The wind was buffeting Paul’s phone as he answered. “Hey, I was just thinking about you,” he said without waiting for me to tell him why I’d called. “Wondered how opening day was going. There’s a report on the Stranding Network about a manatee cow and calf, stuck in Dough Creek up in Manteo. I’m just picking up J.T. from the school. I don’t know how the parents survive this carpool lane, by the way. It’s like demolition derby. I think some lady in a minivan just gave me the ugly finger. Anyway, I’m headed up to Manteo. I thought maybe the kids —well, and you if you can get away —might want to go along and see the manatees, watch the Stranding Network in action.”
“Thanks, Paul.” How was it that he was always there, saving my life before I even knew I needed it? He was like Superman in a Hawaiian shirt and mismatched shorts. “I can’t go, but it’d be great if you could take the kids. I know they’d love it. We’ve been really busy here at the shop.” And my sister’s sitting there, taking up space on one of Sandy’s sofas while she waits on a chai latte. “It comes and goes in waves. The crowd thins out a little, then it gets busy again. More of Sandy’s high school help should be showing up any minute, which means she won’t need Zoey.” With any luck, Paul would get here before Zoey made it back from the grocery store, and he could wait for her outside. I didn’t want her to see Gina until I could figure out what angle my sister was playing this time.
“Be there in a wink,” Paul said.
“Thanks.” He couldn’t imagine how much I really meant that.
I continued with the rush of customers, all the while watching the door and hoping to intercept Paul or Zoey or both. Things had calmed and I was up to my elbows in the dishwater when Paul came in the door. J.T. trotted in behind him and threaded his way to the coffee bar, carrying a DNA model he’d made from toothpicks and gumdrops in science class. Across the room, Gina was busy flirting with someone’s husband. I was glad when she didn’t seem to notice J.T.
Sandy walked to the counter to admire J.T.’s model. “You all go talk a minute,” she said, shooing me off, then casting a curious glance toward Gina, who was entertaining the guy on the sofa with something on her cell phone. They were shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing, all the signals of flirtation traveling back and forth.
I guided Paul and J.T. toward the front door, anxious to get them out of the place and away from Gina.
“You should just blow this joint and come with us.” Paul wagged an eyebrow as we stepped onto the porch. “Stranded manatees —you don’t see that every day.”
“Can’t.” I paced to the edge of the porch, distracted as J.T. followed me, trying to explain the pieces of his DNA model. “J.T., not right now, okay? We’ll look at it tonight.”
Zoey was coming up the road on the bike. I blew out a tension breath, stretched the knots from my neck.
Paul frowned at me. “You okay?”
Nodding, I moved toward the steps to catch Zoey in the parking lot. “Thanks for letting the kids come with you.”
“Sure. No problem. I’ll just drop them by your house when we’re done.” Paul helped unload the groceries from Zoey’s basket and put the bike in the rack. A few minutes later, they were driving away in his pickup.
Inside the shop, the crowd had thinned, the music fans heading for yet another free concert. Gina moved toward the coffee bar as her person of interest disembarked from the sofa and walked out the door with an annoyed wife.
“So who’s the nerd?” She shrugged vaguely toward the front window, where Iola’s hummingbirds were slowly disappearing, dispersing to the winds with customers from everywhere.
“What . . . ? Who?” I ran water in the sink and started washing the parts of the blender. The whole area was one big sticky mess. A coffee carafe slipped from my hands and landed in the soapy water, hitting the other dishes with a clink. Having Gina nearby made me as nervous as a squirrel crossing eight lanes of traffic. I didn’t know which way to run.
She rolled a look at me. “C’mon, the one you ditched your kids with just now. The Don Ho wannabe. Looks like he’s stuck in the seventies.”
“You know what, Gina? Shut up.” A spatula clattered against the counter, and Sandy took notice as she walked out the back door with a tray of sweetener packs. “He’s a nice guy. And he’s just a friend.”
Gina lifted her hands in mock surrender. “Well, sor-reee. My bad. Just saying, he doesn’t seem like your type, that’s all. You usually go for tall, dark, and . . . hard to get along with. That one doesn’t look like he’s got any money, either. Dr. Strangelove was a jerk, but at least he was loaded. I never liked him, though. Too controlling. Sometimes it’s like I didn’t teach you anything.”
