Afterthought : A Sententia Short Story (9781483527260) Read online

  “I see those bikini straps around your neck, Elaine! This ain’t Mahoney’s—that’s not part of the uniform, here!”

  Mercy only called me Elaine, and said ain’t, when she was teasing.

  “I’d make better tips if I worked at Mahoney’s and I could wear my bikini,” I teased her back.

  Mahoney’s was only sort of what it sounded like. It was a car wash, and for many local girls, a coveted place for a summer job, one where you could get a great tan and, yes, make great tips. It was popular because the cars were hand-dried when they came off the belt. And technically their uniforms looked just like ours—polo shirts with the logo stitched on one side. Unofficially, however, as soon as the sun came out, the polos came off and revealed the girls’ bikinis underneath. On sunny days, there was a line of cars by late afternoon.

  But instead of shining truck wheels for the summer, I was slinging hash and eggs at the counter of Dad’s diner. We served breakfast “all day” (from 5:30AM to 1PM), and though the work wasn’t always, the company was great. The diner had character—the building and the people, both of which our patrons loved. The mismatched tables and booths were always full, and the aged tin walls echoed daily with laughter.

  Working here didn’t tip as well as Mahoney’s, but then again, my tips were more dependent on the cup size of the coffees I poured than, well, you know. My aunt much preferred my working this job. So did my boyfriend, not only because he was a regular. Speaking of…

  “That boy of yours coming soon?” Mercy called as she whipped by me with arms full of Sunday Special plates—steak, eggs, biscuits, and sausage gravy, all topped with Dad’s special hash. The Special Plus came with pancakes and bacon, too.

  “Sooner or later, for sure.” I followed her to the table with the pots of coffee I dutifully tended during my shifts. No cup was ever allowed to cool at Dad’s.

  I had Carter Penrose to thank for my part-time job here, weekend mornings and whenever they called me for extra help. He’d brought me to the diner on our first “date” last year. That wasn’t what we called it at the time, and it was a lot more complex than just a simple date, but it was how I liked to think of my inaugural trip to Dad’s. I was surprised they even gave me the job, since I was a Northbrook girl, not a local. But Carter was a popular regular customer, and Mercy was fond of me because of him, and maybe a little bit because of me too. Besides, not many high school kids, locals or not, wanted to get up at 5AM during the summer. Luckily for me, I was naturally an early riser. Not usually that early, but still, I liked my job.

  Being a waitress was surprisingly hard work, especially so early in the morning, and I only worked the counter and filled coffee cups. It was tiring and more stressful than you think when you’re the one being served. But Sundays, especially sunny ones, I didn’t care how tired I was or how many people we had waiting for tables. Penrose Books was closed on summer Sundays, and Carter always met me at the restaurant. After his enormous breakfast, we’d spend the afternoon at a nearby lake with enough of a beach and a swimming area for me to pretend. It wasn’t the ocean, but it was warm sun and sand. I’d take it.

  Today, I was looking forward to it so much, I’d worn my suit under my uniform. It was August, nearly summer’s end, and hot. The perfect beach day. I couldn’t wait. When at about ten o’clock I turned around from the coffee machine to find Carter smiling at me from the last seat at the counter, I wondered if maybe he couldn’t wait either. He didn’t usually show up for at least another hour, and that was on days he’d have a leisurely meal while waiting for me to finish my shift. It was a show of my skills that I didn’t spill any coffee as I slid him a mug of regular, black along with a smile.

  “You’re early,” I said, leaning over the counter for a quick kiss while I scribbled his usual order on a slip. It was easy. All I had to write was 1c. (our shorthand for coffee) and CARTER P. along with the prices and drop it in the kitchen. “Dad” knew exactly what to load on the plate without my covering the ticket with lots of words.

  Carter’s answering grin made me suspicious. It looked good on him, as always, but it spoke of secrets. Ones I wasn’t in on. “Actually, I’m late. I meant to be here fifteen minutes ago.”

