13. Ellie
Thirteen
Ellie
By nine the next morning, Reef Rascal had received fourteen phone calls, six emails, three booking requests marked URGENT, and one bouquet addressed to THE MYSTERY WOMAN.
Hank placed the flowers in an empty mask bucket.
Captain Pancake ate the card.
“I think those were mine,” I said.
Hank looked at the dog.
“Ownership’s unclear.”
The shop phone rang.
We both stared at it.
Hank had reconnected it twenty minutes earlier after insisting that businesses traditionally required telephones.
His loyalty to tradition was weakening.
I answered.
“Reef Rascal.”
A woman spoke quickly.
“Hi. I’m calling about the Savannah Brooks diving experience.”
“There isn’t one.”
“Oh. The website said she trained with you.”
“The website says we teach beginner scuba.”
“Yes, but can we book the same package she had?”
“She had a private beginner lesson.”
“Perfect. With Ellie?”
“I’m Ellie.”
The woman gasped.
Not a large gasp.
A medium one.
Still unnecessary.
“Oh my God.”
I moved the phone away from my ear.
Captain Pancake lifted his head.
“Yes,” I said.
“Are you available Saturday?”
“For scuba diving?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“That distinction matters now.”
Hank turned away to hide a smile.
The woman booked two lessons and then attempted to learn which cottage Annie had rented by pretending she needed directions.
I directed her to the marina.
She thanked me.
I hung up.
Hank wrote on the chalkboard beside the register.
SCUBA LESSONS: YES
Beneath it:
CELEbrITY INFORMATION: NO
“That should fix everything,” I said.
“Signs are powerful.”
The door opened.
A young couple entered wearing matching sunglasses and the alert expressions of people who had consumed too much vacation coffee.
The woman looked at me.
Then at a photograph on her phone.
Then back at me.
“Are you—”
“Yes. I’m the dive instructor.”
“We wanted to ask about lessons,” the man said.
“Great.”
“And maybe take a quick picture?”
“No.”
“With the shop?”
“Still no.”
The woman lowered her phone.
Captain Pancake approached and sat on the man’s shoe.
The man brightened.
“Can we take one with the dog?”
“Five dollars,” Hank said.
I turned toward him.
“You charge for pictures with him now?”
“New revenue stream.”
They paid.
Captain Pancake posed beautifully.
I received nothing.
By ten-thirty, three actual students had arrived for their scheduled lesson.
None of them mentioned Savannah.
I loved them immediately.
A father and his two adult daughters listened while I explained the equipment, asked sensible questions, and did not attempt to photograph my wrist.
Underwater, the world remained exactly where I had left it.
Quiet.
Blue.
Uninterested in search results.
I watched the students work through their first nervous breaths. One daughter kept reaching for her sister’s hand. The other pretended not to need it but never moved more than a few feet away.
I adjusted the father’s mask.
Pointed toward a stingray half-buried in the sand.
Waited while all three stared.
For forty minutes, no one knew who I had kissed.
No one asked what Savannah Brooks was like in bed, which one particularly ambitious email had attempted before Hank deleted it and suggested setting the computer on fire.
My only responsibility was keeping three people calm and breathing.
I understood that.
When we returned to the surface, the father pushed his mask onto his forehead.
“That was incredible.”
One of his daughters laughed.
“I forgot everything else existed.”
“Best part,” I said.
I had once said almost the same thing.
The memory arrived without permission.
Annie beside me in the water.
Her eyes wide behind the mask.
Her hand closing around mine.
I turned toward the boat before anyone could read my face.
Back at the shop, a small envelope waited on the counter.
Hank nodded toward it.
“Birthday kid.”
I opened it.
The front showed a mermaid riding a dolphin through a rainbow that appeared to have suffered structural failure.
Inside, Lexi had written:
THANK YOU QUEEN OF THE SURFACE
Beneath that:
YOU CAN COME NEXT YEAR TOO
She had drawn Annie wearing the plastic tiara.
I stood there longer than the card required.
“She was good with them,” Hank said.
“Yes.”
“You sending it to her?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Hank drank his coffee.
It was his fourth cup.
Possibly the same coffee reheated until it qualified as an independent organism.
“You don’t need to decide today.”
