Chapter Twenty
Why can’t we put little seasonal outfits on Cricket’s statue like Boston does for the ducklings? He could be wearing a little Red Sox hat right now!
First comment: Go Yankees!
Admin: Stop messaging me. I can’t ban a member of the group for having terrible taste in sports teams.
—Wayward Harbor Online Community
“I should just get in my car and go,” Lucy said, though her words were muffled because her forehead was resting on the kitchen table.
Next to her head was the phone still open to the screenshot of a social media post Taylor had sent to her with an accompanying message of eleven exclamation points.
Hey, Fairee lovers! Did you hear that Faith Lincoln and Reese Noonan are back together and ready to talk?
Everybody will be watching, but my friends and I are on our way to a little seaside town in Maine for a little vacation.
That’s right! We’re going to “run into” the other woman and convince her to serve up some tea! More soon!
“You don’t need to leave until you’re good and ready to go,” Gran told her, and she actually sounded a little amused, though Lucy didn’t lift her head to see if she was smiling.
“What if they stake out the cottage, trying to get pictures?”
“There’s no way for them to be safely off the road without pulling onto my property, and either way, Chief Rollins will run them off. They’re not welcome here, and we certainly won’t be giving them any tea.”
Lucy lifted her head. “You know that doesn’t mean actual tea, right?”
Helen gave her a stern look that made Lucy’s cheeks flush. “Yes, I know what it means. I think I spend more time online than you do, young lady. And you need to be done hiding from what other people say about you. Put your chin up, square your shoulders and live your damn life.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy said, sitting up straighter, and Helen smiled.
“And you can’t go running off to Miami with everything you own strewn around like a tornado dropped down and only tore up that bedroom.”
She definitely had a point there. The plan to organize and repack her stuff for the car trip was taking longer than she thought it would.
Maybe because, other than bringing it all in the bedroom and sorting it into something very loosely resembling piles, she hadn’t touched it.
She also hadn’t messaged Sydney to make plans for her arrival.
“I never did buy those bins. I ended up visiting with Willow instead. And I also met Taylor out on the walking trail so we could take a walk together. Oh, and Cadillac Mountain with Nick. I keep forgetting, but I’m going to buy them right now.” She stood, determined to get moving.
“Can you run into the market for me? We’re almost out of sugar.”
She stilled, not because she minded doing errands for her grandmother, but because the hardware store was slightly away from the heavy tourist traffic, whereas the market was more visible. She’d been planning to sneak in the back way to Smith’s, and then sneak back out.
“Don’t let them stop you from living your life,” Helen said again, more sternly this time. “If you let them in your head, you’re going to end up on the couch with a blanket over your head.”
Lucy turned to face her grandmother. “Did Nick tell you?”
“Did Nick tell me what?” she asked, looking genuinely confused.
“Never mind. So, sugar. Anything else?”
An hour later, Lucy had found some plastic storage bins she liked at the hardware store and was in the market’s baking aisle, trying to talk herself out of buying an entire bag of dark chocolate chips, when she heard her name called in the next aisle.
“Oh, sorry,” the voice continued. “I thought you were somebody else.”
“That happens all the time,” she heard Taylor respond. “Actually a lot of people tell me I look just like that woman who got harassed because of that actress and her cheating jerk boyfriend.”
“Are you from here?”
“Yes, and it’s so annoying. Tourists have been confusing me with her since it happened.”
Lucy didn’t hear if anything else was said because she was already at the end of the baking aisle and turning away from where Taylor had been loudly speaking.
She thought about making a run for the front doors, but she was halfway down the last aisle when she saw a woman holding up her cell phone as though filming.
And Kim Perkins, who looked right at Lucy.
Cursing under her breath, she ducked into an alcove that had several doors. The restrooms, which would be dead ends with no way to escape. And one that was marked for employees only. She had no idea where it went, but she was afraid it was just a break room with no exits.
“Lucy Macauley?” Lucy heard Kim ask, and she closed her eyes. She was about to go viral again. “Never heard of her.”
Lucy’s eyes flew open and she let out her breath in a ragged sigh of relief.
“Her car is in the parking lot. She’s a redhead and hard to miss.”
“We’re a tourist town. There are always cars I don’t recognize in the parking lot. As a matter of fact, most of them park in this lot because it’s easy, and then walk down the street to the arcade as if the people who live in this town don’t have groceries to lug out to our cars.”
