I don’t know what it is about these sorts of towns, but if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. It’s the kitschy signs and the architecture that looks like it’s waiting for a hurricane to kiss it and bring it to its knees. It’s the peeling paint and the wood that gently creaks with age even if the building is brand-new. It’s the pizza shops, the ice cream parlors and the vendors hawking racks of cheesy T-shirts. And it’s all here in Eliot Beach.
Familiar, cliché and oh so soothing because of it.
I take a deep breath, catching the scents of fried dough and sunblock, and beneath it, the unmistakable aroma of the ocean. It’s a fishy reek, but one that makes me dream of the day when I’ll have nothing better to do than watch the waves roll in for hours, mesmerized by the foam and the way the breakers change color from steely blue to turquoise to black as the sun sweeps across the sky.
It could happen. Especially if I don’t find a job, I’ll have the time. But if I don’t find a job, I won’t feel the peace I’m craving, either.
So I take to the crowded streets, determined despite the lack of Help Wanted signs, but the same refrain meets me everywhere. No one’s hiring. As desperation takes hold, I try the pizza parlors, the ice cream and candy shops, and the tacky souvenir stands, but the answer doesn’t change.
Sweaty and defeated, I collapse on a bench in front of a small grocery store called Milk and Honey that’s just off the main drag. My stomach rumbles as I contemplate my options. It’s been a long time since breakfast.
A sign in the window advertises locally grown peaches and blueberries, so I go in. The place is bigger inside than it appears from the street, but it’s the smallest grocery store I’ve ever seen. If I wave my arms around, I could take down the entire produce section.
I pick out a couple peaches and go to pay, hoping they’ll tide me over for another hour or so. There are three registers, and only one is open, but then I’m the only customer. The cashier’s talking to a guy who must be the manager.
“I can stay till three,” she’s saying as I plunk my peaches on the belt. “But I have to watch my brother when he gets out of camp.”
The manager is short, round and bald. He hits the off button on his phone. “This is the third time this week. I’d fire her when she gets in, but then I’d still be out of luck.” He rubs his eyes. “Only until three?”
I fork over two dollars for the peaches. A grocery store is not high on my list of dream jobs, but life is about snatching opportunities or watching them forever disappear. The dumping-Jared fiasco taught me that.
I clear my throat. “I can stay all day. I need a job.”
“Eh?” The manager assesses me. Damn that orange hair. “You can? You work in a grocery store before?”
“No.”
“Ever work retail at all?”
“No.”
“What grade are you in?”
“I just graduated.”
“Oh.” He nods thoughtfully. “Well then, you’re smart enough to learn it by this afternoon. Congratulations, you’re hired.”
I sigh with a mix of relief and trepidation.
“I’m Ben,” the manager says, holding out a hand to shake. “Welcome aboard. You’ll need to fill out some paperwork for me by tomorrow, but for today, Beth will train you.”
I assume Beth is the cashier. “Mind if I eat my lunch?”
He glances at the peaches and beckons me along. “Enjoy.”
Taking a bite, I follow him to a small office behind the deli-and-seafood counter. “I’m only here for a month. I guess I should have mentioned that. Is it a problem?”
“No, no problem. Everything turns over in mid-August because of school starting. Now let’s see here.” Ben opens a closet and hands me an ugly brown-and-gold blazer like the one Beth is wearing. “Finish eating, then put that on and find Beth. I’ve got to look for the papers you need. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Claire.” My mouth’s full of peach. It’s juicy and good, and I’m making a mess.
“Good, Claire’s a nice name. You can grab a paper towel from the registers to wipe your hands.”
“Okay.”
I meander through the rest of the store on my way to the registers: there’s six aisles of food and paper goods, plus the dairy and frozen-food cases, and another half aisle devoted to books, magazines and beach toys.
I don’t pay much attention to magazines usually, but one photo snags my eye. Jared’s made the cover of Entertainment Weekly. I scowl at his smiling face.
Even after all this time, a hollowness opens in my gut when I see his picture. It’s not because I miss him. All the lies he sings about me have made it clear that dumping him was the best decision I ever made, despite what it felt like at the time. But there’s something else I miss—the happiness. We were insanely happy together, and I haven’t felt that sort of happiness since.
The cover photo is a good one. Jared looks hot with strands of hair falling over his face and a half smile stuck to his lips. Never mind that the critics love his album, I’m convinced that half of Jared’s popularity is simply because he’s good looking.
Lost in these thoughts, I’m only vaguely aware of footsteps approaching until someone addresses me.
“Hey, ’scuse me,” says a guy. “You work here, right? Can you tell me where’s the sunblock?”
Oh yeah, the blazer. Guess I do work here now.
“Uh.” I spin around, certain I saw it during my self-guided tour. Before I can conjure where, though, all words vanish from my mouth. Possibly from my brain.
I’m looking past the guy who was speaking to the person behind him. A person with the same pair of beautiful blue eyes that I’ve just been scowling at. I blink, and my brain argues with me because I totally cannot be seeing what I think I’m seeing. My heart lurches.
Then those blue eyes lock onto my gaze, opening wide with recognition, and an expression of panic spreads across their owner’s familiar face.
Chapter Four
I stare. I can’t help it. How is it possible that almost exactly two years to the day after I made the hardest decision of my life, I’m here locking eyes with Jared in an aisle of a tiny grocery store in a town I’d never heard of in a state I’d never been to until yesterday?
Is it a wild coincidence, or did the alien gods think it would be funny to give me a metaphorical ass kicking? I sure know which of the two it feels like.
Jared’s face suggests he’s pondering the same question. He’s got his sunglasses perched on his head, his hair pulled back in a ponytail. I remember every pore in his chin. I can tell he hasn’t shaved since yesterday morning—that’s how well I remember. He still wears that plain silver band on his right thumb, and that black leather cord around his neck. Only now the cord has a small leaf on it. Once, he wore a silver Buddha, a charm I gave him for his birthday. Guess he got rid of it when I got rid of him.
I jab my nails into my palms until the pain clears my head.
“Sunblock?” I repeat. I wait for the floor to swallow me up. For the ceiling to part and a thousand angels to point and snicker. Any of it seems about as likely as this.
The guy who asked the question glances between me and Jared. He thinks he’s had an epiphany.
“He’s not who you think he is.” The guy punches Jared in the arm. “They just look alike.”
It’s not a bad attempt on the guy’s part. If I was merely