Chapter Three
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I haven’t moved from my spot behind the counter in God only knows how long. I cleared away the bowls, wiped down the surface, and then propped myself up against the formica.
And waited.
For what? I don’t know. I don’t have the faintest idea. For the tension in my chest to subside? For the stupid, childish dreams I’d had to give up and die already? For the image of Hale walking away, burned onto my retinas ten years ago and given a fresh coat of paint today, to fade away into nothingness? It’s impossible to say. All I know for sure is that whatever it is, it’s in no hurry to get here and relieve me. The weight I’m feeling in every muscle in my body makes it difficult to do much of anything except sit and dwell on what just happened, and on what didn’t.
The door chimes and opens, and for a brief instant I let myself believe it might be Hale coming back to talk things through, to apologise for everything – hell, even just to see me; would that be so far-fetched? – but it’s only Pete. He throws me a mock salute as he walks in.
‘Permission to come aboard?’ he asks.
Somehow, I’m not in the mood to play along.
I check the clock on the wall; it’s a quarter after four. I was supposed to open up fifteen minutes ago. Well, it’s not like the customers were banging the door down to get in, I tell myself. It’s a little early for even the earliest birds to come and get their special. No harm done.
‘You’re late,’ I say.
‘Am I indeed?’ He smiles at me. It’s friendly, paternal, without judgement. ‘Or have I been walking around and around the block for the last twenty minutes because I saw you had company?’ He lifts up the counter gate and slips back into the kitchen behind me. ‘Figured you probably wouldn’t want me barging through and interrupting you.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Thanks for that.’
‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘Who was he?’
There’s a line drawn in the sand in Eden: an invisible barrier that separates the people who were born here, who know the town like the backs of their hands (for better or for worse), and those who came from Away. Away can be anywhere in a town like this. It’s a catch-all term for the wider world, including everywhere from the darkest Peruvian jungle to the unincorporated township a mile or so to the east where the Grove trailer park sits on cracked, dusty soil. There are some people who’d have you believe that the stink of Away never really washes off, especially in the older generations. Perhaps that’s why so very few people from Away ever manage to become townies – at least, not really. You can live here for ten years, twenty years, thirty years, and it’s still no guarantee of acceptance. There will always be someone sitting on a porch chair, waiting to hear that you broke the unwritten covenant of small-town life. ‘Well, what did you expect?’ you can almost hear them saying, in not-quite-hushed whispers, ripe to be overheard by anyone passing by. After all, what could you expect from a city boy? Or a Yankee? Or, as I once heard a vicious prune of a woman say of her own nephew, who had committed the grievous sin of moving to San Francisco and had found the freedom of California to his liking, a ‘West Coast Lah-di-dah’?
Very little, apparently. It’s only townies that can truly be trusted. They’re our people; everyone else is suspicious in a dozen little ways. Pete has mostly managed to make the jump from one side of that treacherous divide to the other, but even after five years here he’s still viewed as a little bit of an outsider, and in all likelihood always will. He doesn’t know Eden’s history, or the complex relationships that have stretched out like poisonous roots throughout the years. How could he? Entire volumes could be written on the topic.
It’s better that way, I think. If Pete had passed by the windows, he would have been staring straight at Hale. A townie would have recognised him immediately, and set their judgement in stone. I don’t want that for him.
‘He’s just an old friend,’ I say.
Pete snorts. ‘A friend, eh? Well, if that’s what the young folks are calling it now…’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your little private dinner date. Looked mighty cosy to me. You didn’t have to hide it, is all. I would have cleared out and given you two lovebirds some space. I’d even have thrown something special on the grill for you, if you’d asked nicely.’
‘Pete…’ My tone is as light as I can make it, but my eyes say Drop it, and drop it now.
He raises his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘Fine, fine,’ he says. ‘I’m just saying, back in my day a guy who left a girl looking at him so moony-eyed probably wouldn’t be so thrilled to be called a friend, that’s all. Seems a mite… insufficient, if you follow my meaning.’
There are few people in town who know me as well as Pete, but still… was I really that obvious? The thought pains me. Little girls wear their hearts on their sleeves, because they’re too dumb to realise that that’s how it gets broken. And if Pete saw it, then maybe Hale did too.
So much for playing it cool.
‘I’m not… you know,’ I say. ‘I’m not moony-eyed. I’m not moony-anything.’
‘Sure you’re not, kiddo. Because whoever he was that’s making you blush right now, he’s just a friend.’
‘That’s right.’
He slips his apron over his head and smiles. ‘Glad we got that straightened out.’
I consider arguing the point, but there’s another jingle of the door chimes. A customer would be a saving grace – for more than one reason – but I’ve got no such luck. The woman waddling her way through the door is lumbered with two overstuffed brown paper bags, her back bent theatrically out of shape under their weight. ‘Would someone please give me a hand with these?’ she asks.
