Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Miss Lissy isn’t dead, so why am I here? I already know she didn’t leave the house to me.
I hesitated, murmuring an apology as someone ran into my back.
I wanted to talk myself out of finding her.
She might know someone who would have left it to you, said the annoying part of my brain that dressed in a top hat and tails. And you’ve got nowhere else to be. Loser.
Stupid conscience.
The interior was like walking into a swanky cave. Narrow room, leather bench seats along one wall, bar leaner and stools on the other, stacked tight like books on a shelf.
I acclimated by pretending to study the menu while my periphery scanned for her. I wanted it to be easy. In and out. Like checking under the bed for monsters and secretly hoping one would be there. Better to know what direction the tornado was coming from.
“Can I help you?” asked a man with purple hair and a gaze so dark that his pupils disappeared.
Damn, that line moved too fast.
“Long black, please,” I said. Flat whites were strictly a Steamy Sips thing. This place was getting no more of my cash stash than necessary.
“Takeaway?” he asked, looking bored. His practiced fingers tapped away at the tablet on the counter that took the orders. My eyes scanned the room again, and he tapped his fingers impatiently on the screen.
“Have here.” My smile wasn’t returned. I considered cracking a joke to thaw the vibe, but he looked like someone who might spit in my drink if I did.
“You’ll never believe it!” a voice cried behind me.
A woman burst through the automatic doors on a mobility scooter, snagging a dying ponytail palm, knocking over a sign and rolling on.
“I locked my keys in the damn car yesterday.” A server followed behind, tidying the trail of destruction.
“Fox, the side window’s open halfway and you’ll fit.
None of that coat-hanger nonsense works on these fandangled new cars. ”
I smiled at the name Fox. With his pointy nose and carefully trimmed goatee, it suited him.
Fox, however, looked as if his bottom lip might wobble any minute, as he rattled off excuses.
He was overdue for his scheduled break, and he'd injured something that sounded conveniently made up doing squats at the gym.
She eyed him with a stony face before realising I was standing there.
“You,” she boomed, stabbing an index finger in the air. “You’re tiny. You do it.”
I swallowed hard, and my brain emptied. It wasn’t the thought of climbing through a stranger’s car window to get a set of lost keys, which, by the way had to be the weirdest thing I’d ever been asked to do while getting my morning coffee. It was her tone.
Saying no wasn’t an option. That same energy clung to Fox, who looked like a school boy waiting for detention. The woman scanned my appearance with a sharp stare. I dragged my gaze across her face. Not the tornado I’d come for, but definitely storm-adjacent.
White hair streaked with green and pink, knotted hands gripping the scooter’s handlebars, and feet swollen to bursting in her shoes. She radiated authority like someone who’d once ruled an empire.
“I’m meeting someone,” I lied.
“Hot date first thing in the morning?” Her glacier-blue eyes narrowed. My back began to sweat, and I clasped my hands behind it so that I wouldn’t wring my fingers.
I’m an independent woman. I don’t know her. She doesn’t know me. I don’t have to do bizarre favours for strangers.
I took the coffee Fox had abandoned on the counter. “Miss Lissy.”
Her expression shifted—surprise, confusion, then a smirk. It unsettled me.
She snapped her fingers at Fox, who all but flinched. Without a word, he slouched away to retrieve her keys.
“Olivia!” she called out.
The young woman from earlier zipped out of the kitchen, tucking one earbud into her apron as she approached. Was this Olivia? My stomach flipped.
Ashy blonde hair. Lines around the mouth. Easily in her thirties.
My stomach tumbled.
"Cover the counter," Scooter Tornado demanded. I assumed at this point that she was the owner.
Olivia stood behind the counter alphabetising the loyalty cards and occasionally frowning when she looked up and realised I was still staring at her. Eventually she just turned her back, which was fair enough. I would’ve too.
“You come with me,” the woman ordered, not waiting for a response. Her scooter screeched forward as we made our way to a small woman sitting in a leather booth by the window that looked out to the day-care centre next door.
“Lis, this one’s here for you.”
The woman seated at the table looked up from her newspaper, and her brow crinkled.
This was not the Miss Lissy of my childhood.
That woman had been massive. I’d earned the right to say that after having her crushing weight restrict my breathing countless times.
