I nod. “Let me change clothes, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” I say.
She pulls the door shut to give me privacy. I instantly grab the paper stack and put it in the oversized beach bag. I toss a few things on top of it and quickly change my shirt just so she won’t think I was lying. I leave the bag just inside the doorway and head to the kitchen for whatever home interior talk she wants to have today.
She leans against the counter, sipping from her black ‘a yawn is a silent scream for coffee’ mug. She motions to the bar stool close by, so I take a seat, a bit reluctantly.
“We need to talk about Rooks,” she says, wasting no time. She glances to the front door, as if she’s making sure the Carters didn’t sneak in. “Let me just be honest. I don’t have a good feeling about the boy, and I don’t want you getting too attached.”
Too attached? This isn’t some lame teen flick where I see a hot guy and instantly am obsessed with him. I mean, yeah, he’s hot, but any girl my age with two seeing-eyes can tell that the boy is hot.
Mom clears her throat and sets the mug on the counter. “Do you even know why he’s staying with his dad this summer? It’s not for a family visit,” she tells me. “I think Mr. Carter is a nice man, and I know he just wants his son to grow up and get it together. I know he’s a teenage boy, and some of them do grow out of it, but I don’t want you excluding your other options before you even have chance to explore them.”
I stare at her, a bit unsure what in the world I’m supposed to say to that. Rooks and I aren’t talking marriage…or dating for that matter.
“I know it’s early, and you’re still working on your coffee, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I admit.
She takes another sip, like it’s for good measure, and tries again. “You’re going to meet a lot of new people at school this fall, and Rooks will be back at his mom’s house,” she says. “I don’t want you investing too much of your time or attention in a cute boy with a bad reputation who won’t even be here in a few months. You have too much ahead of you, and I don’t think he’s cute enough to risk your feelings. That’s all.”
Obviously, she hasn’t taken a good enough look at the boy because, aside from that gorgeous guy on Pretty Little Liars, I think he pretty much wins at hotness. And Rooks is a civilian without Hollywood glam, so really, he’s a step ahead.
“Okay,” I say, wishing I had a better comeback. I’m sure in about fifteen years, I’ll be all ‘oh, my mom was right about everything,’ but that day is definitely not today.
Mom doesn’t have a chance to argue with me between her coffee-sipping and the ring of the doorbell. She greets the Carters with a high-pitched ‘good morning’ and asks if they’d like any coffee. Mr. Carter, of course, would love some. Rooks declines, giving Mom another reason to dislike him because coffee is the drink of gods.
After giving Mr. Carter the rundown on what time the flooring guys will be here and which rooms they’re working on today, she turns to Rooks and me.
“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” she asks, looking at him more than me.
Rooks clears his throat. “Breakfast at Waterfront Café and then I’d planned on showing Piper around. You know, just the basics of Coral Sands. See where everything is,” he says.
Mom stares at him for a second, like she’s not sure if she believes him. “Well, I hope there’s more to see than when I used to live here,” she says. “Please just be safe today. Stay out of trouble. And don’t come back until after six tonight.”
I’ll never quite understand my mom. She thinks Rooks is a bad influence and nothing but trouble for me, yet she sends me out of the house for the entire day alone with him. All for new floors. Is throwing your daughter to the wolf the price for hardwood these days?
Then again, the daughter doesn’t really mind being thrown to this wolf.
Rooks says that he’s going to crank his truck to get the air flowing. I grab the beach bag from inside Mom’s office and rush out behind him. I barely have the passenger door shut before he backs out of my driveway.
“Alright, Davenport,” he says. “Spill it. What’s in the papers?”
“Letters,” I tell him. “But I only made it through the first one.”
He exhales harshly, like he’s shocked. “One letter? Are you kidding me? After all that excitement and secrecy, you only read one letter?” he asks.
“I was exhausted,” I say in my defense. “I would’ve read every last one of them if I could have, but I had to sleep. My mom’s on a crazy schedule. I sleep when I can.”
