Chapter Eight
Angel
Ash Doss stole my car.
After he left last night, I pictured him walking to his truck and leaving peacefully. But no. The big bear of a man I couldn’t get out of my head had taken it upon himself to tow my car out of the ditch and take it to the local car shop. How did I know this?
Because the car shop was owned by Marg’s brother-in-law, who also happened to do my oil changes.
He knew cars. He also, despite his age, remembered what all his customers drove, and if said customers worked at Margie’s, he took extra good care of them.
So imagine his surprise when a man like Ash pulled my car—the front bumper damaged severely and the entire thing covered in mud and leaves—into the first open bay at five in the morning.
Margie got the call before I managed to leave my house after struggling for forty-five minutes over the simple task of calling in a favor for a ride into work.
The only person I knew who would even have the time was Rachel.
Today was Saturday, and she didn’t have to open the Buoy for the lunch shift anymore. That was now Margo’s job.
When Rachel arrived, I was halfway down the steps, and she bolted out of her car, coming straight for me.
She took me into her arms, squeezed me until I couldn’t breathe, and confessed that Margo had called her last night.
News of my car wreck was now being spread by the Astoria rumor mill.
Of course, at this time, I was still riding on the hope that Margie hadn’t found out.
Much to my dismay, right around the time Rachel was crushing me in her embrace, Margie was on the phone with Tommy.
So walking into work with a fake smile on my face, ready to cling to my routine before I lost my mind, was, indeed, a poorly executed plan.
Why hadn’t I thought to tell the Red Snake group to keep the incident to themselves?
Why had I been so enraptured by the need to talk to Ash, to seek his forgiveness, instead of worrying about my own life?
“You were in a car accident?” The question, a shrill, heated screech from Marg, came from across the gleaming kitchen…where Felix was prepping. His head snapped up so quickly it almost looked painful, but the look of concern on his face erased my own for him instantly.
“What?” he barked, setting down his knife.
Marg threw her hand out. “First, I get the news about Joann. Then I get a call from my brother to tell me about you.”
“Wait, what happened to Joann?” I asked, my stomach dropping. She was such a kind lady. A little bossy, but always kind. Felix’s eyes were on me, burning into the sore side of my head.
Marg gave me a soft look, her anger momentarily replaced by a kind of sadness I knew all too well. “She passed in her sleep last night, dear.”
“Oh,” I whispered. Joann and her little friend group came in for lunch every Tuesday and Thursday. “I’m so sorry, Chef.”
“She lived a long life.” She sighed, turning to me and folding her arms over her chest. “You, on the other hand? Your life has barely begun. You were in an accident. You need to rest.”
I winced, my fake smile faltering. “It’s not a big deal,” I said, trying to blow it off.
Was I slightly dizzy? Yes.
Was there any way for me to blame that on my blood sugar? No. My levels were steady.
“Not a big deal?” she quipped, putting her hands on her hips and marching around the prep table. “You spun off the road and went into a ditch.”
Pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth, I remained silent. Even the mere thought of lying to this woman already had my cheeks and ears heating. It was only a matter of seconds before I would resemble a ripe tomato.
“Hold on, hold on,” Felix said, waving his hand before pointing at me. “You—you—last night?”
Marg looked over to him. “Yes! Last night! The man who dropped her off said it happened when she was on her way home from work!” She looked back over to me. “I told you not to buy that pretty house on the top of that hill, but you did it anyway.”
Here we go again. “Marg—”
“That damn road is dangerous during storms. Always has been, and it’s a state road so even if you’re lucky, it won’t be fixed for another sixty to a hundred years,” she raged, flailing her hands about as she paced.
“Honestly, I don’t know why your real estate agent even showed you that damn property.
It’s out of the way, and now look at you! Look at the bump on your head!”
My hand shot up, my fingers grazing over the bump I’d tried to conceal with makeup only an hour ago.
Pain sparked, shooting through my forehead and back.
I bit down, grinding my teeth. “How did you even see that?” I questioned, wondering why I’d spent so much on a concealer that didn’t work in my time of need.
