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Yes, I write books about serial killers, much to my mother’s dismay.
Yes, I’ve had to slink my way back to town because Manhattan rent is expensive, my daughter begged to live by family, and unfortunately, books don’t write themselves.
The look lingered, pressing like a weight on the side of my face, and I had to curl my nails into my palm to fight the urge not to bolt from the coffee house. But I’d done enough hunkering down the last two weeks I’d been in town, and even an introvert has their limits of hiding in their parents’ house.
My phone buzzed in my hand, and I glanced at the screen, smiling when I saw my daughter’s name. She’d gotten one of those kiddie phones that could only message pre-approved numbers, and at ten years old, Sage felt like the coolest person in the universe since she could send texts now.
Sage: Hiiiiii
Me: What’s up, buttercup? You having fun with your cousins?
Sage: Yup. We played hide-and-seek, and I kicked their ass. They have zero imagination when it comes to picking their spots.
Me: Sage…
Sage: Sorry. I kicked their butt.
Sage: Aunt Rachel said we can pick you up whenever, and I told her that we could come anytime because you never get words done at coffee shops even though you pretend you do.
Sage: No offense.
I huffed a disbelieving laugh under my breath. The kid was ten years old going on eighteen in terms of painfully blunt observations, but I couldn’t fault the truth of her statement. Apparently, I couldn’t get words done at my parents’ house either, probably from the stifling weight of their disappointments. That made it a wee bit hard to focus.
But Sage, as usual, nailed it in one. The table in the back corner of the coffee shop where I’d been sitting all afternoon, cluttered with all my shit, was indeed holding a laptop with an ominously blinking cursor and a blank document that seemed to hold every ounce of my stress.
And as much as I tried to protect Sage from that stress, it was almost impossible. Ten years of it being the two of us against the world, she knew me too damn well.
Me: None taken, my darling child. I’ll send you a text when I’m ready.
Sage: Okay. Love you times a thousand.
Me: Love you times a million.
With my phone tucked away again, I sighed quietly as the smiling employees made drinks and the line for orders dwindled slowly to just me and one other guy. I didn’t mind the wait, though. The coffee shop wasn’t busy by New York standards, so if I listened carefully enough, I could pluck out strains of the conversations happening around me.
“I couldn’t believe it,” someone said to my left. “I thought he was a shoo-in for that job. I bet he didn’t get it because of that wife of his.”
To my right. “Just ask her. You’ll never know how she feels unless you ask.”
“Easy for you to say,” came the mumbled reply. “You’ve had a girlfriend for the last three years, and she manhandled you into your first date. You’ve never had to make the first move.”
Faintly, I smiled. Context didn’t really matter when you were diving briefly into strangers’ interactions.
Eavesdropping was a horrible way to phrase it, so I liked to view it as the natural side effect of being a writer. Studying human interaction was part of the gig because literally anything could spark an idea. And holy shit did my brain need some sparkage.
And as I thought it, a woman’s voice cut through the rest of the noise even though she spoke quietly.
“I’m telling you, it’s her,” she said in a hushed, insistent voice. “Didn’t I tell you that when we were in Redmond whenever that was?” A lengthy pause. “No, I know he hasn’t said anything, but maybe he doesn’t know she’s back. I’m going to text him.” Another pause. “I’m not meddling, Ivy. I’m being thoughtful.”
My spidey sense wasn’t just tingling. It was a blaring siren in my ear.
A bit over a month ago, Sage and I had taken a weekend to visit my parents because there was no friggin’ way I was agreeing to move back here without a brief trial run. But it didn’t take long for my daughter to beg for the cross-country relocation—the allure of a couple of cousins and a pair of grandparents (how entirely un-fun they were didn’t seem to matter) was too much for her to ignore. And in that weekend visit, I’d done all my errands in the neighboring town of Redmond because I didn’t want to deal with any stares, or gossip, or speculation about why I was back in Sisters after so many years—especially if it turned out to be a one-weekend deal only.
I kept my gaze forward, waiting patiently for my drink order because the promise of pumpkin spice coffee with a sinful amount of whipped cream and cinnamon was enough to keep me from figuring out who the hell was trying to figure out if I was whoever she thought I was.
It wasn’t some inflated sense of self; all signs pointed to this mystery woman talking about me to another mystery woman named Ivy.
Did I know an Ivy in Sisters?
