Chapter 4: Gift Shop (Excerpt)
An old woman watched them from her perch on a stool behind the front counter. She was round and flabby. Parts of her oozed over the side of the stool. Her face was red and rough. Above her scowl, her hair stuck up like wires.
Alison remembered what it felt like to be overweight, not that she’d ever been as big as the old woman. She wondered for a moment if that’s what she would have eventually looked like if she hadn’t started eating better and exercising more. If Olivia hadn’t helped her. Alison felt kind of sorry for the old woman who had no Olivia in her life. Maybe she didn’t have anyone in her life. Alison smiled at her, but the old woman just kept scowling. This annoyed Alison. This is why I never bother to be nice to people.
Even this far up the highway, there were Cape November postcards and magnets, picture frames and ashtrays. Some showed the beach or the ocean, but they could have been of any beach as far as Alison could tell. There were a few old-fashioned sepia pictures of old cars and men in suits with derby hats and women in long hoop skirts. A few faded postcards showed a lighthouse that looked like it was made of blue stone blocks.
But the place was more like an antiques store than a gift shop. There were sets of old dishes, racks of men’s neckties, a whole row of used coffeemakers, all shoved next to each other with no order, just chaos.
As Alison moved farther in, the shelves became more cluttered and dusty. A black mug caught her eye. Examining it, she saw a dark sky over a stormy ocean. Huge octopus tentacles reached up out of the waves. Blue, dripping letters spelled, Beware of Cappy. Alison shivered slightly and set down the mug. The whole place was giving her the creeps, and she was sorry she’d come in. Alison glanced back at the old woman. Still scowling.
Alison found Olivia, moving from shelf to shelf, picking up a ratty old pocketbook and then a huge desktop lighter. She was fascinated by stuff like that. Olivia was curious about everything, like a little kid in some ways. Each new thing she would pick up and show Alison. They laughed together. It felt good.
They laughed like that the night before when they were packing. Alison had spent an hour giving Olivia a killer pedicure, and then she hid her toes inside her stupid running shoes. She had probably destroyed the pedicure, but Alison had learned a long time ago that it wasn’t worth getting annoyed at Olivia for things like that. That was just Olivia. She was proud to be clueless about fashion.