Chapter 4
My feet trod down the uneven stone-paved sidewalk.
The gentle morning sunlight flits in and out of tree branches, illuminating the leaves seemingly from the inside out.
Some of the branches have moss that look like the Lorax’s fingers draping down lazily, and from certain hills, I’m high enough to see the ocean glittering in the distance.
As I near downtown Seabrook I forget where I’m headed and am momentarily put at ease.
I reach for my phone and swipe to the camera to check my under-eye bags.
I stayed up late last night by Lottie’s bedside, trying to scribble as many stories as she could remember into my journal.
Stories of her arriving in America, starting her convenience store without knowing any English, and within a year, throwing parties so large with the local customers and out-of-towners, her house looked like a parking lot. Her words, not mine.
I felt like a time traveler, looking at her, knowing she was still here but wouldn’t be for much longer.
Knowing that the image of her, thirty pounds underweight, laying on a hospital bed in her bedroom, would mar my mind for countless days after this one.
This tired, disfigured version of her felt like some sort of cosmic glitch.
The only thing keeping me from turning around was Lottie’s insistence that I enjoy my day and the thought of helping my mom.
My concealer is doing its job for the most part, and my dark, short hair and curtain bangs are behaving, so I swipe out of the camera app to check the time—thirty minutes until my interview at the coffee shop I somehow managed to schedule.
Peppy Teenager answered the phone when I called and confirmed the interviewer would be the manager, Declan.
I’d come home only a handful of times during college and not once did I see a glimpse of him.
Not even his car. Or his mom, Gwen. Maybe it’s because I flinched away from any opportunity to leave the house, insisting that my mom needed company working her shift at the convenience store (but only from the back room), or that Lottie needed help with her litany of plants around the house.
“Oh, they’re already watered? Perhaps the junk drawer needs a pass-through again! ”
The first year was especially difficult.
The wounds of Declan’s and my separation were still fresh.
Coming home was like walking through a city full of land mines.
Street names weren’t just street names. They were the titles to bittersweet memories.
Late nights spent talking in Declan’s car, playing me songs from strange, obscure bands he had recently discovered.
Him looking over at me in the dim streetlamp’s glow, waiting urgently for my face to give away my reaction.
I loved that about him. How he loved watching me experience something he’d discovered on his own.
After three blocks, I turn onto the narrow brick road and hesitate on the landing before the coffee shop’s red French doors.
There are so many ways this interview could go and I have not a single clue as to how Declan will choose to acknowledge me.
Will he treat me as his best friend of twelve years who became more?
Or like a regretted past, pretending we’re no more than strangers to each other?
Blinking twice and pushing through the doors, I utilize a muscle I’ve honed well, compartmentalizing an emotion until it is small and tuckable, and then shoving it into the deepest recesses of my mind. Right now, what I need is for a coffee shop manager to hire me for the summer. That is all.
Do it for your mom, I tell myself.
The coffee shop has a steady stream of customers placing their weekday orders.
Sounds of metal cups being picked up and set down echo from behind the counter.
Names are read off lattes at a tiny bar.
Peppy Teenager seems to be chief of taking orders, her kind voice trilling as she greets customers.
She’s smiling with the excited glow of a new job’s responsibilities still intact.
My eyes scan the small shop. It’s previously house-shaped bones are charmingly obvious. The barista’s bar sits at the back of the house, extending to various mid-century seating options: leather chairs, deep couches, and a half-built bar overlooking a window to sit at.
There seems to be some construction going on in an alcove to the left, pieces of raw wood resting against the wall. A refraction of light on the floor causes me to look up.
Eclectic… birdhouses are hanging by nearly invisible strings from the wooden beams on the ceiling. They look handmade, random wheels and gears decorating the outside of each one.
It’s as if Dr. Seuss and Einstein collaborated on a coffee shop in a wealthy town.
Glancing around to the left, I’m startled to find Declan already standing right beside me, as still as a statue.
“GAHOH-Oh-gosh.” My body jolts like a boomer being shown one of those videos of a baseball flying straight at the camera. “I’m sorry, I…” I clutch my chest and descend into awkward mumbling. “I didn’t see you there.”
He stares down at me. Face unmoving.
“Ms. Lang?” he asks, feigning sincerity.
Ms? Really? That’s how we’re going to play this?
“You can call me by my first name.”
His expression remains the same. “Please, if you’ll follow me.”
I try not to stare as I watch him walk casually to the back corner of the coffee shop.
