Page 77 of Eye Candy

Levitate was Dad’s baby, and this place would always be my home. Despite what I’d said to Chase, Woodville wasn’t terrible. It was quaint and charming, if you liked that sort of thing.

I just didn’t.

Being back behind this counter made me feel like I needed to shed my skin. It didn’t fit. I’d outgrown it.

I thought of Chase constantly. Sweet, lovely, morally rigid Chase. His conviction that he knew what was best for everyone didn’t come from arrogance, I knew that. He was a good man. But he couldn’t flex to consider things from anyone’s perspective but his. He had a lot of empathy, but there was only so far that could take him—he just didn’t get it. He couldn’t. He would always try and fix things, and lock me in, and solve all my problems. That wasn’t what I wanted. If I wanted a sugar daddy, I could have gotten one. I didn’t want that.

I wanted him to tell me how much he loved me.

The bell above the door tinkled, the joyful sound mocking my misery. Two women in athleisure pushed strollers through the door, laughing and chatting. They chose a table by the door, and one of them waved to summon me.

Levitate didn’t do table service, as Monica Shailor-Chapman well knew, because she’d been coming in here since she was stroller-sized herself.

Wiping glasses, I pretended not to see her, and she pretended not to know I was pretending, and we carried on like that until she cracked and came to the counter.

“Hello! Sorry, do we come up to order—Caro? Oh my God, Caro Holliday? Is that you?”

“Kia ora, Mon,” I said through a big Summer Smile.

“Caro! You’re back!” She raked her eyes over me. “Wow! Last I heard, you were in the Big Apple working as a”—she reached down to cover the ears of the kid in her stroller—“stripper.”

There wasn’t much point in explaining this stuff to Monica, as she was deeply committed to her narrow-mindedness. But still, I gave her the cliffnotes. Out of principle.

“I’m a burlesque artist,” I corrected. “That’s not the same as a stripper, but the art forms are linked. Burlesque owes everything to sex workers and strippers. New York was amazing. So were Melbourne and London. And Stockholm too. I’ve done burlesque in a lot of countries.”

I might not have been successful by New York standards, but Dolly darn it, I was by Woodville’s.

Monica’s lips thinned slightly. “Well, now you’re back. Making coffee. No place like home, aye?”

A piercing ring interrupted our conversation, saving Monica from having her tape-in extensions ripped out by the fistful.

The café phone was an old wall mount with a long curly cord and a dial that you had to jam your finger in and twirl. Dad didn’t see the point in upgrading something before it broke—which was why his cell phone looked like something you should be paving into a path. (Although it had come back to life after its third swim in the trough, which was impressive.)

“What can I get you, Mon?” I asked over the ringing phone. “The usual? Two paninis, two lattes?”

“Oat milk in hers, Caro!” Monica’s friend Tanya called from their table, bouncing a smiley baby on her knee. “Mon gets dairy farts!”

Monica shushed her.

“Kia ora, Tanz!” I waved as the phone stopped ringing then immediately started again.

“Kia ora, Caroline!” Tanz smiled. Hearing te reo spoken bywahine Maori was beautiful. I hadn’t heard that in a long time. “Welcome home! I can’t wait to hear about your travels.”

I promised Mon and Tanz that we’d catch up at the pub this Friday as I put their order through. I considered making Monica’s with full dairy, but didn’t because I was a saint.

When the phone rang a third time, I answered it with my free hand.

“Hello! I am calling from The United States of America for Caroline Holliday,” a very familiar voice practically shouted. “Is she nearby?”

“Lyssa?”

“Care! Oh my God, finally. Your cell phone just went to voicemail!”

I’d forgotten to charge it. There didn’t seem to be any point. My world had shrunk down to waking up in the spare room at Dad’s place, then crossing the garden and going to the café. There was no point remembering anything outside of it.

“Sorry Lyss. It’s nice to hear from you.”

“I can’t believe our connection is so good, Care Bear! It’s like you’re down the block.”

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