Second Chance Summer (11 page)

Lake Phoenix’s commercial district was pretty small, just the length of one street. There wasn’t even a movie theater. To see movies, you had to drive twenty minutes to the next town, Mountain-view, and the Outpost, a combination movie theater/miniature golf course/arcade that we’d gone to whenever it had rained. But Lake Phoenix only had a single stoplight, a gas station, and handful of stores. There was The Humble Pie, and next to it, Henson’s Produce. There was Sweet Baby Jane’s, the ice cream parlor where Gelsey had never ordered anything except a strawberry shake, and a hardware store. There was the Pocono Coffee Shop, which everyone always just called “the diner,” and a store, Give Me A Sign, that specialized in personalized signs for houses.

As I continued up the street, I found myself automatically noticing the new stores, every time one didn’t fit with what I expected to be there—but then I would also find that I couldn’t remember what had been there before. A pet store/dog grooming parlor, Doggone It!, was definitely new, but looked pretty empty, except for a redhaired girl behind the counter, turning the pages of a magazine. I had made it almost to the end of Main Street when I found myself in front of another new store, Borrowed Thyme. It looked like it was a bakery—there were loaves of bread stacked in a display in one of the plate-glass windows, and a beautiful layer cake in the other. My stomach rumbled just looking at them, and I was peering past the cake to see farther into the shop when I became aware of someone
clearing their throat behind me. I turned and saw a peeved-looking older man, wearing an overlarge Phillies baseball cap and a scowl.

“Going in?” he barked, nodding at the door that I now realized I was blocking.

“Oh,” I said. “Right.” I pulled the door open, holding it for the man, who grunted in response as he made his way inside. I was about to just close the door and head back to meet my dad when curiosity got the best of me. Also, I could feel the air conditioning from the doorway and smell that wonderful bakery smell—freshly baked bread and buttercream icing. I stepped inside, letting the door slam behind me.

It was cool and darker inside, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust after the brightness of the street. I could see, as things came into focus, two small wooden tables with matching chairs by the windows, and a glass-topped counter that ran almost the width of the shop. Pastries and cookies were displayed beneath it, and behind the counter was a baker’s rack stacked with the bread that I had been able to smell from the street. My stomach grumbled again, and I started thinking that maybe I would get something small, just to tide me over until lunch.

There was nobody behind the counter, and the man in the Phillies cap didn’t seem too pleased about that, as he kept whacking the small silver bell on the counter loudly, in between mutterings about shoddy service. I took a step closer to check out what looked like
a raspberry coffee cake, when I noticed, lying on the glass-topped counter, a pencil across it, that morning’s
Pocono Record
, folded to the crossword section. I took another step closer, trying to see if this person had had any more luck that I had with 19 across. As I leaned over, the man whacked the bell once more, hard, and a voice came from the back.

“Just a moment!” the voice called. “Be right with you.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” the man muttered, turning to me for agreement. But I had frozen in place. It was a voice I recognized. I glanced at the door, wondering if I had enough time to make it out without being spotted. I was thinking that I just might, when the metal door behind the counter swung open and Henry stepped out.

chapter eight

H
ENRY JUST STARED AT ME, AND
I
LOOKED BACK INTO HIS GREEN
eyes, feeling the sudden urge to break into hysterical laughter, because it was beginning to seem like I couldn’t turn around in Lake Phoenix without running into him. The man looked between us, frowned again, and whacked the bell once more.

This seemed to snap Henry into action. “Sorry about that,” he said quickly, as the man harrumphed. “What can I get you?”

“Been waiting out here,” the man grumbled. Now that he had someone to wait on him, rather than ordering, he appeared to want to use his time to complain about the lack of service.

“Sorry about that,” Henry repeated, with the exact same inflection, and I could feel myself start to smile. To hide this, I bent down to look in the case, where there were rows of small iced cookies, cannoli, and brownies. But only half my attention was on the (admittedly delicious-looking) desserts. I snuck a glance at Henry as he nodded, appearing to listen as the man vented at him. He was wearing a light green T-shirt with his jeans. It had the Borrowed
Thyme logo in black across the front and a dusting of flour on one shoulder. I realized I was surprised to see him working there, which was fairly ridiculous, since I clearly knew nothing about him now. But when I’d known him before—and seeing him in the woods had confirmed this—Henry had always seemed most comfortable outside. And on the rare occasions over the last few years when I let my thoughts drift back to Lake Phoenix and the people I’d left up there, I’d always imagined Henry doing something outdoors.

The
ding
of the register brought me back to the present, as Henry handed the man his change and slid a green bakery box across the counter. “Thanks,” he said, his tone still blandly professional. “Have a nice day.”

“Yeah,” the man grumbled, taking the box and heading out of the shop. It wasn’t until I turned back to the counter that I realized it was just me and Henry, alone in the bakery.

I looked at him, then down at my outfit, wishing for the second time that day that I had pulled myself together a little bit more. But then I dismissed the thought. He’d already seen me straight out of bed, scratched up in the woods. And anyway, it seemed like Henry had some blond girlfriend. Not that I cared about that.

“So,” Henry said, shaking his head. “I think we should stop meeting like this.”

“Do you work here?” I asked, then immediately cursed myself for my stupidity. Of
course
he worked there. Otherwise, he wouldn’t
be standing behind the counter, waiting on irascible Phillies fans. “I mean,” I corrected immediately, trying to make it sound as little like a question as possible, “you work here.”

“I do,” Henry said, and I could see a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Clearly, my attempts at correcting my blunder syndrome had not been successful. “It’s my dad’s bakery.”

“Oh,” I said, not quite able to conceal my surprise in time. Henry’s father, from what I remembered, had been like mine, one of the many fathers in suits getting off one of the buses on Friday nights, briefcase in hand. I glanced around the bakery, trying to reconcile these two things, and failing. “But,” I started after a moment, “I thought he used to do something with banking?”