His limp is well hidden within his ability to act like he doesn’t carry a singular care in the world.
Despite my efforts to treat this as a simple job interview, this is my first time seeing Declan after the accident.
Seeing the repercussions of what that night did up close makes my heart constrict, and I contemplate if I can do this.
Why did he suffer alone? Why wouldn’t he let me in?
“Please.” Declan’s eyes flit up to mine. “Have a seat.”
My lips form a thin line as I try to get comfortable in the metal chair. My back is as straight as a ballet dancer’s, hands folded in my lap. I try to wear the expression of a trustworthy potential hire.
Declan clears his throat. “So, tell me a little about yourself.” He mimics my clasped hands and sits back in his chair, face blank.
I blink twice in rapid succession. Tell me a little about yourself?
There is not a single human on planet Earth who knows more about me than this boy.
Well, man, now. I did no part of my growing up without him standing by as a witness.
Of all the ways I imagined our first conversation going, this one never made the list.
“Tell me a little bit about yourself?” I repeat back to him, voice emphasizing what I think of the question.
It’s been two seconds since the interview began and I’ve already forgotten to behave like someone trying to get hired.
Perhaps unprocessed grief, over this current situation and Lottie’s, beckons me to act the way I do.
Because in a swift moment of poor decision-making, fueled by the disbelief that any of this is really happening, I decide to up the ante on his weird game of pretend.
I can act equally as naive and unaware if that’s how he’d like to handle this.
I compose my face into a well-poised mask. The goal is manic pixie dream girl. The execution is probably more resentfully-bitter-immaturely-obsessed.
Regardless, I start, “Well, I was born and raised in Alberta, Canada. My parents have been happily married for thirty-five years. When it was time for college, I decided traveling the world would suit me a bit better instead, and now my travels have landed me here in Seabrook.” I smile with dead eyes, displaying as many teeth as possible.
At his silence I continue, “This town is such a well-kept secret, huh? Better keep it up before the men in suits find it. If they saw how beautiful this hidden gem of a place is, they’d be marching in with their blueprints and drills in an instant!
” My voice pitches up, saccharinely sweet, eyebrows tented in faux sincerity.
Declan’s face contorts slightly, but he manages to neutralize before anyone around us is able to recognize anything other than an ordinary interview taking place.
That years of unspoken tension are being dug up in code.
His gaze bores into my soul. He does not move an inch.
I study his expression, trying to read if he’s perturbed at all, or if he’s been so thoroughly over me that this act won’t rile up an ounce of emotion. He clears his throat again.
“What three words would your closest friends use to describe you?” He keeps his head down, never looking up from the page in front of him.
“Hmm, my closest friends?” I repeat, as if I need clarification.
He nods once, lips pressed tightly together.
“Are we talking college friends? I made some great friends in college. Or— Oh, you mean high school? Or, no, sorry, you meant middle school?” I scrunch my brows in faux confusion.
Picturing Roshi and Faye bowled over in howls of laughter when I tell this story later is the only thing getting me through.
Finally, I see his face give away the slightest twitch. I’m annoying him. His mask is slipping. “Any. Any friends. It doesn’t matter.”
“Alright then. If I had to guess, they would probably call me loyal. Loyalty is huge for me. I’m sure it’s an overused declaration, but when I love someone, I truly would not let anything stand in the way of us ever again.
I would stick by them forever.” I punctuate the words and watch them land with the intended impact on his face.
“Well, as long as it is up to me, of course,” I add.
Declan remains still. I chalk it up to my imagination, but I swear I see a hint of confusion flicker across his face.
After a moment he seems to remember to speak. He jolts, gesturing with his hand for me to continue. “Two more words, please.”
“Oh, right, excuse me.” I pretend to be deep in thought.
Looking up toward the left. “Maybe they would also deem me straightforward and a concise communicator. If something has happened or feelings have changed, I’d rather come out and say exactly what I mean rather than…
well, I don’t know. I suppose maybe some people would rather not say anything at all. ”
Declan looks down at this. He knows enough about me to realize what I’ve said is completely false. I am a conflict avoider. An emotional black hole. Emotions come to me to be smothered by denial and a list of actionable solutions.
He gets up suddenly and begins gathering his things. The rustle of papers jars me. “Well, I think that will conclude our interview, Ms. Lang. I’ll be in contact soon.”
I’m left halfway standing as I stare at his retreating back. My mouth is partly open in response as I watch him bear his weight onto his right leg and walk away.