him walk to his cruiser. Then she looked at Melody. They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment.

“So, you still work at The Bitery with your mom?” Melody finally asked.

“Yep,” Liz said of the bakery, which specialized in bite-sized treats. Thus, why it was called The Bitery. Liz had been working there since she was sixteen. Back then it was a part-time afterschool job. She’d never intended for it to become her career. “But it’s just me and sometimes Rose at the moment. My parents are out of the country.” Which Melody didn’t need or deserve to know. She and Liz weren’t even friends anymore. They were barely acquaintances.

“Great. I’ll stop in sometime this week and we can work out the details of fixing your car,” Melody offered.

Liz felt conflicted. She didn’t want to see Melody again. Part of her thought her old friend should get in her car and drive right back over that bridge. Another part of her was glad that she and Melody had run into each other. Liz had missed her friend—even if she wasn’t sure the friend she’d known in high school still existed. That friend would’ve left, yeah. Running away from hard things was classic Melody Palmer. She was the girl who made herself sick during an Algebra test in ninth grade because she didn’t know the answers. She’d also run away the night before her mom’s funeral because she didn’t want to say goodbye. But she came back just in time. The friend Liz knew and loved always came back—no matter what. She didn’t stay gone for nine years.

“Don’t worry about the scratch. One of the bakery’s customers works on cars. He’s traded his services for our coffee in the past.”

“Hey, that’s not a bad arrangement,” Melody said with a shaky smile.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Liz lowered her gaze and it caught on something shiny on Melody’s wrist. For a moment, she thought it was the charm bracelet. Their charm bracelet. But it couldn’t be. Another thing about anxiety was that it played tricks on the mind. Not exactly hallucinations, but when she was anxious, Liz thought she saw things that weren’t there. People. Objects. Oncoming cars when she sat in the passenger seat.

“Okay, well I’ll see you around,” she said, still flustered from the wreck, Melody’s return, and Matt Coffey. She didn’t wait for Melody to say goodbye. Instead, she turned and walked back to her car where Rose was leaning out the window, watching her. Once Liz was seated in the passenger seat, she blew out an extended breath. “Let’s go.”

Rose was quiet for a moment, as if weighing what to do.

“Please,” Liz added, actually hoping her sister would learn from today. Accidents happened, even in a short ten-minute drive.

Without a word, Rose pulled on her seatbelt, put the car in motion, and drove the exact speed limit for the entire way home, which was progress. But she didn’t slow down as she whipped their mom’s sporty red car into the driveway of Liz’s tiny home.

Liz had purchased this place with the money she’d had in savings for college. After the accident, she’d been too much of a mess to go. So she’d stayed in Trove Isle, worked at her mom’s bakery, and she’d found this modestly sized brick house that was within walking distance of her job, the market, and church. Her father had helped her renovate the place, which had been labeled a fixer-upper, and her mom had painted the shutters and front door a pale shade of blue.

Over the years, Liz had planted azalea bushes out front, which added a cheery splash of vibrant color that she loved to take pictures of, although she always developed them in black and white for a reason she couldn’t explain. She guessed black and white was how she viewed the world around her now. Right or wrong. Whole or broken. She was the latter.

Liz focused on her house and the deep-pink color of the azaleas for a long moment as she took deeper breaths and began to relax.

“You’re sure you’re not going to have one of those episodes of yours?” Rose finally asked.

“Panic attacks,” Liz corrected, uncurling her fingers from the door’s handle. “No. I think I’m okay.”

“Good.” Without any more hesitation, Rose pushed the driver’s door open, got out, and headed toward the porch, leaving Liz sitting in the passenger seat, her chest lifting a little too high and too rapidly with each breath. Liz guessed that Rose was distancing herself in case Liz brought the lack of seatbelt or the speeding back up. Or the brow piercing. Liz wasn’t in the mood for arguing right now though.

After several long minutes, Liz stepped out of the car and followed suit. “I’ll start dinner,” she called as she headed through the front door. Rose was nowhere in sight, which wasn’t unusual. Since Rose had come to stay here, she’d mostly kept to Liz’s guestroom when she wasn’t out with friends.

Liz had kind of hoped she and Rose would have time to grow closer during their parents’ absence. Since Liz was a good bit older, it’d been a long time since they’d actually lived in the same house. Becoming friends with her sister was a fantasy though. They were too different. They were practically strangers who shared the same parents, only together when they were forced to be during the holidays. Any of the other times that Liz went to her parents’ home to say hello, Rose made her presence scarce.

