AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s contact information at Popcorn, if you change your mind about a restaurant job,” Mac said. His meaty, freckled hand was grasping the balcony railing so tightly his knuckles were white. He obviously didn’t like heights. “Also, there’s the name and number of a friend of mine named Flo who runs the Mallow Island tour around the corner. I happen to know she’s looking for help at their ticket desk right now. I asked around, but I couldn’t find anyone who had space for a henna table, but that could change. I know the owner of the art gallery here on Trade, and he gets great foot traffic. I think it would be a good match—his traditional meets your edgy. I’ll see if I can convince him to let you rent out there.”
Charlotte held the paper back out to him with a knot of suspicion. “Thanks, but I’ve got it under control.” And ifunder controlmeant ignoring her jobless situation entirely and spending the past five days with Zoey instead, then yes, it was completely true.
“Keep it anyway. Just in case,” Mac said, and then he walked gingerly back down.
Charlotte’s eyes followed him back to his condo. She didn’t quite know what to think of him.
Zoey, watching Charlotte, said, “I think he likes you.”
“Come on,” Charlotte said, walking down the stairs. “I want to check out this gallery.” Whatever his motives, she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Mac could help her find a place to work on the island so she could stay and just be still and settled for a little while longer, she’d find a way to pay him back so that they’d be square.
Zoey grabbed their sandwiches and they ate as they walked down the alley to the street. The Mallow Island Gallery was on the far corner, and was one of those touristy places that sold soft-focus, romantic prints of beaches that usually hung in guest bathrooms. In the Sugar Warehouse, this kind of sweet and popular, but very cheap, art was looked down upon. But Charlotte secretly gave kudos to the owner for finding this niche. It had no competition here on Trade Street, being one of only a handful of storefronts that didn’t sell food or sweets.
They tried the door, but it was locked. There was a note on the glass saying the owner had gone for a swim and would be back in an hour.
“Gone for a swim? Do you think that’s a daily occurrence?” Zoey cupped her hands around her eyes and looked inside.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Charlotte said. Tourists were always in a hurry to get somewhere, but locals on Mallow Island seemed to move at their own speed, which was about five times slower than actual time.
Zoey turned from the gallery window. She saw a bright red trolley bus parked across the street and said, “There’s the place Mac said was looking for someone for the ticket desk.” She was crossingthe street before Charlotte could tell her that she wasn’t interested in ticket-taking, and she was already inside the pistachio-colored building by the time Charlotte caught up with her.
It was a weirdly wonderful place, full of eclectic hand-painted furniture. A foosball table was in a corner and a set of checkers was on a coffee table, ostensibly so people could play while they waited for the next trolley. The ticket counter looked like it had been repurposed from an Old West saloon. An elderly woman with orange lipstick was standing behind it wearing a T-shirt that readGOOD GOLLY, MISS TROLLEY.
“Have you ever taken the tour?” Zoey asked as she took a brochure off the counter.
“No.”
“Me, either! Want to take it with me?”
Charlotte hesitated. Helping Zoey out with Lizbeth’s condo was one thing. Charlotte was basically doing it only as a way of distracting herself. Going out on adventures with Zoey was a whole new dynamic, and she didn’t know what to make of it. She’d never considered herself a particularly good friend. She’d had very few female acquaintances since leaving the camp. She’d often wondered, if she had been better and braver, what would have happened ten years ago. Her best friend had saved her, but Charlotte hadn’t been able to do the same for her.
Zoey was looking at her with anticipation, and Charlotte finally smiled. An afternoon was such a small thing to ask. “Of course I will.”
They bought their tickets and went outside because the next tour was about to leave. “If you’ve never taken the trolley, then you obviously didn’t come here as a tourist first,” Zoey said as they climbed on board.
“Not really. Though South Carolina was on a list of places I wanted to travel to. I looked at condos in Charleston, but couldn’t find anything I liked. I heard some people talk about the Sugar Warehouse here, so I thought I would check it out. When I drove in, it felt like entering a movie set. I loved it.”
Zoey took her seat and started reading the tour brochure. “Maybe it’s because the movie based onSweet Mallowwas filmed here.”
“Maybe,” Charlotte said, sitting behind her on the vinyl seat, which was hot from the sun and slightly sticky from its previous occupant’s sunscreen. “I never saw the movie.”
“Did you ever read the book?” Zoey asked, turning to her.
Charlotte shook her head. “I never got around to it. Maybe I should have kept one of Lizbeth’s copies.”
“You should definitely read it. I’ll let you borrow my copy, if you want. It’s one of those books that make you want to become a writer.”
“You want to be a writer?”
“Me? No,” Zoey said with a laugh. “I just love to read. English was my favorite class. My senior advisor said I should teach.”
Charlotte considered her for a moment. “I can see you as a teacher.”
“Really?”
“You’re good at sweeping people up in your enthusiasm.” Tourists were still filing onto the trolley, so Charlotte said, “Tell me about the book. Make me love it as much as you do.”
Zoey sat on her knees on the seat so she could fully face her. “Okay. Part of the book is the real history of the island, back when it was called Summey’s Landing and there was a rice plantation here. Then how an Englishman bought the burnt island after the Civil War and discovered the mallow plant growing here in the marshes.He was the one who opened all these sweet shops and renamed the place Mallow Island. But when the Great Depression hit, most people tied to the candy trade left, leaving this unique community descended from emancipated slaves, Civil War objectors, and European candymakers. The fictional part of the book is about two men who meet overseas during World War One. They look so much alike they could have been twins. When one of them dies, a man named Henry Sparrow, the other man, Teb Wayne, takes Henry’s identity and returns to Henry’s home here on Mallow Island. Henry had told Teb all these stories about his life, so Teb was sure he’d be able to carry off the ruse. But it turned out that almost everything Henry told him was fiction, and it was harder to impersonate him than Teb thought it would be. But Teb is charmed by the island, and grows to love Henry’s blind grandfather, Silas Sparrow. There’s a lot about the Old South and race relations and the ghosts that haunt the town. Then police from Teb’s hometown in Ohio show up. They’d been looking for him because of some crimes he’d committed before going to war. Teb was an orphan who went to war to escape poverty, and he had a hard childhood. Old Silas Sparrow gives a famous speech to the town, and everyone on the island rallies around Teb—young, old, rich, poor, black, white—and they convince the police that Teb really is Henry. The beauty of the speech is that you suddenly understand that old Silas has known that Teb wasn’t his grandson all along. Henry’s ghost had told him. The ghost had also said that Teb had stayed with Henry as he’d died during the war, and that had meant everything to him.”