“I’m starting to dislike that sentence.”
“Useful sentence.”
“Still dislike it.”
I slipped the card into my bag.
Not sending it.
Not throwing it away.
Storage was the current limit of my emotional ambition.
At lunchtime, I walked to Rosa’s café.
The chalkboard outside read:
TODAY’S SPECIAL
TURTLE GOVERNMENT TOAST
NO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SPOKESWOMAN WITHOUT PURCHASE
I stopped beneath it.
Rosa appeared in the doorway.
“You saw the sign.”
“You’ve monetized my humiliation.”
“I monetized avocado.”
Inside, every table was occupied.
Half the customers were eating the toast.
It was avocado, egg, and hot sauce, each plate decorated with a tiny paper flag.
I sat at the counter.
“You made flags.”
“My niece has a printer.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I am protecting local business.”
“From dignity?”
“Dignity has poor margins.”
She placed a plate in front of me.
“I didn’t order.”
“You need food.”
“I could eat something without political consequences.”
“No substitutions.”
I took a bite.
It was annoyingly good.
Rosa leaned against the counter.
“Two reporters came this morning.”
“What did you tell them?”
“To order breakfast.”
“And after that?”
“That I do not discuss customers.”
I looked at her.
“Thank you.”
“They tipped badly.”
“Monsters.”
“One asked whether Savannah seemed in love.”
I stopped chewing.
Rosa wiped the counter.
“What did you say?”
“That she ordered three pies.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It was enough.”
I put down my fork.
“Rosa.”
She met my eyes.
“I said nothing about you.”
“I know.”
“You are allowed to be angry with her.”
“I know.”
“And miss her.”
“I know.”
“And finish your toast.”
I picked up the fork.
Rosa nodded approvingly.
Her phone rested near the register. The screen lit with a notification, showing a paused video of Savannah onstage.
White spotlight.
Guitar.
Green bracelet.
I looked away.
Rosa noticed.
“She sang the song you like.”
“It isn’t my song.”
“The one you told her about.”
“How do you know which song I told her about?”
“You were in my café.”
“You were listening?”
“I own the walls.”
“That isn’t how walls work.”
“They report to me.”
She unlocked the phone.
“I’m not watching celebrity coverage.”
“This is music.”
“Performed by a celebrity.”
“It can be two things.”
That idea was becoming inconveniently persistent.
Rosa lowered the volume and placed the phone beside my plate.
“You choose.”
Then she walked away.
The video waited.
I had not searched for it.
Not because the old promise still applied.
Because I did not want the internet deciding who Savannah was before I decided what I believed.
I pressed play.
The first notes of Hard Winter filled the small speaker.
I had heard Savannah perform the song before.
On the radio.
Through headphones on late nights when Chicago felt especially cold and Johnson & Calder expected me to care about things no person should have been awake to discuss.
This version was different.
Not dramatically.
No breakdown.
No theatrical pause designed for clips.
She left more space between the words.
Let one note scrape at the edge before settling.
I watched the woman on the screen.
Savannah under the lights.
Annie’s bracelet around her wrist.
She looked completely at home.
Alive.
It would have been easier if Savannah had looked like a costume.
She didn’t.
She smiled during the applause.
Not the polished smile from the market.
The one I knew.
The one that began in her eyes when she forgot to control it.
I watched until the video ended.
Rosa returned.
“Well?”
“She’s good.”
Rosa looked offended.
“She fills arenas.”
“I was aiming for restraint.”
“She’s very good.”
“Yes.”
I handed back the phone.
Rosa studied me.
“You understand her better now?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I frowned.
“That was unexpectedly unhelpful.”
“Understanding people completely is how murders begin.”
“That seems statistically questionable.”
She pointed toward my plate.
“The mayor wants royalties.”
“Better.”
My phone vibrated.
For one stupid second, I thought it might be Annie.
It was my mother.
The screen showed her third call that day.
I had ignored the first two.
Not because I did not want to speak to her.
Because speaking to her required explanations, and I had reached my daily limit before breakfast.
Rosa glanced at the screen.
“Answer your mother.”
“You don’t know what she wants.”
“She is your mother. She wants information and for you to wear sunscreen.”
Accurate.
