“Can I use your phone?”
—
When Anders stepped back out into the storm twenty minutes later, having explained the situation in private (BobDan had generously shut himself in what appeared to be a smaller office room within the office and turned up the radio) and dictated all his quotes and observations to Greta to fill the six inches (they’d have to go without a photo, and Greta would have to call Lady Judy for the final fundraising number), the anxiety had lifted from his belly, but another feeling had taken its place: ravenous hunger. He hadn’t eaten since the morning’s Pop-Tarts, and saliva pooled in his mouth as he recalled the thick frosting painted on those cakes. He needed to secure lodging, but his first priority would have to be food. Remembering the restaurant he’d passed, Anders retraced his steps out of the marina and entered the One-Eyed Crab wet as a dog.
While the docks and the road leading from it had been bereft of people—nearly a ghost town—the inside of the restaurant was surprisingly bustling with life, people crowded at wooden tables and at the length of a rustic bar lined with Christmas lights, their voices commingling in the din. Anders stood in the doorway, feeling out of place—an unwelcome guest at a party—until a young girl who didn’t look a day over twelve greeted him. She stood next to a stack of three overturned wooden crates, which Anders assumed must have been a hostess stand of sorts.
“Just one?” she said.
Anders nodded.
“Do you mind sitting at the bar? When it’s busy, I’m supposed to save the tables for two or more people.”
He followed her to the back of the room, where he took a seat on a barstool. Hair matted to his forehead, Anders pulled his camera out from beneath his shirt and set it down on the bar. He picked up the menu the girl had left him, a white piece of paper that had been laminated long ago but was now tattered, the plastic peeling at the edges, leaving openings for grease spots to take hold. There were only five dinner options—crab cakes, fried shrimp, fried flounder, catch of the day, or chicken fingers, all served with coleslaw and chips—and though Anders didn’t care for seafood, he had half a mind to order one of everything he was so hungry. He looked up for the bartender and saw a freckle-faced guy in a backward ball cap and T-shirt chatting animatedly with a few men at the far end of the bar. Anders tried to get his attention, to no avail. The group laughed uproariously at something and Anders hoped that signaled the end of the conversation. It didn’t.
Finally, ten minutes later, the guy noticed Anders and sauntered down to his end of the bar.
“What kind of beer do you have?” Anders asked. He didn’t drink much, but after the events of the day, he felt a cold pint was in order.
“We don’t.”
Anders cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a dry island.”
“As in no alcohol?”
“Right.”
“Oh.”
He ordered a Pepsi and the chicken fingers (he wasn’t sure he could eat seafood, after all) and then let his eyes wander around the room. Fishing nets and old buoys hung on the wooden slatted walls, but more haphazardly, it appeared, than as a part of any grand décor scheme. A nineteen-inch box TV sat in the corner of the bar, but it was covered in so much dust, Anders doubted it actually worked. He let his eyes graze over the people seated at the tables. A few he recognized from the Cake Walk, and he found, as he had earlier in the day, he could easily spot the locals from the tourists. Not because of their belongings this time, but by a difference in the way they carried themselves. The locals’ posture belied a certain sense of belonging, a comfortable relaxation, as if they had been sitting on these same chairs for years, the wood worn in just the right grooves to fit their bodies perfectly. The tourists were also relaxed—the salt air, Anders noticed, had a way of seeping into your skin no matter who you were, loosening joints and muscles—but they still looked more formal, somehow. As if the chairs knew they were visiting, their worn parts not matching up to the tourists’ bodies the same way.
As Anders was contemplating this, the front door opened and his attention was drawn by the jingle of bells. A woman walked into the restaurant, but instead of glancing away as social etiquette directed, Anders found that, for some inexplicable reason, he couldn’t stop staring. Maybe it was the wild pencil-thin curls of her hair framing her face like a lion’s mane, or her eyes, which reminded him of a cow’s, large and round and set a little too far apart, or her lips, perfectly bow shaped and bookended by two dimples that looked deep enough to swallow a pencil eraser whole. Or maybe it was simply that she stood out in a crowd—specifically, this crowd of burly watermen and retired, linen-clad tourists.
Anders wasn’t sure. And so he just stared, until the girl, feeling his eyes on her, met his gaze. Embarrassed, he turned away and noticed that at some point while he was gawking, his chicken fingers had materialized on the bar in front of him.
And Anders, red-faced and perplexed,
