"We should probably go to the beach later," said Mom, turning her face up to the Florida sun. The early light lovingly burnished the dark russet shades in her hair.

I shrugged my shoulders noncommittally, my knee bouncing underneath the table, as I watched an excited black Labrador running into the water in pursuit of its frisbee.

It was still early and not many people were on the beach yet, mostly just the diehard joggers and the fishermen on the pier. The waves were no more than ripples brushing the sand with languid strokes. The humidity had already plastered my hair damply to my neck.

"It'll be your last swim for a while," she went on, her smile indolent.

"I'll have you know—" with amusement "—there are beaches in Alaska, Mother."

Mom favored me with a deadpan expression. "Better pack your drysuit then."

I snickered. God, I'd miss my mother. How had I, a solitary moth, come from such a beautiful social Butterfly? A question I pondered often.

We were sitting in our usual seats at The Turtle. The cafe, like the beach, was largely empty at this early hour. I had hung my apron up for the last time yesterday afternoon, and it was disquieting to realize that I would no longer be slogging around these wobbly tables for middling tips. And, tragically, I would no longer get to perv on Andy anymore.

All my raunchiest fantasies featured Andy. Only in my daydreams did I have the confidence to manhandle him like a drunken cheerleader—my fists balled in his shirtfront to yank him down for a passionate snog. Afterward, I'd shoot him a flirty wink and then master the perfect pirouette on my six-inch heels before walking out and leaving him absolutely gobsmacked and hopelessly in love with me (a toothless Mr. Horvath cheering me on all the while). Obviously it would be the best kiss of his life, and obviously (in this fantasy at least) I'd be wearing the type of sexy black barely-there dress I'd never have the guts to wear in real life, and his eyes would, all the while, be glued to my backside as I made my grand exit. Then he'd rush out after me and—

"Can you hear me, Major Tom?"

In an instant, the daydream dispelled like fractured glass. I turned a guilty flush towards my mom who was waving her hand in my face. "Hmm?"

"Where'd you go?"

"Nowhere interesting," I lied. "Was just 'floating around my tin can', ya know?"

"Uh-huh. Well, you had a really strange look on your face."

I hurriedly misdirected her with a pithy response. "You mean the look of abject terror? Yeah, moving across the country will do that to a girl."

"Actually you were smiling like a lunatic. So either you're really excited about dog-sledding and woolly long johns...or you're thinking about finally proposing to Andy."

God, she knew me way too well. "I've already bought the engagement ring," I joked.

"And his one-way ticket to fireside paradise."

I waved my hand dismissively. "Nah, I'd planned on restraining him with some pink fluffy cuffs and shoving him in my suitcase."

"Don't forget to poke breathing holes in your luggage then." Her smirk no doubt mirrored mine, but after a moment her gaze turned serious. "You are excited about the move, though, right?"

"Excited. Nervous. I can't tell one from the other most of the time." Both made me feel light-headed. Admitting to my mother that I was afraid was easy, but to Gramps I never could. He'd just tell me that I could "find sympathy in the dictionary between shit and syphilis". I dropped my gaze to the insipid bowl of grits in front of me, finding it poignant that my life, till now, sort of resembled it—colorless and unappetizing. I'd also discovered an intrusive little hair squatting in my porridge, and it certainly wasn't mine. Gross. "Flight's booked," I went on, pushing the bowl aside, "I'm going. Gramps did say I should figure my shit out." Actually, he'd told me to pull my head out of my ass and do something with my life, but I wasn't going to split hairs.

"Yeah, but you can do that just as well here as in Alaska."

"And miss out on all the excitement in Thorne Bay? Never!"

She gave a snort and leaned back, aware that I was sublimating my anxiety with humor. "Just playing devil's advocate."

"Besides, I have a better chance of 'adulting' properly if I do it on my own. Away from here." It was always way too easy to run to my mommy or hide in my room with Carmilla and Frankenstein, and all my other favorite gothic horrors. "Anyway, I thought you were onboard HMS Alaska Bound? Kinda sounds like you want me to change my mind."

"I am onboard," she replied, "and this will be good for you, but I'm still going to miss you, kiddo. A part of me will never be ready for you to leave home. That's the part of me that wants to keep you here under my wing and convince you to travel the world another time."

"But if I don't do this now something tells me I'll suddenly wake up when I'm sixty and be suffering under the misconception that 'seeing the world' means borrowing my mother's car to go to Publix for tampons."

"You probably won't need tampons by then, dear," she quipped.

"Poligrip for my dentures then." Glancing over to the booth nearby, to where Mr. Horvath was reading his paper, I spied his dentures propped predictably in his water glass.

He was one of the regular patrons and that toothy water glass was my old nemesis. Every time I served his breakfast, I half expected the creepy teeth to jump out and nip my fingers. That was about as exciting as my days ever got over here—either tripping on Mrs. Goldstein's poodle or spilling Mr. Horvath's denture water down my shirtfront. All of it was so familiar and dull as dishwater. Except, of course, for the few perv-worthy halcyon days when Andy was around helping his parents in the cafe.

The snarling water glass gave me the heebie-jeebies. "There are scarier things than moving to Alaska."

"True. What's the worst that could happen?"

"Umm, I get eaten by rabid wolves?"

"Well, there is that," she chuckled. "By the way, how many times did you throw that dart at the map?"

With a guilty smirk, "Why would you think I threw it more than once?"