“Arcade?”
“It’s quite the hangout spot. So whatever her name is might have parked here, but she’s probably not in the market.”
Calling the pizza place with three pinball machines and two Skee-Ball machines an arcade was a stretch, but Lucy appreciated the effort.
A few seconds later, Kim joined her in the alcove and didn’t look pleased about it. “You still have Nevada plates? And your car’s out front?”
“Yes.”
Kim Perkins probably couldn’t have looked more unhappy if she tried.
“Go through that door behind you. Don’t follow it all the way back to the loading dock because they might be watching that exit.
There’s a door to the left that leads to the break room, and it has an exit door into the alley between the buildings.
You can’t really see it from the sidewalk.
I’ll meet you at the end of the alley in two minutes.
You can figure out how to come back for your car later. ”
Before she could ask any questions—like why?—Kim was gone.
She did as she was told, and a few minutes later she was on her way out of town in the passenger seat of Kim’s SUV.
She took a winding path out of town, down back roads Lucy hadn’t even seen, checking her rearview mirror constantly.
Finally satisfied, she navigated back to the main road that would take Lucy home.
“I really appreciate this,” Lucy said, because the silence was incredibly awkward. “I’m sorry to put you out. Did you leave Taylor at the market?”
“No, she has her own vehicle. The two of us being there at the same time was purely coincidence.”
“Oh, good.” They’d already been pulling away from the market when Lucy realized Taylor wasn’t in the back seat, but there wasn’t a lot she could do about it.
The older woman sighed. “Taylor’s an only child. Obviously my marriage was pretty rough for a while, and by the time we’d moved past it as best we could, it felt like it was too late to have more kids.”
Lucy kept her mouth closed, determined not to apologize for her mother’s actions, no matter how bad she felt for Kim.
“You’re Taylor’s sister.” The words sounded dragged out of her. “She’s getting married and she’s going to have a baby. And she should have her sister.”
“I’m going to Miami,” she said out loud. But I’m going to be an aunt was echoing in her mind, as it so often did.
“I know you’re leaving, but she’ll still have you to talk to.” Kim hit her turn signal and pulled into Helen’s driveway. “It’s not easy for me. I know it’s not your fault, but…”
“I understand.”
“I’m going to try, for Taylor’s sake. It might take me a little time, but you won’t need to smuggle her into secret birthday parties at closed bakeries in the future.”
“You knew?”
“Of course I knew. It’s Wayward Harbor.”
“For the record, it was a surprise party. I neither aided nor abetted the smuggling.”
Kim actually laughed as she came to a stop and immediately put the vehicle in Reverse to indicate she wouldn’t be staying. “Good luck with that Fairee mess. We’ll all do what we can.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
As she got out of the SUV, the screen door opened and Nick stepped out onto the porch. He gave a half-hearted wave to Kim as she drove off, but kept his eyes on Lucy.
“Are you okay?” he demanded. With his jaw clenched and eyes narrowed, Nick was drawn up to his full height and scanning the driveway and tree line, as if searching for a threat among the leaves.
Lucy had never seen him look like that, and it was a little scary. And also very hot.
“Some paparazzi or just random people wanting to go viral were looking for me, and Kim told them she’d never heard of me and told them to check the pizza place,” Lucy explained.
“And then she told me how to get out to the side alley, where she picked me up. I couldn’t go out the front without being seen.
Plus my car still has Nevada plates, so even with all the tourists in town, it still stands out. ”
“Come on inside,” he said, but there was a tension in his voice that made her hesitate. He was probably thinking about the possibility of strangers taking photos through their windows.
“I should go stay at a motel because Gran—”
“She’s not worried about them. She’s worried about you. Get inside.”
As soon as she stepped through the door, Gran pulled her into a strong hug, holding her until her breathing calmed. “I shouldn’t have sent you to the market.”
“No, you were right, Gran. I can’t not live my life. And honestly, I shouldn’t have run from them. I should have let them take pictures or videos of whatever they wanted and just told them I had no comment.”
“After what the internet did to you, nobody blames you for hiding,” Nick said.
“Why are you here and not at work?” she asked, just then realizing Nick being in the cottage wasn’t everyday life anymore.
“Taylor called me, and I guess I beat you here.”