Today's Reading
Effie waved goodbye to her sister, who started off toward the rented house she shared with her boyfriend, a cook at Brown Butter, a wildly popular, Michelin-starred restaurant. Well, good for Ingrid.
Not that Effie was jealous about the house or the boyfriend or even the good relationship her sister had with their mother since her parents' divorce.
She wasn't.
She'd rather live alone, out of a suitcase, for the rest of her life than settle down here.
Inside the house, Effie walked up the stairs, her extra-large luggage feeling extra heavy as it thumped against the wood flooring. The suitcase contained the contents of her entire life. She moved often and tried not to become too attached to any one place. It was risky, working in restaurants. She'd never met a restaurant owner she could trust, so she'd become nimble and efficiently self-sufficient. The downside of that strategy was that packing up and moving to a new city or country every year or so was financially devastating. After sixteen years in the business, Effie was financially, mentally, and emotionally devastated.
She heaved the suitcase onto the bed, and a bit of her thick, white-blond hair fell into her eye. Annoyed, she rummaged in her pocket for a bobby pin and stuck it in angrily, plastering the lock back into its ponytail. She looked around, further annoyed at the rogue corner of her heart that warmed at the familiar sameness of her childhood room. Same sky-blue shag rug, same white iron bedpost, same crinkly paper lamp hanging from the ceiling. Same collection of cookbooks and Alder Isle yearbooks on the shelf.
Same stupid lobster painting on the wall. God, Maine was so predictable.
It would never be half as exciting as all the places Effie had traveled. But that was the appeal of this summer, wasn't it? There was safety in the steadiness.
She abandoned her suitcase and padded back downstairs to make a BLT for herself and a TLT for her dad. She used thick, center-cut bacon for herself; tofu for him. Beefsteak tomatoes on toasted white bread. A big smear of Cains mayonnaise. After eating and washing the dishes and leaving them to dry, they walked into town together, to the Meadowsweet Scoops shop. Her father had made a handful of upgrades to the shop, and Effie marveled at how modern and sophisticated it looked. She nodded as he described the state-of-the-art freezer and the elaborate toppings station that was big enough for four flavors of sprinkles. Meadowsweet Scoops had been her parents' pet project. And after they divorced almost twenty years ago, it became his everything.
"I love it, Dad," Effie said, and kissed him on the cheek.
He stayed to open the shop for the evening, and she walked back home, averting her eyes as she passed Brown Butter. She would see it soon enough. Effie let herself in the back door of her house—her dad's house, she corrected herself—changed into a pair of sneakers, and ran a quick two miles around the lower island.
She showered, then blow-dried her hair and tied it back into a medium-height tight bun. She hesitated briefly before undoing the pins and letting it hang in a ponytail. She paused above her suitcase, deciding what to wear before settling on a pair of cutoff shorts and a simple button-down. Effie may have been getting ready for a job interview, but she was also back in Alder Isle. No need to make any extra effort. No one else on the island ever bothered to. The permission to do a little less was, Effie realized, a refreshing change of pace.
And also, she didn't want to try too hard. Although the very broke part of her very much needed this job, the very prideful part hoped she wouldn't get it. She forced herself to look at the summer ahead rationally. Over the last sixteen years, Effie had done many things more difficult than cooking in a beautiful seaside restaurant. Even if that restaurant was located in her absurdly small, insufferably chatty hometown. Even if she no longer had any friends here; just ghosts and shameful memories. But hey, at least she'd get to work with the best produce, meat, and seafood Maine had to offer. The thought of fresh lobster, steaming and fire-engine red, made her mouth water. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
Maybe.
Effie made her way back into town. Back to the fine dining, farm-to-table restaurant that had opened three years ago. It was a Monday, one of Brown Butter's days off, and the parking lot was almost empty.
...
