Chapter Two
My house was the smallest on Maple Street.
Bluebell Lane ran parallel, a parade of Victorian estates with manicured gardens and towering widow’s walks.
Those families traced their lineage back to the Mayflower, yet favored the country club on the edge of town over any of the Main Street businesses.
The houses sat empty several months out of the year.
At Christmas, though, their immaculate light displays draped across the old white oaks drew tourists from miles away.
Maple Street was humbler, a row of pastel-painted terraced homes that looked like a squashed imitation of its neighbor. But we took pride in it. Every year, storms tried to strip the paint and topple the flowers, and every year we put it back together again.
My grandmother’s was the jewel of the row, with rose bushes that climbed higher than the picket fence and window boxes that spilled with petunias, lobelias, and her favorite herbs. Every Saturday she’d putter down the street, pausing to fuss over Ronnie’s yellow jessamine or Juniper’s hydrangeas.
When she passed, I wasn’t the only one who felt the loss. The town did too.
I stared up at Marigold’s house—my house, I had to keep reminding myself—every time I arrived home.
The fuchsia hued roses had become sparse under my care, and the flowers wilted over their window boxes no matter what I tried.
There was irony in the fact that the owner of Marigold’s Flower Shop had a knack for mangling flowers.
But I could take care of them just fine once they were cut. They were basically dead then, anyway.
I sighed and pushed the picket gate open with my hip, hurrying down the path and up the porch steps. The meeting at Captain’s Table was soon. I needed to focus on that, not the cloud of dread that loomed everyday with increasing urgency.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket as I opened the front door and was greeted with a white-splotched, slobbery face.
“Hey, Easton,” I murmured, crouching down and scratching his black fur. “How was your day?”
He whimpered, dropped a sodden tennis ball at my feet, and stared up with unblinking brown eyes. I tossed it toward the living room, wincing preemptively as he thundered after it. The couch groaned as it shifted a few inches, and Easton vanished around the corner.
Once upon a time, a vintage end table had stood there—a thrift-store find I’d been absurdly proud of. It survived six months with Easton.
I hung my tote by the door, kicked off my shoes, and made my way to the kitchen. Rachel usually stopped by on her break to play with Easton and leave a paper bag of day-olds from the Morning Bell.
“Your diet is atrocious,” she’d scold, handing them over anyway.
It never made sense that my hands could shape clay but struggled with anything more than hot chocolate and Styrofoam cups of ramen. If boiling water counted as cooking, I’d have a Michelin star.
I greedily eyed the brown paper bag on the kitchen table. It looked particularly full today.
“Almost forgot,” I said to myself, retrieving my phone and taking a seat on my most stable dining chair.
The top of a muffin already hung from my mouth when I unlocked my phone and read the message.
My heart plummeted. The muffin fell to the table with a dull thud, spewing crumbs across the pockmarked wood.
Margot Wade: Hey, still living in the Cove?
I blinked. Scrolled up. The last message was from Christmas—a polite well-wish I’d sent, remaining unanswered. I gave up after that.
Stuffing a piece of muffin into my mouth, I tamped down the indignation swelling in my chest and typed a short reply. Her response came instantly.
Margot Wade: Great. Coming into town. Let’s grab coffee.
I set the phone down and drummed my fingers on my thigh. Margot and I had known each other since we were babies; albeit, the previous seven years had made us feel more like strangers than anything else. Before I could change my mind, I sent a cursory reply before shutting the thing off.
Margot was the first one to announce that she was leaving for NYU. She never even let me know she applied.
One day on the beach—we all couldn’t have been older than nine or ten—the five of us gathered the biggest seashells we could find and brought them to Captain’s.
We borrowed a marker from Margot’s mom and wrote The Bluebell Cove Pact on each shell.
It was the day we decided to never leave the city we grew up in.
We swore, despite the minute flaws and quirks of a small town, that we didn’t need bigger and better things when we had each other.
No one told me that it was a childish dream instead of a real promise.
It wasn’t long before the others followed her lead. Serena, Wes, and Teddy all swore they’d be back after college. Teddy was the only one honest enough to admit he was too busy. The rest faded away—first the holidays, then the calls.
In their defense, they’d each built impressive lives. It couldn’t have happened if they’d stayed. It’s what I repeated to myself like a buoy in the storm on the days when the aching crept back in.
Despite it all, I still knew exactly where my seashell was.
I stopped to feed Easton before heading to the door again.
The thrifted mirror hanging in the foyer reminded me why I preferred winter.
I tried to pat the frizzed parts of my ponytail, but the hairs proceeded to spring up after each touch.
Rolling my eyes, I reached for the frayed baseball cap on the coat rack and hurried outside.
The walk to Captain’s was short. I tugged my cardigan tighter as the warm breeze began to grow brisk. Amber afternoon light filtered through the leaves, swaying to the familiar song of gulls overhead that made me smile.
Some said that it was the perfect time of year. The edge of summer’s heat had begun to taper, school was in session, and tourists had left, bound to return soon for Bluebell Cove’s holiday festivities.
Main Street was notably quiet as I strode down the cobblestone sidewalk. The cafe was already closed, leaving students to return home or gather at the beach. Many shops closed their doors earlier in the off-season.
But not Captain’s Table.
The diner sat at the end of Main, where Harbor Street met Seaglass Beach. It was the Cove’s unofficial community hub come rain or shine, Town Hall remaining empty even as the diner filled to capacity.
