2. Tobias
CHAPTER 2
Tobias
T he girl?
Young lady?
Spoiled brat?
The woman standing in front of me is clearly pissed. Her jaw is locked tight and tense. Her stance is straight, back rigid. I have to give it to her. Whatever fancy classes she took at UCLA prepared her for working with difficult people. She’s not reacting to me at all, and that’s pushing my buttons.
She’s adorable in a goth kind of way, her black hair with bright pink ends pulled into two high ponytails, one on each side of her head, à la Harley Quinn. Smokey eye makeup accentuates her midnight blue eyes, and her lips are a pale shade like cotton candy.She’s wearing black skinny jeans, the kind that has trendy holes in the knees and what looks like some sort of graphic tee under her hot pink SeaSong apron. She looks like she’s the same age as my teenage employee, Marie. With the way she’s dressed, she passes for a teenager. With that hair and those clothes, she certainly doesn’t look the part of a business owner, café or not .
I’ve been waiting for years for it to go up for sale so I could expand my bookstore and add in a small café area where we could hold book club meetings and other gatherings. And this young woman stole it right out from under me.
On top of it, I find out this out-of-towner owns it because her daddy bought it for her. And what’s worse is that she’s hoping to hold after-hours events with alcohol service. Not here in Port Haven. There’s a bar on the outskirts of the main city limits for those who choose to have more than just wine. She’ll get tired of her little business, anyway. May as well end it sooner rather than later.
Her hands smooth the permit against her gaudy purple and magenta marbled concrete countertop. This place is what I imagine a five-year-old girl’s playroom would look like. This is what screams youth about her. No doubt this place will be a hit with the teenage girls of Port Haven, especially with the music she’s playing quietly over the sound system.
She glances over my shoulder for a second before the door chimes, indicating someone coming in.
“I’ll be right with you,” she says to the newcomer, her face much cheerier compared to when she’s looking at me. I notice the same kindness in her reply as when I first came in. Before I yanked down her bullshit license from the window.
She turns her attention back to me, eyes narrowing slightly, and while she still smiles, it now looks painted on.
“Is there anything you’d like to order, sir?” Her voice is strained as she says it through gritted teeth as she tries to control the displeasure only I can hear. Her smile slips a tad before she tilts her head and plasters that customer service smile back on. Hers are still narrowed at me, and her tight posture shows I’ve still got the upper hand.
“No. I’ve heard terrible things about this place and just wanted to come in and see for myself.” My voice is purposely loud. I want to make damn sure whoever is behind me knows that this is no place for locals. “I’m convinced the rumors are true.”
Goth Girl’s lips turn down even more at my comment. It’s not like me to be such an asshole, let alone to someone I barely know. But this is pushing me over the edge. I can’t stop. This is my chance to tarnish daddy’s happy little girl. Chances are whoever’s behind me knows who I am and will take heed of my warning.
I’ve heard nothing of the sort, of course. Marie, the high school student who works for me, seems to like the coffee here, The SeaSong to-go cup never far from her on the mornings she works for me.
I turn on my heel, being sure to make eye contact with the person behind me before leaving. I’m well-known in this community. My family’s owned the bookstore for generations, with me taking it over officially when my father died. I’ve been working in it since I was a teen, so I know the inner workings intimately. It’s the only one in our county. There’s a big-name book seller a few towns over, but why spend the gas and time to go there when I carry a good variety of what readers in town enjoy and can special order anything they can’t find here?
But that’s what we do here in Port Haven; we support our own.
This cheeky girl is a transplant playing store with daddy’s money. I wonder what he does. I’m guessing he’s Silicon Valley tech or something like that.
The door slams behind me, and I walk the fifteen steps down the raised wooden walkway to the entrance of my bookstore. A bell, not unlike the one at the café next door, announces my presence to my two employees.
Marie is the book-loving teenager I hired last summer and kept on after the school year started. She works thirty hours a week during the summer and during the school year an hour in the morning before classes, setting up displays and cleaning, and then again for a few hours after school lets out. She also comes in on Saturdays to work the cash register and is my chief book recommender. She added the title to the bottom of her name tag in the same neat penmanship that graces the recommendation signs she leaves in various sections of the store. She’s got an eye for the displays, and everyone loves her suggestions.
Then, there’s Jerry. He’s nearly eighty and used to manage this bookstore before my father put me on as the main manager with the caveat that I let Jerry ease me into the business side of things. I’ve been eased in for years now and yet Jerry stays. He doesn’t take a salary. I guess he’s technically not an employee, but a volunteer I never asked for.
These days he’s only around a few hours at the beginning of the day and then his daughter, Meg, picks him up. I don’t have the heart to fire him or let him go—or whatever it is you do with a volunteer when you don’t need their help. Mostly, I think being part of the bookstore gives him purpose, and I’m not about to take that away from anyone. Especially an employee that was as important and loyal as Jerry was to my father.
“You didn’t get anything at The SeaSong?” Marie’s eyes bounce between my empty hands, her eyebrows furrowed.
“Nope. I’ll never give them a penny of my money. That café should be mine. I had plans for that place,” I say tersely.
“Good for you, Tobe,” Jerry yells from the back of the store, sitting at the table reading the paper. “That place should have been yours.”
I don’t care for Marie’s dubious look when she asks, “You were going to open a café?”