“You . . .” I pressed my lips together, reining myself in. I didn’t want Sandy to hear our family drama. Fortunately my new boss was still out back. “Why are you here?”
Gina’s eyes turned the tinny blue-gray of a storm cloud just looking for a place to rain. “What? I come all this way to make sure you’re all right, and that’s what you have to say to me? I was worried about you, you know. I hear on the news that Trammel Clarke has been arrested —which made my day —and I go looking for you, and the gardener tells me you’ve split. He let me in, by the way —you know the gardener always liked me. Anyway, I picked up some things for you. Clothes, a little jewelry.” Slick white-blonde strands fell forward over her gold hoop earrings as she bent and pulled something from her purse —a ziplock bag with pieces of jewelry that Trammel had hidden away so I couldn’t use them to buy an escape. Some of it had been mine before I came to Trammel’s place —awards I’d won at shows, jewelry that had been given to me by horse owners grateful after a big win.
Gina held the bag between two fingers and smiled. “Yours, I believe. It helps to know people, Little Sister. Actually, you ought to get half of everything that jerk owns, but I have a feeling the Texas Medicaid system and the injury lawyers are going to beat you to it.”
“Oh . . . wow.” I reached for the bag, and Gina held it out of reach playfully. Trammel was gone from our lives for good. He couldn’t hurt us anymore, and that jewelry would make everything so much easier, including paying the medical bills. Thank God.
Could God use someone like my sister to work a miracle? After so many weeks of scraping by, this felt like a miracle. If I was careful, I could start buying the tools I would need to take on some handywoman jobs. Meanwhile, I could work at Sandy’s however much she needed me, maybe make some driftwood boxes to sell in the shop, as Sandy had suggested. The one for Zoey had come out beautifully.
I had the strangest temptation to show it to Gina, to see if she remembered when Pap-pap had given me the treasure box.
“Who’s your favorite sister now?” She grinned smoothly, the skin around her smile as tight as a drum in a Mexican tourist shop, her lips artificially plump, her teeth three shades beyond white.
“Okay, right now you are.” I grinned back at her, and for just a moment it felt like we were kids again, playing Top Cops or Cagney & Lacey in the orchard beside Meemaw and Pap-pap’s place, picking rotten mulberries off the ground and throwing them at bad guys. “You have no idea how much this is going to help.”
“What are big sisters for?”
“This is your sister?” Sandy was on her way into the shop again. I had no choice but to make introductions. As usual, Gina was all smiles. She could turn on the charm when she wanted to. She praised the store, gushed about how beautiful the island was, lamented the lingering evidence of hurricane damage, and complimented one of the teenage helpers’ jeans and the other one’s haircut. The girls, Stephanie and Megan, were clearly impressed. Gina could be larger than life sometimes.
“So you’re here visiting?” Sandy was pumping for information, not so easily wooed, clearly. She looked like she wanted to check Gina’s purse and make sure there wasn’t anything from the shop tucked in there.
As usual, my sister remained completely cool, dancing around answers with a practiced ease, until a customer came in and required attention. Sandy hugged me before going to help. “Well, listen, thanks for everything you did to help out today and for all the hard work to get the shop open. There’s no way we could have done it without you.” She turned to Gina. “Your sister’s a wonder.”
“Yes . . . she is.” Gina’s lips stretched into a thin smile.
“You two go on.” Sandy shooed us toward the door. “Go enjoy the music and the rest of the day. The girls, and Sharon and I, can handle things.”
“Are you sure?” Part of me wanted to stay here, where the magic of the Shell Shop would keep me safe. Once we were out the door, I had a feeling that Gina would unleash some plan on me. She hadn’t come all this way for nothing. She could have gotten an address for the shop and mailed the jewelry.
“Awesome!” Gina said. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you to the band.”
I didn’t argue until we were outside, Gina turning and starting in the direction of the music, the filmy white dress floating around her legs, the sunlight tracing the outline of her body. She had a bikini on underneath. A very small one.
I stayed where I was. “Listen, I’m wiped out. It’s been a really long day. Besides, I don’t know when the kids will be home.”