I skipped across town and pulled into the small lot outside the local store. After parking up, I grabbed a trolley—what these heathens called carts or buggys or some other illogical term—and went inside.
It was quiet for a Saturday morning, and I took advantage of that. There were no beatdowns in the bread aisle or fracas over the fruit.
Shopping could be surprisingly spicy in this town.
After getting everything I needed, I headed for the register and paid. I was almost done unloading what I’d bought when the sound of a familiar and unwelcome voice calling my name made me pause.
Plastering the nicest smile I could on my face, I turned. “Agnes, it’s lovely to see you.”
She shuffled over, using the trolley as a walking aid, and flipped her head so her bright purple hair didn’t get in her eyes. The woman was seventy if she was a day, but she acted as if she were a third of her age.
“Gosh darn tourists everywhere,” she muttered, drawing level with my truck. She was wearing a fancy purple t-shirt that matched her hair and had the words ‘Aliens R Real’ scrawled on the front, complete with a cartoon alien with black eyes and gray skin.
Yep. She was a real treat.
I raised my eyebrows. “You live in a tourist spot and have for ten years. Are you still surprised?”
“I will tell your aunt and bend you over her knee.”
“Aunt Elsie doesn’t have the strength to hit a fly, never mind me,” I replied, referring to my seventy-five-year-old great aunt on my dad’s side who was a current resident of Creek Keys. “I assume she sent you to find me?”
Agnes nodded with such vigor I was afraid she’d crack her neck. “Yes. Maude wants to use the beach and—”
“No.” I shook my head. “Absolutely not. The last time I let you lot use the stretch I own, you drank too much wine and tried to strip naked.”
“We were controlling the tourists.”
“You were terrifying the tourists.”
“Controlling. Terrifying. The government believes they’re one and the same.”
“I’m not getting into your conspiracy theories on a Saturday morning,” I told her. “Besides, I have things to do today. Tell Aunt Elsie to stop by and we’ll talk.”
“You could tell me yes.”
“I’d rather bleach my own eyeballs.” I loaded the last bag into my truck and shut the door. “No offense.”
“Offense taken,” Agnes said with a sniff. “You don’t like us because we’re different.”
“I love you all,” I replied, pushing my cart into the drop-off shelter. “I just don’t trust you won’t open a portal or summon aliens or the devil on my property unless you’re appropriately supervised.”
She sighed, tugging at the collar of her sleeveless turtleneck. “I’d love to say you’re misguided, but it’s hard to argue with the truth. I should know. I fight for it.”
“And you do so valiantly. I’ll wait for Aunt Elsie’s call.” I saluted her as I bid her goodbye and darted into my truck before she could waylay me any further.
The last thing I needed was the Creek Keys’ Conspiracy Krew on my case today. I’d love to say that name was a loving nickname, but it was their actual weekly meeting name. There were only the three of them, but they were passionate in their pursuit of what they thought was the truth.
They had a questionable website run by Maude who didn’t really know her way around the internet, so it was more a glorified PDF on a website that was set up by a broke yet enterprising college student.
Thank God none of them could really use the internet.
I hoped to keep it that way.
Questionable websites and all.
With Agnes safely out of the way, I backed out of the parking spot and left the store.
Thank God. Or whatever entity she believed was in control of us today. It could have been God, the President, the Queen, or the reptilian people who apparently controlled our underworld.
I know. I didn’t get it.
I made it across town and back to the beach before I was stopped by either my aunt or Maude. If Agnes was out and about, there was every chance they were on patrol for me, too.
I parked outside of my house, and after taking everything inside, I unloaded all the groceries. I still had a little time before I had to go and see Elle, so I boiled my electric kettle for a cup of tea.
I didn’t know how Americans coped without an electric kettle. Absolutely nobody I knew in town had one, and even my family still side-eyed me when I flicked the switch to turn it on.
I put one spoonful of sugar plus an imported PG tips teabag into a faded Union Jack mug and waited for the kettle to boil. Yes—I made my family in the UK send me teabags.
They just weren’t the same here.
When the kettle boiled, I finished making my tea, drained the teabag, and tossed it into the small bin we kept inside for the compost bin Ari insisted we get for the vegetables we have yet to grow.
I didn’t have the heart to tell the kid I killed a cactus last year. The chance of us growing any vegetables was next to none, but here we were.
With two terracotta pots, a five-liter bag of compost, and no seeds to speak of.
Her plan had some holes.
I sipped my tea and stared out of the window at the beach. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, nor could I imagine this slice of peace being disrupted by my new, temporary tenant.
Before I knew it, it was ten-thirty.
I finished my tea, left the mug in the sink, and paused only to get the internet router for her house. I would have to set it up for her so she could get online—I’d removed most of the electrics when I’d had the upstairs rewired and put new plug sockets everywhere, and this was one of the few things I’d forgotten to take back.
I tucked it under my arm and headed over to the house next door. I raised my hand to knock, but a loud clatter and a scream of “Oh, fuck it!” from inside had me trying the door instead. It was unlocked and swung open at my push, and I was greeted by the sight of one very disheveled-looking Elle jumping back and forth while holding her right foot.
“Are you okay?”
She jolted at the sound of my voice, screamed, and almost fell backward. “How did you get in here?”
“You left the door unlocked and I heard you scream.” I cocked my thumb over my shoulder back toward the door. “Should I not have tried to rescue you?”
“No, I just forgot I unlocked it. That was all.” She rubbed her foot and set it down gingerly, wincing a little when she put her full weight on it.
“What happened?” I closed the door behind me.
“I was a little too vigorous with the frying pan and the big pot decided to attack my foot,” she replied, bending down to pick up the big pot so she could brandish it like a weapon. “Not my finest hour.”
She hadn’t had many of those recently.
“I brought your internet.”
CHAPTER FOUR – ELLE
My eyes bugged at the internet router he brandished. If I was completely honest with myself, I didn’t really want it. I had little desire to connect to the internet, to my real life, and see what was being said about me just about everywhere I turned.
If it weren’t for the fact I needed it to stay in contact with my lawyer, I would have refused it all together.