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“Ava?” Mom asked. “You still there?”
“I’m here. Just lost in thought.”
“I asked what time the interview is,” she said.
Without a doubt, the timing of that letter felt all kinds of unexplainable. Was it simply coincidence that the letter had fallen from the stack of mail theday beforethe job interview, giving me just enough time to get to Alabama? Never mind the strange manner in which it had floated to my feet. It was almost as if…
I could hardly allow myself to think that it looked like it had been taken out of the stack of mail by invisible hands and placed at my feet. Goose bumps popped up on my arms, and I rubbed them away. Ghosts weren’t real. Theyweren’t.
Were they?
Shaking my head, I finally settled on the letter beingmysterious. That was all.
“Ava!”
My head jerked back at her shout. My ears rang. “It’s at nine,” I said quickly.
“You’ll text me after?” she asked.
“I promise.”
“All right, since you’re so distracted, I’ll let you go to concentrate on the road. I love you. Don’t forget to text.”
“I won’t. I love you, too,” I said, then disconnected the call and let out a deep breath.
I powered down the windows, letting the wind gust through the car. Immediately I picked up the scent of the sea in the air—a distinct briny smell that I recognized immediately even though I’d only been to the beach one other time in my life, on a family vacation to Florida when I was ten years old. The brief trip had been enough to fall in love with the water.
My blinker ticked steadily, the sound faint, nearly lost in the wind. Only a few miles back, I’d noticed dense fog sitting low along the shoreline. It masked any views of the gulf, but if I concentrated, blocking out the wind, the birdsong, the traffic noise, I could hear waves crashing against the beach, which somehow sounded both melodious and discordant, as if warning of dangerous surf while reminding that beauty could be found in chaos.
I wished I were standing at the water’s edge now. I’d dance in the foamy surf. Maybe fling myself in the salty water, let it flow over me, shushing all other noises, wash away all my worries. Over the years, I’d pleaded for a return to the beach, only to be denied again and again, because that one trip had ended in an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital and a vow from my mother that it was the last time we traveled so far from our home in Cincinnati.
I should’ve returned to the beach after I moved out on my own, but I’d been too fearful to go alone, my mom’s worries having become my own at some point.
I glanced at the clock: 8:40.
The red light finally gave way to a green arrow and I closed the windows to silence the noise. As I drove toward Driftwood, my stomach twisted with nerves. My mom was right. This felt rash. Why, after reading that letter, had I decided to throw caution to the wind by hurriedly packing, then jumping into my car to make the long drive to Alabama? All so I couldapplyfor the job in the letter?
If there was anything I knew about myself, it was that Ava Laine Harrison didn’t throw caution. Or do spontaneity. Or wild-goose chases, which this foray south suddenly felt like. I was used to staying in my comfort zone, surrounded by familiarity. Routine. Quiet.
Especiallyquiet.
Now here I was racing to Magpie’s, a coffeehouse located in a cozy beachside community, so I could be interviewed for a dreadful-sounding job I wasn’t sure I even wanted.
I didn’t have a good reason why I was here. I only knew thatIhadto do it. It was a feeling that beat so strongly within me that there was no denying it, even when I wanted nothing more than to turn the car around, head back north.
As I approached a picturesque tree-lined town square, I turned right, carefully navigating the one-way streets. I wanted to inch along, to take in every detail I could of my surroundings, to study every shop. But I kept going, my sights on the coffeehouse, painted a pretty blue green, that I could see on the other side of the square. I threw a look at the clock: 8:44.
I made a left turn, then another as I searched for a parking spot and finally found an open space in between two golf carts not far from the coffee shop. I shut off the engine, grabbed my handbag, and jumped out of the car.
Walking as quickly as I could manage, I hurried along the brick sidewalk. However, as I neared Magpie’s, my steps slowed. Then stopped. Now that I was here, it felt too early to go inside.
Unfamiliar noises swirled around me like a tornado of musical notes, some low, like the rustling of palm tree fronds, some sharp, like the enthusiastic squawk of a seagull—conflicting but somehow harmonious.
I was grateful for the harmony. It wasn’t the norm. Then again, there wasn’t much about my life that could be considered ordinary. I was hoping that would change here in Driftwood. After all, that was what the letter had inferred, wasn’t it?
Everything you’ve always wanted is only one job interview away.
All I’d ever wanted—for as long as I could remember—was normalcy. I’d spent so much of my life tucked away, being kept safe and sound, that I didn’t know how to be part of a bigger whole. I longed to live someplace where people would treat me the same as everyone else. A place where I was simply Ava and not someone to be pitied or judged blindly.
