Chapter One
The first rule of owning a beach bar was that the ice machine waited until you needed three hundred pounds of ice to start making a noise like a dying Vespa.
The second rule was that nobody cared because summer tourists on the Miami boardwalk still wanted frozen margaritas, fried mozzarella, and a place to act like sunscreen counted as formalwear.
Beyond the wide front of Bite Me Boardwalk Bar & Bites, palm fronds rattled over the hot wooden boardwalk, beach umbrellas striped the sand, and the Atlantic flashed bright blue between bodies in swimsuits and tourists dragging rolling coolers they had no business dragging into a restaurant.
I braced one hip against the back counter, wedged the phone between a sack of limes and a cambro of marinara, and stabbed the FaceTime button with my elbow.
My mother answered on the second ring with curlers in her hair, red sauce on her apron, and the expression of a woman preparing to diagnose my entire life through a four-inch screen.
“Antonella, why are you shiny?”
“I’m shiny because it’s Miami in July, Ma. The air has calories.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer Florida gave me.”
Behind me, the blender screamed through a test batch of limoncello margaritas. The fryer hissed. Garlic and hot oil wrapped around the bar while the open front let in beach music, humid air, and a pack of sunburned men by the patio rail. One of them lifted a fried ring like evidence.
“Calamari’s basically a vegetable.”
It counted as survival if they paid full price.
Shay leaned over the service well with two empty rocks glasses in one hand. Dark curls were tucked under her Bite Me visor, a silver nose stud caught the light, and she carried the sharp-eyed calm of a woman who could spot a bad tipper from across a crowded patio.
“Nella, the well tequila order is still not here, and table six is using the words gluten-free and mozzarella sticks in the same sentence.”
“They’re fried cheese, not a miracle. Tell her no with compassion.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s Shay? Is she eating?”
“Ma, everyone here is eating. That’s the problem.”
Mari slapped the kitchen bell twice. She stood at the pass with black hair twisted into a tight bun, gold hoops flashing under the kitchen lights, and a chef’s towel thrown over one shoulder like she might use it to strangle the next person who delayed pickup.
“Calamari cones are up,” Mari said, “and if Dusty stacked the tomato pies near the mop sink again, I’m feeding him to the tourists.”
Dusty drifted past carrying ice like a man delivering offerings to a very angry god. Sun-bleached hair fell into his eyes, his faded shark tank had seen better decades, and three woven bracelets slid down his wrist every time the ice shifted against his shoulder.
“I heard my name and a threat, and I respect both,” Dusty said.
“You put tomato pie near a mop sink again, and I’ll respect you into the ocean,” Mari said.
Dusty adjusted the bag against his shoulder. “The ocean and I have a long-standing spiritual understanding.”
“The ocean won’t save you from Mari,” I said.
“It never has,” he said, and drifted on.
My mother leaned closer to her screen. “Antonella, why is that boy carrying ice like he’s in a church procession?”
“I’m calling the priest for an exorcism if that thing quits.”
“You should come home. Your uncle knows a man who fixes restaurant equipment.”
“Your uncle knows a man” was how my family opened conversations about plumbing, real estate, parking tickets, and at least two situations nobody discussed in front of the cousins under eighteen.
