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“You know, the corner market is mainly for tourists,” Charlotte told her. “It’s probably the most expensive place in town to buy groceries. There’s a regular supermarket toward the center of the island, where most locals live.”
“I’m limited to places I can walk right now. I don’t mind,” Zoeysaid. “As soon as my car gets here I’ll drive around.” She took a slice of bread and put it on her plate. She piled a small mountain of potato chips on it and placed another slice of bread on top. Then she flattened the sandwich with her hand, the chips shattering with a satisfying crunch. In response to Charlotte’s curious look, she explained, “Potato chip sandwiches remind me of my mom.”
Ah. That, Charlotte understood. Food memory was one of the few profoundly good things she brought with her from her own childhood. Sometimes Charlotte would still have chocolate milk over hot rice, something Charlotte and Pepper had eaten when they’d crept hungrily into the camp kitchen after dark during one of Minister McCauley’s forced fasts. She could still remember how good it had tasted, like sweet soup.
Zoey obviously misinterpreted her pondering silence, because she said, “I don’t really know how to cook. I mean, I know I’ll figure it out, but there’s just so much to think about. I’m always writing something down. You know what I realized this morning? I don’t know where to get my hair cut here. I’m going to have to find a salon. I’m glad my condo was furnished. Because, how do you buy a couch? I have no idea. This grown-up thing isn’t for sissies.”
Truer words had never been spoken. Charlotte began to assemble her own sandwich. “What are you going to do when Lizbeth’s condo is finished? Before school starts, I mean. Living here isn’t cheap.”
Zoey shrugged. “I inherited some money from my mom, along with her condo here. She died when I was seven. The money she got in the divorce settlement from my dad was held in trust until I turned eighteen last summer. It was enough for a car and for college, and a tiny income for a few years if I wanted to live on it. But I don’t. I want to do something, I just don’t know what.” She looked downat her sandwich, then she looked back up at Charlotte with those dark eyes, obviously desperate for some compass. “Did you always know what you wanted to do? Where you wanted to be?”
Charlotte didn’t think her life was a compass anyone should follow, but she answered honestly, “I was about twelve when I decided I wanted to travel and do henna. I went out on my own when I was sixteen. I’ve lived all over.” She flattened her sandwich the way Zoey had done.
“What are you going to do now that you lost your job?” Zoey asked.
The question of the day. “I don’t know. It’s not going to be easy to find another space to do henna here, so I guess I’ll have to find something else until I figure out my next steps.” She took a bite of her sandwich, then put her hand over her mouth and said, “This isn’t bad.”
Zoey looked inordinately pleased that someone other than her liked something so odd, as if that kind of camaraderie, that sameness, was unfamiliar to her.
“So where is your car?” Charlotte asked while she chewed.
“A car-moving service is driving it here. I didn’t like the idea of driving all the way from Oklahoma by myself.”
“What about your dad? Didn’t he want to come with you to help get you settled?”
Something, some small emotion, flittered across Zoey’s face. She shook her head.
The white bread was sticking to the roof of Charlotte’s mouth, so she got up and said, “I’m going to get a drink. Do you want a Coke?”
“Yes, thanks.”
When she walked back outside with a beer for her and a Coke for Zoey, she found Zoey staring at Mac’s door across the garden.“Did I tell you I looked up the website for the restaurant where he works? Popcorn. Have you heard of it?”
“It’s in the Mallow Island Resort Hotel. It’s pretty famous around here,” Charlotte said, handing Zoey the Coke and taking a seat.
“It’s called Popcorn because they specialize in things made with cornmeal. The website calls it ‘Gourmet Retro Southern Fusion.’ He’sexecutivechef.”
Charlotte smiled. “You’re a little obsessed.”
“I know,” Zoey said gamely. “But you guys are all I’ve got. He’s really nice. I knew he would be.”
Charlotte took a sip from the brown bottle of local marshmallow beer she’d discovered when she’d first moved to Mallow Island. She’d bought some the evening she and Benny spent drinking, and there were precious few bottles left. She was trying to savor her last sips, but it tasted more bitter than she remembered, probably because it made her think of her stolen money. She set the bottle on the table and started peeling off the label.
“Charlotte,” Zoey whispered a few moments later.
Charlotte looked over to her. Zoey was staring straight ahead.
“Charlotte,” she said again.
“Why are you whispering?”
“Look,” Zoey said, gesturing with her eyes.
Mac had opened his patio doors and was backing out like he always did, as if walking backward upon leaving was his own superstition. Either that, or he was trying to stop something from coming out after him, like a pet. That was unlikely. It was part of the legal agreement. Absolutely no pets. Not even birds. Roscoe Avanger didn’t want anything endangering his precious bird population in the garden.
He was wearing black-and-white-checked pants and a whitechef’s coat. He also had on those funny-looking clogs that kitchen staff often wore. In order to get by over the years, Charlotte had spent a fair amount of time waitressing and bartending. It paid the bills when her henna didn’t support her, but she avoided it unless there was no other option. Teenaged Charlotte hadn’t wanted to work in restaurants when she grew up, not after all that time at the camp where the kids were expected to be on dining room duty, serving the elders before they got to eat whatever was left over. Had it not been for school-supplied breakfasts and lunches, not a single kid at the camp would have ever had a full meal.
When Mac turned around after closing his doors, they saw that he was carrying a white platter. He walked toward them, his beautiful red hair and neat red beard catching glints of sunlight and making him seem effervescent, like ginger ale.