“Fair enough,” Rooks says to his windshield. “So, what’s the story?”
I tell him about Seth’s letter and how I think it’s a series of love letters between him and Hanna. I may not have read the other letters because my eyelids were like a landslide, but skimming through the stack, it was obvious that not every letter was Seth’s chicken scratch. I chose sleep over Hanna Calloway. I don’t think she could’ve held my interest last night.
“So you think there’s something in the letters that will explain why they went to Shark Island that night?” Rooks asks.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. There has to be a reason why those letters were in the wall, and someone was clearly sorry for something, but I hadn’t thought all the way to their deaths. I guess I wanted to let Seth and Hanna have a moment to live again, even if it was only through me.
“I have no idea,” I say, adding a shrug for good measure.
Rooks sighs. “Fine. Just keep reading, and read faster so you can pass them on to me,” he says. He fights a smile, and I think it’s way too cute that he’s this interested in the letters.
When we pull up at Waterfront Café, it’s not what I expected. I’d imagined a chic little downtown-type restaurant down near the beach, with a waterfront view. I’d pictured it as a pastel blue building, sort of like a diner, with an old jukebox and decor from the 1950s. I figured it was just an old piece of the town history.
But Waterfront Café is actually a lighthouse building. It’s stony and gray, like it used to be white but the weather beat the shiny paint away over the years. Blue and white stripes wrap around the tower, and a black metal railing stretches alongside the staircase that leads to the second floor.
“There’s a gift shop above,” Rooks says, pointing up the steps. “But they have the best biscuits in town, and all the old guys come down here every morning for coffee. Starbucks is a joke compared to this place.”
A black metal sign with curly letters hangs over the entrance. A faux driftwood wreath decorated with seashells and starfish hangs on the door. Rooks leads the way inside. It’s not as modern café as Starbucks, but it’s much nicer than an old-timey diner. The hardwood floors are gray and rustic, almost like they belong back in Tennessee rather than in a beach town.
I follow him toward a back table, my heavy beach bag still over my shoulder. As Rooks predicted, a group of older men sit around a table drinking coffee and literally discussing the weather. Rooks pulls out the gray metal chair and motions for me to sit first.
“Told you,” Rooks says. “They sit at that same table every single day. They talk about the swells that come in and how it’ll affect tourism and the fishermen. Sometimes they talk about their time in the military or some old car they used to drive, but it’s almost always about the seafood business.”
I study them in their khakis and golfing shorts, their polo shirts and their glasses, their gray hair and their wrinkled faces. How many of them are Coral Sands natives? How many retired here for the sushi and nice weather? I wonder if any of them were here in 1965. I wonder if they were friends with Seth.
A young girl approaches our table, shielding my view of the men. “Good morning,” she says a bit too cheerfully, sort of like my mom. She places two plastic menus on the table. “I’m Olivia and I’ll be taking care of you guys this morning. Can I start you off with some coffee?”
“Sweet tea, please,” I reply.
Her faces scrunches like she can’t believe anyone would digest anything other than coffee at this hour. “You don’t want something to wake you up?” she asks.
Rooks laughs. “She’s from Tennessee,” he says. “That’s how they wake up there. Make it two sweet teas, if you don’t mind.”
She mutters something that sounds like ‘suit yourself’ and walks away much less perky than she was when she approached our table. A pallet of driftwood rests against the wall, adorned with rope and seashells. My mom should really come down here and check out the competition or at least ask who was in charge of the design. If she wants to be an interior designer for the coast, she needs to see what she’s up against.
I drop my beach bag under the table but keep it tucked between my leg and the nearby wall. I wish I’d had more time to read last night. I wish Rooks would’ve taken me somewhere away from the general public so I could keep reading this morning. Breakfast could have waited.
The waitress brings our drinks and takes our order. Once she’s out of earshot, Rooks leans forward on his elbows to speak.
