Page 14 of The Hampton Beach Café 2
“What?” Lucinda's head snapped around to look at her. “You did not.”
“Yeah, I thought he was going for a handshake, but no.”
Lucinda's full attention was on her now. She propped herself up onto the counter––just like Frances had asked her repeatedly not to. Her engagement with the conversation was more important right now.
“And!?”
“Well, it kind of freaked me out,” she said. “I mean, it wasn't like...gross or anything. He wasn't being weird, but it just made me...panic, maybe?”
Lucinda was nodding. “Well, that's understandable. You haven't been kissed by anyone other than Malcolm in years––”
“That's not entirely true,” she said, then when Lucinda raised her eyebrows scandalously, she continued, “No! Not like that! I mean, plenty of people have kissed my hand at events or my cheek to say hello. He did, in fact, when he got there first. That didn't make me all...flustered. But the hand thing did. I don't know why.”
Lucinda's phone buzzed, and she snatched it up––maybe it was an angry client that was getting her down. Her friend bit her lip as she flipped through the notification screen.
“I'm going out,” she said. “Vince is moving his stuff out of the other gallery today, and he wants help. Alex is in the kitchen. I asked for Thai food for dinner, by the way.”
Before Frances could really process what had just happened, Lucinda was out the door.
“Did I hear Lucinda?” Alex asked from the doorway.
“Yeah...I think so,” Frances said. “She's off today.”
Alex's silence said more than she'd like to admit. He had never liked tension or gossip and usually said something vague or dismissive to move the conversation along––but not engaging at all meant that he agreed with her. She was right, something was definitely up, and it was time she found out.
“She asked to stay a while,” Frances continued. “She seemed scared...Has she said anything to you?”
“Nope,” he said. “She's got a thing for Vincent, though. Maybe that's it.”
Realizing that she had made two coffees on autopilot, she handed the second one to Alex.
“You always know just what I need,” he said, smiling at her.
“I don't think it's a Vince problem,” she said. “If she likes someone, she goes for it.”
They headed to the couch she had positioned to face the front window and sat comfortably together.
She propped her leg up, resting her ankle on his knees so she could press her back into the arm of the couch.
“How many hours do you think we've sat like this over our life?” Alex asked.
Laughing, she cast her mind back to the long afternoons after school and lunch hour's in the cafeteria.
“Hundreds, probably, if not thousands,” she replied.
“Time well spent, I think,” he said, smiling at her.
She laughed again. “I don't think the teachers agreed.”
“Well, no, but what did they know?”
Frances felt her good mood fading. Nothing was the answer he was looking for, but right now, she felt like she knew nothing. Nothing about Lucinda, nothing about her father, nothing about her husband.
It’s time,she thought,to open those journals.
NINE
Day 150:He's still sending her blank letters. I don't understand why he's doing this. Is it to embarrass me? Does he think she sees the envelopes and sees that I don't give them to her? The postman won't tell me anything, or maybe he doesn't know. They've got stamps on, but the postmark is never the same twice.
