checked, I’m the one who’s supposed to be handing out advice.”
“Saint-Martins have never been very good at following rules. Something about breaking them and doing it the right way … I can’t remember.”
Mom snorts a laugh. “Fine. I’ll think about it, but that’s all I’m promising. Now, come on, rebel.”
As we round the corner of the block, heading toward the harbor, the Fife and Drum comes into view: gambrel roof, dusty blue clapboard walls, and white pediment-topped door. It’s been standing here since the 1600s and will surely be standing here long after I’m gone. There’s already a line queuing up for the lobster roll. People in Beauty are serious about their seafood. We should’ve come earlier, but if we hurry, we can still make it.
We both pick up the pace and jog toward the back of the line as the restaurant’s server comes to do a head count. Another couple tries to beat us, but we’re too competitive and have no shame whatsoever about racing for bargain lobster rolls.
“Victory,” Mom says as we claim the last coveted spot in the queue.
I smile at her, and she smiles back, both breathless.
“Hey, look at us.”
“A pair of old gal pals, scoring cheap seafood sandwiches,” I agree.
“And actually talking.”
“That, too,” I say, feeling a little tender in my chest as a few knots that have been there for a long time begin to loosen. “Thanks for listening, Mom.”
“It’s not so scary, right?” she says, but what I think she’s also saying is: I’m glad you’re not going to California.
“It’s almost as if we like each other, or something,” I tease, but what I’m also saying is: I’m not going anywhere. I just needed this.
“Imagine that,” she says with a gentle smile, slinging her arm around my shoulders. “Imagine that …”
* * *
I consider my Mom’s suggestion to reach out to Lucky with a photograph during the remainder of my shift at the Nook that afternoon, and now I’m spending the night looking through prints of photographs. Nothing seems to fit. Or maybe I’m not sure what it is I want to say. I’m sorry I freaked out on you that day? Please forgive me for not trusting you, the one person in town who deserved my trust more than anyone? The one person who’d proved to me time and time again over the years that he was worth my trust?
How do you say that with a photograph? I’m not exactly sure I can.
But it’s not until I’m shutting off the light in the stockroom and I catch sight of a box that an idea comes to mind. The box contains all of Grandma’s postcards from Nepal—we took them down from the front counter after she returned. I thumb through them now, all the colorful photos that grace the fronts of each card, and I begin hatching a scheme.
A strategy. A plot. A plan.
I can make Lucky a postcard from one of my own photos.
And I know exactly which one.
In my darkroom, I find the right negative, and I develop the photo I took on Rapture Island of the dock house. Bordered by beach roses … before the storm.
It’s a good photo. But it’s the meaning behind it, what that building represents, that I’m hoping he understands.
I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing, myself. So I think about it. I sleep on it, even. And when I’m sure—as sure as someone who is teetering on the brink of uncertainty can be—the next morning before breakfast, I carefully mount the photo on a thick piece of paper using four archival corners. On the back of the paper, I write him a message:
Dear Lucky,
Though I tried to catch you on the Narwhal before the flotilla in hopes that we could talk, I didn’t make it in time. If you have a minute to listen, I’ll be at our old meeting spot tonight after work. Thanks for being patient with me.
Always your friend, no matter what,
Josephine
There. That’s my message and my plan. And as the mid-August sun rises over the harbor, I’m somehow able to slip the note, unnoticed, into the slightly open crack of Lucky’s helmet compartment on his Superhawk … before rushing away.
Okay. It’s done. I did it.
It’s sent. My postcard from paradise.
Nothing to do now but wait …
Hours.
And hours.
For the longest work shift in the entire history of the world to end.
And when it finally does, I wish I had a little longer, because I’m terrified to face him. And