Liz walked into the kitchen, turned on the stove light, and removed the ground beef she’d put in the fridge to thaw this morning. A yawn stretched her face. Since her mom had been gone, Liz had been getting up at four o’clock most mornings to begin baking for the morning rush at The Bitery. The rush didn’t stop after ten. There was cleanup and then the lunch time wave of customers. After that came the afternoon snackers. Then the evening bingers.

Liz’s mom had other employees, of course, including Danette’s sister, Sissy, who often worked on the weekends. It was Liz’s mom who kept The Bitery afloat though, and without her, Liz felt like she was sinking.

“I’m going to the mall to meet Blake and Devin,” Rose announced, coming back into the kitchen. She’d changed from her ripped jeans to a short jean skirt and a yellow sleeveless top cropped at her midriff.

“Just you and two boys?” Liz was responsible for Rose’s welfare right now. Would her parents allow Rose to leave looking like that? With not one, but two boys.

Rose lifted her pierced brow. How had she managed to get a piercing without adult permission? Now Liz had a visual reminder every time she looked at Rose that she was a miserable babysitter.

“They’re girls, if you must know,” Rose huffed.

Liz frowned. “But I’m making dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.” Rose’s gaze flicked around the kitchen, seeming to notice Liz’s efforts. Liz could almost see the guilt creeping in on Rose’s expression as her gaze skittered around the room and her smile faltered. She blew out a frustrated breath. “I’ll eat it for breakfast, okay?”

Liz hesitated. She didn’t want to say no, but Rose was never here. The door was revolving for her. Had she even gotten a full meal since she’d come to live with Liz temporarily? “Maybe you should stay in tonight. After what just happened.”

Rose’s lips puckered into a pout as she folded her arms over her chest. “You’re acting like we almost died. I thought you said you were fine.”

“I am fine.” Liz forced a smile as proof. She was being ridiculous. She could feel it, but it was hard to help. “Okay. Just make sure you wear your seatbelt. And be home by eight o’clock. It’s a school night.”

“Nine,” Rose countered. It wasn’t a question; it was a demand.

They stared at each other in a semi standoff of wills.

“Fine. Nine.” In a battle of wills, Liz was usually the loser, even with a sixteen-year-old. Especially with a teenager.

“Sister-jail is the worst,” Rose muttered as she headed out, slamming the front door behind her.

Liz couldn’t agree more. She closed her eyes and took another cleansing breath like Dr. Mayer, her therapist, used to suggest. She hadn’t seen Dr. Mayer in a while. Her panic attacks had become less frequent and she had every stress-relieving and calming technique there was in her arsenal.

Her photography was perhaps the best therapy. Since her parents had left the country, there had been less time for that and more time for stress and worry. Caring for Rose for six weeks combined with Melody being in town might just be Liz’s unraveling. Maybe she should squeeze in a session with Dr. Mayer sometime soon.

Liz walked over to the dining room table and plopped down, not caring about dinner anymore. She’d only wanted to make it for Rose’s sake. She’d had some weird fantasy of the two of them actually eating a meal together and maybe even talking. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

On a sigh, she reached for her laptop, centering it on the table in front of her. She typically ended most days by e-messaging Bri through the prison’s ConnectNetwork system before messing around in Photoshop for an hour or two. Emails were a poor substitution for seeing her friend in person though. Maybe Liz would ride up to the women’s prison in the next couple weeks. However, that would require a bus trip or asking Rose to do the honors of driving her over the bridge and out of town. And neither of those options was all that appealing.

Liz positioned her fingers over the home keys and began to type.

To: Bri Johnson

From: Liz Dawson

Subject: Liz Dawson’s Very Bad, No Good Day

Bri,

Today was miserable for so many reasons. Long story short, there was a car accident. Don’t worry, it was just a fender bender. Rose was driving under my inadequate supervisory capabilities. Really, what were my parents thinking? I saw my life flash before my eyes, which I know is ridiculous because it was literally just a scratch on the side door. I appreciate that you think I’m the strong one, but I’ll remind you that I never drove again after our accident. I ride my bike everywhere I go and consequently, I’m working a job that I don’t love. Oh, and I have panic attacks more frequently than I do orgasms. Do you still think I’m the strong one?

Anyway, these awful things are not the worst of my very bad, no-good day. The wreck wasn’t Rose’s fault. It was the other driver’s, who you wouldn’t believe it turned out to be. Want to guess? You’ll never guess. I think I’d like to see your face when I tell you though. I’ll come visit soon.

xx,

Liz