2. Chapter 2
Briggs
They say never put all your eggs in one basket.
Well, I’m here to tell you that they—whoever they are—are right.
“What can I help you find, Carl?” I ask the only handyman on the island of Sunset Harbor as he peruses the shelves of the bookshop, his brow pulled downward as he concentrates, sweat glistening on his forehead.
It’s too early in the morning to be dealing with this. He was knocking on the glass door of the shop before I came downstairs to open.
“I need a book about refrigerator repair, particularly for the Samsung brand,” he says, not bothering to look in my direction.
I push my glasses up my nose and will my eyes not to move to the ceiling, like they are straining to do, wondering if it’s possible for a man who’s been a permanent fixture on the small island where this bookshop has been for many years to think he could find that kind of book here.
“Sorry, Carl, this is mainly a fiction bookshop,” I tell him. The Book Isle, my mom’s third child, opened its doors nearly thirteen years ago, not long after I turned fifteen.
“Yes, well, doesn’t hurt to ask,” Carl says. “You ought to consider carrying some nonfiction books.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that on to my mom,” I say.
“It’s good business practice,” he says with a confident nod.
“I’m sure refrigerator-repair guides will fly off the shelves.”
He nods in agreement, clearly missing the sarcasm.
I’ll pass it on for sure, but mostly as a joke. Marianne McMannus, an avid reader of fiction, bought the store for the sole purpose of housing the books she loves. Which means this quaint bookshop, with the soft lighting, the framed prints of vintage book covers on the walls, and the plush chairs placed thoughtfully around the space, carries mainly romance books, even though that hardly turns a profit. Of course, there’s a smattering of other books, especially the classics. My mom is a big fan—my sister, Scout, and I were both named after characters from her favorite books. I didn’t get a literary first name, but I did get a middle one. I rarely tell people what it is because I hate it. Most of my closest friends don’t even know. Not that I have many of those these days. If they were right about not putting all your eggs in one basket, then they—again, not sure who they are— were even more right about not going into business with friends. It’s just a bad idea. I know that now.
Carl lets out a large breath, his round belly moving up and down with the effort. “Well, I guess I better figure out how I’m going to fix this dang ice machine for the Vanderduesens.”
“You could maybe . . . check YouTube?” I say, giving him a little shrug of my shoulders.
He reaches up and scratches the side of his neck, just under his jaw, his eyes squinting. “Yeah, I guess. Do you think they have something like that on there?”
“I do,” I say.
Carl turns his face toward me, his gaze curious. “Say, Briggs, what are you doing back here anyway? I thought you started some big, important company in Miami.”
“It was Fort Lauderdale, actually,” I say, not sure why I bothered to correct him. I adjust my glasses, a tic I seem to get when I feel suddenly anxious.
He pulls his eyebrows together. “What’re you doing back here?”
Oh yes. The million-dollar question. It was the basket that held all my eggs, and when they broke, I had only one option, which was to come back to Sunset Harbor, my figurative tail between my legs. That was the first part of May, and here I am, one month later, still without a clue about what to do next .
I take a deep breath, feeling a sort of ache in the pit of my stomach, a pain that’s been showing up every now and then since I came back. A reminder of how lost I’ve been feeling lately.
“It . . . didn’t work out,” I tell Carl.
It was a combination of things that caused the inevitable demise of the start-up I’d been working to get off the ground with friends from college. But the main one was money. We just simply ran out of it.
I’m not sure why it rankles to admit this to the island handyman; it’s not like I was some small-town star, the boy expected to go places. I’ve mostly lived under the radar since moving here in the seventh grade when my mom married Keith McMannus, who’d been a Sunset Harbor staple for pretty much his entire life.
But maybe that’s why. Because I wasn’t someone people talked about growing up, and now I feel like they will be for all the wrong reasons: Briggs Dalton is a failure.
“Well,” he says, reaching out and patting my arm. “I’m sure your mom is happy to have you back.”
“She is,” I say, giving him a nod. That’s the one silver lining—my mom was more than happy to get me back here. So was my sister, Scout. They’ve been pestering me for years, ever since I graduated college. Now I’m back and working at the bookshop, and also living in the apartment above it. Not exactly how I pictured my life going .