She shot me a knowing look. "That many, huh?"

I answered with a noncommittal shrug. On my first attempt, the dart had landed in the Sahara. Then in the middle of the Amazon jungle on the second try. I wasn't brave enough to tempt fate by ignoring the little arbiter of my destiny a third time, so to Alaska I would go.

"Well, just don't leave because of Gramps. Do this for the right reasons, okay?"

I nodded, but nothing short of being mauled to death by Goldstein's poodle was going to keep me from pulling anchor and heading north. When I'd told Gramps two weeks ago that I'd just go ahead and throw a damn dart at a map and go wherever it landed (except the Amazon and the Sahara) if it meant I didn't have to listen to his nagging me about my future anymore (or lack thereof), I'd never imagined I'd actually call his bluff. Nor had he. But my wrecked nerves were well worth it just to prove him wrong.

My flight was booked, my bags were packed, the logistics were finalized, and all arrangements had already been made with Alison and Owen. The countdown had commenced. In twenty-four hours I'd be in Ketchikan. Though the dart had actually landed in Ketchikan, I was heading to Thorne Bay because that was where Mom's old college friend, Alison, lived with her husband, Owen, who, I'd been told, was a very colorful character. They were the owners of the hunting Lodge I was going to spend my summer working in.

"I know your grandfather's a tough old nut," Mom continued after a while, "but he means well. You know, when I was your age I wanted to be an actress, but he told me that wasn't a 'real job'. So I ditched drama school and gave up the dream. Got a business degree instead."

"An actress, huh?"

"Yup." Her eyes flashed mischievously as she took a sip from her coffee mug. "I guess now we'll never know whether or not Chris Hemsworth could've been your father."

Snorting into my ice tea, I patted her hand condescendingly. "Okay, cradle-snatcher."

She winked. "Men like older women."

"I'm sure they do," I rejoined, "until they hit their mid-life crisis and trade their ole lady in for a gold-digging twenty-something twinkie. So unless you're sporting Texas curls and plastic boobs, you got no chance, mama."

Mom winced. "You're too young to be this cynical, Ev."

I knew I was. Kids from broken families usually were. "I call it like I see it." And I'd seen my dad do it enough times. But a subject change was in order before Mom got it in her head to start talking about my fath—

"Have you spoken to your father lately?"

Dammit! "Nope," was my terse reply.

"He might have wanted you to—"

"Hang out in Cape Town and play third wheel to his fifth wife, what's-her-face?" I knew exactly what she had been going to say. "I'll give that tempting idea a pass, thank you very much." My mouth dropped at the corners.

"Okay, fine." Mom held her hands up placatingly and let the matter drop.

If my dad wanted to speak to me, he could bloody well pick up a phone and dial my number for a change. The perfunctory Sunday phone calls, since Mom and I moved to Florida a few years back, had by now retrograded into yearly Christmas and birthday calls.

Anyway, I was twenty-one now. Too old to fake interest in my absentee father. And he, likewise, felt the same about me—the mediocre daughter with the two failed degrees and the crumby dead-end waitressing job (oh wait, I was officially unemployed now).

At least my stint in the cafe had diluted some of my introversion and given me a little financial freedom. I'd even saved enough Benjamins to pay my own way to Alaska. Not for a minute had I entertained the idea of letting my grandfather defray the cost of my flight, even though that was technically the consequence of losing the bet. Yeah, he'd bet me a plane ticket that I didn't have the guts to go. Ha!

By now the eggs on Mom's plate were ice cold, the golden yoke having bled across her toast ages ago. Like me, she'd become lost in her own thoughts. But we were both startled from our reveries as the object of my earlier fantasy, Andy himself, materialized at our silent table with his usual, easy charm. My heart syncopating wildly at the unexpected sight of him—I'd been so cruelly starved of his presence. A whole two days!

"Morning, ladies," he drawled, his voice smokey and rich.

Marry me! "Hey, Andy." That I even got his name out without breaking out into hives was miraculous. Realizing that I was still waving awkwardly, I grimaced and quickly dropped my hand, abruptly knocking my ice tea over onto his shorts. "Omigod! I'm so sorry!" I half sobbed, beyond mortified. At that moment I would have given anything for a sinkhole to appear under my chair.

"It's fine," he said, trying to reassure me with a polite smile that I suspected really meant, "I actually prefer my shorts to look like I've pissed myself, so thanks."

Despite the location of his unfortunate wet spot, he chin-wagged with my mother a little while longer, dabbing periodically at his shorts with a napkin as I squirmed in my chair. Alas, there was no sinkhole to the rescue. Finally, though, with a languid wink, he left us, removing himself a safer distance away from my clumsy hand to head towards another table where two of his equally hot friends were seated

I dropped my forehead against our table with a groan and glanced to the side to see that Andy's friends were now laughing at the stain over his crotch. The fact that he was still grinning good-naturedly made me feel even worse about what I'd done.

Mom gestured for our server to bring the check over, and then she snuck me a knowing wink. "Whoa, you've got it bad, kid."

"Jeez! Why don't you speak a little louder, I don't think he heard you."

"Have you got the pink cuffs here?" she whispered loudly, leaving thirty dollars on the table. "It's now or never."

"Hilarious, Mother," I groaned, my skin mottled as we stood to leave.

From Andy's table, I could feel the hot pressure of male gazes following as I passed. Thankfully, though, I managed not to trip and fall on my face as I left the cafe for the last time.