Page 47 of The Beach Shack Summer
Tyler jumped in. “Maybe when you’re settled in more, you girls could?—“
“I should go,” Stella interrupted. “Jet lag. Nice meeting you guys.”
She was gone before anyone could respond.
“Well,” Anna said after a moment. “She’s not quite settled in yet, is she?”
“It’s been a rough few days,” Meg said apologetically.
“Of course. It’s a lot.” Anna’s expression softened. “But Tyler, she’s beautiful. She looks just like you.”
“Thanks,” Tyler said weakly.
“We’ll try again when she’s ready,” Bea added, more understanding than most sixteen-year-olds would be. “No pressure.”
After they hung up, Tyler dropped his head to the table. “That went well.”
“It was fine,” Meg assured him. “First meetings are always awkward.”
“She ran away.”
“She acknowledged them. That’s something.”
And in a house too small for three people, with a teenager who wouldn’t unpack and adults who didn’t know what they were doing, progress was enough.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“No, no, no.” Joey grabbed Stella’s wrist before she could place the napkin. “You’re rushing the final placement. Watch again.”
Stella slumped against the counter. Joey had appointed himself her personal excellence coach. So far she’d learned the proper angle for straw insertion, the optimal ice-to-soda ratio, and now, apparently, the sacred art of napkin placement.
“Joey, it’s napkins. Not brain surgery.”
“It’s excellence,” Joey said, demonstrating again with the precision of a bomb expert. “Stack of twelve, fanned at forty-five degrees, three taps—exactly three—then insert at the optimal angle for customer retrieval.”
“In Sydney, we just grabbed napkins from a pile.”
“This isn’t Sydney.” Joey’s voice held the gravity of someone defending civilization itself. “This is the Beach Shack way.”
Bernie shuffled over from his corner table, observing the lesson with obvious amusement. “Kid’s been doing this for three years. Still acts like napkins are sacred artifacts.”
“They’re the first thing customers touch,” Joey insisted. “First impressions matter.”
“It’s napkins,” Stella repeated.
“It’s—“
“Excellence, yeah, I got it.” She attempted the placement again, managing something that looked almost right. “There. Happy?”
“Better. But your tap timing needs work. It’s tap-tap-tap, not taptaptap.”
“Oh bugger! I’m going to murder him,” Stella announced to no one in particular.
“Language.” Tyler looked up from the grill where he was assembling the lunch prep.
Stella rolled her eyes. “It means ‘bother.’ Literally just means bother.”
Tyler narrowed his eyes at her, then turned to Joey. “Joey, maybe ease up on the napkin theology.”
