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Danielle

A bell dings in the open window that separates the kitchen from the indoor dining area of The Blue Crab, and our cook lays a plate of crab cakes on the rustic wooden counter. When he sets a pitcher of Coke down next to it with a thud, some of the sugary brown liquid sloshes over the side, creating a puddle.

“Order up.” Jackson’s deep voice booms from the belly of the restaurant, and he slaps the counter twice.

I rush to grab the food, but footsteps behind me, along with the unmistakable tinkling of a dozen metal bracelets, cause me to swivel and face our boss.

“I’ll take this one, Dee. Go ahead and get out of here,” Edna offers, stepping around me. She removes a rag from her back pocket to wipe up the spilled soda. “You’ve been in every day this week. I’m sure you’ve got studying to do, and Honey is going to let me have it if your grades start to slip.”

“You’re daggone right, I will,” my grandma yells from the corner booth where she is eating her dinner and eavesdropping on everyone, as always. I’d like to say she’s here to visit me, but it’s more likely that she’s trying to get the scoop on our regulars.

“Thanks, Edna. I’ll head out now if you don’t mind. Regina should be here soon.”

After delivering the crab cakes and soda to their rightful owners, Edna slides across from her favorite partner-in-crime and steals a french fry from Honey’s plate. Honey swats her friend’s hand away, causing her own reading glasses to sway on the beaded chain where they hang around her neck. A second pair is perched on top of her head.

“You’re scheduling her too much, Edna. How is Danielle supposed to keep up with school?” Honey takes a long sip of her margarita, and a drop falls on her neon green cotton dress. It blends seamlessly with the dots of melted wax from her candle-making endeavors.

“She’s my best server. What do you want me to do?” Edna asks as she takes another fry.

“I’m a full-grown adult woman,” I remind them. “If there’s a problem with my classes or the schedule, I’ll let you know. Now I really am leaving.”

“Sure ya are.” Honey offers a half-hearted wave while she focuses on protecting her plate.

I only have a month left to go before I finish my associate’s degree at the community college. You would think my grandmother and my boss have no business discussing my grades. Yet, because this is North Bay, you would be wrong. In this town, everyone’s business is everyone else’s business. That should probably be the North Bay motto. It’s a great philosophy when people need help and the whole neighborhood rallies around them in hard times. Edna and Honey are exactly the gals you want on the phone tree when there’s a hurricane headed our way or the school needs to raise money to install a new water heater. Not so great when it comes to gossiping about my social life.

When Steve ended our relationship last Fall, it took three months for me to be able to make it through a shift without customers shaking their heads and asking how I was doing. I was fine, by the way. Eventually. If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that people rarely stick around. Men almost never do. That’s okay. I don’t need them. I’m secure being single. I just don’t want to talk about my self-centered ex every time someone orders a crab pretzel. Is that so much to ask?

I choose to ignore the rest of their discussion about my grades. I’m going to get out of here soon. Really, I am, but Regina is late and I don’t want to leave my tables without a server for long.

I turn back to Edna. “I’ll just check and see if Table Three has their crab dip first. You said you can give Honey a ride back to the house, right? Don’t let Jackson serve her any more drinks. You promised. We don’t need a repeat of last week.”

Honey mooned the sheriff last Tuesday and she came home in the back of his squad car. He let her off with a warning and a roll of his eyes because he didn’t feel like doing the paperwork it would have taken to book her. Good thing, because we can’t afford to pay another two-hundred-dollar fine for Honey’s shenanigans.

Edna nods and shoos me off with the rag that is still in her hand. She will definitely be sneaking Honey another frozen margarita right alongside that crab imperial.

North Bay, Virginia is known for three things: blue crabs, the Blue Crabs, and The Blue Crab. I promise those are three different things. The shellfish are self-explanatory. There are crabs here. A lot of them. Thanks to our location on the Chesapeake Bay, we are a prime habitat for the crustaceans that mate in brackish areas along the East Coast. Plus, our crabs really are blue before you cook them.

That’s why they named our minor league baseball team the Blue Crabs, and it’s also why Edna Plum dubbed her restaurant The Blue Crab when she opened it in 1987. I don’t think anyone would be surprised to discover what’s on the menu. Spoiler alert: It’s ninety percent crab.

Also not surprising is The Blue Crab restaurant being my place of employment. It’s not like there are many choices. When I’m not in school, I’m here. I need the money for tuition, and a girl only has so many options when the population of our entire county couldn’t fill half a shopping mall. I’m not exaggerating. When I say I live in a small town, we are talking only two traffic lights within a ten-mile radius. We have to drive almost thirty minutes to Marnock to find a McDonald’s. We share one high school with three other towns, and even if we had a football team, there would hardly be enough athletes to make a roster. North Bay Community College might not be a big school either, but at least it does offer a few teams, so their events can fill our social calendars. Sports are a big deal around here. When there is nothing else to do for miles, games tend to be the main events of the week.

