“She’s only here for two years,” Jake said, though he wasn’t sure why he was arguing with them. They only heard what they wanted to hear.
“But plans change,” said Karl. “Especially when the heart is involved. Which brings us back to Jason.”
Sawyer caught Jake’s eye and gave a small nod toward Jake’s stool—he still had not sat down.
He shook his head no. This was not why he spent Friday nights at Law’s, to get caught up in the maddening machinations of the town matchmakers. So he turned around and went home.
Nora was finishing up at the clinic when she got a text. Hi. This is Maya. I got your number from Sawyer.
Nora and Sawyer had exchanged numbers and had spoken a couple times during the week about the naloxone situation.
Maya: Are you going to Lawson’s tonight?
She’d considered it. She wasn’t sure how informal the Friday-night thing was—did she need to be invited?
Maya: If you are, any chance you can order a pizza and sneak me a piece or two? Or seven?
Nora laughed. Sure. Or, and I know this is going to sound crazy, you could just order your own pizza.
Maya: I can’t. It’s complicated.
Maya: But also, that pizza is so freaking good I’m having literal dreams about it.
Nora: Understood on both fronts. I’m just about done at the clinic, so I can be there in ten.
When Nora arrived, Maya waved her over to a spot between herself and Sawyer. Eve was on Sawyer’s other side, and Pearl was on the next stool over.
Nora looked around subtly for Jake, but he wasn’t there.
Everyone made easy small talk, and when Law came to check on them, she said, “Can I order the mushroom pizza?”
Maya kicked her in the shin.
“Ow.” She turned to her assailant, who shielded her mouth from Law’s view but very clearly mouthed “Pepperoni.”
“Actually, make that pepperoni.”
“You got it,” Law said. “Small?”
Maya coughed.
“Uh, no, I think I’ll go for a large, thanks.” She turned toward Sawyer. “I had an idea about your measles problem this afternoon. The Mermaid Parade is coming up, right? What if I set up a public information booth along the parade route? Does it go down Main Street?”
“That’s a great idea,” he said. “The parade draws lots of families with young kids.”
“It’s not just about kids, actually. Most adults born from the seventies to the nineties never got a second dose of the MMR vaccine. It wasn’t standard practice then, but it is now. So there are lots of people walking around who need boosters to achieve full immunity. I was thinking we could distribute info sheets.”
“Why not actually set up an outdoor clinic?” Maya asked. “Like, give the shots right there?”
“I bet seeing prominent people in town getting their shots would make an impression,” Eve said. She swatted her boyfriend. “You should find out if you ever got a booster, Chief.”
“I doubt I did.” He turned to Nora. “My childhood wasn’t full of a lot of, ah, oversight.”
“Sawyer raised himself,” Pearl said. “And his sister.” She beamed at Sawyer like a proud grandma.
Sawyer shook his head, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “Anyway, assuming I need the booster, I’d be happy to be your first customer.”
“Oh! Oh! I have the best idea!” Maya exclaimed. “You could do it on a float in the parade.”
Law, who’d been popping in and out of the conversation, scoffed. “She’s not going to give shots on a float in the Mermaid Parade.”
“It would definitely be a great PR stunt,” Nora said, not wanting to hurt Maya’s feelings. “The problem is, I can’t just randomly give people shots. I would need to take a medical history and all that.” She turned to Sawyer. “If you’re up for doing that in advance, I can definitely shoot you up during the parade.” She made an apologetic face at Maya. “Maybe not in it. I’m not totally confident in my ability to jab people while on a moving vehicle. And the vaccines need to be refrigerated, so it gets complicated logistically. Maybe for now we just set up a table outside the clinic?”
“Works for me,” Sawyer said.
“Okay,” Maya said, “but you have to let me make advertisements. We can hang them on the floats and they can say, ‘Watch Sawyer get stuck with a needle in front of the clinic.’ Or some catchier version of that that I have yet to think of.”
“We can decorate the information table, too,” Eve said. “I have lots of paint left over from the renovation of the inn. Maybe we could make a big, colorful sign.”
“Of mermaids getting shots!” Maya exclaimed.
“Yes!” Pearl said.
“Flu shots, on the other hand,” Nora said, thinking out loud about this whole festival-vaccine connection that everyone seemed to be running with, “I can just give to people if I take down some info from them. Jake Ramsey told me there’s this town-only festival in early October? It’s a bit early, but I can see if I can order some vaccines in time for it.”
Suddenly Pearl and Maya, who had been yammering about vaccine-and-mermaid-related decor, went dead silent.
After an uncomfortable moment, Maya finally spoke. “Jake told you about the Anti-Festival?”
Law had arrived with her pizza—well, with Maya’s pizza—and he paused, holding it over the bar, his eyebrows raised.
“Yeah. Was he not supposed to? It’s some kind of inside joke, I gather?” Maybe she was too new to take part in it?
“No, no,” Eve said. “It’s not a secret—at least not from you. It’s just that Jake doesn’t…talk a lot.”
“I was actually thinking Jake could probably help me with a flu-shot clinic.”
“He’s the wrong person for that,” Sawyer said quickly.
“On the contrary, he’s the perfect person. There’s an argument to be made that when you know someone whose life has been affected by flu-related complications or deaths, you’re more likely to…” She trailed off, realizing that everyone was looking at her with some degree of shock. “What?”
“How did you know about Jake’s son?” Eve asked.
Why was she getting the feeling that she was treading on forbidden ground here? “He told me,” she said warily.
“He told you about Jude?” Sawyer’s tone was a combination of skeptical and defensive. Nora glanced at Maya, who was openly gaping.
“Uh, yeah?”
“He just came out and told you?” Pearl asked. She seemed less gobsmacked than the others, but she was looking at Nora with an intense curiosity that made Nora nervous.
Why did Nora feel like saying yes was somehow a betrayal of Jake? She didn’t have to answer, though, because Pearl got up. “I’m having an epiphany. I gotta go.”
Eve turned to Nora. “Sorry we’re being weird. Jake is kind of famous for being antisocial, so we were just a little surprised.”
“Antisocial?” Maya said. “Try mute.”
That didn’t accord with Nora’s impression of him. Yes, he didn’t seem like the kind of person who wasted words, or who hurried to interject himself into things—witness his silently watching over both the birth on the green and her confrontation with Rufus. But they had spoken easily, and, between the topics of his son and her loser ex-boyfriend, rather intimately.