Brothers of Paradise Series

JAMIE

Paradise Shores looks the same way it always has. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse, that the town I grew up in is unchanged, when I so clearly am not. On some days it feels like a relief. On others a personal attack. Today? It’s nerve-wracking.

I’ve been standing outside the Paradise Shores Yacht Club for ten minutes. My bike is locked. I have my bag. And I can’t make my feet move.

The yacht club is an emblem for the town, an institution. My friends and I used to buy their famous lobster rolls and eat them on the docks in the marina, beneath the hot summer sun. The building looks unchanged from the outside. The smooth wooden slats of its roof are the same. So are the steps up to the front door. The giant anchor resting in the flowerbed.

One day of working here and the news will be out. Jamie’s back in town after a decade away.

I desperately hope no one will care.

But I already know that’s not true. My best friend moved back to Paradise a few years ago, and I haven’t told her I’ve followed suit. Only my mom knows I’m back, and that’s because I’m staying with her.

Showing up at her doorstep had been mildly embarrassing. But not, perhaps, as embarrassing as this. I have a job.

As a waitress at the yacht club.

I take a deep breath. And then another one. I’d been lucky to see the posting, to get this job. So I swallow my pride and walk up the steps. The yacht club has a new coat of paint, navy, and it sits overlooking the Paradise Shores marina. Row after row of sailboats and yachts lie anchored at the docks. The ocean rocks them all gently.

For years, I saw this view every day.

And for years, I didn’t see it at all.

The yacht club is empty when I step inside. It’s early, and the first round of sailing classes should already be out at sea. So I head toward the back office and see Neil, sitting at his desk. He’s still in charge of the marina.

He sees me and gives a wave. “Hello, there.”

“Hi. I’m Jamie Moraine? The new waitress?”

He runs a hand over his balding head. Well, that’s new. “Of course! Welcome, welcome. We spoke on the phone. Thanks for coming in on such short notice.”

“Thanks for having me,” I say.

“Come, let me introduce you to Stephen. He’s head of the waitstaff. He should have arrived by now…” Neil closes the door to the office and walks me through the lobby, past tasteful nautical decor. There are gold-framed paintings of boats at sea on the walls and in a corner is a giant statue made out of boating rope.

The place looks much better than I remember. Fresh coat of cream paint on the wainscoting and a deep blue on the walls.

“All settled in to Paradise?” Neil asks.

He had been a sailing instructor when I was young, and then head of the marina. Not surprised he doesn’t remember me. I was never one for sailing.

“Yes, thanks.”

The man named Stephen is wiping down a set of menus, splayed out on a wooden table. “You’re Jamie?” he asks without looking up. He might be in his forties, tall and gangly, with a mustache.

“Yes,” I say, feeling underdressed. His pristine waiter’s uniform doesn’t fit with my sundress.

“Good, you’re right on time.” He hands me the rag. “Continue wiping these down while I get you your uniform.”

He disappears through the staff door.

Neil snorts by my side. “He’s good folk, once you get to know him.”

I start wiping down the laminated menus. “I’m sure he is.”

“The place looks good, doesn’t it? What do you think?”

“Yes, it does,” I say.

“The new boss renovated it in the off-season. The kitchen has all brand-new appliances, looks like a damn spaceship in there. These are new hardwood floors, too.”

“It looks good,” I say, and I mean it. Gone is the old wallpaper, yellowed after previous decades with indoor smoking allowed.

Spending the summers waitressing at the yacht club had been a rite of passage when I was a teenager. The cool girls from Paradise High did it, while the cool guys would teach sailing lessons down on the docks.

My best friend and I had stayed far away from the marina those summers.

“Well, Stephen’ll take good care of you,” Neil says.

And I have to give it to them, Stephen does. He tells me to tuck my shirt into my pencil skirt and makes me recite the specials on the board. It wouldn’t be rocket science to a new waitress, and I’ve done this on and off for years.

But I understand just why he gave me such a thorough introduction during lunch. I’ve just served a family of six, the youngest child in that wonderful babbling age, when he stops me.

“They’ll be here at four,” he says in sotto voce.NôvelDrama.Org: text © owner.

“They?”

“The owner and the new chefs he’s interviewing.”

Now it makes sense. “Is he here a lot?”

Stephen nods. “And he always has opinions.”

I bet he does, I think. The world would be a lot nicer if people stopped having so many.

The rest of the lunch service is calm. I do what I’ve always done, take orders and deliver food. Some ask me if I’m new, and I answer yes. I don’t make much small talk.

I need the tips, but I don’t have the energy.

Two young waitresses work beside me. It’s clearly their summer job, and they like to whisper amongst themselves by the window, close to the heat lamp. They look like my best friend and I did at the age. Bright and happy and sharing every last thing that happens, like they’re living one shared life instead of two.

It’s a miracle that I don’t run into anyone I know. Not an old elementary school teacher or an old classmate, and not the girl I’d once shared every last thing with. Lily Marchand and I haven’t spoken in years, and it’s entirely my fault.

It’s a reunion I dread.

As the lunch service draws to a close, I watch Stephen set up a table in the corner with extra care. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out it’s where the owner will interview new chefs… and they’ll be able to oversee the waitstaff at the same time. Isn’t that just lovely?

I have one table left to wait before my shift ends. Three middle-aged men on their second round of beer, all talking louder than necessary. I’ve just cleared away their plates-club sandwiches, extra mayo-when Stephen stops me.