But the words that come out of his mouth are eaten away by the noise of metal chairs scraping against the wooden flooring. The congregation of Coral Sands elders disperses, and one of the old guys walks our way.
“Mr. Carter,” he says. “Nice to see you back around here. You staying with your dad for the summer?”
Rooks nods. “Yes, sir. He’s got me working hard,” he says. “It may not look like it, but I’m actually on the job right now.”
The man glances my way, barely, and returns his gaze to Rooks.
“This is Piper,” Rooks says, nodding across the table to me. “She just moved in next door to me. My dad and I are helping her and her mom restore the place.” Then he looks to me. “Piper, this is Mac.”
Mac smiles. “Michael Alan Crawford, the third,” he says. “But it was always easier just to be Mac. It’s nice to meet you. I wasn’t sure if the Calloway Cottage had really been bought or if it was just a rumor. You never know in this town. Full of myths and gossip.”
I wonder for a second if there’s any logic behind that statement or if he’s just making small talk. Do people really believe the Shark Island tragedy was just a myth? Foul play, maybe? God. Why does some old guy have to get me questioning all the things I’ve already questioned even more? And where the hell is our breakfast so we can hurry up and get out of here?
Mac tells Rooks to let him know if he and Mr. Carter need any help and then tells us to have a great day before exiting the restaurant.
“Okay, so what was that all about?” I ask, as soon as the old man is officially in the parking lot. I lean forward on my elbows waiting for an answer.
“Oh, I’ve known Mac for years now,” Rooks says. “He’s retired from carpentry work, and he helped my dad and me redo our driveway last year.”
I shake my head. “No, not that. Coral Sands has myths?” I ask.
Rooks checks around us before he says anything. “Some people think maybe there’s more to the story,” he explains. “You know, like maybe one of them actually set the whole thing up or maybe it was a suicide pact. People talk in small towns, and when you have a legendary tragedy like that, things get twisted.”
I glance up at the lighting above us. Wooden slats line the ceiling with saucers and coffee cups hanging upside down, like someone set the table and flipped it. Light bulbs dangle from inside the cups.
“What do you think?” I ask, looking away from the clever coffee shop lighting and back at Rooks. “Do you think there’s more to it?”
He shrugs. “I think there’s a reason they went out there,” he says. “But I don’t know if I believe in a set up or anything like that. Something happened or maybe something was meant to happen, but whatever it was, it was cut short. And I’m hoping you have the key to unlock whatever their reason was.”
Chapter Seven
I heave my beach bag onto my shoulder as Rooks leaves a few dollar bills on the table for a tip. Mom demanded that I take cash with me this morning – before the Carters showed up – and instructed me not to let Rooks pay for anything because she didn’t want him thinking this was a date in any way, shape, or form. But I wasn’t about to step on the boy’s ego when he insisted that he pay for breakfast.
“Waterfront Café isn’t all that popular with the tourists,” Rooks says as he pulls his seatbelt over his chest. “But it’s the best place around here for coffee and breakfast. That’s why all the locals go there. It’s not in the heart of town.”
I place my bag in the floorboard of his truck, even though I’m dying to pull that paper stack out right now and read the next installment in Love Letters of Seth and Hanna. But I don’t. I don’t want to look obsessed when the cutest guy in Coral Sands is showing me around town.
“So where’s the heart of town then?” I ask, clicking my own seatbelt.
“Downtown,” he says. He glances behind us to make sure he’s clear before backing out of the parking lot. “All the bed and breakfasts are there, a few cafés, expensive beach shops… And all the seafood restaurants. This town would be famous for its seafood if not for the Shark Island tragedy. It sort of steals all the glory.”
It amazes me how a tragedy can make a person legendary, almost immortal in a way. The kids from the Shark Island accident may have perished in those waters fifty years ago, but they’ve never had a chance to really die. They’ve never rested in peace. They have been the center of gossip, speculation, candlelight vigils, and annual memorials since the moment the town knew they were gone.
