Chapter 3
Jillian
“It’s another beautiful day in Ramshackle Bay!” Frankie caroled as he flung the door open.
I took a deep breath of the salty sea air.
Frankie had gone out to surf this morning, and I’d come too, sitting with a cup of coffee on the beach and watching him, watching the flex of his lean strong muscles, how they bunched together as he bent over, the flat length of his belly as he pulled the wetsuit down.
After a few years in business, we could open the coffee shop when we wanted. Close when we wanted. Take a few weeks off, whenever we wanted.
The flexibility was amazing.
The best, most glorious town in the world and the best, most glorious life in the world.
How did an ordinary girl like me get so lucky?
Perk Up & Read was a little weathered and faded from the sun, wind, and surf, but I loved it more than anything in the world except for my husband, the inside always crowded and colorful, spilling out onto Main Street with noise and bustle.
Would Frankie want to start trying for a baby soon?
I couldn’t wait.
“Good morning, Mr. Mayor!” our regulars chorused back as they filed in for savory cinnamon lattes, unicorn sundae floats, and to browse our excellent selection of books.
“I shall do my best to wield my kingly powers for the good of all my subjects!” Frankie boomed back in his usual way, his light green eyes crinkling up as he grinned as me.
Being the Mayor was sort of a side hobby to surfing, and Frankie went out early most mornings, his hair light with blonde streaks, then came back and worked with me, tanned face grinning as his quick, clever fingers swirled the perfect shapes into the lattes. Hearts, flowers, leaves, waves, suns.
I prepped the cash register for the day as my gregarious husband chatted up our regulars.
I nodded and smiled. The Mayor’s wife had to befriend everyone, easy for Frankie, harder for someone shy like me.
But luckily for me I was usually able to ride along serenely in Frankie’s chaotic, good-natured wake, letting him take the lead, while I played the support role.
“I’m a king all right,” Frankie said a few minutes later, as he came up behind me and gave my ass a sneaky squeeze. “King of the wife guys.”
Even after ten years together, he still could make me blush with his big romantic gestures or his passion. He loved big, and he didn’t care who knew it. I adored that about him.
“Mrs. Greenberg might see,” I hissed, but couldn’t suppress the blush that rose to my cheeks.
He nuzzled my throat, putting an arm around my stomach and pulling me closer.
“We’re heading into the busy tourist season. I’m excited we’ll have Christabelle to help now.”
Oh, right. Christabelle.
Suddenly there was a knot of anxiety in my belly, and I paused in the motion of handing our ancient parrot Athena a cracker.
She had out-lived several of my elderly relatives, and now lived in stately dignity next to a window where she could see all the goings-on.
“FOUL AND FOULER,” she squawked disapprovingly, fluttering her colorful feathers, and I hurried to hand her a cracker, which she took with cold disdain.
“Frankie,” I said, feeling awful and ridiculous. “It’s ok, just—there wasn’t anything serious between you and Christabelle, was there? I mean, you said you went out, but does that mean like—you were serious?”
My spine felt shrunken to a few inches high as he seemed to stiffen beside me.
“It’s o-ok if you were!” I rushed on. “I just—want to make sure that there’s nothing we should—talk about.”
But Frankie twirled me around and when I looked up at him, there was a big, open smile on his face.
“Jillian, you know me! I dated a lot of women in college. Before I met you. Have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”
“No, of course not,” I said, rushing to smooth over the moment, move on from it. “Never mind. It was silly!”
The bell over the door suddenly tinkled and Christabelle walked in.
Frankie didn’t rush over to her, just waved and began to list out her duties.
So it must be all aboveboard, right? He only thought of her as a friend.
But she smelled like buttercups and sunshine and Frankie was already talking about how we made the best doughnuts for miles around, while I was still stuck in this insecurity loop. And Frankie didn’t even seem to notice.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile at Christabelle, who was adjusting a lacey garter strap with a long pink fingernail.
She was just so. . .beautiful.
But I trusted my husband. He had never given me any reason to doubt him. Not in ten years together. So I swallowed my objections and handed her an official Perk Up & Read apron.
“FLEAS AND FLEABITTEN,” Athena the parrot croaked from behind me.
“Hush,” I said sternly.
I relaxed a bit as Frankie wandered off to pet some dogs passing by as I gave Christabelle a quick tutorial on how to run the cash register.
Even though every man who came in stopped dead in their tracks and stared slack-jawed at our new employee’s perfect round derriere bending over the cupcake counter in that tiny skirt, my husband didn’t pay her any special attention.
And when Frankie barely glanced at her the rest of the day I relaxed even more.
Maybe this would be fine.
But I felt uneasy somehow, like there was something I was missing.
