In the end Jesse convinced Jamie to get into his truck and go into town with him, instead of mashing her cousin’s face into the wood of the kitchen table. They stopped at the Lemon Drop Café and had a coffee and a piece of pie each. Jamie had to admit that she felt a lot better now.
“I guess it’s just one of those days,” she said. “Sorry that it’s your first with us. They aren’t all like this.”
Jesse shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
They were seated at a small table in the back of the café. It was a quaint place with just about every flat surface covered in frills and doilies, and everything was lemon and white. The décor had never been Jamie’s taste so she’d never come in, thinking it would all be too girly even for her. But there was no denying that the pie was just out of this world.
“Hey! What you doing here?” a voice called across the room.
Jesse turned. Then he stood up with an expansive gesture saying, “Bro!”
A man, who was the spitting image of Jesse, except that he had a goatee, walked up to their table and clapped Jesse in a bear hug.
“Don’t you have a job?” the man asked.
“Don’t you?” Jesse asked.
The other man shrugged. “Sure, but you know, it’s raining.”
Jesse laughed. “Hey Ty, this is my new boss’s daughter, Jamie. Jamie this is my little brother Tyler.”
Jamie smiled and shook his hand.
“Wasting no time I see,” Tyler said with a very naughty and suggestive grin on his face.
“Now Ty, it ain’t like that,” Jesse said but with the air of one who knows how this is going to go regardless of what he says.
“Yeah I know, it never is,” Tyler said smiling. Jamie looked up at him.
“We only just met, you know,” she said.
Then Jesse reached over to another table and pulled a chair across.
“Have a seat bro. Have some pie,” Jesse said then he turned to her, “You don’t mind if my bro joins us do you?”
Jamie shook her head. “No! The more the merrier.”
So Tyler sat down and ordered himself a huge piece of apple pie. Jesse insisted on getting Jamie another piece of chocolate pecan, even though she said she was full.
“You can never be too full for pie,” Tyler said. “It’s a Crowe brother thing, you know us being Crowes. We love our pie.”
“I can see that,” she said smiling.
For the next hour Jamie forgot her troubles. The Crowe brothers were a non-stop comedy act, feeding each other punchlines and laughing heartily at each other’s jokes. They were a ray of sunshine in her cloudy and dreary world.
The afternoon wore on and eventually it began to get dark. By then Jamie had added a lemon meringue and a few mouthfuls of Jesse’s cherry pie, to her list of pies consumed, and she was feeling like she really needed to undo the top button of her jeans and find somewhere to lie down.
They stood up and began to walk to the door. As they got there it jangled and a girl came in. She was wearing a dark blue hoodie pulled up over her head to keep the rain off. She was thin and lithe looking, with long black hair that hung in damp threads down to her waist. For a moment Jamie and this girl were face to face. Jamie looked into the hood and saw eyes that flashed at her, a mouth that scowled and a shiver ran down her spine. The girl looked very familiar, but in that moment Jamie couldn’t place her. She turned and watched the girl walk through the Lemon Drop and out the side door into the dripping garden.
Suddenly Jesse was at her side. “Everything okay?”
“I think so,” Jamie said. “I thought I recognized someone. That’s all.”
She looked back over her shoulder. So did Jesse. The girl was standing in the rain watching them. She looked from Jamie to Jesse and then the girl pulled back her lips in a snarl. Jamie couldn’t believe it. She blinked and the girl was gone.
“Did you see that?” she asked but Jesse was already steering her out of the door.
Outside Jamie stopped walking and turned to look back over her shoulder, letting the rain begin to soak into her clothes.
“Come on, you’ll drown in this,” Jesse said trying to steer her into his truck.
“You did see that girl right?” Jamie asked not moving. “I mean I’m not having hallucinations brought on by too much pie?”
“No such thing,” Tyler said. Jamie hadn’t noticed him come up behind her. “You can never have too much pie.”
“She’s just a girl,” Jesse said holding the door of his truck open for her. “We see her around every now and then. She doesn’t like us much is all.”
“Oh,” Jamie said and she climbed into the passenger seat.
“You need a ride Tyler?” Jesse asked hugging his brother.
Tyler shook his head. “Nah, I’m just down the street.”
Jesse nodded and went round to the driver’s side and climbed in. Tyler waited in the rain and waved to them as they pulled out into the road. Then as they drove off he walked casually down the sidewalk, as though it was a clear and warm summer’s evening.
Jesse shook his head and then shrugged. “Never could get that boy to come in out of the rain.”