“I guess the best way to live forever is to die young,” I say, peering out the window.
“Bonus points if you die young in a small town,” Rooks adds.
This guy so gets me. He gets how my mind works. My friends back home would think it’s creepy that I’m living in the mythical beach cottage, but this guy – oh, this guy – sees the eerie excitement of it. And it’s a good thing he does because no one in Tennessee has bothered to reply to any of my recent texts. That whole “out of sight, out of mind” thing has proven itself to be true.
“If I’m going to actually show you around this small town, we’re going to have to get creative,” Rooks says, breaking my thoughts of our morbid connection. “Because there’s not a lot to see here.”
And he’s right. Downtown Coral Sands is just a few blocks over from Waterfront Café. A cupcake bakery – Seaside Sweets – sits angled on the corner, hiding any other shop from view until you circle around onto the main street. Rooks turns to the right when we reach the stop sign.
The buildings are a disarray of businesses. I expected quaint little shops with seahorses and sand dollars for the window décor or cute French-style coffee shops with the business name written on the door in curly silver letters. But downtown is a random mess.
A pastel yellow bed and breakfast sits off in the distance, far enough away from the shops that you can enjoy the privacy but close enough for a stroll or bike ride to grab lunch. It looks peaceful and soothing, which is probably what people need when they hear about the local legends.
“It’s pretty typical of an old downtown area,” Rooks says, easing up to the next stop sign. “Maybe your mom can modernize it when she’s done with your house. She’ll need a new project, right?”
I’m pretty sure Mom will be down here handing out her business card like a door-to-door salesman, offering to spruce the place up with Ocean Blue doors and wreaths decorated with starfish. This entire town will be her interior design playground.
“Don’t give her any ideas,” I warn him. “Coral Sands would be unrecognizable by the time she was done with it. I kind of like that it’s not a commercial gimmick like some beach towns.”
Rooks laughs and shakes his head before pulling into a parking spot in front of Mermaid’s Paradise, a candy and souvenir shop. Jars of blue rock candy sit on the window shelving with labels that read ‘mermaid tears.’
“We h
ave a few gimmicks, as you see in front of you. I’ll make sure you experience every last one of them this summer,” he says.
This summer. Because after this summer, he’ll be back at his mom’s house, and I’ll still be here without my Tennessee friends or my one Florida friend, if I can call Rooks my friend. He’s my neighbor – my incredibly hot neighbor – who has been tasked with showing me around. But he doesn’t seem to mind, so I’m going to pretend he wants to do this, even if he may not.
I exhale and let the words ‘this summer’ drift away with my breath. I refuse to think of what happens when summer ends and real life begins again.
“So where are we going first?” I ask.
“We’re going to walk down the block, if that’s cool with you,” he says. “I want to see if a friend of mine is working this afternoon, and if he is, you’re in for the best gimmick Coral Sands has to offer.”
Rooks wasn’t kidding about the seafood restaurants. They’re the pride and joy of this town, from small family-owned businesses tucked between boutiques to the local chains to the five-star ‘must have reservations to get in any time in the next month’ restaurants. You can’t turn the corner without seeing a sign for lobster, sushi, or shrimp.
“I guess fresh shrimp is a perk of living here,” I say, gazing into the window of Walk The Plank. The lunch crew dashes around the front counter, setting out napkins, menus, and utensils before they open soon. I can’t tell much through the tinted window, but it looks more rustic than serene, as far as style is concerned.
He shrugs. “Maybe, I guess, if you like seafood,” he says. “I’m sort of over it. I worked at a seafood restaurant back home, and if I never ate it again, I’d be okay with that.”
“Were you waiting tables or standing at the roadside in a fish costume handing out coupons?” I ask, trying not to crack a smile – and failing.
We avoid the plank and continue along the sidewalk, past a shop with Coral Sands t-shirts and lighthouse figurines for sale.
The Summer of Lost Wishes Page 4