I answered.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Finally.”
“I was working.”
“I called at seven-thirty.”
“I was avoiding you then.”
“I appreciate the honesty.”
Rosa pointed toward herself as though taking credit.
I turned away.
“How are you?” Mom asked.
“Fine.”
“No.”
The word sounded exactly like mine had when Annie claimed she was all right after the market.
I closed my eyes.
“Mostly fine.”
“Your father found a video.”
That was not a sentence I had ever expected to fear.
“What video?”
“You standing on a wall and announcing some kind of turtle emergency.”
Across the counter, Rosa covered her mouth.
“I was helping someone.”
“So I gathered.”
“Does Dad know who?”
“He thought Savannah Brooks was a news anchor.”
“That tracks.”
“He has since been educated.”
“By you?”
“By the internet. He has watched four interviews and one concert.”
“Why?”
“He says he is assessing character.”
I pictured my father sitting in his chair with a notebook, evaluating a Grammy-winning singer as though she had applied to repair the roof.
“What’s the verdict?”
“He thinks she interrupts people too much.”
“She does.”
“He also likes the song about the truck.”
“That narrows it down.”
Mom was quiet.
Then she asked, “Did you meet someone?”
The café noise seemed to recede.
I looked at the bracelet around my wrist.
“Yes.”
Her breath changed.
Not surprise exactly.
Care.
“Is it serious?”
“It lasted four days.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Every woman in my life seemed to have joined the same interrogation program.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“Did she mean to?”
“No.”
“Do you miss her?”
I looked toward Rosa.
She had become deeply invested in reorganizing the sugar packets.
“Yes.”
Mom exhaled softly.
“Come home.”
My first instinct was refusal.
I had work.
Students.
A schedule.
Captain Pancake’s nutritional supervision.
All the useful walls I had built around my life.
Then I thought of Rachel saying strangers might search for Molly.
Of the message I had ignored three years earlier.
Of my parents learning about my life through a video filmed by someone selling honey.
“I don’t want reporters near you,” I said.
“Neither do I.”
“They may call.”
“I raised two daughters. I can hang up a telephone.”
A small ache opened beneath my ribs.
Two daughters.
Present tense in habit, if not fact.
“When?” I asked.
“This weekend.”
“That’s soon.”
“Yes.”
“I have lessons.”
“Hank owns a calendar.”
“You’ve never met Hank.”
“You talk about him enough.”
Rosa slid a napkin toward me.
I had not noticed my eyes were wet.
“I’ll check flights,” I said.
“Good.”
“And Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let Dad contact Savannah.”
“He doesn’t have her number.”
“That has never stopped him from trying to solve a problem.”
“I’ll supervise.”
We ended the call.
Rosa placed the bill in front of me.
“You are charging me?”
“Local business.”
I paid.
When I returned to Reef Rascal, Hank was teaching Captain Pancake to balance a dive mask on his head.
“He hates that,” I said.
“Building resilience.”
“I need a few days off.”
Hank removed the mask.
“Okay.”
“That’s it?”
“You want an argument?”
“I prepared several points.”
“Save them.”
“I need to visit my parents.”
“Okay.”
“I haven’t been home in a while.”
Hank looked at me.
He knew what a while meant.
“Go.”
“What about the weekend lessons?”
“Gina.”
“She had food poisoning.”
“She recovered.”
“How do you know?”
“She asked for hours.”
“That does suggest improvement.”
Captain Pancake came over and sat on my foot.
I looked down.
“Are you approving the leave request?”
He leaned against my leg.
Hank nodded.
“Dog says yes.”
That evening, I packed a small suitcase.
Jeans.
Two shirts.
A dress my mother would claim was too thin for air-conditioning.
The birthday card for Annie remained inside my bag.
I took it out.
Placed it on the dresser.
Changed my mind and slipped it into the suitcase.
Then I found Annie’s T-shirt folded over the back of a chair.
Soft.
Expensive.
Still faintly smelling like the cottage detergent.
I held it for several seconds.
I could leave it behind.
Mail it to her.
Stop turning every object into a referendum on my emotional stability.
I packed it.
Not because it belonged to Savannah Brooks.
Because Annie had given it to me.
I wasn’t ready to return that part of her either.