Thanks to the Blue Crabs baseball team and their minor league stadium about twenty minutes outside of town, we also have a steady supply of professional baseball players, most of whom are in their twenties and passing through on the way to bigger opportunities. Praise be for that revolving door of testosterone (not that any of it is directed my way). Otherwise, the only option for us single folks would be to cycle through the handful of guys who have known us since we were in diapers. As my BFF Alice would say, a hearty no thank you to that .

My shift ended twenty minutes ago, but I’m still a little bit reluctant to leave before another server gets here to take over. I don’t want to leave my regulars to suffer the wrath of Edna and Honey, so I’m refilling their drinks and keeping their bread baskets stocked until Regina arrives. At least when she runs late I get to collect the extra tips. A vibration in my pocket causes me to pull out my phone, wondering if Regina has to bail on her shift and needs me to stay on. I know it can be hard for her when there is a childcare change at the last minute.

Nope, that’s not it. I shake my head as I read the latest message from North Bay’s biggest gossip. The one sitting three feet away from me.

Honey: You’re still here. I also noticed you never made it home last night. You forget how the car works or did my favorite granddaughter finally get lucky?

The text is followed by three winky faces and, for some inexplicable reason, a penguin.

“I’m right here.” I roll my eyes. “You don’t have to text me.” Honey’s flattery isn’t fooling anybody, I’m only her favorite because I’m also her only granddaughter.

“Yeah, but the messages have those fun little pictures. And when things are written down, I can go back and look at what you wrote. Sometimes I can’t remember what you said.” She uses her fist to knock lightly on the top of her head.

Add my sex life to the list of Things I’m Not Discussing with My Grandmother . It’s a long list. Even if she is the woman who raised me, my current roommate, and –fine I’ll admit it– one of my three closest friends, I’m not sharing any details with Honey Daniels. Mostly because there’s nothing to discuss, but also because she’s got the loudest mouth this side of the Potomac, and whatever I told her wouldn’t stay between us for long.

“Don’t pretend for one second you aren’t still as sharp as a tack. You just want to copy and paste what I tell you, then share it with your nosy friends. And for the last time, there’s nothing to tell. I was with Alice.”

Case in point: Edna Plum apparently already knows I’m walking the line between a B minus and a C in British Lit. Who knows what else Honey would share? I don’t need half of the North Bay senior citizen population offering their opinions about my lackluster dating life as I wait their tables.

Honey feigns innocence and bats her false eyelashes, making a big show of taking a bite of her crab imperial.

That reminds me.

“Table Three is still waiting on that crab dip,” I call to Jackson through the service window before I make a final sweep around the empty tables, wiping down the red vinyl cloths and refilling ketchup bottles and salt and pepper shakers.

It may be true that I didn’t make it home last night, but that has nothing to do with a hookup. In reality, I had a coffee date at Brew-Ha-Ha with Alice. Our only local coffee shop also offers open mic nights twice a week. People perform poetry, sing, or attempt stand-up comedy, hence the “ha ha” part of their name. We stayed for two acts, but it was underwhelming. A fifth grader read a few haikus, which was brave of her, and then one of the baseball guys was on stage attempting to play guitar in public for the first time. I know he was just learning because that’s what he told everyone, and also because he was terrible.

It didn’t matter. It was sort of fun to watch. There was a table full of other muscular men clapping and hollering for him. They sang along, loudly, as he did his best to strum through a few of Ed Sheeran’s bigger hits. At least he had a lot of support.

We sat at our own table and kept to ourselves for about an hour while Alice had her usual oat milk latte and I had a cup of chai. We had a few laughs before ducking out early. Then we went back to Alice’s apartment, where we watched reruns of Gilmore Girls until I was too tired to drive and fell asleep on her couch. That was the extent of my big night out.

“Here. I’m here.” Regina is out of breath as she hurries through the door. “So sorry. The babysitter was late again.” She smooths her hair in place with one hand, then ties her red half-apron around her waist. The white polo shirt she’s wearing won’t stay clean for long. Mine is already stained with smears of Old Bay and soaked with mystery liquids.

Regina is a single mom to a very sweet little girl named Emily. The two of them remind me of what it felt like growing up with my own mom. Before we moved to North Bay to be near Honey, it was always the two of us against the world. Plus, just like my mom, Regina is also chronically late.