Carl takes a small step closer to me, his chin dipping slightly. “Do you know . . . is she, uh, your mom, seeing anyone?” he asks in low tones, even though we’re the only ones here.
My eyes widen of their own accord. Carl’s . . . interested in my mom? I have no idea if my mom is seeing anyone, because, well, I don’t want to know. My guess is probably not. It’s only been three years since Keith passed away unexpectedly. “Carl, I—”
I’m cut off—or saved, essentially—by the bell that rings whenever the door to the bookshop is opened. Carl jumps back like we’ve just been caught in a shady deal.
“Sorry . . . I’m just . . . gonna . . .” I hook a thumb over my shoulder, toward the entrance of the store.
I walk away from Carl without a backwards glance, around the corner from the shelves we were standing by, and to the entrance. I expect to see my mom, who’s supposed to be here this morning, or someone else from the island who’s hopefully not here to ask me about my mom’s current dating status, but instead I find someone else.
I’ve been away from the island for a while now—nine years, to be exact. I’m sure there have been new people who’ve moved to the island since then, and the woman standing in front of me, petite build, black running shorts and a white tank, dark hair pulled back into a low ponytail, a baseball cap on her head and dark glasses covering her eyes, is definitely someone I’ve never seen around here before.
And yet, she looks familiar.
“Can I help you?” I ask, after I realize I’ve been staring, trying to figure out how I might know the person standing in front of me. I reach up and push my glasses up the bridge of my nose.
“I’m looking for a book,” she says, tilting her head up to compensate for the several inches of height difference between us.
“Oh, right. Well, we sell those here,” I say, holding out a hand toward the rows of shelves that take up most of the space.
She gives me a closed-mouth smile, and I mentally slap myself for sounding like an idiot.
“Bye, Briggs,” Carl says as he walks past. He does a double take at the woman standing in front of me before exiting out the door, the bells ringing as he leaves.
I clear my throat once the door shuts. “Anything in particular I can help you find?”
“Yes. I was hoping to get a copy of Secret Crush by Sunny Palmer,” she says. Her voice is lower and raspy sounding. Very sexy, in my just-formed opinion. Again, I’m hit with the feeling that I’ve met her before. Maybe if she weren’t wearing those shades, I’d figure out how I know her. It doesn’t seem like she plans on taking them off, though .
“Yah-yes,” I say, stammering over my words. “We’ve got a few copies. My mom ordered them for the book club they have here on the island. It’s usually just a bunch of ladies from the retirement center. I can find out when they meet if you want to join?”
What am I even talking about?
“That’s okay,” she says. “I’m not really a book club kind of person.”
“Right. Of course.”
I weave my hands together in front of me because they’re suddenly feeling like misplaced appendages on my body. I clear my throat unnecessarily. She sniffs.
“Can you . . . maybe show me where the book is?” she finally asks.
“Uh, yes,” I say. What is happening to me right now? I’ve been body snatched by a moron. I’ve always been awkward, especially around the opposite sex, but this is above and beyond. “It’s just . . . um . . . over here.”
I turn toward the shelves and she follows me. I know exactly where the current Sunny Palmer books are located because I sold a copy to someone from the book club just the other day.
“Here it is,” I say, pulling the last one from the shelves and handing it to her.
She takes it from me, and I notice her fingernails are ragged looking, as if she’s scraped off her nail polish. “Thanks,” she says .
“Do you . . . need any other books?”
“Actually, yes,” she says, her eyebrows peeking over the top of her sunglasses. “Do you have any recommendations?”
“Recommendations?”
Her lips pull slightly upward. “Yes, anything else I need to read?”
“I . . . uh . . .” I may be working in a bookshop, but I don’t actually read. Not fiction books, at least. Maybe Carl’s right and we should add some nonfiction. Who knows, I might find refrigerator repair manuals compelling.
She grabs a book off the shelf. “Like this one. Is it any good?”
I look down at the cover. “Oh, yeah, that one is . . . great. The Rule Book by Sarah Adams. Everyone is reading it.”
She cocks her head to the side, the corner of her mouth moving up slightly. “What’s it about?”
“Well, it’s a rule book of sorts. There are these rules.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
“It really is.”
