Chapter 2
“Oh good—fresh blood!” cries a voice behind me, right here in the lobby of the Coconut Cove Paradise Resort, and I turn to find a tall, willowy woman who’s somewhere north of eighty but moves like she’s still outrunning her twenties.
Her long red hair is streaked with silver, and her gold hoop earrings could be used to signal ships. She’s wearing a kaftan that looks like someone let a floral parade loose on fabric, and she’s practically dancing a jig in her flip-flops.
“You must be the new girl,” she chirps. “Thank the heavens. I’m Ruby Figgins, née Akana, formerly Figgins, formerly—listen, we don’t have time to list all the husbands.
I've collected more wedding rings than you've got coffee mugs, and I live here at the resort now.
Well, technically, I'm a guest, but I've been here long enough that the furniture knows my name.”
“I’m Jinx,” I say, suddenly grateful for someone whose regret era matches mine. “I make coffee. And bad decisions. But mostly coffee.” Okay, so it’s mostly bad decisions, but still.
“Wonderful.” She claps her hands and sends her rings chiming. “Lani! Kitchen Witch! Our caffeine miracle has arrived!”
A petite older woman who also looks north of eighty appears through the swinging doors that lead to the dining area.
She has short silver hair with lavender tips, warm brown eyes that miss nothing, and forearms that could arm-wrestle a linebacker.
Flour dusts her muumuu, and she’s holding a wooden spoon like it’s a scepter.
“Leilani Mahelona,” she says, giving me a once-over typically reserved for produce. “You’re late.”
“I thought I was early,” I say.
“You are,” she says. “And yet, you’re still late. That’s how things are around here.”
Ruby beams, “Isn’t she a delight?”
Before I can answer, a woman slides behind the front desk with the determined glide of someone who has replaced her soul with a spreadsheet.
She’s all sharp cheekbones and sharper manicures.
Her dark hair is aggressively sleeked back into a bun, and her lipstick is in a shade I’m pretty sure is called Hostile Cherry.
Her name tag reads MELANIE. Her perfume arrives ten seconds before she does and smells like expensive gardenias and regret. She carries a clipboard like a weapon and taps a red pen against it with the rhythm of a firing squad.
“You must be the barista.” She says barista as if the word offends her personally.
“Welcome to Coconut Cove Paradise Resort. Please read the employee handbook at your earliest convenience, which means never, because we don’t have one.
Hours are when I tell you. Don’t comp anything.
Don’t promise anything. Don’t bring me problems.”
Ruby coughs “manager” into her fist like it’s a diagnosis. “Mel runs a tight ship. It’s just not… moving.”
Melanie’s smile is made of glass—transparent and easy to cut yourself on. “We’ll be having a staff phone call with the owner at four. He is very private and very busy, so we will be very professional.” She levels her gaze at me like I’ve already failed this test. “Try not to improvise.”
“I’m a barista,” I say. “Espresso is ninety percent improvisation.”
Her nostrils flare a millimeter. “Four o’clock.”
She vanishes into an office and slams the door. Message received.
“I like her already,” I say. Have I mentioned the heat is capable of causing delusions?
“You’re easy to please,” Ruby quips.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Come,” Lani says, tipping her chin toward the swinging doors. “If we’re going to keep this place alive through dinner service, we’ll need caffeine, carbohydrates, and maybe duct tape.”
Ruby nods. “Definitely duct tape.”
As it turns out, the kitchen is controlled chaos.
Pans hiss, a fan rattles, and the scents of sweet bread, caramelizing sugar, and coffee are strong enough to hug.
Lani moves like she’s conducting an orchestra with a wooden spoon, while Ruby insists every flat surface can use flowers.
“This is the mean machine and your new best friend,” Lani says, patting the hulking espresso beast. “He’s temperamental. If you talk nicely to him, he’ll talk nicely back. Maybe.”
It doesn’t sound hopeful.
I’ve tried sweet-talking a machine or two instead of hiring a repairman. At this point, my longest relationships run on electricity.
“Hello, gorgeous,” I murmur, flipping switches while steam hisses, water sputters, and a light blinks like it’s threatening me with nuclear annihilation.
“We’re going to be friends. I promise. The best of friends.
” And maybe the worst of friends, but I don’t dare say that infamous Dickens’s line out loud.
“So,” Ruby leans against the chipped orange counter, “what brings you to our little slice of almost-paradise, Jinx Julep?”
“A typo,” I say, tamping espresso with hope and a prayer. “I thought I was moving to Maine. It was not Maine, but I’m not complaining either.”
Ruby cackles with delight at the thought. “I once married a man because he said he had a yacht. Turned out, he had a kayak. We can’t always get what we want. But we might just get what we need.”
Lani slides a tray of what look like jelly donuts rolled in sugar into the oven like she’s making an offering. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
“Those sweet treats are called malasadas,” Ruby says, following my gaze. “They’re originally Portuguese donuts. Baked or fried, they’re delicious. They’re the best thing that ever happened to these islands besides me.”