My phone pings again with another text from Honey. This time it’s an eggplant emoji. I already regret telling her what that means.

“You’re fine. Table Nine needs ketchup, and we’re running low on fries, so push the potato salad. Good luck.” I smile at Regina, trying to hide how close I am to losing my patience, which, surprisingly, has nothing to do with how late she is.

I know my grandmother means well with her texts. Her heart is even bigger than her mouth, and that’s saying something. That’s why when I was a toddler and started calling her Honey, it stuck. But for crying out loud.

“It’s weird that you’re so much more concerned about my dry spell than I am. You know that, right?” I say, still facing her as I walk backwards toward the kitchen.

“Dry spell? Sugar, at this point it’s a full-blown drought.” I can hear Honey’s musical laugh and throaty voice still teasing me as I push my way through the swinging doors and into the back area of the restaurant.

As a child, I was supposed to call her Grams, but every time she saw me she’d say, “Hi, honey. How are ya?” I started saying it back and associating that phrase with her face. I guess my two-year-old brain thought Honey was her actual name. Now, nineteen years later, that’s what everyone calls her. It suits her better than Grams would have anyway. Honey is the sweetest, loudest, and most colorful woman I know. She’s had her fair share of time being the one up on stage performing at Brew-Ha-Ha, margarita in hand, especially if Edna Plum is there egging her on.

Honey retired from the library a few years ago. Now she sells her homemade candles at the farmer’s market every Wednesday and runs her book club each month, between said margaritas. She has also recently discovered how much she loves to text, so I find myself on the receiving end of messages like these quite a bit. Lucky me.

“Here, I made you a seafood club to go. Don’t forget we are hosting that crab feast after the game tomorrow.” Jackson hands me a foam take-out box that contains my favorite item on the menu. Our club sandwich is layers of crab cake and shrimp salad, separated by toasted bread and three pieces of bacon. He always puts extra bacon on mine.

“Thank you. You’re my favorite. And you can count on me tomorrow. We’ve got this.” Jackson and I are in charge of running the first large event of the year. He grunts and turns his attention back to the flattop grill.

I can see that Honey and Edna are still watching me through the circular window in the swinging doors, so I stick out my tongue. Oh hush. I balance the take-out box in the crook of my arm and type my two-word response to the eggplant with one hand, as I use the other to untie my apron and fling the red fabric over my shoulder. I grab my purse from the shelf behind the counter, waving to Jackson on my way out. As I’m deleting Honey’s messages, I notice I missed another text during my shift. Even though I’m tired from work and a little irritated with Honey’s prying, I can’t help my smile when I see the notification came from Jake, the friend I have saved in my contacts as the “Boy Next Door.”

BND : Hey. Let me know when it’s a good time for a quick call.

Me : Free now if you are, College Boy.

He is the one guy I’ve always been able to count on. Although, technically, Jacob Gibson did not live next door. He lived in his parents' house across the street. We met back before either of us could walk or talk, but we became real friends somewhere around age five when my grandfather passed away and mom and I started spending more time in North Bay to be near Honey. Jake’s family owns the waterfront land across from Honey’s property on Pinecrest Avenue, which makes them our closest neighbors. Besides his annual return for a few weeks each summer, Jake hasn’t lived with his parents for three years. He got himself a scholarship to Virginia Tech and now he’s at school full-time, three hours away.

My phone rings and his photo appears on the screen as I slide into the driver’s seat of the old gray Honda that Honey and I share, so I sit in the parking lot a few minutes longer to talk to him.

“Hello?” I adjust the vent to blow cold air directly onto my face and scan my surroundings to make sure no one can see me before I unhook my jeans and let my muffin top free. That button has been digging into my stomach for the last three hours, and I almost moan in relief.

“Hi, Dan-Dan.”

I roll my eyes as Jake greets me. He insists on calling me that just because he knows the nickname irritates me. Why my mom named me Danielle Daniels, I do not understand. But then again, there are a lot of things about my mother I will never understand. When I got to college, I started introducing myself as Danielle, and my full name is printed on the metal nametag pinned to my Blue Crab polo shirt at the moment, but those who know me from home still always call me some version of Dan, Dani, Dee, D.D., et cetera. There were even a painful few months in the fifth grade when some of the more popular girls started taunting me with the nickname Double D, ironically in reference to my then-non-existent chest. Thankfully, I’ve filled out quite a bit since then. Jake is the only person on the planet who calls me Dan-Dan.

“What’s up, Jake?”

“Hey, so listen. We’re hosting this philanthropy event to raise money for charity, and I thought maybe you’d be into it. It’s actually kind of several events, a full weekend of different activities. There’s a bonfire, a hotdog eating contest, and a bunch of other stuff. Then Saturday night there’s a formal gala, which is basically a dance with a silent auction at the end.”