  Before I managed to reply, or even hand in the order slip which was still on my pad, Mercy was sliding Carter’s breakfast in front of him, hot and steaming.

  “Thanks, Mercy,” he said, turning the smile on her. She returned it like she was in on it. I didn’t know what was going on here, and clearly I was the only one. I eyed them both.

  “Yeah, thanks, Merce…But what’s going on?”

  Behind me, Gwen, the other waitress, grabbed my coffee pots from their slots, leaving one full cup on the counter and heading out into the dining room with the grace of a conspirator. Mercy nudged a stool in my direction and pointed toward the coffee waiting on the back of the bar. “Looks like you’ve got the rest of the day off, Lainey,” she said. “Have a cup on me and a good day.” She patted Carter’s shoulder with her usual affection and disappeared when Dad yelled, “Order UP!”

  “Is this a joke?” I looked over to Gwen, who was already doing my job along with hers, and she winked at me.

  Carter was too busy eating to answer, but the smile in his eyes told me, no, not a joke. It was possibly the most perfect beach day of summer and I had the rest of the day off, enough time to go to the beach, the real beach. The ocean was calling me so loudly, I thought I could hear it all the way in Northbrook and see it sparkling before my eyes.

  I could barely keep the smile off my face long enough to drink my coffee.

  We picked the closest one, at the upper tip of Massachusetts, less than two hours away. We’d be on the sand by noon. There were beaches I liked better in New Hampshire or Connecticut, but which state of the union didn’t matter to me today. My state was bliss. I turned up the radio, opened the sunroof, put down the windows, and breathed in freedom.

  Summer and freedom. In my mind, the two words meant practically the same thing. Synonyms. However you spelled it, it was perfect. My summer at Northbrook was no exception, the long weeks stretching into months of bliss. In some ways, I spent a lot of it giving up freedom, flitting between not one but three jobs. Together they filled my abundance of free time, the rest of which I filled with Carter.

  Today he was driving, so all I had to do was sit back and relax. I let him because he usually drove faster than I did, but we took my car because it was made for driving fast on summer days.

  Yes, my car. I loved my car. Loved saying my car. I’d ordered it before I left to visit Aunt Tessa at the very beginning of break and it was waiting for me, shiny, new, and mine, all mine, when I got back.

  Usually students were not allowed to have one on campus, but my summer residence was an exception in and of itself, and since public transportation was nonexistent in our little rural community, I received a compromise. I still technically wasn’t allowed to have it on campus, and would absolutely not be allowed to use it when the regular school year started again, but for the summer I could keep it nearby and had permission to take it pretty much whenever I wanted, so long as I wasn’t breaking curfew. Conveniently, my boyfriend and his family owned the building right across the street from the school grounds, so I was granted a parking space behind Penrose Books.

  “Anything good this week at Fenton’s?” Carter half-yelled over the radio and the wind as we sped down the highway.

  I refused to turn the music down, or turn on the air-conditioning, so I shouted back, “Only if your name is Aurora!” I trailed my fingers out the window, letting the wind push them back and forth like
waves. It was a little warm, but I liked the fresh air better than the frigid, recycled air from the vents. The ocean breeze would cool us down soon enough.

  Fenton Antiques was the second of my three part-time summer gigs, and it was a total coup: hands-on experience at what I hoped would be my future career as an antiques dealer and shop owner. I’d visited Fenton’s a few times last year and learned they were looking for help during the busy summer season. Even fewer people, teenagers or not, wanted to spend their summer indoors dusting antique furniture than wanted to get up early to work at the diner, but I loved both jobs. Obviously, I was, for a number of reasons, crazy. Mr. Fenton, the shop owner, was very knowledgeable as well as very busy. He liked me because I worked for cheap and knew a lot about antiques, especially furniture.

  Carter’s eyes slid over to me and back to the road. “Spinning wheels?”