A chicken struts into the kitchen like she’s conducting an inspection.
Two cats follow—one scraggly gray cutie that looks like he’s lost more arguments than he’s won and an orange marshmallow the size and shape of a basketball with glowing eyes, a half missing ear, and a swagger that says he ate the last leader and enjoyed it.
The fans thrum overhead. The oven hisses. My shoes stick slightly to the tile. Through the kitchen window, there’s a sliver of ocean so blue it looks photoshopped.
Something settles in my chest—quiet and certain.
I don’t know exactly what I’ve done, flying thousands of miles to make a cup of joe at a resort held together by hope and duct tape. But standing here with malasadas baking, a chicken underfoot, and an orange cat who clearly runs this place, I know I don’t regret it. Yet.
At 3:59, Melanie reappears with her phone and a manufactured smile pressed on her face. Up close, she’s still all edges—sharp earrings and sharper claws. Her blouse is starched within an inch of its life, and her eyes do that glittery thing people’s eyes do when they love rules more than people.
“It’s time for the staff phone call,” she chirps with her voice bright and brittle. “Everyone who counts, gather.”
“We count,” Ruby whispers. “We just don’t get counted.”
We cluster near the front desk, with me smelling like a latte, Lani perfumed with sugar and steel, and Ruby holds the scent of something floral and a few dark secrets.
There are also two teenage lifeguards who look like they were born yesterday, and a bellman who has mastered invisibility. Melanie puts her cell on speaker.
The line rings once.
A voice fills the lobby. Smooth. Low. The kind of voice that convinces you to buy timeshares and salvation. It’s the voice from my Zoom call.
“Aloha, team,” he says. “Mahalo for your work this week.”
Ruby mouths the word owner at me and fake swoons. And Lani wastes no time swatting her with a wooden spoon.
“As you know,” the voice continues, “Coconut Cove Paradise Resort has been operating at a loss. I don’t want to close. This place matters. But if we can’t bring the bottom line into the black, we’ll shut down at month’s end.”
A hush falls over the room. One of the lifeguards stops chewing gum.
A month? Paradise, lost in thirty days?
A part of me wonders if I’m the bad luck charm in this equation. I’ve torpedoed things before—case in point, my marriage—but that one was sort of justified. He cheated. I was efficient about the exit.
“I’ll be on the island soon,” he says. “Until then, Melanie has my full authority. Cut costs. Increase revenue. Don’t comp anything. And above all—this is important—work together. I trust you.”
The call clicks dead.
Melanie’s smile slides off like butter on hot toast. “Well,” she says brightly. “You heard the man. No freebies. Tight ship. Let’s not panic.”
Ruby clutches my arm. “We’re absolutely panicking.”
Lani doesn’t look panicked. She looks like someone dusted with enough flour to overthrow a government. “We’ll bake. We’ll serve. We’ll clean. We’ll charm. We’ll fix what’s broken.”
“But all I do is make coffee,” I say. “And offer suggestions no one asked for.”
“You’ll do both,” Lani says. “And we’ll put out a tip jar the size of a breadbox.”
Melanie has already retreated with her phone in hand. Through the slit in the office door, I catch a glimpse of her screen. An email subject line pops up: Severance Package—Confirmation.
And just like that, the curtain drops on this good time. My stomach does a slow roll like a wave deciding whether or not to break.
Ruby follows my gaze. “Well, that’s not ominous at all.”
Lani taps her spoon against her palm. “Listen up, you two. We’re not letting this place die.”
I look at the crooked welcome sign, the tired fans, the ocean winking through the palms like it knows a dirty secret or two. I look at Ruby, who is all sparkling chaos, and Lani, a touch of stubborn grace.
“Lani,” I say, “tell me where you keep the extra duct tape.”
She finally breaks out a smile, and it’s the kind that looks as if it could hold up a roof. Good thing, because it just might need to.
She nods my way. “Now you’re talking.”
Heels click in our direction as Melanie reappears, looking freshly recalibrated, and with a fresh touch-up of her Hostile Cherry lipstick, too.
“Heads-up,” she barks, glowering at me like I personally offended her. “A new group of guests is arriving in twenty minutes. I have a nail appointment. You—” her pen jabs the air at my chest— “will greet them. Smile. Don’t promise anything. First impressions can be murder around here.”
She pivots and stalks off, leaving a trail of perfume and disapproval in her wake.
Ruby gives my arm a quick squeeze. “Welcome to Coconut Cove, Jinx. I hope you specialize in miracles.”
I glance at the tiki statue by the door. His painted grin dares me to say it.
“Miracles I can do,” I sigh. “It’s the murder I can do without.”
And yet somewhere outside, a police siren wails like a promise of murderous things to come.