Page 35 of Worth the Trip

Near the children’s activity table, a little boy sat with a fishing pole across his knees, struggling to loosen a knot while his father spoke with a vendor several feet away. Frustration sharpened each attempt until the tangled line nearly disappeared beneath his fingers.

A handsome man stopped beside him.

He crouched, held out one hand, and waited.

The boy surrendered the line.

Within moments, the stranger loosened the knot, showed him how to pinch the loop before pulling it through, returned the pole, and kept walking.

His father never looked over.

The boy did.

So did I.

Warm brown skin. White T-shirt. Broad shoulders. An easy stride that didn’t seem in any particular hurry to be noticed.

Then Camille called me over to meet a local teacher interested in bringing her students to Scoops & Stories, and by the time our conversation ended, he’d disappeared into the crowd.

I spent the next hour with nowhere particular to be. A gallery held paintings of Willow Run through hurricanes, sunsets, weddings, and funerals. I bought Nana a small print of the marsh, sampled blackberry jam from a vendor who insisted his grandmother’s recipe had never disappointed anybody with sense, and watched two children debate whether a crab in a touch tank looked angry or merely disappointed.

Nobody called my name because something had gone wrong.

Nobody handed me a decision and waited for an answer.

I followed whatever interested me, and somehow, the world continued operating.

Miss Eloise’s tea booth stood near the far end of Bay Street, draped in peach-colored fabric with baskets of lemons arranged around glass dispensers. She greeted me with a squeal, hugged me, and informed the woman beside her that I was “Nadine’s baby who went off and made something beautiful out of ice cream and books.”

“I didn’t go far.”

“Far is anywhere your people can’t see your face regularly.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

Nana had requested two gallons, one sweet and one unsweet, so I waited while Miss Eloise filled the jugs and marked both lids in black. I ordered peach tea for myself and accepted a cucumber sandwich I hadn’t requested because refusing food from an older Black woman in Willow Run required more energy than I possessed.

By the time I stepped away, I carried two gallons of tea, three books, Nana’s print, my purse, my own cup, and the sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

Even on vacation, I’d found a way to fill both hands.

The festival map at the intersection showed a narrow path behind the waterfront restaurants that appeared to lead toward the parking lot. A flower display covered part of the sign, but the remaining arrow looked clear enough.

I followed it between two buildings, passed a locked delivery gate, and emerged onto a service lane curving in the opposite direction.

“Of course.”

One gallon slipped toward my fingertips. I shifted the books higher beneath my arm as my pendant caught briefly against the strap of my purse. My fingers went to it automatically while I stepped backward to keep Nana’s print from sliding.

A man’s voice sounded behind me.

“Careful.”

My shoulder met a solid chest before I could turn.

Peach tea launched from my cup. The lid went airborne, and a cold amber sheet splashed across a white T-shirt while something wrapped in brown paper slipped from the man’s hand and landed beside my sandal.

For one stunned second, neither of us moved.