Our traditions were as important to us as the tourists that streamed in every summer and winter.
When I pushed the door open, the brass bell chimed its familiar hello. The inside looked as if time stopped turning seventy years ago. Leather booths and bar chairs were matching in powder blue and chrome, completed by a pink checkered floor and a neon sign behind the bar.
The Port Camden Herald once called it “lovingly preserved and singularly authentic”. We saw an influx of visitors that year.
“Georgie!” Frank called from a booth by the door.
A wide smile stretched across my face as my gaze fell on the dainty woman he had his arm draped around. “Janice, it’s so good to see you,” I said.
“And I, you. Frank tells me that you met with the Briggs boy today?”
My lips threatened to droop. I cleared my throat. “Yes, Rhett. Do you know him?”
She nodded emphatically. “You know, he spent every summer with his uncle,” Janice said, turning under Frank’s arm and patting his cheek. “We were close with Clive. His workshop is near the farm.”
Finally, I let my mouth drop into a frown. “That’s strange. I never met him before today.”
Janice’s reply was interrupted by another familiar voice.
“Georgette Wheeler, get your butt over here right now.”
A relieved breath rushed from my lips. “Hi, Ruth,” I returned, hurrying over and dropping into a stool at the bar.
Ruth studied me with warm eyes, silvering dark hair piled atop her head, a pen tucked behind her ear like a permanent accessory. “Ready for the meetin’?” she drawled, southern accent as thick as my earliest memory of her.
I tried to offer her a shrug that felt anything but casual.
“You got nothin’ to worry about, darlin’.” Ruth filled the glass in front of me with ice water. “We’ve all done this before, ‘member? It’s a piece of cake.”
It should’ve been a comfort. If anything, though, it only reminded me that all these people with years of experience would be looking to me for guidance and leadership.
Me, the girl drowning in bills and struggling to hold Marigold’s above the surface like some twisted game of water polo.
Yeah—it didn’t make any sense to me, either.
The Summer’s End Festival was also a critical lifeline for many of these business owners. If anything went wrong—well, I would be responsible.
Lately, I was Wile E. Coyote and life was the anvil.
I dragged a long sip of water and let it create a gap in the conversation. Ruth didn’t need to know all the worries spinning through my brain. What good would that do?
Leaning her elbows on the tile, Ruth tapped her chin and squinted at me. “Chocolate malt and a cheeseburger?”
My stomach growled, traitor that it was. “No thanks, I already ate.” Not technically a lie.
“Well, that’s too bad.” Ruth let out a dramatic breath. “Seein’ as I already have it made for ya, it’ll just go to waste.”
I chewed on my lip and tried not to look too interested. It had been a few days since I ate a proper meal—I didn’t know why, but it was so easy to forget.
When Ruth grabbed the plate and fountain glass from the window—complete with fries and a generous amount of whipped cream on the shake—I found myself weak at the knees. She set it down and clucked her tongue.
“Don’t make me waste perfectly good food now, Georgie,” she warned.
The fries were half-gone by the time I came up for air to thank her.
Captain’s was almost full, a steady hum of chatter and clinking utensils floating through the air as I devoured the world’s best burger. The doorbell jingled again—and suddenly, the diner quieted. I was mid-chew when I swiveled around and met the last person I expected to see.
He looked unfairly dapper for being dressed in the same work clothes as earlier. That bored, unaffected gaze swept across the silent diner before finally landing on me, the girl with half a cheeseburger in her mouth.
Rhett Briggs offered me nothing but a curt nod. “Miss Wheeler,” he said.
Covering my mouth, I forced it down and smiled. “Glad you could find time in your busy schedule,” I replied. It was meant to sound friendly, but the words tumbled out incisive and cutting and frighteningly unlike me.
But then—and I could have imagined this—the corners of his lips twitched.
“Rhett, over here!” Janice called, motioning excitedly to their booth. He turned away before I could humiliate myself any further.
My eyebrows drew together in a confused daze as I swiveled back and finished my burger. I didn’t know what was coming over me, or why this out-of-towner made me blurt things out—but I couldn’t think about any of that right now.
“Did Margot tell you?”
I was polishing off my fries when Ruth finished hanging a paper from her order pad in the kitchen window and turned to me.
“Tell me what?” I asked.
“That she’s comin’ to town in a couple days.” There was a smile in her voice although none materialized on her face. My hand faltered a fraction as I shoved a fry in my mouth. “I reckon I’ve been tryin’ to get her to come back home for five years now, at least,” Ruth added.
Four. It had been four years since Margot last visited Bluebell Cove. Not that I was keeping track—that day would just be seared into my memory.
“Uh… yeah.” I stared at my empty plate, an invisible bubble of frustration exploding in my chest. Nothing left to distract myself with. “She texted me today,” I mumbled.
Ruth clapped her hands together. “Oh, I’m so glad. I can’t wait to see y’all together again.”
“It should be fun,” I responded quickly, grabbing the shake and drawing an exaggerated swig.
Nothing prevented me from handling it all alone: the Summer’s End Festival, my grandmother’s legacy, and my estranged best friend appearing from obscurity.
All I needed to do was channel my inner Marigold and move the mountain in my path with sheer will and a dash of my natural can-do attitude. That couldn’t be hard, right?
If I was being honest, the thought of Margot Wade back in Bluebell Cove scared me more than my drawer full of ignored bills.