“I can see everything,” she retorted, huffing as she closed the distance between us. She reached up, and before I could even get my protests out, my face was in her hands. She gently pulled me down to her level, and with narrowed eyes, she popped on her reading glasses to examine my injury.
“I promise, I’m okay.”
“Have you been evaluated for a concussion?” Felix asked, coming to stand beside her.
My eyes flicked up, finding his guilty ones. His lips pinched together as if he was holding something back, and when I answered him, he took the blame.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
He sighed as he pulled off his glasses, running his hand over his shaved head. “This is all my fault,” he confessed, blowing out a breath.
Marg slowly turned to face him, her warm hands still holding my head captive. My purse slipped off my shoulder, and I scrambled to catch it. She still refused to let go. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “You didn’t cause the storm.”
He shot me a pained look. “No, Marg…but I did tell Angel that I’m leaving Astoria.”
I was released from my hold, and it took a significant amount of effort to straighten my back, my shoulders and neck aching. “Marg, allow me to explain—”
My head chef’s hand shot up, silencing me. Then I was met with her cold stare. “You will not be explaining anything. The only thing you will be doing today, Ms. Howell, is going back home to rest.”
Alarm bells sounded in my head. “What? You—you want me to—”
“Go. Back. Home.”
I looked at Felix for comfort, for support, for a lifeline, but all I found in his eyes was shame.
Marg left me with that, quietly ordering Felix to follow her to this office, and that was it.
My purse was clutched to my heaving chest as if it could somehow force the panic back down to where it had sprouted from.
It was a garden weed that never truly went away, no matter how much I plucked, poisoned, or uprooted.
It was intertwined with the very roots of my being, forever getting in the way of my blooms, disrupting the seasons of my life, and right now, the stems were cutting off my airway.
It took a while for me to become unstuck, and when I finally had the strength to walk out the door, I was faced with another problem entirely.
I had no way of getting home.
Rachel was working a double shift. She and Joey had gotten into a huge argument during last night’s shift, which resulted in her leaving the bar hours before closing. On the ride over, I was hesitant to pry, but she reluctantly told me that she was not leaving the Buoy anytime soon.
It was the only positive news I’d heard this morning. And change—especially in my life—brought chaos.
With a lump in my throat and my purse in a tight hold against my chest, I made my way back outside.
The sun was sitting high this morning, nearly to its peak.
The sky was a rich blue, more intense than normal, and there wasn’t a single cloud over Astoria.
Instead, they were lingering close to the horizon, white and powerful.
From my vantage point, they were breathtaking, but I also knew what kind of damage clouds like that could do when provoked.
Rumor had it that the fishermen loved to provoke them, to challenge Mother Nature when they had a bad fishing day, coming back with empty coolers and lighter pockets.
I did a slow spin to face Margie’s Place, tipping my head back to study the wooden swirls carved on either side of the name.
An old photo mounted in the dining room showed the sign used to be a deep teal color, but over time, the paint had washed away, leaving the natural tones of the wood on display.
With age, Margie and her husband had come to like how the sign blended in with the rest of the fishing docks.
Almost as if this place was a secret treasure only to be found by those who were willing to search for her wonderful food.
It provided an exclusive feeling to the folks who happened to stumble upon it.
The feeling bursting forth inside me was indescribable.
Perhaps it was the same feeling that bloomed when I thought too long about the vast openness of space or black holes larger than our sun.
Or better yet, when I dared myself to think about the abyss of the ocean, how dark and cold it actually was when sunlight was no longer visible.
Yes, that was it.
That’s how I felt.
I was standing in the middle of the unknown, tired, injured, and so far off my routine I wanted to scream.
I ached for the solitude of my journal, for the comfort of my pen as it softly scratched across the soft cream pages, my thoughts of madness bleeding onto them without a tourniquet in sight.
But my mind wouldn’t let me have that comfort.
Not for another twelve hours and thirty-three minutes.
“Why must I be so difficult with myself in order to feel normal?”
What is your plan? To stand here until your shift is over?
Though the voice in my head was trying to be a pain in my ass, there was a part of me that didn’t mind the idea. I could take a seat on the bench outside and pretend I was inside, filling pastries, cutting pies, and plating desserts. Fulfilling my duties as I pleased. As my mind loved so much.