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Chapter Three
I didn’t get anywherewith finding out about Esme’s cat opinions, but I did get to see her gorgeous face a bunch, so that wasn’t completely wasted time.
I had a full inbox of new assignments, deadlines, and requests for changes when I looked at my phone the next morning. A headache was already starting to camp out behind my eyes.
“Remind me not to read work emails in bed,” I said to a sleeping Potato before hauling myself out of bed and going to the kitchen for my first caffeine infusion of the day.
While I had my coffee and then microwaved a frozen egg sandwich to get something in my stomach, I flagged my messages for priority and scheduled my day. There was no way I could keep track of everything without lots and lots of charts and calendars. I had content and copywriting gigs, editing jobs, captioning work, and I also did some social media management as well. When it came to work, I got bored easily, and I didn’t like to put all my eggs in one basket, so now I was just juggling a ton of baskets and trying not to drop them and break too many eggs.
* * *
The Castleton Caféwas packed when I slid into a corner next to one of the many outlets. I set my water bottle next to my laptop to remind myself to hydrate and started the first thing on my list: a complete rewrite of an article that I’d busted my ass to get finished before a ridiculous deadline, which apparently was the opposite of what the company actually wanted. Go figure. Rewriting it in the style they wanted, along with fitting in the right SEO terms and affiliate links, took me through my second cup of coffee.
By the time I was midway editing another article for an online beauty blog, I needed something else to eat, so I waited in line for a small salad, trying not to be bitter about all the tourists hanging around. Sure, I liked being in a busy café because it was much nicer than being alone, but I hated having to wait in line behind people who had apparently never ordered a coffee before and didn’t know how.
At last, it was my turn. “Hey, Tabitha, can I get a chicken César and a lemonade?” I asked. Tabitha had been the secretary of my elementary school but had retired to run the café when it had gone up for sale a few years ago.
“Sure, hon,” she said, tapping the order into the computer. A crash from the back room made us both flinch.
“Jesus, Sonny, be careful!” she yelled over her shoulder. Her son, the guy named Sonny, poked his head out with a goofy smile. I couldn’t believe he was a whole grown human. I’d babysat him what felt like yesterday and now he was old enough to have a job and facial hair.
He tossed his hair out of his face. “Sorry! Nothing’s broken.”
Tabitha’s eyes narrowed. “That means something is definitely broken. Blue, take over.” Blue, nicknamed for their bright hair and electric blue wheelchair, rolled in as Tabitha went to see what chaos Sonny was causing.
“I’ll get that right out for you,” Blue said, grabbing a cup and going to fix my drink. I went back to my table and waited. Tabitha was giving Sonny a piece of her mind, and I pretended not to try and eavesdrop. A couple at the next table over was in from out of town and were clearly not having a good time, so my attention was torn. This was why I had to put on my headphones and a podcast on most days. People around me were just too interesting. My productivity went dramatically down in the summer when everyone was here.
Blue rolled over with my drink and salad on a little tray and I took it from them.
“Thanks so much,” I said. “I’ll probably need more caffeine as soon as I’m done with this.”
“Hey, as long as you’re not ordering a semi-dry cappuccino and then bitching when it isn’t dry enough for you, we’re good.” Blue gave me a wink and went back behind the counter.
“What the hell even is a dry cappuccino?” I said to myself, and then looked it up on the internet because I just had to know.
* * *
Thirty minuteslater I was reading about Ethiopian coffee beans and I’d ignored five emails that had just come in. Oops.
A notification came in from my freelancer group chat. The current topic of conversation was helping Ash with an email to a client that was refusing to pay her. I didn’t have anything to add, so I just scrolled through the other messages. Jen was still dealing with her recent breakup, and CJ was asking for advice on plants for their new apartment. There were also three other people: Lin, Faith, and Rya. We’d all sort of found each other online and through different jobs and decided we needed a support group for ourselves. Freelancing could be lonely as hell.
Already distracted, I also checked in on the auction for a vintage jigsaw puzzle that was a cover of one of the most-famous romance authors, Barbara Cartland. My bid was still winning, but there was more than a week left, so things could still turn, but I really wanted to add it to my vintage puzzle collection. Unlike a lot of people, I actually put mine together. With gloves, of course.
I rounded out my afternoon captioning a video for an influencer, which was one of my most-enjoyable jobs. I’d taken a training course on a whim and found out that I was both good at it and I enjoyed doing it. I worked for one company, and I also sought out other jobs and had a steady roster of people that needed me.
My brain reached its limit and I had to take a break and shut the computer to give my eyes a rest. Sure, I had blue-light glasses, but they could only do so much. I packed up my stuff and took it to my car. I’d been sitting so long, my body was stiff, so I decided to take a walk around the tiny downtown area. I really needed to add regular exercise into my day.
Castleton boasted one lighthouse, two beaches, three restaurants, one bar, one bakery, a post office, an insurance company, a real estate office, a café, and a bookstore that was attached to the tiny library. Sure, it wasn’t a big town, but we even had a little movie theater that had a stage for the community theater productions and local orchestra concerts.
When the wind blew just right, you could smell the ocean, and if you walked all the way to the edge of the main parking lot behind the main strip of businesses, you could see the water and the small dock that people used to take their boats out.
On a whim, I walked toward the dock and slipped my shoes off and dipped my toes in the water. Even though it was the height of summer, the ocean never got that warm. You had to be a hearty soul to go swimming in the ocean in Maine, but I did as much as I could, all year round. I liked the shock of cold. It energized me. Everyone I knew said I was a weirdo.
I took a quick little video swishing my feet and posted it on my social. A few “likes” came in and there was one I didn’t expect: esmeybe. I checked to make sure that was still Esme’s account. It was. Maybe she clicked by mistake? Nope, several minutes later, the like was still there.
Thinking about her looking at my social media made my insides squirm. Not that I didn’t know she was following me, but it was different now. Knowing that she saw all the silly stuff I put on my pages made me wonder what she thought about me.
Linley was probably right. This plan was doomed to failure.