I intended on apologising to this Lis for the mix-up once Scooter Tornado had departed.
I had a feeling I’d be standing in an uncomfortable situation with her for much longer if I didn’t play along.
“Thanks, Betty,” Lis said as she appraised me.
Huh, Betty. I guess that was better than scooter tornado, although I would’ve pegged her as something different.
Lilith perhaps. Betty nodded once, then reversed away, her scooter beeping as she backed into chairs and clipped ankles.
She shot dirty looks at anyone in her path, as if they’d placed themselves there to spite her.
She reminded me of someone who, in ancient times, was carried around on a palanquin by four powerful men and who despised the peasants beneath her.
“Sorry,” I said as Betty disappeared behind the counter.
The woman with a black pageboy haircut eyed me as she folded her newspaper and put it to the side.
“You’re actually not who I’m looking for, but I didn’t want to offend her,” I said, pushing my thumb over my shoulder.
“I wondered when I’d run into you,” Lis smiled, her fingers linked on the table.
Confusion furrowed my brow. “New faces stand out like stoplights here, huh? Anyway, I’ll leave you to it.” I picked up my mug, ready to move on. I wasn’t about to fend off the questions friendly strangers asked in small towns.
“I know you,” she said, polishing her small oval glasses on her pale blue shirt before slipping them back on.
I hovered with my coffee half-raised, half-lowered, watching her through narrowed eyes. The skin on her arms sagged as if it belonged to someone else. Her gaze met mine with something close to satisfaction.
“Miss Lissy?” My voice squeaked.
“Gastric bypass surgery, the opposite of a facelift,” she said as she pulled at the loose skin around her throat.
I’d half expected my stomach to fill with metal butterflies upon seeing her, or for unwelcome memories to make themselves known, but there was nothing.
It was like looking at a stranger. It was hard to make eye contact, but I smiled at her, not wanting to agree with her comment even though I totally did.
“I really wouldn’t have recognised you. You look good,” I said, then immediately regretted it. This woman was not my friend.
She watched me for a few moments with narrowed eyes. “What brings you back to little old Glades Bay?”
I wasn’t stupid. I knew her. And I knew she would know why I was here. I wasn’t na?ve enough to believe that in a town this small, with her family so prominent, she hadn’t heard who the new owner of Bellamy Children’s Home was.
I leaned back in my chair. “I’m guessing you already know the answer to that.”
She shrugged and took a sip of coffee while watching a mother drop her toddler off next door. “Going to move into that big old place on your own?”
I snorted.
“That’s a no, then.”
“That’s a hell no. I’m here to get rid of it,” I said, resting my chin on my linked fingers.
A flicker passed across her eyes. Excitement, maybe.
New goal: there is no way in hell that Bellamy Home will end up in the hands of Miss Lissy.
A shiver ran across my shoulders at the thought of anyone reopening it under the guise of being a respite centre.
You can change the language, but it would still be an institutionalised children’s home.
Even the government-funded ones barely had oversight from independent agencies. They were glorified children's prisons.
“You surprise me, Riley Walls.” She said, keeping her eyes on mine, and I tried to hide the agitation I felt when she used my name. Irritation clouded my mind, and the temporary friendliness I’d felt towards her evaporated.
“You think anyone who went there would want to live in it?” I asked, and her expression shifted for the first time. Annoyance. I wasn’t supposed to talk back. Even now, apparently.
She let her mouth curve to hide it. “You guys think it was so bad. There was nothing happening there that wasn’t happening anywhere else. Times change, and we changed along with them. Honestly, your generation. A bunch of milksops.”
I laughed sharply once. “Is that what you tell yourself?”
Miss Lissy watched my mood change and seemed to enjoy it.
“I’ve hardly thought about it since it closed, Riley.” She leaned in. “Why? Does it fill your thoughts?”
Heat and nausea rose from my stomach. I wanted to reach across the table and slap her smug, sagging face.
But I’d never been a fighter. When you know what it feels like to be physically hurt by someone, really hurt, it changes something in you.
I could never inflict that on another person.
Plus, I’m pretty sure it was frowned upon to slap old people in public.
Even when they deserved it.
“Do you know who left me the home?” I asked through counted breaths, and she looked surprised.
“You don’t know who left it to you?”
I rolled my eyes, my lips pressed together as we sat in silence.
