Stella, Get Your Man. Nancy Bartholomew
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was I, his mother? I felt my grip tighten on the cell phone. “Anything else?” I asked, my tone sticky sweet.
The sarcasm was lost on him. “Yeah, if you don’t mind, swing in somewhere and pick up a saltwater rig and some tackle. I wanna get some surf fishing in before we leave.”
I flipped the phone shut and tossed it over my shoulder into the back seat. Men! What a piece of work!
“I wanna get some surf fishing in,” I mimicked. “Yeah, and I want to spend a day at the spa and have my hair and nails done afterward.” What a freaking clown.
I looked at the clock on Aunt Lucy’s dash and figured I had a half hour left before I hit Surfside Isle. I settled back in the driver’s seat and tried to catch a glimpse of the ocean, but it was pitch-dark outside. I tried to remember the last time I’d paid a visit to the Jersey shore and found nothing but a few vague memories from high school.
The Shore was where everyone in Glenn Ford went for Senior Week if they couldn’t afford Florida. It was a black-and-white TV, a poor substitute for the living color of Florida with its crystal-blue waters and green palm trees. The Shore was in-your-face action, loud music, the boardwalk and sex.
Where Florida was all talk, Jersey delivered. Jersey didn’t make you act nice or talk pretty to get what you wanted; it shoved it at you with one hand and took your money with the other. The Shore fit the Jake I knew from the old days, but it couldn’t hold me, not any longer. I wanted something with more passion, more feeling behind it. I wanted something wonderful to remember, not an embarrassing encounter I couldn’t forget.
I cruised through Long Beach and thought about summers with my girlfriends, back before I’d known Jake. I remembered a sky-blue bikini with metal star studs, the smell of lemon juice in my hair, and the sting of too many hours spent laughing and playing in the sun. I remembered in flashes a vacation before my parents died, my father laughing and my mother taking pictures. It was good back then.
I sighed and looked past the ghosts, out into the winter’s night, and saw the briefest glimpse of moonlight hitting water. It could be good again, I thought. “Good times always follow the bad,” I murmured, quoting my uncle Benny.
A few miles later I entered Surfside Isle. Even on a winter’s night, with almost everything closed up tight, Surfside Isle demanded attention. The Ferris wheel in the amusement park caught the eye of the moon and glowed like a street-walker wanting attention. Neon signs winked Vacancy, or worse, Closed for the Season. I slowed the Buick to a crawl, passing shops and restaurants. Row after row of shingled cottages looked bereft without their summer visitors.
I pulled into the parking lot of the only place in town that appeared to serve food and was still open. The sign in the middle of the big glass window said Marti’s Café. It was the kind of place that probably got overlooked in the summer. It didn’t have the typical beach neon to beckon customers. No plastic swordfish to imply a rich menu of fresh seafood. It was simple, the kind of place locals probably frequent and guard as a jealous secret against the onslaught of tourists. I stepped out of the car and started for the door just as the lone waitress switched the Open sign to Closed.
“Shit!” I swore under my breath. What now?
As if she’d heard me, the woman looked out, saw me, and with a sigh, gestured toward the door. She looked tired, as if it had been a long, slow day. Her pale pink uniform was stained with what looked like spaghetti sauce and coffee. I waited, smiling, as she fumbled to unlock the door. Her wiry red hair fell across her shoulders and she flipped it back impatiently as she struggled with the lock.
“Thanks,” I said as the door swung open.
She looked at me, dark circles under her even darker eyes, and attempted a return smile.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m the only game in town this time of year and you look worse than I feel. What’s another customer, eh? I could use the money, and honey, looking at you, you could use something to eat.”
Damn. Was it that bad? I inspected myself in the mirror above the diner counter and thought, well, yeah, I guess it is. My hair lay flat against the sides of my head. I was pale, even more washed-out because my naturally dark hair was still blond due to an unfortunate undercover assignment that had happened months ago in my former cop life. I looked like a tired ghost.
“Coffee?” the woman asked. She’d gone around the counter to grab the pot of ancient brew off its stand.
“Is it safe?”
“Do you really care? Beggars can’t be choosers, you know.”
“Don’t mind her,” a male voice interrupted. “She talks to everybody like that, don’t you, Marti?”
I’d overlooked the guy at the end of the counter. He was maybe midforties, curly salt-and-pepper hair, tall, wearing jeans and a faded navy T-shirt. From the way he looked at Marti, I figured him for a boyfriend. He looked lovesick. Then I looked at Marti and realized she was completely unaware of his feelings for her. I revised the picture. Maybe he was her husband; marriage is like that sometimes.
“You complaining, Tom?” she asked.
“Not me, babe, never.” He turned his attention to me and smiled, but not the way he smiled at Marti. “Get her to heat up the chili. Her chili’s like…” He hesitated for a moment. “Like…winning the Super Bowl when the other team was favored to cream you.”
Marti actually blushed. I did another mental revision; this was an awakening, a new relationship about to flower.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “I’ll do that. Chili sounds great.”
“You want fries with that?” Marti asked.
Behind her, Tom slowly shook his head.
“No, chili’s fine.”
“You know, I forgot about that corn bread you made,” Tom murmured.
I took the hint. “I love homemade corn bread!”
Marti, seeing the setup, smiled at Tom. I settled back on my stool and felt myself begin to relax. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a raw deal after all. Maybe we’d find Mia’s brother right away and still have time to spend a few days relaxing.
“Do you live here?”
Tom took a sip from his coffee mug. “Well, I did when I was little, but I moved away. I came back a couple of months ago for a two-week visit and haven’t left yet, so I guess you could say I live here.”
“Must be a pretty small town in the winter months,” I said.
Tom smiled. “Just gives me more time to learn the routine around here before the tourists start coming back and all hell breaks loose.”
I tried to drink a sip of my coffee, smelled the acrid scent of burned beans and put the cup back on the counter. Tom’s attention was split between entertaining me and being entertained by Marti. He watched every move she made through the open window into the kitchen, but glanced away if she looked up, too shy to be caught and too entranced to stop staring.
“Yeah, Surfside’s small but it’s grown a lot since I lived here.” He swiveled a little on his stool. “What brings you to the beach in the dead of winter?”
“Well, I met a guy who said he lived here. He made the town sound really beautiful. I thought I’d come visit, maybe run into him again.”
Tom’s attention switched back to me. “He doesn’t know you’re here?”
I tried to look embarrassed. “Well, no. You see, we met in a park two years ago in…New York, Central Park, and well, somehow we just started talking. He said I should come to Surfside Isle and look him up if I could, but…”
I looked down at my hands and bit the inside of my cheek thinking I should’ve taken up acting.
“I feel so stupid. See, he gave me his card and I lost it.”