She takes it from me and stacks it on top of the Sunny Palmer book. “Any others?”
“Uh, sure,” I say as I reach out and grab another book off the shelf. “This one right here is a breakout sensation.” I hold it out toward her, the words breakout sensation in bold at the top.
She looks down at it. “ The Love Hypothesis ? ”
“Yes. It’s by—” I pause to search the cover. “Ali Hazelwood. It’s a New York Times bestseller.” I point to the gold sticker with the white lettering stuck to the front of the paperback. Why do they put stickers on paperbacks? I’m pretty sure everyone hates it.
“Sounds interesting. What’s it about?”
I look down at the illustrated drawing of a man and a woman kissing on the cover and then awkwardly back at her. “It’s definitely a page turner. It’s about people who . . . hypothesize about love.”
She smiles now, lovely, bright-white teeth on display. “Sounds like a good one.”
“Oh, it is,” I say.
“You haven’t read any of them, have you?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
She giggles at that and my stomach does a weird dipping thing, a feeling I haven’t had in forever. It’s almost foreign.
A little voice in my head, one that has been quiet for a long time, nudges me to ask her out, or at the very least ask for her number. It’s been a while since I’ve had that thought. This time is unfounded, because even though she looks familiar, I can’t place how I know her. Plus, she might not even be single, or even be interested. Not to mention, I’m in no place to date. Not with the back-to-square-one turn my life has taken .
“Well, I’ll take them. All three.” She holds out a hand, and I give her the third book, which she stacks on top of the others.
“Excellent choices,” I say.
We stand there again, and I rack my brain, still trying to figure out where I could possibly know her from. Was it here on the island? During college? If she’d take off the sunglasses, that might help—they’re keeping me from getting a good look. All I’m basing this off is a perfect button nose and full lips in a lovely shade of pink. Why can’t I figure this out?
“Can I . . . buy them?” the woman asks, snapping me out of what might have been a short trance. Good hell, was I staring at her lips? I think I was.
“Right,” I say, berating myself for acting like a fool. I feel disarmed around her. It’s a strange feeling.
She follows me to the front of the store, and once I’m behind the register, she hands me the books. I ring them up while she peruses the odds and ends my mom has for sale on the front counter—small notebooks, a variety of pens, and some gimmicky books of questions.
She hands me cash from a black cross-body bag once I tell her the total. I’d hoped for a credit card so I could see a name to help jog my memory, but no such luck. I guess I could just ask her, but it feels like I’ve missed the timing on that. I bag up the books and hand them to her.
“Thanks for the help,” she says as she takes them .
“You’re welcome. You’ll have to let me know if you enjoyed the books.”
“Rules and hypotheses—how can I not?” She gives me a smile.
“Have we . . . met before?” I finally ask. It’s taken me too long to ask, but I’ve already made a fool of myself—might as well run with it.
She shakes her head. “No,” she says definitively.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she says.
“You just look so familiar.”
“I have one of those faces.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” I say, shaking my head. “Do you live here? On the island?”
“No, just visiting.” She slides a hand through the handles of the bag of books, looking like she’s about to make a run for it, her demeanor changing to something more anxious, which makes me even more curious. I may lack a lot of things in life, but reading a room has always been a talent of mine, and this room says, Stop asking stupid questions.
“Thank you for these,” she says, with a head bob toward the books.
“Of course,” I tell her.
She turns and leaves the store, the bells jingling as she exits .
I stare at the door after she leaves, still trying to work out how I might know her. After a minute, I give up and busy myself with organizing a stack of notebooks on the counter.
It doesn’t matter anyway; I’m not trying to see people on this island besides my mom and Scout. I can’t get around running into people when they come into the shop, but other than that I’ve been hiding in the apartment above the store that my mom kindly offered when I told her I was coming back. It’s a small, one-bedroom place, and it’s got some interesting decor. But I’m grateful for it.
It’s not that I’m avoiding particular people—I just don’t want to see anyone. I don’t want to have to answer questions about why I’m back, what happened, what I plan to do with my life, how I’m going to get back on my feet . . . I don’t even know the answers to the last two questions. I’m giving myself the summer to figure it all out. And hopefully I will.
