Free Local Girl Swept Away by Ellen Wittlinger Page B

high heels, and silvery makeup handing out flyers for the drag shows, hand-holding women in matching Cape Cod sweatshirts, and a smattering of year-rounders trying to keep up a normal pace as they headed to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions.
    I loved all of it: the quiet, dawn beach and the pushy throngs on the sidewalk. The smell of fish on the wind and the scent of incense from the head shop. I loved the flapping boat flags strung across Commercial Street, faded after a season of sunlight, and the rainbow banners flying in front of stores selling everything from antique mirrors to lobster salt-and-pepper shakers. I breathed it in like pure oxygen, wondering if I would ever be able to live anywhere else.
    • • •
    “My last day for the season,” I said as I started another pot of coffee through the machine.
    “I know,” Char said. “Dad’ll give you some weekend shifts this fall if you want them. He likes you.”
    I laughed. “I guess you didn’t tell him about the syrup fiasco then?”
    “What he doesn’t know can’t come back to bite us in the ass,” she whispered.
    “If he needs help later in the fall, I’d love to pick up some shifts, but I want to get my portfolio together the next few weeks, not to mention all the other application stuff. Early decision deadline for RISD is November first. Money won’t matter if I don’t get in.”
    I picked up the full coffeepot and made the rounds of the room. The man at the table in the window, a regular customer who usually stayed long enough to read the
New York Times
front to back, asked for his fifth refill of the morning.
    Charlotte carefully sliced bagels, her bandaged finger proving it’s the most dangerous job in the café. When I came back behind the counter she said, “I can’t believe summer’s over already. And we’re seniors in high school. That’s just weird.”
    “I know.”
    “Has Lucas come back yet?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “He’s coming back though, isn’t he?”
    I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. He doesn’t answer my e-mails.”
    “I always kind of liked Lucas. I mean, he’s a little goofy, but . . .” Charlotte’s voice trailed off and her eyeballs bulged as she looked over my shoulder. The bell on the door announced an entrance, but the look on Charlotte’s face was reporting a ghost. Who the hell had just come in?
    “Um, maybe you shouldn’t turn around,” Char said.
    But what else could I do? I couldn’t run into the kitchen and hide—I
worked
there.
    So I took a deep breath and turned slowly to face the customer. For just a moment I thought it
was
a ghost. But then I recognized Carla, her hair dyed the exact bold coppery-red that Lorna’s had been naturally, parted in the middle and hanging straight down the sides of her face. Her cheeks glowed with sparkly blush and her mouth was thick with dark red lipstick. Her bony legs looked translucent beneath short white shorts, and a skimpy tank top, which I was sure had once belonged to her daughter, drooped at her neck. She looked like Lorna, but Lorna old, haggard, scary, and probably out of her mind.
    “Well, look who works here!” Carla sang out. “I wondered what the hell happened to you!”
    “I, I came by the house,” I stuttered. “I knocked on the door, but nobody—”
    “Yeah, I was hiding out for a while. But then they told me they were gonna fire my ass from the store if I didn’t start coming in, and I only had about two nickels left in the bank, so I got my shit together. Onward!” She punched her right arm into the air, and then, a little unsteady on her platform sandals, gripped the countertop. “Nobody keeps Carla Trovato down!”
    I wondered if she was drunk. It wouldn’t be the first time she was wasted at ten in the morning. On the other hand, her regular personality was so bizarre, you couldn’t always tell.
    Charlotte disappeared into the kitchen, but I was sure she was listening to every word.
    “So you’re still managing Old