Page 96 of Totally Shipped
A woman in a parked car meets my eye. She immediately gets out and starts pacing towards me. The automatic doors swoosh open as she approaches.
“Brooke?”
I don’t know this woman, at least I don’t think I do.
“Err, hi?”
“So glad to see you,” she beams. “And you look amazing, considering what you’ve been through.” She leans forward and gives me a hug. Does Brooke know her? She must do!
“How are you?” I ask, wishing I could say ‘who are you?’ instead.
“Good, good.” She grins and looks at Keyara in the store. “Getting some retail therapy in?”
“Key’s looking for a book,” I tell her.
“Oh, I can totally bring her some books in! I’ll do that this afternoon.”
“Wow, thanks, that’s so kind of you.” I start to relax. I’m sure I can bluff my way through this. OK. I can always blame any flubs on island amnesia.
“You want to sit?” she asks. There are a few tables and chairs scattered around the lobby.
“Sure,” I walk over to Key. “I’ll be sitting over there,” I tell her, gesturing.
“OK,” she mumbles, not looking up from her book.
My ‘friend’ pulls out a chair for me. “Thanks.”
“Of course! Can I get you a coffee or tea?”
“No, no, I’m good.”
“I imagine coffee hits you pretty hard, having gone without caffeine for so long!” she laughs. This woman has a loud laugh. And piercing eyes. As she looks at me, it’s like she’s taking account of my every detail.
“OK, humor me here,” she says. “But what is the thing you missed the most when you were on the island?”
“Erm, well…” I don’t know how to answer that. It’s a huge question. And I don’t even know who this woman is. I decide to give her a non-answer. “The thing I missed most was my toothbrush.” I tell her with a smile.
“Ooh, interesting! Not your family?”
I don’t answer, so she plows on with another question. “It must have been awkward being the only woman on the island…”
Is that a statement or a question? I give a noncommittal shrug. “Not really.”
Her face turns serious. “And poor Harvey, what a tragedy. What a terrible thing to happen to him. Just awful.”
How does she know what happened?
“It was terrible,” I whisper. “I can’t talk about it.”
“Of course, of course.”
“DAISY!” Key shouts. I look at her and she clamps a hand over her mouth for a second, then shouts again. “BROOKE!”
I’d asked Keyara to call me Brooke while we were sorting everything out. She knows everything about my switch, of course. It's a hard thing for her to remember though. She comes skipping over.
“Brooke, I made my choices!”
I smile at the woman opposite me. “I’d better sort out these purchases. Err, nice to see you.”
