with Thomas staring at you, but it’s better than sitting on the toilet when both seats are left up.”
“There’s always my guest room,” Lynn said. “You’d have to share it with Ken’s mom for the next eight weeks, but then it’s all yours,” Lynn said.
Annie lolled her head to the side to look at her friends,
“Thanks for the offers,” she whispered, her throat a little tight with emotion over the genuine show of kindness. “But I think I’ll need something more permanent. I checked Craigslist and Zillow, but there’s not a lot of availability right now. And of the little there is, nothing is in my price range.”
“It’s the tourists!” Beckett said, and Diesel released a startled fart. “They’re like locusts. They come in swarms from New York and Boston, jacking up the prices on everything, crowding the beaches, eating up every reservation in town, stealing all the single men. It makes me wish for early snow.”
“I thought you were done with men.”
“I am. God, I’m so done with men I might as well burn my Spanx, donate all my sexy heels, and take up speedwalking,” Beckett said. “I’m just saying that the only way to get anything in this town is to know someone who knows someone.”
Annie gave a toothy grin. “I know you. Do you know someone?”
“If I did, do you think I’d be living in a six-hundred-square-foot studio above my dad’s garage?”
“No.” Annie flopped back down. “How do locals find affordable housing?”
“Usually someone has to die,” Beckett said, one hundred percent serious. “I suggest keeping an eye on the obituaries.”
“I think one of my auntie’s friends has a summer cottage she might be willing to rent out,” Lynn said. “I can also see if anyone in my cooking group knows of one that might be coming on the market.”
“Just like that?” Annie asked, skepticism in her tone.
“Yeah, my cousin might know someone who knows someone and, poof, you have a new place. That’s how things work in my world.”
Annie wasn’t sure what to say. She’d watched how hard Lynn had advocated for a friend’s niece who wanted a job at the hospital. Annie admired how close the Vietnamese community in Rome was. It was a small community, but everyone looked out for one another, even reaching down to pull others up with them. Jobs, cars, dating, services, and apparently even housing. Until today, Annie had only been an observer of the community.
Lynn wasn’t just Annie’s first friend in Rome. She was also Annie’s first Vietnamese friend.
Oh sure, Annie kept in touch with the girls she’d met at Heritage Camp. When they were too old to be campers, they became camp counselors, and when they were too old for that, they started planning girls’ trips every summer. But they were like her, born in Vietnam, raised by white parents.
They called themselves the In-Bees, in betweeners, with a foot grounded squarely in two separate worlds. Born with Vietnamese features and raised in white communities, In-Bees felt extreme pressure to represent both. And every July the In-Bees reunited for a week of girl bonding, which included drinks that came from a shaker, food that was prepared by someone other than them, and stories and struggles that only an inbetweener could ever understand.
Annie loved her parents for providing a group of friends she looked like and whom she could relate to, even if it was just for a week. Her parents had gone above and beyond to give Annie a taste of her heritage, but she always felt there was a piece missing.
Questions unanswered.
Important questions that she needed to explore before she could be whole. She knew a meaningful connection to her culture wasn’t going to be achieved by going to Thet celebrations, Vietnamese restaurants, or a summer camp. But while she was growing up, it was all that was available to her.
Since moving to Rome, Annie had learned more about what it meant to be Vietnamese from Lynn than she had in all her years in Connecticut. Rhode Island wasn’t her dream destination, but it gave her the distance and freedom to explore who she was. And she was starting to find her place here. No way was she ready to leave.
Not yet.
“That would be great,” Annie said. “Thanks for offering, and let me know if you hear of something.” She shot Beckett a stern look. “That isn’t a result of premature death.”
“Your loss.” With a shrug Beckett reached over to open Lynn’s bag.