Chapter 14
At dinner that night, Gramps and I silently pick at our casserole (this time it’s tater tot, something I’d never heard of that is surprisingly delicious).
I clear my throat. “So, I was thinking.”
“Hmm?” he says without looking up from his plate.
“I don’t think I’ll leave tomorrow after all. I was thinking I’ll stay for another week or so. If that’s okay with you.”
His light-blue eyes flash up at me, and the side of his mouth lifts in the barest hint of a smile.
“Whatever you like,” he says.
His words were casual, but I saw that look in his eyes. I can tell he’s happy. It fills me with a warm flush, and it reinforces that I made the right decision.
I nod and return his almost smile. We return to eating in silence. After a few more bites, I can’t take it anymore.
“Okay, who made you this casserole? It might be the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
“Angela. Must be a Texas dish.”
“Is that where she’s from?”
“Can’t you tell by the accent?”
“I guess so.”
From there, Gramps goes on to tell me about various Texans he’d met in his life.
The tale begins with a cattle rancher he’d met in the Ontario airport in 1971 who’d tried to get him involved in his Ponzi scheme, and ends with the police officer who’d chased Gramps through the Houston suburbs in an attempt to give him a parking ticket.
When the officer finally caught him, Gramps pretended he only understood Polish.
“So you got out of the ticket?” I prompt. Talking his way out of a ticket has always been Gramps’s favorite type of anecdote.
“I got out of the ticket.” He chuckles and wipes his mouth with his napkin. “ Przepraszam, Oficerze, nie rozumiem. ”
I wake up early so that I have time to take care of all the logistical stuff on my to-do list before my workday starts.
To start with, I need to return my rental car.
It physically pains me to think of how much EZCar would charge me if I kept the little red Yaris for another day, let alone another week.
Other items on my list include stocking up on essentials and notifying my parents and my neighbor, Sam, that I’m not coming home yet.
Gramps offers to follow me to EZCar so he can drive me home afterward, but I decline.
“It’s right in the middle of Reina Beach. I’m going to run some errands up there and then I think I can take the bus back here.” I peer at the maps app on my phone. The bus option seems straightforward enough. Gramps gives me a weird look, probably because he hasn’t been on a bus since the 1960s.
I return the car with little fanfare. The teenage employee couldn’t care less that I’m returning it here instead of at the Tampa airport like I’d planned.
I step out of the air-conditioned lobby and into the midmorning heat. Next up, errands. I squint through my sunglasses at the list I’d typed on my phone.
Shampoo and conditioner (full size)
Hair cream
Face wash
Face lotion
Smoothie ingredients
Work snacks
Frozen pizzas
Wine
I would also love new bedding, but I’m doubtful they have a suitable home goods store around here. I could order some online, but I should probably stop spending money since I’m about to spend all of mine on Pebble Cottage.
I scan my surroundings: an ABC liquor store, a high-end seafood restaurant, a gas station. The downtown core of the town, such as it is, is a few blocks south. There are plenty of stores there.
Hopefully, I use my phone to search for the nearest Target.
No luck. The closest one is ten miles away.
Why did I return the car before running errands?
Okay, what about Ulta? There is one slightly closer, but according to my phone, it would be a two-hour walk.
Great. I’m not even going to bother searching for a Sephora.
Cursing my foolishly laid plans, I walk toward the cluster of downtown shops.
The atmosphere is pleasant enough—there’s a sidewalk lined with shrubs and the beach is right across the street, giving me a perfect view of sparkling blue water and white sands—but I can barely enjoy it because of the heat pounding down on me.
I’m wearing a Seahawks cap and a white linen top over denim shorts, yet the sun is relentless.
I wipe sweat from my upper lip and grimace as it drips between my breasts and shoulder blades.
After a five-minute walk, I’m in a bustling part of town—as bustling as this town gets, anyway.
Families troop down the path toward the beach, pulling wagons full of towels, floats, and coolers.
Tourists buzz from one shop to another. There’s even a cute café with people sipping cappuccinos at rickety sidewalk tables.
I pause and gaze around from one side of the street to the other, trying to figure out where to go. Shouldn’t there be some kind of local beauty store? Like a Bethany’s Beauty Corner or a Helen’s Hair Haven?
“Can I help you find somethin’, hon?” A woman wearing a bedazzled Mickey Mouse shirt has paused beside me. She peers at me over the top of her oversize sunglasses.
“Oh!” I startle, not expecting a stranger to talk to me, and then feel bad for being startled. She’s just being polite. “Do you know if there’s a beauty store or something nearby?”
“Like a hair salon?”
“No, a store for buying skin-care products and hair products?”
She stares at me for half a beat, smacking the chewing gum in her mouth. “Hon, there’s a CVS right there.” She points a manicured finger to the drugstore across the street.