“Um, cool, I guess. So, are you looking for sponsors to send you donations or something?” I glance over at the seat next to me, where the thirty-seven dollars in cash tips I made during today’s slow lunch shift is poking out of my apron pocket. I could probably send him ten bucks, but that feels lame. Honestly, I’d rather just send a donation straight to whatever charity it is than pay some drunk dudes to watch each other puke after eating one too many hot dogs. Plus, then Jake would never have to know how pathetically small my contribution was. Maybe I can ask Edna Plum if the restaurant would be a sponsor.

“No, Dan,” he scoffs. “I’m not asking you for money.” He pauses and his voice gets a bit softer. “I’m asking if you’ll come out and be my plus one for this stupid dance. It’s next weekend. I know it’s a long drive and short notice. Plus, I’m asking you to, you know, get out of the house and talk to strangers while you wear a dress.” I make a gagging sound into the phone and he laughs. “But I thought maybe you’d do it for me? Pretty please?”

My phone buzzes with a new text. He sent a selfie. Jake’s making a puppy dog face with a pouty lower lip. The word “please” is flashing in the corner in a neon cartoon font.

“Does that help you make a decision?”

“Your parents must hate that you are so into frat life now.” I’m aware that’s not an answer. It’s true, though. The Gibsons have always made their feelings clear about drinking, smoking, tattoos, piercings, and pretty much any kind of fun. Their views about all of those things can be summed up in one word: don’t. They had a conniption when Jake got his first tattoo. Obviously, they don’t get along with Honey at all.

“Of course they hate it, but don’t try to change the subject. Will you come?”

He’s playing it cool, but I know Jake well enough to hear the embarrassment in his voice. I know he’s disappointed to not have a date locked in yet, and I can imagine him fidgeting, shifting from one foot to the other as he waits for my answer. I stay quiet, thinking about the logistics of rearranging my shifts at work and if I would need to skip my Friday morning psychology class, before I give him an answer.

He continues, “I know it’s kind of a big ask, but I’m supposed to bring a date. I thought it would be cool to see you. If I have to wear a suit and be miserable kissing up to alumni donors, I’d rather do it with you. I know we’ll find a way to have fun. Otherwise, I’m going to have to deal with the added pressure of carrying on small talk all night with some hot sorority girl I barely know.”

“You’d rather take me than a girl who is actually attractive? Um, ouch, but fair I guess.” I keep my voice light, but I’m only half-kidding. I know he doesn’t look at me that way. I’m not delusional. I glance at myself in the rearview mirror. There are several strands of dull brown hair falling loose from the bun I hastily managed before work, and I sweat off the majority of my makeup while I was running in and out of the steamy kitchen for the past few hours. There are bags under my eyes and pit stains under my arms. “Hot” is not the first word I would use to describe me either, unless we’re talking about the temperature in this car.

“That’s not what I said, and you know it. Look, I’ll sleep on the floor and you can take my bed Friday and Saturday nights. Please? You’d really be doing me a solid. Otherwise, since I’m single and most of the brothers are already matched up, they are going to make me go with this chick from our sister sorority who hasn’t found a date yet either.”

“Sounds like a real hardship for you.”

“To be honest, she’s incredibly annoying.” He lowers his voice to near a whisper. “I’ve heard her say ‘pacifically’ instead of ‘specifically’ more than once. Plus, I don’t think she remembers my name. She refers to me as, and I quote, ‘the tall one obsessed with Lord of the Flies.’”

“Yikes. Okay, that is annoying.” Jake’s entire left arm is covered in The Lord of the Rings tattoos. It’s his favorite book. Mixing up the two is a cardinal sin in his eyes. “But if she’s so hot, surely you can overlook these tiny flaws in your future bride. What’s the big deal about mistaking an ocean for an adverb?” I tease.

He doesn’t take the bait. “Come on, please? Don’t make a man beg.”

“Ugh, fine. As long as Regina can take my shifts.” I know she will. She’s been asking around, trying to pick up more hours so she can put Emily in ballet classes.

“Cool. Thanks, Dan-Dan. Looking forward to it.”

“Text me when you have some more information about the events, please. And don’t call me Dan-Dan.”

“Sure thing, Dan-Dan.”

Click.

I shift the car into gear and pull out of The Blue Crab’s unpaved lot. I know absolutely nothing romantic is going to come out of a night with Jacob Gibson, but at least now I can tell Honey I have a date and maybe she’ll get off my back. I’m ready to get home and eat my sandwich in peace.