“He did,” Henry said, his tone clipped and final, and I immediately regretted asking my question. His father had probably lost his job, and Henry didn’t need me to point this out. “He says it’s the same principle,” Henry added after a moment, his tone softening a little. “Still trying to get the dough to rise.” I groaned at that—it was the kind of joke my father would make—and Henry gave me a tiny smile in return.

Silence fell between us, and then Henry stuck his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. “So what can I get you?” he asked, back to sounding detached and professional.

“Right,” I said quickly, realizing that I was a customer in a shop, and the fact that I was supposed to know what I wanted should
not have been such a shock to me. “Um…” I saw a platter of cupcakes with multicolored pastel icing, and I immediately looked away from them. Cupcakes reminded me all too much of my birthday, the slapdash celebration, the news about my dad. Searching for something—anything else—I tapped on the case in front of the next thing I saw. “A dozen of these.” I looked closer and saw that what I’d just pointed to were, unfortunately, oatmeal raisin cookies. I hated oatmeal in all forms, but especially when people tried to dress it up as a dessert; Gelsey refused to eat raisins, and none of the rest of my family had ever been huge fans. I had just ordered a dessert that nobody at our house would most likely eat.

“Really.” Henry didn’t exactly phrase it as a question, and he raised his eyebrows at me. “Oatmeal?”

I just stared at him for a moment. There was no way Henry remembered that, five years ago, I hated oatmeal cookies. It just wasn’t possible. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “Oatmeal. Why?”

“No reason,” he said as he took down another green bakery box from the shelf behind him and began transferring in the cookies two at a time. “I just didn’t think you liked them.”

“I can’t believe you remember that,” I said, as I watched the bakery box slowly fill with the World’s Worst Cookies.

“My dad calls me the elephant.” I just looked at him, not at all sure what to say to this, when he explained, “They’re supposed to have really long memories.” He reached toward the front of the
tray to get the two remaining cookies. “I don’t really forget a lot,” he added quietly.

I was about to nod when the double meaning of this hit me. Henry hadn’t forgotten the kind of cookies I hated five years ago, but that also meant he hadn’t forgotten the other things that I had done.

He’d put all the oatmeal cookies into the box, and he straightened up and looked at me. “Only had eleven,” he said. “Can I give you one chocolate chip instead?”

“Yes!” I said, probably a little too eagerly. I thought I saw him smile as he bent down again and placed the lone chocolate chip in the box, tucked in the lid, and pushed it across the counter to me. He rang me up, and I noticed when he gave me back my change, he held the bills at the very ends and dropped the coins into my palm, as though he was trying to make sure that we didn’t make any accidental contact. “Well,” I said, when I realized there was nothing to do except take my bakery box and leave, “thanks.”

“Sure,” he said. His eyes focused on my shoulder, and he frowned slightly. “What’s with the shirt?” he asked, and I saw he was looking at my canvas bag, which had one of my new employee T-shirts peeking out of the top.

“Oh,” I said, pushing it down a bit farther, “I just got a job. Beach snack bar.”

“Really?” he asked, sounding surprised. It was definitely a question this time.

“Yes,” I said, a little defensively, until I realized that he would have no idea that I’d never had a job before and would therefore be somehow unqualified. “Why?”

Henry took a breath, about to answer, when the shop door opened and two women who looked around my mother’s age came in, both wearing caftanlike cover-ups and sandals. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Never mind.”

The women were now standing behind me, peering into the bakery cases, and I knew that it was time for me to leave. “See you,” I said, picking up the green box.

“Stay out of the woods,” he replied, smiling faintly.

I met his eye for a moment, and I wondered if this was an opening, if I should just bite the bullet and apologize for what I’d done. Not that we’d ever be friends again, but we were neighbors. And it might make things a little less strained—or at least allow me to feel like I could venture out to the dock again.

“Was there something else?” Henry asked, but not unkindly. I could feel the women’s eyes on me, waiting for my answer. But I had been a coward then—it was what had caused the whole mess—and it seemed that I was a coward still. “No,” I said, as I stepped aside to let the women order the coffee cake they had been debating about. “Nothing else.” I turned from the counter and left, walking back into the heat of the afternoon.

My father was leaning against the Land Cruiser when I reached
him, a paper Henson’s Produce bag between his feet and a plastic bag of licorice bits in his hand. They were for sale by the register, and whenever my father was in charge of picking some produce up—or able to intercept one of us before we went—he put in his order for a bag, the black licorice only. His particular views on this had only become more deeply entrenched when Warren had told him the fact that red licorice isn’t technically licorice at all, as it’s not made from the licorice plant.

“Hey, kid,” he said as I approached, smiling at me. “What’s the news?” His eyes landed on the bakery box, and he smiled wider. “And what did you get?”

I sighed and opened the box. “Oatmeal cookies,” I said a little glumly.

“Oh.” He peered down into the box, his brow furrowing. “Why?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, not wanting to admit that it was because my ex-boyfriend had flustered me. “But the news is that I got a job. I start tomorrow at the beach snack bar.”

My father’s smile returned, real and genuine and happy. “That’s great, kid,” he said. “Your first job! It’s a milestone. I can remember—” He stopped short, his eyes squeezing shut as a spasm of pain flashed across his face.

“Dad?” I asked, stepping closer, hearing the fear in my voice. “Daddy?”

My father’s face twisted again, and he grabbed his back with one
hand, the bag of licorice bits falling and spilling onto the ground. “I’m okay,” he said through clenched teeth. I didn’t believe him—his eyes were still tightly closed and I could see perspiration beading on his forehead. “I just… need a second.”