“I was going to bust out the wall and expand the bookstore. We could have had our own small coffee bar and a place to hold book club meetings and story times.” I gesture to the section of the wall that separates her café from my bookshop.
“I’m kind of glad you didn’t. It’s cool over there. There are all these hand painted mermaid murals. Harmony did them with her mom—she’s an artist. They even did that one in the parking lot on the side of the building.” Her voice is tinged with admiration, and I can’t say I’m very fond of it, even if Marie is Goth Girl’s ideal customer. “Did you know Tricia’s Walking Tours added our building to the art route she runs so they can show it off? It’s good for business and not just for the café.”
“That’s a shared parking lot. She shouldn’t have done that. It’s hideous,” I snip at her. I shouldn’t be arguing with Marie. It’s childish of me. Petty, even. But still, that mural is ugly, and an eyesore that makes me cringe every time I see it.
She should have asked me and the hardware store owner for permission beforehand. She shouldn’t have just done it. I don’t care how popular it is—it looks like graffiti to me.
“That wall is hers. It’s part of The SeaSong,” Marie sings back at me as she heads toward the table to change out her weekly display of books, completely unaffected at my grumpiness. “I’m thinking…teen classics for the front table, since the kids will need them to complete their summer reading lists soon.” She’s not really asking for permission. She never does. She gathers the books we order based on the middle and high school reading lists and heads toward the table near the front of the store.
She makes short order of creating her display. After she finishes a few other tasks a couple hours later, she asks, “Can I head out ten minutes early, Toby? I finished the summer reading lists table—it looks fab.”
“Go ahead. Thank you, Marie. It does look…good.”I chuckle at her confidence, my sour mood from earlier finally mostly gone.
“Great. See you Monday.” I watch her bounce out my front door and turn to the left toward the parking lot. Little traitor better not let me catch her with a SeaSong drink in my bookstore again. Sure enough, a few minutes later, she walks back in the direction of the high school, another to-go cup in her hand.
It’s a relatively slow rest of my day, and I’m ready to close the store and head home by the time three o’clock rolls around. There’s no use staying open any longer. The whole town rolls up early on Sundays. I lock up the front and leave out the back where there’s a smaller lot for employees. I have two spots, the café has two, and the hardware store on the other side of me has three—two for their employees and one for their delivery truck.
I glance up in time to see the door of that hideous Jeep slam shut. The owner of the café sits there, holding her phone in front of her, the light from its screen illuminating her face in the vehicle. She must be FaceTiming someone. Her features are hard to see through the tinted windows, but something about the outline of her posture makes me think she might be crying. She couldn’t possibly still be riled up about my visit, could she? Maybe I should apologize. Mom would be mortified if she knew how I acted toward her. That is, if she were in her right mind. Sadly, these days, she barely remembers who she is, let alone who I am.
The Jeep’s engine roars to life, startling me as loud music booms from inside and she backs out of her spot behind her café. I hustle to my Jag, hoping she doesn’t think I was just staring at her.I mean, I was, but I’m hoping she doesn’t think I’m reveling in the fact I upset her. After I get in my car and start it up, I follow her down the small alley and pull out after her, except I head left as she turns right.
I pull into the driveway of my parents’ house a short time later. It’s a classic A-frame that’s been remodeled on the inside. While the house is always going to be my parents’, I am now the technical owner. The deed was signed over to me a few years after my dad died when it became clear Mom was declining rapidly. Unlike Dad, who died at the hospital, Mom will die in the house she grew to love. But for now, Mrs. Peabody, a former private hospice nurse, takes care of Mom while I work.
The house smells wonderful, the inviting smell of homemade chicken noodle soup like a welcoming hug, the mixture of thyme and parsley almost making my mouth water as I walk in. Unfortunately, I know it means Mom’s had a bad day. She always finds comfort in Mrs. Peabody’s homemade recipes when she’s having difficulties.
I slip into the kitchen from the mudroom. “Hard day?” I ask as I peek over Mrs. Peabody’s shoulder and confirm my suspicions—that it’s her famous chicken noodle soup.
She turns and wipes her hands on her apron. “She was in a different time today, waiting for your father to come home.” She reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. “She’ll be thinking you’re him most likely.”
My mom’s been confusing me for him for years, but as I suspect what Mrs. Peabody already knows, it’s been happening a lot more over the last three or four months. I was hoping it was just the time of year, but I need to make an appointment with her doctor in Redding sooner than later. Is it bad that the only reason I haven’t scheduled it yet is because I don’t want to face her recent decline?
“I’ll make an appointment with Dr. Horner. I just wish he was closer. The long car rides aren’t easy on her.” I run my hand through my hair. I’m not sure when I’m going to find the time to get it done.
The look of sympathy she gives me is nearly my undoing. “You’re such a good boy, Toby.”
“My dad didn’t seem to think so.”
“Your mom thinks the world of you, and so do I.”
If only my mom really did think the world of me. Most days, she doesn’t think about me at all. If I had siblings maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, but I was always the center of Mom’s world—both as a child and a young man.
But the vacant look she gives me destroys me a little more every time I see it, leaving me wondering why a person would bother building that personal connection—that love—if time was just going to rob them of it in their golden age anyway.
I’d rather just stick to books.