“So how did you and Frankie meet?” Christabelle asked as I showed her how to run the credit card swiper.
“Junior year of college,” I replied.
“Ohh,” Christabelle said, and a light seemed to go off in her eyes. “Right after we broke up.”
A low, uneasy feeling seemed to settle in my gut.
Right afterwards? Please, don’t let me be the backup plan. . .
Should I say something to my husband?
So they were boyfriend and girlfriend. What did it matter really? After all, I hadn’t demanded he specify the exact detail of acquaintance.
“I know you didn’t hire that silly flibbertigibbet,” Mrs. Greenberg hissed at me through the window later that afternoon, jabbing me in the small of the back with a knitting needle. “What’s going on here?”
Mrs. Greenberg was our 80-year-old neighbor who owned a knitting shop next door. Despite hating everyone in town, she ran for every local office, and after my husband had beaten her 99% to 1% in the recent mayoral election, she was particularly bitter.
I knew exactly what she was implying, but I wasn’t going to entertain it at all.
“Ridiculous,” I said crisply. “I assume you’re implying Frankie only hired her because she’s beautiful. But he’s barely even looked at her all day and barely spoken two words to her.”
“Mmhmm,” she said, pursing her lips together disapprovingly. “Your husband flirts with everyone. But not her. That’s suspicious.”
“Hey!” she suddenly barked at a beach goer who had stopped for a moment under her awning. “No looky-loos!”
I felt uneasy as she left to chase the man away.
Christabelle was already a big hit with the customers, very outgoing and bubbly. In that way she was a lot like Frankie.
Sometimes I wondered if I could really keep the attentions of a man of Frankie’s huge energy and vitality levels.
What if he got bored with me?
After all, in the ten years we’d been married he’d taken up surfing, marathons, ice fishing, flag football, acting, and interpretive dance.
I pushed down my insecurity, even though, very good at bookkeeping seemed like such a thin thread to tie a man down who had once free climbed in Yosemite National Park.
As we locked up for the afternoon, Frankie again barely acknowledged Christabelle beyond a nod.
This is normal, he’s just being a professional, I thought as he bounded up to Dale, who owned the fish and chips food cart down the street, and gave him an enormous hug goodbye.
Once again I tried to put Mrs. Greenberg’s words behind me.
She hates him, I reminded myself. She would love any excuse to call a new election and try to beat him.
My husband loved me. Of course he did.
I felt ridiculous, but I couldn’t help glancing up under my lashes at Frankie as we closed up for the night.
“It’s so early still,” Christabelle said. “What do you do with the rest of the day?”
“Well, we do open up at 7 am,” I said, failing to fully keep a sour note from my voice. “So we go to bed early.”
Frankie glanced over at me. “It’s hard when you’re new in town and don’t know many people yet.”
Was that a reproving note in his voice?
“Yeah.”
She flicked her eyes over to me, and I felt shame cascade through my body.
I wasn’t normally such a jealous wife.
But something was nagging at me, a thread pulling at me. I just didn’t believe she had zero interest in my husband.
“We often go down to the pub in the evenings,” Frankie volunteered.
Tuppy’s was a bustling beachside English pub and on any given evening you could find it full of happy people eating shepherd’s pie and drinking mugs of strong English ale.
But today we had dinner planned at home. . .
“Want to join us tonight? I could introduce you to some of the people in town.”
“We do have a meatloaf in the oven,” I reminded him, but Frankie waved it away.
“That can keep. It’s better to be hospitable, right, honey?”
It would’ve seemed really churlish and small of me to refuse, so I nodded in agreement, and we all left the Perk Up & Read together.
Right when we got onto the doorstep, Christabelle dropped her keys, and they fell with a loud clatter between the slats.
“Oh, shit,” she cried, falling down to her knees in front of Frankie and trying to reach them.
Her pert bottom in that tight skirt was raised high in the air, wiggling, and I could see the very clear outline of her thong and each individual cheek.
Her skirt was riding so high it was at her upper thigh and as she stretched lower I could even see a bit of her ass cheeks pop out.
“Let me help you with that,” Frankie said.
But I had been married a long time. That wasn’t a normal tone in his voice.
And as he moved, I got a glimpse of something that made my stomach flip-flop with anxiety.
Was that the outline of his cock in those thin shorts?
Was she turning him on?
I wanted to throw up.
He reached under the porch and grabbed the keys.
“Here you go. We’ll run home and meet you down at Tuppy’s Pub.”
As soon as we got home, Frankie went in to the bathroom.
“I’m just going to rinse off real quick. Then we can go.”
OK, that was not usual.
Christabelle had only been employed one day and already it felt like my life was falling apart.