Alice Emerson plopped down in the sand, looking out at the restless ocean as it peeked over the sea oats. The blooms at the end of each thin stalk of wild, tall grass made them top-heavy, so they always seemed to be leaning. Each stem swayed on the dune in front of her, while she forced herself to keep her mind on the landscape instead of somewhere else. She closed her eyes briefly to allow her concentration to move from the sea oats themselves to the last time she’d seen them: bright green and swaying as if they were dancing in the coastal breeze, the sun on her face, stinging her nose and cheekbones, the smell of the sea all around her.
Alice leaned against the weathered clapboard wall of her gramps’s bicycle shop, where she’d gone to sit and collect her thoughts, rushing outside to catch her breath, every inhalation in that building pulling her back into the life of her beloved grandfather. If she let herself, she could channel the smell of the chocolate chip cookies he’d bake whenever she asked, the natural wood floors that she’d run on, barefoot, as he chased her around, and the clean cotton of the crisp sheets she used to sleep cocooned in after a day of swimming, falling into bed and closing her eyes right away so she could still experience the swishing feeling from bobbing in the waves all day.
The building itself, having stood the test of time since its construction nearly a century ago, was stronger than she was, clearly. While it had withstood many storms, Alice was struggling to handle this one. She grabbed hold of the earth beneath her and lifted her hands, allowing the grains of sand to drop from her clenched fists, opening her fingers until the red of her nail polish emerged. Her shoulders ached and her mind was swimming with emotion, her only solace the lull of the tide and the screech of seagulls overhead.
“When you need to know the answers to life,” Gramps had always told her, his bushy eyebrows pulling together the same way they had when Alice was worried about something and he wanted to help her, “you turn to the sea. It gives you the calm you need to filter through the static in your head, until you can hear the answers loud and clear.”
Alice needed those answers right now. She needed him. Six months had slipped away already—six months without her beloved Gramps. She’d only just now been able to return to his old bicycle shop on the North Carolina coast. Originally constructed to house the people who’d built the protective sand dunes from Corolla to Ocracoke, and later inhabited by fishermen, the tiny building had seen its share of visitors. Alice was its most recent, but this time was her first visit alone, without Gramps. She’d waited for the sunshine of spring because that was how she wanted to see it again: bright and happy.
To Alice, this beach wasn’t just for vacations, mini-golf, and paddle boarding. It was the place where Gramps had allowed her to stay up past her bedtime to hunt ghost crabs, where he’d told her the legends about Blackbeard the pirate’s adventures on nearby Ocracoke Island; it was where she’d spent her days running through the foamy surf as it bubbled around her little toes just before Gramps scooped her up into the air. Alice had spent many summers here—just her and Gramps in his shop.
She tipped her head back to let the sunshine warm the cold that was filling her chest. It was getting late, even though the sun didn’t want to admit it. She stood up and stretched her back, wondering if it wasn’t the sea that gave her the answers, but Gramps’s presence. Alice didn’t have any more idea of what to do now than she had when she’d gotten here.
With a heavy sigh, she turned to face the shop that now sat nearly empty. It looked sad, broken like her heart. Gramps had given this place to her—for what? What was it without him? She had no idea what to do with it, but all she knew was that staying here was too difficult. Perhaps she could sell it, like she’d sold all his bikes, add the profits to the money that Gramps had so generously left for her, and follow her dreams on some big adventure. Was that what Gramps would have wanted for her?
One more time, she looked over her shoulder for answers, but none came. After that last glance at the ebbing tide that had comforted her for years, she opened the door on the back of the bicycle shop and went in to see what the future held.
“I can’t believe he didn’t show,” Sasha said quietly from behind her double decker vanilla and strawberry ice cream cone, her pale blue spring manicure complementing the ice cream colors.
Alice and her best friend Sasha Miller sat together at an outdoor picnic table, Alice’s gaze darting to the counter across from them where her five-year-old son Henry was waiting for his ice cream, before focusing on her friend.
Alice had known Sasha since they were seven years old. Sasha had moved in down the street from her and they’d met on the bus ride to school. All the seats had been taken except the spot beside Alice. Sasha had dropped down next to her that day and started talking as if they’d been together their whole little lives. To this day, Sasha could talk Alice through anything. And that was exactly why Alice had called her right after Matt hadn’t shown up, when he’d texted that he would.
“He didn’t even have the decency to face me. After two years together.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to meet him.” Sasha rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t deserve your presence.”
“It would’ve been hard to see him again, but I was hoping to have some closure.”