  I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me anymore. “Apparently spinning your own yarn is a thing now. Er, again. The old ones are in high demand.”

  “I think you’d make a better Maleficent.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re no prince, so you’re probably right.” His answering smile was the whole reason I loved to tease him. And he was right. I’d never be the blond beauty, and couldn’t sing for crap, but I’d rock Maleficent. I started planning my costume for the Academy’s Halloween bazaar as soon as he suggested it. The real question was whether I could get him to dress in tights like whatever Sleeping Beauty’s prince was named. I was pretty sure my girl Mal tied him up in her basement for a while, too. Could be fun.

  I was thinking about that so I missed most of the first part of what he said next, but it ended with, “…kill anyone?”

  Thankfully, I knew what he meant, and it wasn’t about me. He was asking if I’d seen anything with my Grim Diviner senses. Being subject to visions of peoples’ deaths, past and sometimes future, wasn’t a lot of fun, but it was part of being me. Over the months since I’d learned about my abilities, I’d also learned to accept them. Sometimes even joke about them.

  I laughed. “Well, I didn’t check them all, but no, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t know if they put someone to sleep though.”

  “That’s probably all of them,” he said with a grimace. Carter didn’t much like sitting still unless there was a book or a video game involved. I ignored him.

  “There was one thing, though,” I said. He raised his eyebrows in question. “A pitchfork.”

  “Jesus! That’s awful.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The man was trampled by his pigs while holding it.”

  “Jesus! That’s worse than awful.”

  It really was. Speaking of classic movies, I couldn’t help but think of Dorothy falling into the sty. I’d always thought she just didn’t want to get muddy.

  My gift was depressing, so I turned the question around on him. “How about you? Anything this week?” When he wasn’t selling books, Carter spent good portions of his days scouring the news as an Historian for the Perceptum, looking for hints of Sententia using their gifts recklessly.

  “There’s a ‘miracle worker’ in India we’re starting to get worried about. Uncle Jeff may need to go soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Next week.”

  I didn’t like it when Carter’s uncle traveled for the Perceptum. It was, sometimes, dangerous. He did good work he believed in, though, and I guessed I’d rather it was him than someone else. I knew Jeff Revell would do everything in his power to treat people fairly, whoever needed it. Sometimes it was the Sententia he sought out—and sometimes their victims.

  But India. That was a place I’d never been during all my travels, one that seemed so exotic and beautiful. “Under better circumstances, I’d love to go there.”

  “Someday,” Carter said. His smile was full of promises, and I liked that. It made his eyes crinkle in a way that reminded me of his Aunt Melinda. Penrose eyes, I supposed. I liked that, too. Carter was handsomer than his father from the few pictures I’d seen, but it was obvious he looked like him. His mother showed up in the slant of his smile and the blue of his irises. There were days, frequent, that I still wished I looked like either of my parents.

  My connection to my own mother especially felt tenuous, a tiny bridge of blood and memories shored up by my aunt. I knew Carter felt the same, so far from his mother, except for the Thought Mover’s blood that flowed in his veins. It was amazing how our parents, and theirs, and on and on up the family tree, could so define our lives when we’d never even known them.

  “Hey. What’re you thinking about?” A touch on my hand brought me back to reality.

  “India,” I fibbed. “With you.”

  “Someday,” he repeated, with a kiss to my palm to seal the promise in his words. I went back to daydreaming with a smile of my own, this time really about someday travels with the boy I loved, even if they never came true.

  The future. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about it, or what a brief vision had once shown me it might hold for Carter and me. But some days, like this one, I’d let those worries fall to the background. Instead, I’d choose to believe the future was waiting, long and filled with possibilities. Maybe someday we would go to India. Maybe after graduation, I’d splurge for a first class trip, just Carter and me, to celebrate.

  But for now, the future seemed far away, and my present was sitting next to me, singing along to the music with a voice he’d never admit was pretty good and taking me to my favorite place in the world. I closed my eyes and relaxed, pretending the hum of the tires on the road was the sound of the ocean growing closer and closer.

