Page 32 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
Maybe you’re doubly surprised I didn’t take Micah’s name when we married or even completely changed my name when I left Bluster. But names are strange things; like ants, they carry far more weight than their size. For all my desperation to cleave myself from my mother, I’d had that name from the day of my birth. It was braided into who I’d grown to be and how I understood myself. I’m not an Ashley or a Kiera or a Bonnie. I am Marilyn Leonora Braddock, daughter of a woman with the same name.
Leo to friends and strangers alike. Lennie to a special two.
It was far more potent a break, and far safer for my own sense of self, to simply call myself Leo. That name felt like mine at once. And it would have enraged my mother to know I’d turned ‘her’ name into a ‘boy’s name.’
The doorbell rang. That would be Roman.
“Got it, Mom!” Wyatt called as he trotted up the hallway.
I closed my eyes and forced all thoughts of that woman back into the shadows where they belonged. Then, with one more check of my look in her antique mirror, I fluffed my hair, stoodand did a quick spritz-and-walk through my favorite cologne, and went out to meet my ... whatever he was.
ROMAN WAS DRESSED FORa date.
He wore black trousers and a medium blue button-up shirt that I thought was silk at first glance (it turned out to be a really nice, high thread-count cotton). Over the shirt he wore a fashionably weathered leather jacket in that cool color like a baseball glove. His usually tousled hair was neatly combed, and his close-cropped beard had extra sharp edges. Also, he smelled of expensive cologne. I hoped our ‘scent profiles’ didn’t clash.
Wyatt had let him in, and they both stood on the other side of the guest counter, seeming to have already dived into a big conversation. Roman looked over as I came into the living room, and his smile was warm and intimate and for only me.
I almost had another of those time-machine moments, complete with guilt and fear, as I realized I’d seen that kind of smile on his face before. For Mrs. Mendoza, when she’d come out from getting dressed for date night.
Roman and I really had a lot to talk about.
“Hey,” he said, as I came around the end of the counter. “You look great.”
“Thanks,” I answered, smiling—and also thinking that ‘great’ might be something you told a friend about their look, so maybe this wasn’t a date after all? “You look good, too.”
“You ready to go?”
I grabbed my denim jacket off the coat rack. “Yep.” To Wyatt, I instructed, “Stay in the house, and call me if you need anything. There’s cold fried chicken in the fridge for supper.”
My dear son rolled his eyes at me. “I know, Mom. I put it there. And where would I go? I don’t have any friends yet. Or a driver’s license.”
“Fine. Don’t set anything on fire or destroy anything.”
“Well, I’m gonna be bored, then.”
Roman laughed as I tugged Wyatt’s ear. I noticed that his gaze lingered on Wyatt a few seconds longer, while his amusement seemed to fade away. Then he smiled at me and opened the door. “After you.”
ON THE WAY TO THE RESTAURANT, Roman and I kept the conversation to small talk. I was feeling awkward, possibly being on my first first date in close to twenty years and not even sure I was on a date, and I think maybe Roman was feeling awkward as well. Or I was projecting. In any case, as we buckled our seat belts, I complimented his ride—a Rivian electric pickup—and he thanked me, and then we were quiet for a few minutes until Roman asked me how Wyatt and I were settling in at the Sea-Mist. I considered mentioning the damage to Cottage 12 and that weird encounter with Manfred but ended up choking and only saying we were settling in fine.
It was weird and uncomfortable, that drive to the restaurant.
But finally we were in town, on Marina Street. Roman pulled into a small lot next to Trattoria Siciliana.
When I lived here as a kid, this building had been a kind of seedy, extremely popular taco shack. I could not tell you if it had an actual name; the only designation on the building had been a big piece of hand-painted plywood over the door, dominated by the word TACOS in big, vivid red letters. Everybody simply called the place ‘the taco shack’—but we kids were more likely to turn to our friends and go, “Tacos?” To which they’d invariably answer, “TACOS!” and everyone knew what we all meant.
Trattoria Siciliana was several steps higher on the ‘nice’ scale. The stucco building, which had been painted an eye-popping yellow with electric blue trim, was now a calmer, more naturalstone color. The trim was stained wood, and the door—also stripped of its Crayola color and stained something like walnut—was sheltered by a pergola, with grapevines wrapped and draped over it. A sign with the restaurant’s name in elegant script hung from a beam of the pergola.
Roman led me through the front door with his hand at my lower back (date?), and we entered a place that looked as if it could not possibly have once housed a seedy taco shack with cheap Formica tables and stackable chairs shoved at the walls as indoor seating. The walls were now distressed plaster, and landscape paintings (probably of Italy) and plants that were either real or excellent fakes provided the décor. The floor was smooth flagstone. Seating was square tables, four-tops and two-tops, each covered with a white linen tablecloth and matched with upholstered chairs. The lighting was romantically low, and each table had a wicker-wrapped chianti bottle with a lit taper in its mouth. Pretty instrumental music played at a soothing volume.
Definitely not a shack. A date place.
The host, a slim twenty-something woman dressed in the usual host uniform of a little black dress and ballet flats, led us to a table snugged into a cluster of tall potted plants in a secluded corner. It was looking likely that we were on a date.
But then Roman sat without pulling my chair out. Normally, I don’t care about or even notice stuff like that, but on that evening, when I was trying to figure out what this dinner was, it seemed like a not-date sign.
I was very confused.
We sat, and the host handed us each a menu in a handsome leather folder. I was starting to get worried that Trattoria Siciliana was a three-dollar-sign place, but the menu had prices, and they weren’t awful. It wasn’t the taco shack, but it wasn’t the French Laundry, either.
