On the Rocks(48)

“Three years,” she said as she spun her watch around her impossibly thin wrist. I realized that I never really saw Lara eat anything, not that I didn’t snack enough for both of us. Still, it wouldn’t kill her to knock back a milkshake, or six.

“That’s great, I’m jealous. I’d love to meet him. Will he be down here this weekend? He should swing by and say hello.” I knew I was in dangerous territory. Lara never mentioned her husband, and while I had no idea what was going on with her marriage, I didn’t want her to feel like I was prying. Still, it was strange to pretend I didn’t notice, or worse, to have her think I didn’t care.

She sighed and waved me off. “No. He doesn’t come down here on the weekends. He works a ton, so he’s staying in Boston for the summer. I used to joke that he was cheating on me with his job. All work and no play,” she said as she once again fidgeted with her rings. She spun them so frequently I wondered if she had left a permanent groove in her skin. I figured maybe her husband was busy, not that he was living in another state. What kind of married woman lived apart from her husband for an entire summer? The obvious answer was, an unhappy one.

“So do you have any plans for the Fourth?” I asked, trying to turn the conversation back to neutral ground and finally beginning to understand why Lara was so eager to listen to me complain about my personal life––it distracted her from her own.

“No, I’m not doing anything special. I’ll watch the fireworks on TV at home. What about you?”

“My friends and I are going to some party down on the beach. Why don’t you come with us? It’s silly for you to watch the fireworks on the news when they’ll be setting some off a few blocks away. Come on, they’re nice people, you’ll like them.” I didn’t know who Lara spent her downtime with, but I was becoming more and more suspicious that when she wasn’t at the store she was home alone, or with her parents, and I wanted her to feel like she had friends in town. I wanted her to know that whatever was going on, she didn’t have to go through it by herself.

Lara hesitated a moment before she answered, as if she was afraid to commit to anything, even a party on the beach. “Maybe I’ll join you. Are you sure that’d be okay?”

“Definitely. It will be fun. It’s hard to believe June is almost over, isn’t it?”

“It is. Hopefully things will pick up in July,” Lara added, referring to sales, but I couldn’t help but hope the same was true for my dating project.

“I’m sure they will,” I said, believing myself for a change.

Lara smiled as she grabbed her bag off the floor. “It’s pretty quiet and I have a screaming headache. Do you mind if I cut out of here early? Can you handle the afternoon by yourself?”

“Of course.” I nodded and squeezed her shoulder. “Feel better, I’ll see you next week.”

“Great, thanks,” she said as she walked slowly out of the store and left me alone at the counter. I reached into the bottom drawer that I had turned into my personal vending machine and removed a bag of animal crackers. Not exactly healthy, but not a pint of ice cream either. I’d take my victories wherever I could find them.

I kept myself busy for the rest of the afternoon. I dusted the shelves in the store and sold a few trinkets to ladies who were in need of a hostess gift for a friend. Then I began to organize the top drawer behind the counter. When I finished that, I planned on rearranging the window display so that the lamp with the driftwood base would be more visible to passersby. I heard the bell ring from behind the register.

I smiled at the guy who had just entered, a stereotypical preppy New England guy who had no idea what he was doing in a store like ours. Like most men, it was pretty clear he needed help.

“Can I help you with something?” I said politely, without leaving the register. There was nothing worse than pushy salespeople, so I made it a point not to approach any of the customers more than once unless they asked for something specific. Even the cute ones.

“I’m okay for now, thanks,” he said as he roamed the displays in the store window, most of them containing picture frames covered with various sizes of seashells and kitchen towels etched with anchors. I nodded and continued to organize the receipts from the day before. Then I heard the little bell over the door ring again. When I looked up, Bobby was walking toward me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Bobby had never come to visit me at work, and for a minute I was worried he was going to tell me that Wolf was in some kind of accident, or worse, that my sister had shown up at the house.

“Nothing.” He smirked and put his hands in the pockets of his board shorts as if he was trying to decide what to say. “Why does something have to be wrong? I just came in to say hi. You’re closing soon, right?”

I looked at my watch and realized it was almost six. “Yeah, probably after this customer leaves.” Bobby and I both glanced at the guy who was still roaming aimlessly around the front of the store, casting glances back toward us every few minutes. For a second I wondered if he was some kind of preppy shoplifting bandit.

“Okay, why don’t we go into town and get a drink after this? I’m getting antsy sitting around at home, plus it’s hot as hell and the ceiling fans aren’t doing jack to cool off the house.”

“My house or your house?”