Page 61 of Right Side of Paradise

New Beginnings

Lyric greeted me with a bowl of cut mangoes when I walked into her shop on Thursday, her eyes bright and her smile easy.

One thing I’d learned in the week since shadowing her was that this girl liked to eat.

And if she wasn’t making jewelry, she was eating.

Or about to eat. Or planning what she was going to eat in the next hour.

There was no occasion too small for a snack.

Inventory? Snack.

Catching up on emails? Snack.

Printing shipping labels? A bigger snack.

And she was always in a sharing mood. I’d been anxious and hungry enough in the last week to appreciate that about her.

Right now, my period was turning me every which way but loose, but I guessed the alternative wasn’t one I wanted.

Still , I couldn’t lie and say taking a nine-month hiatus from Aunt Flo hadn’t crossed my mind more than once in the last few weeks.

Maybe that had just been my ovulating brain playing tricks on me.

There was something about the way Rico held us down that made me want to give him a baby.

Something about the gentleness Soul showed all of us that made me want to be walking around growing his child.

Something about the quiet comfort and love I got from Christian that kinda made me hope—and pray —it’d be twins.

We were making up for lost time and?—

“Girl, what the hell you get into last night that got you zoned out like this? You ain’t heard a word I said since you walked in here.”

My cheeks warmed more under her attention than they had in the sun earlier, and I couldn’t help but bite my lip. “Sorry, what’s up?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Her eyes tapered into playful slits. “You know what? I’d be looking like that too if I had three men to spoil me every day when I went home.”

There was nothing in her words I wanted to deny, so I grabbed the toothpick she offered and pierced the juicy fruit before bringing it to my mouth.

Our secret was pretty much out all over Onyx Cove. Everybody knew.

Christian’s parents.

Soul’s brothers.

Mr. Tiny.

Ms. Tabitha at Soul’s gym.

Lyric.

Simeon.

Zay.

And not surprisingly, they all cited the same well-meaning but loose in the lips source: Edith Westbrook.

I didn’t know what it was about knowing her granddaughter had three boyfriends that made her want to go tell it on the mountain, but she wasn’t letting up.

It wasn’t like we’d been hiding it from anyone. We’d been outside all summer and all over each other while doing so.

For the most part, life kept moving. Minus a few good-natured jokes, nobody paid us and our quad any mind. Which made my mother’s blow up feel that much more out of pocket.

Eleven days and she still wasn’t talking to me. Even after I knew she and Rico shared words at my grandmother’s house. It ate me up for a few days, but I was proud of myself for not fawning or reaching out to her.

And the more time passed, the easier it became.

Shaking away the thought, I looked around the shop and the natural light soaking every corner.

“Ooh, before I forget, I brought you something,” I said, setting my bag on the counter beside her register.

I pulled out the drawstring sachet stuffed with seashells and slid it to her.

“Girl, there’s about twenty-five banded tulips and five junonia shells in here.” Lyric slid me a look full of curiosity. “You giving them to me?”

“Yeah, you said they were your favorite shells to create with, but you don’t get a lot of them. So, I went through my collection and figured…”

I shrugged, trying to mask the shyness creeping in. I was thirty years old and still hadn’t grown out of randomly losing my nerve in the middle of sentences.

I cleared my throat and met her kind eyes. “I have over fifty banded tulips and I found some of those junonias after a storm while I was traveling through Fort Myers a few years ago. I’m sure anything you do with them will be better than sitting in my box.”

For years I’d been hoarding memories, now I wanted to see what she could make with those memories.

Playfully, Lyric shoved my shoulder and plucked one of the cognac spotted shells out of the bag. “When I decide what to make, you’re getting one of whatever it is.”

For the next few minutes, she got her shop and workstation set up for the day, then came to sit on the stool beside me behind her checkout counter.

“Okay, let’s get started for the day.”

“What motivates you to keep creating in Onyx Cove as opposed to other markets?”

“It’s my home. I can’t leave.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.” She cocked her head before placing the waist chain she was working on on the table.

“I won’t abandon the place that made me.

But to be real, even if I didn’t adore the island, I’d stay out of spite just so some random from out of state didn’t end up with my shop and apartment. I deserve it more than they do.”

Ducking my head to laugh, I scribbled down her reply and went back to doodling in the margins of my notebook.

“Spite as motivation? I’m not even mad at that.”

Getting a storefront on Rainbow Row was damn near impossible, and Lyric had managed to do it. The other businesses on this strip were twenty and thirty years old, while hers was less than five. Once people got a space here, they didn’t leave.

She was doing something right. That much was evident from the work ethic and passion I’d witnessed since starting this project.

“More than motivation, I feel a sense of obligation to this island.” She popped a grape in her mouth. “It’s gonna sound cliché, but motivation fades. I keep going because I was blessed to. I know I can leave and join other companies that have more resources to push my work to a larger audience.”

Retrieving my old Nikon Coolpix from my bag, I snapped pictures of her as she talked with her hands. In the week since I’d been here, I’d captured at least thirty different candid shots of this woman. But she was so animated it was hard not to.

“But it wouldn’t be the same. I like the flexibility and control I have here. I work long hours with the view of the ocean across the street and my sister a few doors down. Nothing beats home.”

I heard that . I nodded in silent agreement. This was the longest I’d been home in years, and I didn’t know how I’d managed to stay away for all that time.

Everything had its season, and I was moving into the season that wanted me settled and close to home.

“So yeah, I owe it to my hometown and myself to use the skill I’ve been perfecting since I was a teenager and thought Soft Shell Crafts was the most clever name ever for a business.

” She looked wistful and toyed with the cowrie shells around her neck.

“Onyx Cove is in my heart as much as my art, and that won’t ever change. ”

Twenty minutes later, her shop opened for the day. Three hours after that, Soul walked in with a bag full of barbecue from his dad’s restaurant and ate with us.

For the rest of the day, I blended into the background, silently observing and piecing Lyric’s story together.

By the time Rico showed up at four to pick up me and Soul, I climbed in the backseat and undid the scrunchie holding my hair in place.

The breeze caressed my scalp like an old lover, and I closed my eyes in contentment. Soul and Rico were talking about dinner, but the only thing on my mind was that things were falling into place.

When it came to my life and the people I got to spend it with, I knew I was doing something right. Everything wasn’t perfect. I’d been alive long enough to know it never would be. But at least I’d landed on the right side of paradise.