Page 7 of An Island Summer
“All right.” Meghan called Charlie in, feeling a little brighter.
Meghan rolled the old bicycles out of the shed behind the house and took a step back to assess them. Surprisingly, they hadn’t rusted very much over the ten years they’d sat idle. She ran her fingers along the baskets on the front of them that had been filled with bread, vegetables, and seafood from the local market when she and Pappy used to ride into town.
“The tires look good,” Tess said, bending down to press her thumb against one of them. “I think they still have enough air.”
“As long as they haven’t dry-rotted,” Meghan said, checking for cracks. “If we run into any problems, the island’s so small that we could walk if we have to, and come back and get them.” Meghan hopped onto the deep green bicycle that Pappy had always ridden, wobbling just slightly and working to get her bearings.
Tess’s bicycle leaned precariously toward Meghan’s until her friend got a hold of it. “Which way?” she asked.
“It’s been so long, I have no idea where to go. Let’s keep our eyes open for a coffee shop.”
They rode together down the single lane, a mixture of wiry grass and sand on either side, and a smattering of spindly palm and pine trees scattered along the lots that were filled with little cottages in different colors, until they came to the four-way stop. The rough seagrass had taken root on the corner and was blowing in the breeze.
It’s always windy here, Pappy would say.You can’t live in the Outer Banks unless you love the relentless wind.
As she looked both ways, she could almost swear she heard him add, “What is it you want, Meghan?” Holding her breath, she honed in on the sound of the breeze, hoping to hear more.
“Which way?” Tess asked.
“Let’s go right,” Meghan replied, the sound of the rushing air giving way to seagulls overhead and the hum of a car engine as it neared them. They pedaled along until she spotted a familiar brown bungalow with a neon sign that read Lost Love Coffee. Meghan pointed to get Tess’s attention. “There we go.”
The two of them pulled in and parked their bikes next to the wooden decking that wrapped around the building, and went inside. The eclectic interior was full of old framed photographs and long glass cases of memorabilia, with a coffee bar at the end.
“Oh, it’s a café and a little museum,” Tess said, already distracted by a vintage postcard under a glass box. “This says that it was the first postcard to make it to the island from a voyager on theTitanic. They’d mailed it prior to boarding,” she read.
Meghan went over to it, peering down at the slanting script:I will return, as we all do, to the sea.While the writer may have meant that they would return to the island, the eerie irony wasn’t lost on Meghan. “Who’s it to?” she asked.
Tess shook her head. “I can’t read it, can you?”
“It’s illegible,” the barista said from behind the counter, as she tucked a pen into her salt-and-pepper cropped curls. “But we could make out the second line just before it.”
Meghan squinted at the lettering, trying her hand at deciphering it.I’ll meet you at our spot. I’ll be early.“Wow,” she said, turning around to face the barista, wondering about who this person had left waiting.
“We have lots of relics—all pertaining to lost loves—from throughout the years.” The woman gestured to a wall of black-and-white photos, all of couples. “No one knows who any of those people are,” she said, “but we acquired all these things right here on the island.”
“Where do you get them?” Meghan asked, so interested that she’d forgotten all about her coffee. An old journal page caught her eye and she walked over to it.
“We find them in old houses or the second-hand store in town. That one there just came in.” She waggled a finger at a journal page under a block of glass.
“This one’s dated 1942.” Meghan leaned over Tess’s shoulder, peering through the case as she read the swirling, feminine text of the page that appeared to have been ripped from a book. “New York is terrifyingly large for a girl, but I’m managing. The city is who I am. I am enjoying the lights, the buzz, and the energy. But every now and again, it’ll hit me out of nowhere, missing him. It’ll punch me right in the gut. I love him. I always will. And I curse the forces that made me choose between my life and his.”
“That’s incredible,” Tess said. “I could feel her…”
“Me too,” Meghan said. “Life can really get in the way of things, can’t it?”
“Mm,” Tess agreed.
“Let’s get coffee,” Meghan said, before she started thinking about how life had had its own way withher. “Can we get two lattes, please?”
“Of course.” The barista hit a few keys on the cash register.
“I love this idea of old letters and things,” Tess said. “What if you played off your grandfather’s aesthetic and made the cottage retro?”
“I think right now, we need to just focus on making it clean,” Meghan laughed. “We still have so much to do…”
“Hey, are you John’s granddaughter, by chance?” the barista asked, pulling Meghan’s attention to her.
“Yes,” Meghan replied, eyebrows raised.