‘Sure, Mom.’ I jump up from behind the counter and take one of the paper sacks from her. It bulges with produce, eggplants nestling on top of celery, propped up with leafy kale. Kale, of all things. To my knowledge, that much greenery has never crossed the threshold of the Red Rose Diner in one go before now. I mean, sure, we’re no stranger to vegetables: lettuce (for burgers), cabbage (for coleslaw), mushrooms (fried), onions (ringed), tomatoes (ketchuped). This, though… this is practically unheard of.
‘Why all the vegetables?’ I ask.
‘Oh, it was just an idea we had,’ she replies, setting her bag down. ‘We thought we might do something about the diner. Trying some new things, that’s all. I’ve been off at the Farmer’s Market in Hogarth. Quite the selection, I have to say. You should really check it out sometime, if you get the chance.’
I am shocked and amazed by the fact that, after twenty-six years of knowing me, my mother still thinks that checking out a farmer’s market is still the kind of thing I’d do in my limited free time, no matter how well-stocked it might be, but I have bigger concerns right now.
‘New things?’ I ask.
She sighs. ‘Yes. We’re thinking about changing the menu.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Me and Pete.’ She pauses for a second, reading the expression on my face. ‘You don’t seem impressed, honey. What’s wrong?’
To my knowledge, the menu hasn’t been changed since Mom and Dad took the place over, way before I was born. It’s always served the same basic staples: burgers and fries, soup and sandwiches, eggs and bacon and waffles in the morning. You don’t need fancy if you’ve got good, Dad used to say – and he was right. We’re not the kind of diner that could ever make anything complicated work, because we’re not the type of town where the customers want anything more gastronomically taxing than grilled meat and fried potatoes. It’s just not what we do here. It’s just now how things are.
Apparently that’s going around today. Change is catching, and I’m not sure I want to have any part of it.
‘I… I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Sorry. That’s fine. Let me know how it works out.’
I’m not in the mood to fight it, but I can’t hide the snappy tension in my voice – not from Mom and Pete, who are used to me and can tell when there’s something wrong even if they’re not prying me open for details. I’m suddenly extremely glad I’m not working the afternoon shift alongside them. Perhaps it would be better for me to just go home, lose myself in some trash TV or a good book, and try to forget that today has ever happened.
‘It’s just an idea, Carrie,’ Pete says gently. ‘Might not even come to anything. I’ll just cook up some things, try a few new recipes out, see if any of them take off. Maybe your Mom decides not to go along with it – but hey, worst case scenario she gets a nice fancy dinner out of it, eh?’
‘Pssh,’ my mother says. ‘Only one? After I carried all this food in by myself? You’re out of your mind.’
And what about me? I want to say. Do I get a say in it? Or am I still just the kid waitress who has to wait for the adults to finish talking?
I’m digging my fingernails into my palm, hard enough to hurt, not hard enough to draw blood. It’s not about the menu, I know that. I’m not exactly thrilled about it, but this reaction – this overreaction – has far more to do with Hale than the thought of Pete suddenly serving rocket salad or melanzane alla parmigiana from Dad’s old kitchen. I still can’t shake myself free of that sad look in his eyes, or his words.
Everyone makes mistakes, Carrie.
Did he really think me staying was a mistake? Really? I was a sixteen-year-old girl, for God’s sake. I had a future – a future I wanted to share with him, but it was still mine. I had plans. I had goals. I couldn’t just throw them away on a one-in-a-million lottery that just happened to pay off. I couldn’t–
‘Carrie?’
My mother is looking at me; down to my clenched fists, and then back at my face. ‘Hmm?’
‘Are you OK?’
I nod. I’m scared if I talk my voice will crack, and her parental concern will sweep away any chance I have of getting out of here any time soon. Thankfully, she seems in the mood to pick up on my hints. ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘Enough menu talk for now. How’s business going today?’
I spread my hands to the empty restaurant. ‘Oh, you know,’ I say. ‘Booming.’
‘Caroline…’
‘We’re fine. We just opened back up again.’
‘Just now? It was supposed to be at four.’
How can I explain it? Why bother? ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I lost track of the clock, I guess.’
‘You know we’re never going to get more customers if we don’t open on time, right?’
‘I know, Mom.’
‘Consistency,’ she says. ‘That’s what people want. Good food, fair prices, and an open door when the sign says it’s going to be open. Your father –’ She manages to stop herself before I can stop her, but it doesn’t matter. We both know what she’s thinking.
Your father would have opened on time.