She watched me for a couple of moments. “That doesn’t even make sense. Why would someone leave it to you?”
“I’m as thrilled as you are. You really don’t know?”
She took her glasses off again and stretched her eyes.
“You were hardly there. Some of those kids were lifers, you know? You were there for what, a few months?”
“Long enough,” I replied through clenched teeth.
“Regardless,” she said, waving a hand like none of it mattered. “There are plenty of people I’d have thought it would be left to before you.”
Herself included, I was sure.
“And you can’t find out who it was?”
“Clause of anonymity in the will,” I forced out. “But I’m here to figure it out, so I can give it back.”
Miss Lissy finished her coffee. “I can look into it. Still got strings.”
I didn’t doubt that.
Relief prickled as she folded the newspaper, tucking it under her arm and stood.
“On one condition. You visit me. Once a week. Every week you’re here.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Why?”
She placed her palms on the table, leaning in. “Because it thrills me to catch up with old friends. Plus, I’d love an outsider’s perspective on the comings and goings of the town.”
There it was.
“We were never friends,” I said, unable to stop myself.
“Take it or leave it,” she shrugged.
I looked out at the daycare. A kid waved. I waved back without thinking.
“I don’t have all day, Miss Walls. And if you’re desperate enough to track me down, I’d say your time’s limited.”
She checked the watch hanging loosely on her bony wrist.
I sighed. “Fine. But I don’t plan on being here long, so I’m not sure how useful I’ll be.”
She tore a corner from the newspaper, scribbled an address, and slid it over.
“I don’t need long,” she said, striding off.
I didn’t want to think about what that meant. I was an adult. She had to be at least sixty now. I could snap her hollow-cheeked ass in half if I needed to.
“Thanks, Miss Lissy,” I called in the sing-song tune she’d forced us to use as children.
“It’s Liss,” she called back.
Did I just agree to visit Miss Lissy at her house?
I sat until my coffee went cold.
Walking past the counter, I saw Olivia drop a loyalty card. It fluttered name side up, and I tried to pick it up for her, but she snatched it back.
At least she was an avenue I could investigate further. I forced myself to acknowledge that I had more to go on now than I’d had an hour ago. Somewhere to start.
Back at Steamy Sips, Breeze was waiting for an update, but Dave from the Balls Club had cornered her at a table.
“We can bring our own poles. They’re all pressurised. Don’t need screws or anything and they’ll be down again before you open.” The man in the charcoal tracksuit and New Balance shoes was saying as he pushed his rectangle spectacles up. She gave me a nod as I passed.
“And where exactly were you thinking of installing them?” She asked, pinching the bridge of her nose.
That woman had the patience of a saint.
I headed straight out back to the kitchen. The range hood filter was a grease trap just waiting to combust. I had just opened the cupboard under the sink when a little furry head appeared at my side.
“Taco!”
She narrowed her eyes and pulled her lips back into a grin.
“I’m happy to see you too, little one,” I said, scooping her onto my lap as I sat cross-legged on the floor. I scratched her under both ears. Her brown eyes stared into mine.
“What are you thinking, huh?” I asked as she groaned and tilted her head.
“Can I be a dog too? Then I wouldn’t have to visit Pissy Lissy.”
A lump rose in my throat. My eyes misted at the thought of spending any more time with that woman. I felt the familiar panic building in my chest like galloping hooves. Don’t cry, Riley.
Blinking rapidly, I looked around the room to distract myself, but it felt like the air had vanished. I sniffed, trying to stop the tear that had let itself loose on my cheek. Taco immediately stood on her two back legs, her front legs resting on my chest as her gaze searched my face again.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, trying to soothe her. “You don’t need to worry.”
She didn’t shift. Instead, she stretched her neck further. I smiled at her through tears that were now falling. Ahh, how I hated to cry in public places. And make no mistake about it, the kitchen floor of the café I’d been working at for less than a day was a public place.
Low point Riley. Low point.
I didn’t realise what she was doing until I felt the warmth of her tiny tongue on my cheek and my heart filled, and burst into a thousand tiny pieces. Taco lapped at my tears as they continued to fall, and I snorted trying to bat her away, but she kept licking until I’d stopped.
“Weirdo,” I whispered.
She curled up like a tiny croissant in my lap and fell asleep.