If he was there, I didn’t see him, and the lady at the gate—who was very polite and also very (scarily) firm—wouldn’t let me drive around the yard to make sure.
I was quickly running out of places to check. There were some spots the surfers liked to hang out—I had the vague thought he might be at the surf shop. Or maybe he was blowing off steam by playing laser tag, although it seemed a little early for that. It was still early enough that, if this were a normal school day, and if I were responding to yet another call from the school about Keme playing hooky, I would have driven straight to Chipper, where I would have inevitably found him hanging out with Millie while Tessa, the owner, pretended not to notice.
So, I drove to Chipper.
When I’d first moved to Hastings Rock, I’d thought (based on a brief search on my phone) that Chipper was the only coffee shop in the town. Not true! Hastings Rock had tons of great places to get coffee. Chipper, however, happened to be the only one located in, well, a building. The rest were the drive-up kind, and they were peppered all over the place. Chipper also had the advantage of being located on Main Street, right in the picturesque heart of town, amidst all the artisan glassblowing and saltwater taffy pulling and local artists’ galleries and, duh, souvenir shops. (Let’s not forget Fishermen’s Market, which had—hands down—the best fish and chips available on dry land.)
True to its name, Chipper was painted a cheery yellow, and inside, customers had free rein to draw on the walls with crayons and markers. For the most part, the designs consisted of smiley faces and suns, and occasionally, a pair of names encased by a heart. (One of them said Bobby and Dash. Please don’t judge me; I’d had about sixteen of Tessa’s scones and a gallon ofgrasshopper latte by that point.) Oh, and God help you if you were a teenager and decided this would be a fantastic canvas for your burgeoning artistic genius and you wrotefarton the wall. We didn’t put up with that kind of thing in this town. One time, I’d seen Cyd Wofford (who did his daily Marx study at Chipper) march this scrawny tourist kid right up to the wall with one of those magic eraser thingies, and the whole time he’d been giving him a lecture on how the bourgeoisie control the proletariat with, well, coffee.
With the morning rush long since passed, Chipper had settled into what had to be my favorite time of day. A few patrons were scattered around the coffee shop—Aric Akhtar was reading on his tablet (it could be anything fromUs WeeklytoThe Economist), and an older woman in a beachcomber hat was picking jalapenos out of her jalapeno-and-cheddar bagel. Tessa was restocking the cream and sugar, while Millie, behind the counter, cleaned one of the espresso machines. On the speakers mounted overhead, someone was crooning along to a guitar; I wanted to say it was Snow Patrol.
“Morning, Dash,” Tessa said. For someone who literally had unlimited caffeine at her disposal, Tessa had a weary-eyed look that I suspected was emotional more than physical. She also had a warm smile and a listening ear, which was probably why—even with plenty of competitors around—Chipper remained busy even after tourist season died down. “You’re up early.”
“Bobby,” I said by way of explanation
Her smile grew, but all she said was “I’m going to keep going on this, but Millie can help you. Let me know if you need anything.”
When I got to the counter, though, Millie didn’t seem to notice me. I sayseembecause she was bent over, looking at the espresso machine upside down like she was about two inches away from climbing inside it. She was wiping down the steamnozzle thingy (yes, it probably has a real name; no, I don’t know it), and she was doing such a focused, industrious job of it, that she looked like she was about to rip it off.
I probably would have bought the act if she hadn’t kept sneaking looks at me.
I waited about a minute, to see if she’d give up. Then I said, “Hey, Millie.”
She twisted herself around a little more.
“Millie.”
She pushed something on the espresso machine, and it began to rattle and grind and grumble.
I rapped on the counter and sang out, “Hello.”
“Millie,” Tessa called. “You’ve got a customer.”
It took a couple of seconds, but Millie slowly poked her head out from behind (well, kind of under) the espresso machine. Her eyes were red as though she’d been crying. And she had a pink stripe in her hair that most definitely had not been there the night before. She stared at me like she was considering bursting into a fresh bout of tears. And then she said, “Oh. Hi, Dash,” in the absolute least convincing way possible.
“Hi,” I said.
“I can’t talk right now. We’re so busy.”
I glanced around the mostly empty coffee shop. “Yeah, I can see—”
“Tessa, can you take Dash’s order? I’m REALLY BUSY!”
You might think the volume would drive patrons off. But honestly, when Chipper was hopping—with the espresso machines going full steam and voices echoing off the concrete floor and the music filling in every gap—it was actually kind of nice. You always heard your name called. And usually Millie added something sweet to go with it. She always complimented JaDonna Powers on her hair, for example.
With a question on her face for me, Tessa abandoned the sugar and creamer. I shrugged, and Tessa came around to the register. Millie, meanwhile, had retreated to the far side of the room, and in another burst of enthusiastic cleaning, it looked like she was trying to crawl inside a microwave.
“Any idea what’s going on?” Tessa said.
“I was going to ask you the same thing. Has she been like this all morning?”
“She’s been…subdued.” Something in Tessa’s voice softened. “She’s been crying in the back on and off, as a matter of fact.”
I frowned. “Millie?” I projected my voice so it would carry. “Can I talk to you?”
From inside the microwave came “Sorry, Dash, we’re SUPER busy!”
“I can tell her to take her break,” Tessa offered.
