My boyfriend and I, I think, but I don’t correct her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, glancing toward the mercantile. The dark windows gaze back at me, reflecting the cloudy sky.
“Don’t be sorry. I came home to get back on my feet.” She blows smoke from the corner of her mouth. She finishes her cigarette, stamps out the stub, and then picks it up. “Come in?” She turns and heads back up the hill to the mercantile.
I follow her inside, and I’m hit by a wave of familiarity, in the smells of coffee and apples, tea and bread, in the creak of my shoes on the old wood floor.
“Anything I can help you find?” She walks around opening curtains, straightening shelves. The slanted sunlight reflects off dust particles in the air.
“What was I looking for when I came in before, when I wasn’t feeling so well?”
“You wanted tea to help you sleep. Herbal stuff made from a stinky root. I can’t remember the name.”
“Valerian root,” I say.
“Yeah, that’s the one. We only have, like, chamomile.”
Valerian root and skullcap will prevent the tossing and turning, Eliza Penny said to me in Mystic Thyme. I can’t remember when. Helps when you have a troubled mind.
“Did I have insomnia?”
“Not this last time,” she says.
“Last time?” The edges of the room grow fuzzy.
“You stopped in last Thursday.”
A cloak of fear wraps around me. “Did I ride my bike into town?”
“You were in with your husband. You don’t remember?”
“Jacob drove us down here.”
“Yeah,” she says, giving me a curious look. “I was waiting for you to remember.”
“You didn’t tell me, just now, when I thought I was meeting you again for the first time in at least a year.”
“Sorry,” she says, looking sheepish. “I didn’t want to freak you out.”
“Too late. I’m freaked out.” A puzzle piece falls into place. As if from a dream, the memory returns, of the drive down here for groceries last week. The mercantile was closed. A sign on the door read, Back at 2pm. Jacob cursed, and we got out of the truck and strolled around town until Rachel showed up again. “He said he came down here to buy coffee this morning, too.”
A beat of time passes, then she says, “Yeah, he was in a rush.”
“Did he say why?”
“No,” she says.
“The last time we were here together. I don’t remember what we bought.” The shelves were half bare.
“We were out of a lot of things,” she says.
“I know,” I say.
“You got dizzy, waited in the truck. Your husband bought some stuff . . . And, um . . .” She looks out the window, bites her lip.
“And?”
“Nancy stopped by, too . . . had a chat with him. They were talking about old times.”
“What do you mean, old times?”
She drums her fingernails on the countertop, shifting from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable. “I thought it was weird. She said, I’m so glad you’re back for good. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it’s kind of hard not to in here.”
“And how did he respond?” I say, picking up a box of Lipton tea. I try to sound casual, but my voice comes out slightly tremulous.
“He said, Yeah, for good. She said, Was this the right thing for you?”
I put the box of Lipton tea back on the shelf. “What did he say to that?”
She reaches into her back pocket, places her slightly squished carton of Marlboro Lights on the counter next to the register. “I didn’t totally hear that part. Someone came in. I thought he said, That’s not your business.”
I lean against the counter, surprised at how relieved I feel. “And . . .?”
“She nodded and . . . she left.”
“I see. Anything else?”
She looks out the window, then at me. “She seemed, like, mad at him for something.”
“For what?”
“Beats me. She slammed her stuff down on the counter and stormed out.”
“Maybe she was upset about something else,” I say.
“Can’t say. Seemed like they knew each other pretty well.”
“They grew up here together. On holidays.”
“Yeah, and so did me and my mom. She grew up here. I grew up here. Once you live here, you never leave. Except I did. When I can get my act together, I’m leaving again.”
“You don’t want to stay in the long run,” I say.
“Hell no,” she says. “You know what the problem is with living on a small island? Nothing to do. For me, anyway.”
“I can see that,” I say. “But for me, it’s a treasure trove of marine life. You can find things to do if you put your mind to it.”
“If you like that kind of thing. Living in the middle of nowhere. But for me, no way. And you know what else? Everybody’s in your business. You can’t get no privacy.”
You can’t get any privacy, I want to say, but again I refrain from correcting her grammar. I’ll only insult and annoy her. In fact, I have a feeling I’ve done so before.
“I can see the drawbacks of living in a small community,” I say diplomatically.
“I can’t get an acting job, for one thing. If I can get back to Friday Harbor, I could audition for Island Stage Left. I’m pretty good at Shakespeare.”
“Well, that sounds lovely,” I say, smiling.