“Of course. Right. Thanks!”
Not exactly what I had in mind, but what can I expect from a small town? I hurry through the aggressively air-conditioned drugstore, making do with the brands they have. No Kiehl’s or Deva-Curl here. Oh well, I’ll survive, and it’s better for my wallet anyway.
Next up, I need to find a grocery store.
Should be easy enough. I scan my surroundings for a Publix.
I hoof up and down a couple of blocks, and it quickly becomes apparent that there’s no big-box grocery store with a bright-green sign.
I stop and type “groceries” in my maps app.
There is a Publix… ten miles away in St. Pete.
Farther north, there’s a Walmart Supercenter.
Closer to me, there’s something called Paddy’s Fisherman’s Supply—I’m guessing that’s not the store I’m looking for—and a place called Foxy’s Market. I guess I’m going to Foxy’s.
By the time I get there, my sandals are rubbing painfully on my heat-swollen feet. How do people live here?
I just need to get a few things, and then I’ll be on my way back to the comfort of Gramps’s condo. I fully intend to spend the rest of the day in the AC with my feet up.
“Welcome in!” a chirpy voice greets me as I step through the sliding doors. Ugh, I’m in no condition to make small talk, what with my sweaty tomato face. I give a tight smile and nod. “What can I help you with?”
“Uh…” I look from the beaming smile of this middle-aged woman with dyed brown hair, to the list on my phone, to the well-labeled grocery aisles. “I think I’ll be okay.”
She looks disappointed, but I mean really, I have a short list, and it’s a grocery store—a small one. I truly don’t need help. The introvert in me is chafing at the overt friendliness around here.
I grab my wine, snacks, smoothie ingredients, and frozen pizza, and head to the checkout. I was crossing my fingers for a self-checkout, but no luck. There’s one staffed checkout lane, and it’s staffed by Foxy herself. I might be imagining it, but it feels like she’s scowling at me.
“Thank you,” I say as she bags my groceries. “Foxy.” I add her name in an attempt to be small-town polite. I’m rather proud of myself.
She glances up at me and for a second I think she’s going to say something rude or not say anything at all. But then she says, “You’re welcome. Have a nice day.”
Ha! Small-town manners win the day.
Outside, I shuffle the plastic CVS bag and the plastic grocery bags from one hand to another, trying to find the right balance.
I wish I’d thought to bring tote bags, but Gramps probably doesn’t even have any.
He would be aghast if I told him Seattle has outlawed plastic bags.
Or maybe he wouldn’t actually have an opinion, given that he doesn’t grocery shop.
I should probably teach him how.
It takes me a full ten minutes to find the bus stop, by which point I’m certain I have contracted heatstroke.
It takes me another five minutes to figure out if this is, in fact, the stop for the bus that will take me back to Gramps’s.
It is, but I’m on the wrong side of the street.
I figure it out just in time; this bus only comes every half hour.
Clearly, people here don’t rely on the bus for everyday transportation the way we do back home.
When the bus finally comes, I’m wilting. The sun has been beating down on me for so long, I can barely remember my own name. So I think I’m hallucinating when a bright-red, open-air trolley playing jingly music stops in front of me.
“Uh…” I say eloquently when the driver looks at me expectantly. “Is this… the bus?”
“It’s the trolley.” The driver’s deadpan voice does not match the jingly trolley vibe.
“And the trolley is… the bus?” I realize on some level that I sound like an alien, but I can barely think straight, and this situation isn’t helping.
“Only bus around these parts, unless you want a Greyhound, and that’s only from the depot in Tampa.”
Dazed, I step up onto the touristy contraption and drop the fare in the coin slot.
Rather than normal bus seats, there are two long wooden benches on either side.
I take a seat and try to balance all my bags on my lap.
There are a few other passengers on board, hanging their heads out the open windows like happy dogs.
Despite the old-fashioned look and the ice-cream-truck-esque music, it does appear to function like a normal bus.
It stops by the boardwalk and then again by a public beach, each time after a passenger has pulled the pulley with a cheerful ding .
The driver lets me out outside of Sandy Shores and I thank her and stumble down the steps.
By the time I cross the green lawn and hoof it all the way to building C, I’m ready to collapse.
I let myself into the condo and drop my bags in the entryway, gasping in the sweet, cold AC.
My hair is matted to my face, and my clothes are soaked through with sweat.
I limp to the kitchen to stash my groceries in the fridge and freezer.
I’m kind of hoping Gramps is napping so he won’t see me like this, but he is sitting right there at the kitchen table.
“Wow,” he says, and I await some sardonic comment about my appearance. He swims slightly in my vision, and I think I might actually faint.
“You finally got some color,” he says.