With a paper bag of Matt’s things clasped tightly in her grip, Alice had waited for Matt at their favorite park, where they’d had their first date. She’d had to take in calming breaths the entire time to keep the tears from surfacing, focusing on the tinkling of her dangly earrings in the breeze to try to take her mind off of what he’d done. She’d worn those earrings just to spite him; they were the ones she’d bought after finding out he’d been unfaithful, the ones she’d decided matched her new overpriced highlights the best.
Alice hadn’t been trying to win him back with her little makeover, but she did get a certain amount of satisfaction from knowing that she’d never let herself spend another evening crying over Matt again, depressed in her sweats, holding a pint of rocky road ice cream and an empty box of cookies. She had firmly made that decision.
It had taken that monumental event to bring her to her best.
“For Matt to show up and give you closure, it would mean that he was actually a good person, which he is not. He’d only disguised himself as one.” Sasha took a bite off the top of her cone.
“I did get a little closure, though, leaving our park. There was something about walking away from it that made me feel stronger.” Alice played with her bowl of ice cream, not really eating it. “And it made me feel better when I chucked the bag of his things in the trashcan.” She grinned deviously before sobering. “I thought he could be The One,” she said, shaking her head. “The sad thing is that both Henry and I loved him. If he’d been a better man, he could’ve had the two of us forever.”
Alice tucked her curly blonde hair behind her ears before dragging the small spoon around the lump of overflowing ice cream in her bowl, to keep it from dripping down onto her fingers in the evening heat. She looked over at her son again. Henry could barely reach the counter, but he’d insisted they take a seat and let him get his on his own—he was a big boy, he’d said. He stood patiently, his fingers tapping the shiny surface that held the container of napkins and a tip jar that read, “We’re all in college. Need we say more?”
Alice took a bite of the melting ice cream and swallowed, still angry at the situation. “I’m so awful at picking guys.”
“No, you’re not.”
Sasha was just being kind. Alice had fallen for some real losers: one had claimed to be a traveling musician, but was more of a homeless party guy with a guitar; another had decided to follow his dreams and sail around the world. He just forgot to tell her that he’d financed a boat with their joint bank account. And there was Henry’s father, the biggest loser of them all, a minor league baseball player who’d run off the very minute she’d told him she was pregnant, joining a European team and leaving the country and his son.
“It’s not your fault that he decided to run around with his personal trainer behind your back. Who does that?” Sasha said, her eyes squinted in irritation, a frown on her face.
On that point, Sasha was right: it wasn’t Alice’s fault. But it was her fault that she’d let her guard down enough to waste two years on him and allow herself to be emotionally wounded by him. The hurt at being blindsided was only a tiny piece of it all—she could get over that. What she couldn’t get over was the look on Henry’s face when she had to tell him that Matt wasn’t going to take him to hit baseballs anymore.
But she’d realized, after Matt’s leaving, that she didn’t need anyone to go through life with her; she could do it on her own. She could be the sole parent for Henry—after all, she knew better than anyone else what kind of person she wanted to raise him to be. She didn’t need any help with that. She also didn’t need any assistance with finding things that made her happy—she knew how to do that too. So from this point on, she wasn’t going to allow another man to ruin what she and Henry had. Relationships introduced risk, and she wasn’t willing to gamble anymore. She was too tired of wondering at the end of every relationship how they’d gotten there. Instead, she wanted to turn her energy to herself and Henry, and with her new inheritance, something new and wonderful could be right around the corner.
Alice had let her ice cream completely melt, thinking about the wreckage of her love life. Sasha brought her back to reality, reaching down and tugging on Einstein’s collar to keep him from running off. Alice, just realizing she’d dropped the leash, picked it back up. They’d been holding the puppy while Henry got his ice cream. He turned around and waved at them from the counter, a smile on his face under that old ratty baseball cap of his that he refused to take off.
“This puppy is so cute,” Sasha said, stroking Einstein’s head, clearly trying to get Alice’s mind off of Matt. Einstein’s deep chocolate eyes peered up at Sasha as he nudged her with his snout for more affection.
Einstein was the black Labrador Alice had bought Henry after she’d told him about Matt. Henry had had to go to baseball practice, and she’d made him go even though he’d said he didn’t feel like playing ball that day. She wasn’t going to let him wallow like she had. Matt didn’t deserve Henry’s energy. And Henry always felt like playing ball; he’d be just fine once he got those dusty cleats to home base and the bat in his grip as he circled it by his shoulder, waiting for the ball to sail into his view.
Even though they had no contact at all with Henry’s father, Joel, Alice hadn’t kept him a secret from Henry, putting old newspaper clippings of his dad’s accomplishments in his room. It was all he’d left behind. Since the time Henry was little, he’d always shown an interest in baseball. She’d wondered if he was just genetically predisposed to love it like his father did, or if it was some way for Henry to have a connection to the man who’d been absent his whole life.
