Page 81 of The Break-Up Pact

The lights brighten around us then, illuminating the front of the shop—illuminating the brand-new Tea Tide. I glance around the familiar space with its unfamiliar new shades, and for a moment I feel a swell of pride so intense it nearly bowls me over. It took a solid year of hustling out of the commercial kitchen, driving the food truck all over Benson Beach, but little by little, we carved out enough of a space for ourselves in town that we were able to bring Tea Tide back to its original location, where everything began.

This isn’t the Tea Tide it used to be, though. We’ve swapped out the vintage teacups for cozy mugs. The dainty florals and pastels are now a little bit bigger and brighter. The tables and chairs are lighter, easier to move around the space for events and rotating weekly themed nights. There’s art from local artists hanging on the walls for sale, in collaboration with the museum. It’s louder and looser and Benson Beach down to its core, a “no shoes, no problem” kind of vibe, somewhere you can kick back after a long day at the beach or relax with a book. Somewhere you can walk inside and get a sense not just of Tea Tide, but of the whole town it calls home.

Nancy had been subletting the old space for the year we were gone, but after seeing the strides we were making, she offered us the space back to bring that same energy into a fresh, new Tea Tide—one we both knew I could handle, now that we’d ingrained ourselves so deeply in the community. And as overwhelming as it might have been to make another big shift back into the space, the transition was almost seamless, like collecting all these threads we’d been weaving over the last year and finally twisting them into something whole.

With the new décor and vibe, it may seem like a total revamp, but after a year like this, it isn’t, really. We’ve been at the heart of so many local events and gatherings with the Tea Tide Mobile that it was just a matter of collecting parts of Benson Beach along the way. Now we have a bartender from Games on Games who is leading game nights on Tuesdays, a bunch of university students who are leading an open mic on Wednesdays, Levi himself spearheading writer nights on Thursdays, and a local band we’d park next to when they performed in the park doing live music on Sundays. It’s been a slow and steady change, one that has had its fair share of growing pains, but one we’ve grown into just the same.

Tonight, we’re setting the stage, but tomorrow—our official reopening—we’ll get to see it all come to life. I’m so excited, it will be a miracle if I sleep a wink.

“Were you guys just going to celebrate in the dark?” asks Levi, coming in from the back with his hand on the light switch, the other hand occupied with holding several champagne glasses.

In my defense, I’ve been so busy with last-minute touches to Jam-four-ee and keeping Dylan away from his own cake that I didn’t realize the sun was starting to set.

“We were just waiting for you, the light of our lives,” I tease, walking over to kiss him hello. It’s been five hours max since we took a lunch break together at the condo we’re now both living in, but with all the flurry of preparing for tonight’s celebration and tomorrow’s opening, it feels like we’ve been go, go, go all week.

Levi sets the glasses on the table, then leans in to deepen the kiss, settling his hands on my waist. I feel the last lingering stress of the day ease out of me as I sink into the familiar warmth of him, breathing in that earthy-sweet smell.

“Happy Tea Tide Eve,” Levi says, eyes bright when he pulls away.

Mateo pointedly clears his throat to get past us, plates and napkins in hand to set on the little table at the center of Tea Tide where we’ve propped the cake and a little shrine to all the things we’re celebrating, including some new scones. Levi and I pull apart, his hands still on my waist, as Mateo takes in the display.

“Dare I even ask what this one is?” asks Mateo, pointing at a plate of scones.

“A Fizzle scone,” I say, beaming. “A Red Bull base with a baked Pringles crust.”

Of the four celebrations tonight, one is marking the one-year anniversary of Sana’s job at Fizzle, which they offered her almost immediately after her article, “Griffin Hapler: A Study in Modern Millennial Gaslighting,” went so viral that everyone from college students to stay-at-home parents to pop stars was retweeting it. It only further blew up when Lisel not only shared it on Instagram but went way further into detail in a video about Griffin’s manipulative personality than anyone was anticipating. (Griffin is now relishing a pseudo-career as the “villain” in Business Savvy spin-offs, which suits everyone just fine.)