  As we neared the end of the highway, passing the last few exits before the one we wanted, I sat up straighter and practically itched to open the door handle. I watched the signs go by and counted the miles, then counted the minutes as we joined the line of cars marching through town toward the coast. On a day like this, we weren’t the only ones headed that way. The difference of a few turns would take us to the neighboring town, which was charming, with shops and restaurants and a great antiques barn we’d visited the last time we’d driven out here. I actually preferred it to the town we were in, except for the four miles of state beach it didn’t have.

  “One of my last tours was from out here. Incoming ninth grader,” I mused as we sat through another traffic light.

  The last of my summer jobs was as a volunteer for the Academy Admissions office. That was more of a “job,” since I didn’t get paid for it, but I enjoyed it immensely. I gave tours to incoming and prospective students and their families. It was only a few times a week, at most, and it gave me a chance to give back to the Academy. I’d already signed up to be a lower school dorm rep for the following year too.

  She’d been a shy girl, the soon-to-be freshman, but I knew she’d find a good place for herself at the Academy. She’d opened up some when I’d told her how jealous I was that she got to live at the shore all the time. Maybe she was on the beach right now. I thought about getting out and walking the half-mile or so between me and my personal nirvana, but that seemed rude, even if I knew Carter would understand. It must have been pretty obvious what I was thinking, because he pushed the lock button on the doors before speaking. I looked over at him with a sheepish grin.

  “Us or them?” he asked. He meant was the kid or her parents Sententia, like us, and the answer was no.

  Headmaster Stewart liked being able to have a Legacy student show new people around. It encouraged them to consider establishing a future Legacy, she said, if they weren’t already claiming one. It also meant that I knew everyone’s secret because I shared it. Of course, not all the students were part of our secret society, so we were very careful about what we said and to whom. Regardless of how little I actually liked the life of secrecy, being discreet was a directive of my daily existence and I was excellent at it.

  “Snob,” I mocked. “I was basically a ‘them’ when I first started, you know.”

  “No you we
ren’t.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. I thought so. I didn’t even know there was an ‘us’ or a you for that matter.”

  “That’s not true either,” he said. “I’m sure you dreamed about me.” I snorted, but then he said one of those awesome things that probably would have sounded gag-worthy to anyone else. “I know I dreamed about you.”

  We made the last turn into the parking lot as my heart melted.

  All the hours there, I’d carried the smell of the griddle, scenting the car with grease and syrup. One dive into the ocean would take care of that. As soon as we reached the sand, I dropped my bag, peeled off my tank top and shorts, and ran straight into the water.

  As far as showers went, it was cold but perfect.

  The sun was high and bright, making the air shimmer and warming the sand, but a light breeze kept it from being too hot. In fact, it was pretty much the perfect beach weather, or as perfect as it could get in New England. It wasn’t Mexico, or Hawaii, or any number of other places whose beaches I loved to visit, but a day at any beach was better than no beach at all.

  I could tell Carter’s eyes watched me eagerly from behind his sunglasses as I dashed back from the water, the droplets that still clung to me evaporating with each step. A small, amused smile played on his lips but I could feel the heat of his gaze, telling me my favorite bikini was, in fact, a big hit.

  “Is that seriously a yellow polka-dot bikini?” he asked, running his hand carelessly across my butt as I laid down on my stomach next to him. He’d neatly arranged our blanket and laid out my towel and sunscreen too. He’d even folded my shirt and shorts and set them on my bag. It was sweet, but also, just Carter. Disorder was not relaxing for him.

  I slipped on my own sunglasses and smiled. “You bet it is, just like the song. It’s my favorite.” It was tiny, and tied with strings on top and bottom. I never wore it until my tan was dark enough for it to look good.

  Carter leaned back on his elbows and said, offhand, “It might be mine too.” I grinned with delight on the inside.