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Things were definitely looking up.
She’d been cleaning her studio, which had reached a ridiculous level of messiness. It was even beginning to bother Pigeon, judging by her recent nighttime activity of picking up dirty clothing and depositing it on Zoey’s bed while she slept, so that Zoey woke up toa pile of it on her chest. It was so bad that Zoey couldn’t even find her phone when it started ringing that morning. She ran around looking for it until Charlotte, who was sitting on Zoey’s couch, dug it out from between seat cushions and extended it without once looking up from Zoey’s copy ofSweet Mallowshe was reading.
Zoey gave directions to the Dellawisp to the courier, then dragged Charlotte down to the alley to wait with her. When she saw her little gray Honda turn from the street, she jumped up and down and waved as if her car must be glad to see her, too.
The woman courier got out, gave Zoey some paperwork to sign, and handed her the keys. Then the courier walked back to Trade Street, where there was a car waiting for her.
Zoey led Charlotte over and made the introductions. “Charlotte, my car. My car, Charlotte.”
“Nice to meet you,” Charlotte said as Zoey opened the driver’s door and slid inside, smiling. She’d really missed having her own transportation. She’d even taken the trolley tour again yesterday, just to see some of the rest of the island again, someplace that wasn’t the Dellawisp or Trade Street, which she knew by heart now.
Zoey was showing Charlotte how much room the trunk had, which wasn’t really all that fascinating, but to her credit Charlotte pretended that it was, when Mac appeared in the alley on his way out.
“My car,” Zoey said.
“Nice,” he said with a nod.
“I don’t know where to go first.”
“You need a local tour, where the trolley doesn’t take you,” Charlotte suggested.
“That’s exactly what I need,” Zoey said.
Mac clicked his key fob and his Tahoe’s lights flashed as it unlocked. “Climb in.”
“What? Really?” Zoey asked. “Aren’t you going somewhere?”
“Just to the grocery store before work.”
Zoey looked at Charlotte questioningly.
“I didn’t lock my door. I’ll be right back,” Charlotte said, going back through the garden gate. When she returned she had on her aviators, and Zoey was fairly certain she’d brushed her hair.
“You sit in front with Mac,” Zoey said.
Charlotte shot her a look but Zoey tried to look innocent and jumped in the back seat before Charlotte could argue. Mac’s Tahoe smelled like clean aftershave mixed with something fried, like from the restaurant kitchen. It was exactly what a hug from a chef would smell like.
When he left Trade Street, Mac turned toward the center of the island. “For such a tiny island, we have a big tourist economy, most of it toward the shores. Think of it like a theme park. The outer part is for visitors. The inner part is the employee break room where we go to get away from them. There’s the grocery store I usually go to,” he said, indicating a store chain as they passed.
“I shop there, too,” Charlotte said. She turned in her seat. “Zoey, it’s so much cheaper there than at the corner market on Trade Street, for exactly the same things. Don’t throw away your money.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“There’s the library,” Mac said of a small, beige clapboard building near the high school. It looked like someone’s grandmother’s house, that it might smell like sugar cookies and Rose Milk lotion inside. “Maybe they have a copy ofDancing with the Dellawisps.”
“I already checked online,” Zoey said. “They don’t.”
“I Hate Mondays is the only place I know that’s open twenty-four hours on the island.” Charlotte pointed out the café, which was decorated in classic fifties diner. “They have decent coffee.”
“I know the owner,” Mac said.
“Of course you do. Do you know everyone here?”
“It’s a small island.”
This went on for the next half hour. Zoey sat back, enjoying their banter almost as much as seeing the places on the island that were just about day-to-day living. But even the most ordinary thing was made somehow exotic in this lush setting with ponds of cattails and tropical palmetto trees dotting the landscape. After Mac drove by an old-fashioned drugstore, which he said once had to shut down for a few days when fiddler crabs decided to take over the parking lot like a gang of juvenile delinquents, he drove past the island’s only two local fast-food places. He hilariously rated their ketchup packets according to ease of opening.
He seemed to hesitate at the end of the street, where turning left would take them into one of the many residential neighborhoods that branched off into deep green recesses. “Would you like to see where I grew up?” he asked.