Safe to say, Sana has been kicking ass right and left with hard-hitting cultural commentary pieces ever since. If we made a new scone every time one of her pieces went viral, we’d probably need to add another floor to Tea Tide.

“Hell yeah,” says Dylan, visibly restraining himself from taking a bite of one.

“I’m scared of the inside of your brain,” says Levi, not without affection.

“And this one?” Mateo asks.

“The Sky Seekers scone. Blueberry and sriracha.” Off Mateo’s curious look, I shrug. “It’s the closest thing I could think of for a ‘water and fire’ theme like the main characters’ powers.”

Levi smiles over my head, because it’s also one of the few scones he’ll actually eat since it isn’t a “giant cookie.” And also because he is sheepish that we’re celebrating The Sky Seekers at all when he insists there’s nothing to celebrate over yet. But a few months ago, when he finished the first version of the manuscript, the editor interested in his New York book put him in touch with an agent who specialized in young adult novels. The agent loved it, and now that the two of them have gone back and forth perfecting the draft these past few weeks, they’re finally going to start submitting the finalized version to editors, starting tomorrow. Plenty to celebrate, in my opinion.

Mateo doesn’t have to ask about the third plate of scones—the Revenge Ex, which we only whip out on special occasions these days. It seems like coming full circle on Tea Tide opening again counts as the perfect one.

“Oh, phew,” says Sana, walking in with a champagne bottle large enough to hold half the Atlantic. “I was just texting Aiden to make bets over whether Dylan would wait for me before he wolfed down the cake.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” says Dylan, taking the bottle from her. And then, after a beat: “But if we don’t pop that bottle soon, I am going to start eating it with my bare hands.”

We make quick work of our “cheers” then, raising our glasses to Sana’s eloquent toast: “To all of us being stupidly in love and kicking ass at life.” A minute later, we’re cutting into the defrosted cake—a pistachio cake with lemon zest and lemon frosting, two flavors that do, in fact, pair perfectly together—and lounging on the cozy bench with mismatched pillows I put right up in the front, where there’s a picturesque view of the ocean. We spend the evening recounting funny moments from Dylan and Mateo’s wedding (“I didn’t know June could scream like that until ‘Uptown Funk’ came on,” says Mateo, haunted), Sana’s favorite articles (“I still can’t believe I made a former cast member of The Office cry!”), our upcoming plans for the still-operational Tea Tide Mobile, and the ideas Levi is tentatively outlining before he decides on what to write next.

Once the night winds down and we’ve finished picking up after ourselves, I feel a thrill of anticipation and excitement jolt through me. They’re those nervous first-day-of-school jitters I haven’t felt in so long that I’m relishing them even as I take a breath and try to push them down.

Levi takes my hand in his, the gesture so instantly grounding that I feel myself relaxing even before he says, “Want to take a quick walk on the beach?”

I nod, squeezing his hand. We lock up the shop and I revel in the satisfaction of it, of having an entire place to open and close again, four solid walls that are distinctly, perfectly Tea Tide. Maybe not the Tea Tide we envisioned as kids, maybe not the Tea Tide Annie was striving for, but the Tea Tide that feels like home. The Tea Tide that feels like sitting on the porch with our mom, bare feet dangling from the chairs, little hands reaching for the decaf tea she poured out of the pot. The Tea Tide that feels like looking over at Annie from the brims of our mugs, a shared spark between sisters, a happy, hopeful, messy moment in time that feels more preserved in this version of Tea Tide than it ever was.

The warm breeze lifts Levi’s curls and ghosts up my thin Tea Tide shirt as we wander down, still hand in hand, walking to the faint glow of the lamps on the boardwalk beyond us. It’s a quiet night, the beach mostly empty, the waves sounding like little whispers against the sand.

“Hey,” says Levi. “You want to race to the pier?”

I raise my eyebrows. We haven’t done this in a while.

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