The day Matt had left, Henry had tied the laces of his cleats, looping the ends of them—they were stained orange from the clay on the fields—with tears streaming down his cheeks. That picture of him was now burned in Alice’s memory.
She’d gotten Einstein for fifty dollars at the shelter after dropping Henry off at practice, and then surprised her son with him because seeing his sadness over losing Matt tore her heart out. She promised herself she’d do everything she could to bring back his smile to make up for it.
So now, after they’d had dinner, Alice and Sasha had decided to take Henry for an evening treat at a walk-up ice cream shop. Henry loved ice cream about as much as he loved baseball, and taking him had been on Alice’s mind all day.
“Just think,” Sasha said, her face blocking Alice’s view of Henry for a second, “if you both could love a dirt bag like Matt, what would your love be like for someone amazing? He’s out there.”
Alice smiled, more out of kindness for her friend than agreement. The thing was, she’d devoted so much energy to finding Mr. Perfect, when really she didn’t think he was actually out there anymore. She was starting to think that she’d wanted a dream: someone to be that perfect family man for Henry, someone to keep her company during those quiet times, someone to share her life with. But as she looked around at the people she knew, she didn’t see that anywhere. She believed now that it was a fantasy that she’d created for herself as a young girl, and she needed to let it go. This was real life. She wasn’t looking for Mr. Right anymore.
“What if he isn’t out there, Sash?”
Sasha had always been the optimist of the two of them, whereas Alice was a realist. But there was a flicker of understanding mixed with fear behind those thrift store aviator sunglasses of hers, and Alice knew that, even though Sasha was a dreamer, she was plagued by the same question, having just gone through an awful divorce herself. The legal fees from the divorce alone had sucked Sasha’s bank account nearly dry and she was living on her tiny nest egg until she could recoup that money.
More than fear lurked in Sasha’s face this time, however, yet Alice couldn’t place it. Her friend looked oddly worried. If Sasha didn’t tell her what it was, Alice was definitely going to try to get her to open up about it at another time because, by the look on her friend’s face, there was definitely something she wasn’t sharing; something was wrong.
Henry came over with his ice cream: a vanilla cone with sprinkles for hair, two candy eyes and a licorice mouth. He held it out with a smile so they could see, as the sun filtered through the trees, casting its rays on his little face. Einstein stood at attention, his back end swinging from side to side while he nudged Henry’s arm.
“I like it!” Alice said, the moment with Sasha gone. She gently petted under the dog’s ears as Henry sat down. The blond hair that peeked out from under his baseball cap would become almost white in the summer, his skin tan from playing all day in the sun. The weather had been unusually warm already and they’d spent tons of time outside to escape the small apartment they lived in.
She didn’t know what she’d been thinking, getting a puppy this size when they were in that small apartment, and she barely had enough time to take him for walks. Alice was a secretary at a dental office, and she didn’t finish work until nearly six o’clock every night. Once she got Henry from daycare and arrived home, she wanted to spend time with him, helping him with his schoolwork and hearing about his day. But every time she found a chewed-up shoe or the puppy had an accident on the floor, she’d close her eyes and remember Henry’s face when he’d seen her walk across that baseball field with Einstein the night she’d gotten him. She wanted the rest of his life to be just like that moment.
“Can I walk him in the grass?” Henry asked, holding his ice cream in one hand as he reached for the leash with his other. His baseball cap was on backwards, the sun still hitting his face and showing off his freckles. She noticed how long his legs were getting—he was gangly now, not a toddler anymore. It was as if she’d blinked and he’d become this well-spoken little boy.
“Do you think you can handle him?”
“Yeah. I’m strong,” he said, with vanilla on his bottom lip from his bite of ice cream.
“Okay. I’m right here if you need me. Just call over.”
Henry took Einstein, and the puppy happily trotted along beside him, alternating between jumping up to try to reach Henry’s ice cream and stopping to sniff spots in the grass. Alice smiled, warmed by the sight, the sun still setting earlier than it would in the thick of summer and making a silhouette of Henry, Einstein, and the ice cream—like in one of those movies that made her come out of the darkness sighing with a big grin, while everyone else hustled on to the bathrooms with their empty drink cups and popcorn boxes.
“It’s been two weeks since you went to your grandfather’s bicycle shop and I haven’t asked you yet if you’re really okay,” Sasha said, changing the subject. Thank goodness they’d moved on from Matt. Sasha pulled her hair behind her shoulders, revealing the silver hoop earrings Alice had gotten her for her birthday.
Sasha leaned toward her. “You’re more quiet than usual, all in your head somewhere. You okay?”