That’s true. The man was like clockwork, and it’s precisely because of his reliability that the Red Rose Diner managed to hold its own for so long. How could I possibly compete with that?
I’m doing my best, I want to tell her – to shout, to scream, to yell until she understands me. It’s not my fault I ended up stuck in this town, managing this diner. This wasn’t the life I wanted. It wasn’t the life I asked for.
But I don’t, because Dad wouldn’t have. Because that’s the standard I need to hold myself to. It’s certainly the standard that everyone else will be holding me to, anyway.
Then again, I think, Dad wouldn’t have changed the menu, so…
Before I can respond, Mom lays a soft hand on mine. ‘It’s OK, honey,’ she says. It’s the same voice she’d use when I was a little girl, the voice that followed dropped ice cream cones and skinned knees and made everything alright again. ‘We’re doing OK.’
It helps, but not as much as I think she is expecting it to.
‘What got you so distracted, anyway?’ she asks.
From out in the kitchen, Pete lets out a little laugh to himself. I shoot him a glare, and he gives me a silent nod in return. I’m fine with him ribbing me in private – well, fine-ish – but I don’t want him to bring Hale up in front of Mom, who’ll be able to figure out the full story and won’t approve in the least. He’s got enough wits about him to go with me on it and not ask why.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just thinking.’
‘That’s my Carrie,’ she says. ‘Always with your head in the clouds.’
It stings, a little more than it should. It’s not that I doubt her affection towards me, but… well, sometimes my mother is a difficult woman to be around. I love her, and deeply, but I worry that maybe when Dad died, the best part of her died too. The charm. The optimism. The willingness to dream.
Leave her be, Rosie, he would have said if he was here. Of course she’s got her head in the clouds. How else are you supposed to get the best view? Then he’d smile that smile, a wide beam that swept you along in its path like a tornado, leaving you never quite sure where it was going to put you down. He’d grab her by the hand, twirl her around, and they’d dance right there on the floor of the diner, her laughter as she told him to get off her reaching every corner of the building, spilling out onto the street outside, and he’d refuse, would continue mugging for laughs until she broke and until I joined in, would take me by the hand and twirl me around, and we’d dance, dance, dance…
Days gone by. Sweet and bitter.
‘Oh look,’ Mom says, pulling me out of my dream and back to monotone reality. ‘Someone dropped a wallet.’
And that’s when I feel my heart freeze in my chest.
That’s not a conversation I want to have – not now, not ever. There’s no way my mother will have forgotten the name, or the feelings that went along with it: the emptiness, the loss of appetite, the nights I cried myself to sleep after he left. She was never what you’d call Hale’s biggest fan in the first place, but after he ran away I could tell she found it hard to keep even the most basic level of civility towards him and his memory. The thought that he was back in town, not least that he had been right here in the diner – back to hurt me again, no doubt – would lead to an argument I wasn’t in any mood to hurry long.
She reaches to pick it up, but Pete is quicker. His hand darts out to the red leather billfold like a viper.
Sweet relief.
‘Al’s,’ he says hurriedly as she raises a disapproving eyebrow at him. ‘He must have dropped it when he was in here earlier. Honestly, with those damn glasses of his it’s no wonder he didn’t notice.’ He snatches the leather billfold up before my mother can get enough of a look at it to see that it’s emphatically not the kind of wallet a man like Alan Ridgewick would be carrying around in his Levis, let alone crack it open and find out for sure. He looks inside, makes an obvious show of sliding out the license – I’m sure making a careful note of the name, so he can quiz me about it later – and then closes it up tight. ‘Yep. It’s Al’s, alright,’ he says, and then slowly, unmissably: ‘Someone should probably take it back to him.’
‘I’ll do it!’ Mom and Pete stare at me like I’ve gone mad. It’s a little too enthusiastic, but I don’t care. I’ve got the perfect excuse to go and see Hale again, and I’m not letting it get away. ‘I mean, you know, I’ll go.’
My mother sniffs at the very idea. ‘Oh, let him come and get it,’ she says. ‘He’s in here every day. He probably hasn’t even realised it’s gone.’
‘I’ve got the afternoon off and it’s practically on my way home.’ I shrug. ‘No big deal.’
‘It’s at least ten minutes out of your way.’
‘I’m in the mood for a walk. You know. Exercise. Good for the soul.’
If my mother is about to voice another objection, she decides against it. Pete tosses me the wallet just as the first of the dinner run’s customers come through the door, a family with a bunch of small children, and I’m out of the door before she can ask me to help her out. I turn around for just long enough to see Pete grinning at me through the glass. Have fun, he mouths silently.
I wait until I’m around the corner until I call for a cab. I don’t know about fun, exactly, but I sure as hell plan to get myself some answers.
By my reckoning, they’re way past due.