The bells on the door ring as it opens, and I can instantly feel the warm, humid air that’s slipped in, fighting for dominance with the air-conditioning. My eyes dart toward the entrance, hoping she—the mysterious, yet familiar, woman—might come through the door, back to tell me who she is and put this unsolved mystery to rest. Instead, my mom enters the bookshop, carrying a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a canvas tote full of who-knows-what in the other.
“Hello, Mom,” I say before giving her a faint smile .
“Briggs,” she says, sounding out of breath. It’s not a greeting, it’s the start of a sentence. She has something to tell me, and from the look of her wide eyes, it’s very important information. That, or not at all important. You never really know with my mom. It could be anything. A dolphin sighting on her morning beach stroll or seeing someone doing something out of the ordinary on her walk here. Not a lot of exciting things happen on this island.
“Carl was here earlier, and he thinks we should be carrying some refrigerator-repair manuals,” I start, purposely cutting off whatever story she was about to tell me, just to be annoying, and also so I wouldn’t forget. I told him I would say something, after all. I also want to tell her that he was fishing around about her relationship status, but I decide to keep that to myself.
She lets the bag she’s holding drop to her side, a punctuation to the irritated expression on her face: brows drawn low, lips pursed.
“He said it was good business practice .” I emphasize the last three words for added effect.
Her eyes move to the ceiling briefly. She shakes her head as she flings the tote she was carrying onto the only empty space on the front counter. The bag teeters before it sags to the side. The contents—which look to be books, go figure—surprisingly stay put. The flowers are next, but she’s gentler with those.
“Do you know who I just saw?” she asks, obviously done with talk of Carl and his refrigerator-repair-manual needs .
Marianne McMannus’s green eyes—the ones I inherited—stare me down, and her sandy-blonde hair, also the same as mine, looks a little bit frizzy, which means she definitely did her morning beach stroll.
“A dolphin?” I ask, taking an educated guess. It’s a common thing around here.
She scrunches her brow, looking at me like I’ve sprouted another head. “I said who ,” she says.
I shrug a shoulder. “I don’t know, maybe you named the dolphins.”
She bobs her head from side to side. “That does sound like something I’d do. But that’s not what I’m talking about.” She leans in toward me, dipping her chin as she does, like she has the juiciest of gossip. “I think I just saw Presley James.”
I cock my head to the side, “The . . . actress?”
“No,” she says, scoffing. “The gardener. Yes, of course the actress.” She shakes her head like she can’t believe the cluelessness of her only son. “I heard a rumor she was here, but I didn’t believe it. And you know I’m not one to gossip.”
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” I deadpan. My mom is actually the opposite of someone who isn’t one to gossip . She might even be the town queen of it.
She blows air out of her nose, giving me a disappointed look. “I don’t gossip, Briggs,” she reiterates. “But I’m telling you, I think it was Presley James. ”
“What did she look like?”
“She’s a tiny thing. Dark hair under a baseball cap and sunglasses on. I just passed by her on the way here.” She inhales quickly. “Oh my . . . was she here? In our store?” She points out toward the main area of the bookshop, figurative stars in her eyes.
Presley James . . . Presley . . . James.
Oh no.
I slap myself on the forehead with my palm. That’s why she looked so familiar. Not because I’ve met her before, but because I’ve seen her on a movie screen.
Briggs, you idiot.
“She was in the store,” I tell my mom.
Her jaw drops. “She was in the store?” Her voice is so loud someone on the moon could probably hear her. “Scout is going to freak out! Did you at least get a picture, Briggsy?”
I narrow my eyes at her, not because of the nickname that she’s called me probably since birth—I don’t mind that—but because of her ridiculous assumption.
“Yes, because I make a habit of snapping pictures of all our patrons,” I tell her. I drop my chin and purse my lips to accentuate my sarcastic retort.
“We had someone famous in the shop and you didn’t even think to snap a picture? ”
“Maybe it’s not Presley,” I say, hopeful that I’m right. I’m feeling waves of embarrassment work their way down my spine as I think about all the stupid things I said to her when she was here. Presley Freaking James.
“It has to be,” she says. “Word is she’s staying at the Belacourt Resort.”
Note to self: stay away from the Belacourt Resort. Not that I have any reason to be at the posh hotel.
I’ll just have to hope I never see her again.