Free Local Girls : An Island Summer Novel (9781416564171) by Jenny O'connell Page B

Instead, she continued flipping through the cookbook on the counter, stopping only to write things down on a yellow legal pad she’d taken out of the top drawer.
    â€œSo what’s Winnie up to this summer?” I asked Shelby, taking a seat on the stool in the corner of the kitchen.
    â€œBabysitting,” she answered, and then scribbled something on the pad.
    â€œSounds like fun.”
    Shelby shrugged. “I guess. She seems to think so.”
    â€œSo when’d you get back from school?” I asked, knowing full well that Shelby had been back on the island for months. There was always speculation whenever anyone went away to school and then landed back on the island earlier than expected—pregnancies, drugs, failing grades. Nobody just came back because they wanted to. If they wanted to be here so badly, they never would have left in the first place.
    â€œI started at the Willow in April,” she told me, not exactly answering my question. “See those picnic baskets over there?” She pointed to a stack of rectangular wicker baskets by the supply closet. “Go to the front desk and ask for the lunch orders. We have sandwiches to make.”
    I hopped down from the stool and headed toward the door, barely resisting the temptation to raise my hand in salute to her on the way out. “Yes, sir,” I muttered under my breath. So much for small talk.
    By four o’clock I’d served breakfast to five tables, prepared six picnic lunches, helped Shelby prepare and put out the afternoon snacks, and done pretty much anything else anybody asked me to do, including delivering a bottle of vanilla bubble bath to room 3, where I was greeted by a seventy-year-old woman in a towel turban, fuzzy slippers, and not much else.
    As I walked toward the front door on my way out, it occurred to me that while I got a blister on my left heel, a cut on my pinky from a paring knife, and an eyeful of a seventy-year-old bathing beauty, Mona had probably gotten a tan—or at least Mona’s pink version of a tan.
    â€œThanks for your help today, Kendra,” Wendy called out to me from the front desk, just as the grandfather clock gonged for the fourth time. “See you tomorrow!”
    In fourteen hours my alarm clock would go off and I’d do today all over again. But even though the idea didn’t thrill me, I tried to match Wendy’s enthusiasm. “See you tomorrow, Wendy.”

Chapter 7
    One day down, so many more to go. Walking to the VTA stop on Church Street, I almost envied Ryan. All day he just sat around and waited for people to come in and request a mountain bike or a ten-speed or whatever. The most effort he had to exert was adjusting the strap on some little kid’s helmet. And that wasn’t exactly difficult and it certainly didn’t involve sharp objects.
    I put my pinky in my mouth and sucked on my cut. It stung. Almost as badly as the fact that I didn’t have a single dollar to put into the manila envelope in my dresser drawer. I knew I probably wouldn’t be handling a ton of tables on my first day, but I certainly hadn’t counted on having to shadow Camille all morning, watching her collect the ten-dollar bills the guests left behind while I was “learning.”
    What had I been thinking when I walked into the Willow and told Wendy I wanted a job? My thought process seemed so stupid now. Completely ridiculous in hindsight, and yet at the time it had seemed almost rational.
    Because you know what I was thinking as I walked to the Willow for my first job interview? Two words: canopy bed.
    Yes, I fell victim to the very illusion I should have known better than to believe. I lived here. I knew the glossy brochures showing quaint bed-and-breakfasts were merely a sales tool. They always showed the houses in bright sunlight with two-hundred-year-old trees and emerald leaves hanging down as if paying homage to their cozy front porches. It was