This Is What Happy Looks Like(38)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

There was a line at the counter, so she lingered near the door, more than happy to take her time as she stood under the air vent. A small table beneath the window held the day’s newspapers, and she picked up the local one, leafing through it idly.

“What can I get you, kiddo?” asked Meg, the owner, who had walked down to the far end of the counter, a notepad in one hand and a pencil in the other.

“It’s okay,” Ellie said, waving a section of the newspaper. It was an unspoken rule that locals were served first here, but she was in no hurry to get back to Happy Thoughts, which felt like a furnace today. “I can wait.”

Meg shrugged. “You look hot,” she said. “Can I at least get you some lemonade or an iced tea or anything?”

“That’s actually what I’m here for,” Ellie admitted. “I’ll take two iced teas.”

Meg gave a little salute and then elbowed her way toward the back, while Ellie returned to the paper. She’d randomly grabbed the real estate section and was skimming a piece about how the disappearing shoreline on one of the barrier islands was affecting the price of the enormous homes there when she noticed a familiar name in a narrow column at the bottom:

As he prepares for a much-needed vacation over the coming holiday weekend, Senator Paul T. Whitman told reporters that he plans to leave work behind for a few days.

“We’ll be celebrating America’s birthday,” he said. “I can’t think of a better reason to knock off and relax with my family.”

The presidential hopeful will spend four days in scenic Kennebunkport, Maine, a town famous for being the summer home of former president George H. W. Bush.

So is Whitman, the senior senator from Delaware, trying to follow in the elder Bush’s footsteps?

“We’ll see,” he said, laughing. “But no politics this weekend. I’m just planning to take my boys out on the boat, catch some fish, and relax.”

Ellie lowered the paper, blinking fast.

Kennebunkport was less than an hour away, and it was this—the proximity of the thing—that made her hands tremble where she gripped the paper. She knew he was always out there somewhere, her father, but she was only ever aware of him in the way you’re aware of a distant planet, always moving, always orbiting around you but never getting close enough to really matter. All her life, she’d heard about him on the news, followed his speeches and campaigns, his family vacations, his dinner parties and fund-raisers, but she was no better informed than anyone else in the country.

He was, in a way, the very opposite of Graham. He was someone who, by all logic, Ellie should know better than anyone, someone who should be so much more to her than just a name in the paper, whereas there was no worldly reason she should ever have gotten to know Graham Larkin any better than the dozens of people lining up along the fringes of the set each day in the hope of getting his autograph.

The bell above the door jangled then, and when Ellie looked over, she drew in a sharp breath. It was as if he’d marched straight out of the thought in her head, materializing on the other side of the glass in a faded blue T-shirt that matched his eyes, which were hidden by a pair of dark sunglasses.

She was so startled to see him there that she found herself moving backward, and it took only two steps before she managed to bump into the display of gum and candy. The whole thing teetered for one horrible, endless moment before crashing to the floor, the packets falling heavily and one of the containers splitting wide open, sending pale green mints skittering in all directions like runaway marbles.

The entire back half of the shop turned to look. Graham pulled open the door the rest of the way, nudging his sunglasses down on his nose to peer over the lenses at the mess. But Ellie remained frozen in place, even as Meg dashed out from behind the counter with a broom. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she was saying, her words loud in the suddenly quiet shop. “I’d been meaning to move that display anyway.”

She brushed past Graham without any sort of acknowledgment and began sweeping up the mess as Ellie stood helplessly in the middle of the now-colorful floor. She was acutely aware of her dirty tank top, her messy ponytail, the fact that she’d spent the morning sweating in a corner of the shop occupied by a giant stuffed lobster. She realized she was still gripping the newspaper hard in one hand, and she rolled it into a tube, unable to think of anything to say. All she could do was stare uselessly at the floor.

Graham had let the door fall shut behind him, and without a word, he stooped down beside Meg, using both hands to gather the mints into piles while the rest of the customers looked on, apparently as dumbfounded as Ellie. She stared down at his broad back, the same back she’d followed up the beach that day, and her heart thumped hard against her chest. Even standing right below the vent, she was suddenly too warm again, her eyes prickly, her face tingling. She wondered if this is what heatstroke felt like.

“Disaster averted,” Graham said, straightening up again as Meg headed into the back with the broom. The other customers had started to remember why they were there in the first place, turning back to the counter to order their sandwiches, and to Ellie’s relief, the unnatural quiet that had settled over the shop dissolved again, giving way to the clink of silverware and the sound of laughter.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, unable to look at him, though she could feel his gaze like a kind of heat. He cleared his throat and pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, and when he raised an eyebrow, the moon-shaped scar above his left eye shot up as well. Ellie felt her heart jump in her chest, as if that too were connected by the same fragile string. She wanted to say something, but her tongue was thick in her mouth, and before she had a chance to even try, the door opened again, and once more, there was a collective hush as Olivia walked in, looking fresh-faced and unbearably cool.

“Sorry,” she said, walking right up to Graham. She held up her phone, the jeweled case flashing. “My agent.” She crinkled her nose at him, her eyes falling to a single green mint that was stuck to his knee. “Was that you on the floor?”

“We had a little situation,” he said, brushing it off. “Cleanup on aisle four.”

Olivia looked around distractedly. “Don’t they have someone else to do that sort of thing?”

“Yes, they do,” Meg said, suddenly beside them again, a sweating cup of iced tea in each hand. “You two looking for a sandwich or a table or both?”