Alice nodded. What she didn’t want to admit was that she was okay at this moment, on this day, but she didn’t know if she was really all right. Perhaps going to Gramps’s place might not have been the best timing, given the enormous disruption that Matt’s leaving had caused for her and Henry. His infidelity had come out of nowhere, completely turning their lives upside down, right when she was starting to actually face life without Gramps.
Sasha had been the first friend Alice had called when all her emotions were at their height, and she had been right there by her side. But thinking back, Sasha—usually the one who could spin any situation into a positive—had been just as brokenhearted, and she hadn’t been able to find anything reassuring to say. The more Alice thought about it, Sasha had been very quiet herself over the last few weeks, her demeanor different. She hadn’t put it together until now, but as she looked at her friend, she knew something definitely wasn’t right.
“Are you okay?” Alice said, instead of answering.
“Me? I’m fine!” Sasha said, a little too quickly, before turning the focus back to Alice, her bright red cheeks giving her away. “Matt’s timing is impeccable… Couldn’t he have at least waited for a better time to drop this bomb?”
Alice shrugged, letting her friend off the hook. This wasn’t the time to talk about it, obviously. “I’d rather know now than carry on like nothing was wrong, I guess. I already feel like he’s robbed me of my time.”
Sasha offered a sympathetic pout. Alice had gone straight to Sasha’s the night she’d found out that Gramps had died. While he’d been having a few health problems, they’d been nothing too major, and his death had come out of nowhere. He’d been working right up to the day, at his bicycle rental shop in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It sat directly on the beach next to a busy fishing pier, full of tourists lining up at the binocular stations. He lived upstairs and ran the shop from the bottom floor. After work, he spent most of his free time fishing.
“Have you had any luck selling the bike shop?” Sasha asked, as if she could read Alice’s mind. She waved to Henry. He was running along, laughing every time Einstein followed his lead. He yelled for them to look and both of them acknowledged him with their biggest smiles. Sasha pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head, and Alice could see the concern in her eyes as she concentrated on her.
“The realtor’s had a few calls asking for specifics and she said there’s been one person who’s toured the property, but she hasn’t heard back yet.”
She watched Henry as she decided if she should actually entertain the thought that had been going around in her head since Matt left. Their breakup had brought back a memory of the boy she’d met one summer’s day at Gramps’s shop all those years ago, making her wish for something better. She and the boy had had ice cream that day, and she could still remember the smile on his face as he looked at her, holding his cone. It had gotten her thinking… The upheaval of losing Matt had completely changed her outlook on the bike shop. It wasn’t so difficult to be there anymore; instead, it was calling her home—maybe she could settle down there and still, in a way, be close to Gramps.
Finally, she said, “I’ve been playing with an idea—it’s crazy—but what if I moved there and opened some sort of shop in its place?” She had been thinking a lot about what it would be like to spend this summer at Gramps’s beach house; the shop downstairs, the ocean out her window…
“I’d miss you!” Sasha pouted. “It might be nice to get away from everything, though,” she relented. “I know I’d like to get away.” She had that odd look on her face again, but she ironed it out, producing a smile for Alice’s benefit. “Tell me more!”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about it,” Alice said. “But the bike shop barely made Gramps any money. The shop was so small, he couldn’t house much inventory, so the turnover was high, but it still didn’t give him enough to really become comfortable financially. He never seemed to mind, but for Henry and me, I’d need something more to keep us afloat.”
Sasha looked over Alice’s head in thought. “So what could you fit more of in that little building, then?”
“It’s prime beachfront property—something would work there. But I’ve been trying to answer that question and I can’t think of anything making me as much as the sale of the land itself.”
She’d decided to save the money from the sale until the right thing came along, but now she wondered if the right thing was sitting in front of her, and opening a business was in her future. She let her mind wander to the white clapboard siding of the building, the bells on the door that jingled as people opened it, the small front porch where she used to sit and drink ice-cold bottles of Coca-Cola, digging her toes into the natural sand walkway just beneath the steps while Gramps was busy with customers.
“But will the money make you happy? What will it get you? You have the chance to escape to a totally different life, leave everything behind. There’s got to be something you could do with that place that would light your fire.” Sasha caught a drip of strawberry ice cream on the side of her cone with her finger, that unusual look of concern surfacing again before she wiped it away. Whatever it was that was bothering her would be quite a conversation, Alice was certain now.
“Do you really think I could live and work at the beach?” she said, keeping the conversation on her, as Sasha clearly wanted her to do.
There was a tiny part of Alice that worried she couldn’t do it. Creating a business from the ground up was quite an undertaking and she didn’t have t. . .
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