Page 11 of Forgotten Path

“Sure.” An idea struck her. “You can stay at Joel’s instead of getting a hotel room. You know he wouldn’t mind.”

“Uh…” he hedged.

“He’d insist, Bodhi.”

It was true, and they both knew it. Still, he demurred.

“I don’t know, Felicia.”

“The door was unlocked,” she blurted.

“Pardon?”

“When I went to Joel’s camper to look for him, I was prepared to break in if I had to, but the door wasn’t locked. I just walked right in. It was like he was expecting company. Maybe he was expecting you.”

She winced at how woo-woo she sounded. But apparently, the woo-woo held some sway over Bodhi.

“Maybe he was.”

“So, is that a yes?”

“It’s not a no,” he told her.

She rattled off Joel’s address in case he didn’t have it.

CHAPTERSEVEN

Bodhi stood in front of Joel’s door, waved goodbye to his ride-share driver, and watched her pull away from the camper in a cloud of dust. He was eager to get inside to escape the sun and pour himself a glass of cool water. Then he thought better of his plan.

He grabbed his backpack from between his feet and looped his arms through the straps. Once the weight was settled evenly on his back, he followed the car tracks past Joel’s Jeep and crossed the road to the tiki bar and restaurant he remembered from his last visit to Sugarloaf Key.

He followed the path from the shoulder down to the lot and stopped. His jaw hinged open. The roadside joint was gone. He turned in a slow circle as if the establishment might materialize out of the empty sandlot. After a moment, he shrugged. His memory was usually impeccable, but he must have misremembered. Maybe it was further up the road, around the bend.

He walked about fifty yards before he spotted the food cart tucked in between two palm trees. It wasn’t even a proper food truck with the metal paneling and the round exhaust fan stuck on the roof. This was a little cart, the type he’d expect to see hawking hot dogs in New York or soft pretzels in Philadelphia.

He crossed the lot to satisfy his curiosity and thought perhaps he was more like Eliza Doolittle than he realized. When he reached the cart, he ducked under the striped beach umbrella to seek respite from the blazing sun and read the hand-lettered sign: Mango Mike’s.

“Wasn’t there a restaurant here before?” he asked.

The teenager perched on the stool behind the cart glanced up from his phone. “Uh, yeah. Mangrove Mama’s. It’s still here, but it’s closer to the beach, my dude.”

“I could have sworn it was right across from the campsite,” Bodhi murmured, mainly to himself.

The young guy bent his sun-bleached head and returned to his scrolling without comment.

Bodhi studied the menu. Even though the kid didn’t seem old enough to serve alcohol, all the drinks were boozy.

“Could I have a mangrove iced tea? Hold the rum.”

“Sure. I … uh … I don’t know what to charge you, though. Nobody’s ever asked for a virgin before.” He gave Bodhi a quizzical look.

“I’m working.”

The look lengthened, starting at the top of Bodhi’s mop of too-long curls, paused to take in his thin green tee-shirt and wrinkled cargo pants and finally landed on his sandals.

“Sure, okay.” He shrugged and dropped a scoopful of ice into a tumbler.

Bodhi noticed the description of the Doc-a-ri, a frozen mango and jalapeño daiquiri concoction. He pointed to the board.