“You accused me of stalking you.” My eyebrows draw together in confusion.
“It was a shock to see you away from the diner. And with Shari,” he says, meeting my eyes.
Over his shoulder, the impatient customer snaps his fingers. Snapping is one of my biggest pet peeves.
Searching in my apron, I find the check for the rude man. “Be right back.”
I put in Boone’s order, drop off the check, and clear a table while processing Boone’s apology.
Whenever I glance over at him, he’s watching me, cautious optimism in his eyes.
“Can I get some water?” a woman at table six asks me when I walk by.
“Sure thing.”
Only the water pitcher isn’t in its spot when I go to grab it. Wanda’s standing with a group of regulars and has one of the waters, but we should have two. Confused, I stare at the tray where it should be.
“Looking for this?” Boone asks, pointing to the pitcher in front of him.
“Thanks,” I tell him, and quickly walk away.
Boone sitting at the counter, being nice, and apologizing is throwing me off my routine. He’s table five. Grumpy, silent, handsome lover of pecans. Not the man who’s occupying a stool and ordering blueberry pancakes. And asking for forgiveness.
Tony calls out his order and I’m forced to face Boone again.
“Pancakes.” I set down the plate and a bottle of syrup. My eyes flick to his. “And apology accepted.”
His face crinkles with a genuine smile that makes his green eyes sparkle. “Really? You’re not going to write me off for being a jerk?”
“You sound like you’re surprised. Maybe I should change my mind.” I lift my eyebrows, challenging him to tell me I’m making a mistake.
He touches my wrist, sending sparks of warmth up my arm. “No, please don’t. I’m not always an asshole.”
“Part-time asshole? Or do you have a timeshare on being a jerk?” I ask, not quite ready to let his behavior go even though I’ve accepted his apology.
“More of a lease option.” He grins at me.
Tony slaps the bell in the window, announcing orders are waiting.
“Good to know. I have customers.” I step back and he drops his hand. Walking away, I can still feel the sensation of his palm on my skin.
Wanda and I meet up at the drink station. With our backs to the room, she bumps her hip against mine.
“Now that was flirting and don’t you try to deny it.” She winks at me.
Ignoring her shimmy, I fight my smile as I fill an order.
“He’s a handsome one. Although I think he’s better looking with the mustache. Reminds me of a lover I had in the eighties who looked just like Tom Selleck. Hubba hubba.” A smudge of pink frosted lipstick shows on her teeth when she laughs.
“You have a little lipstick.” I pretend to rub my finger over my teeth.
“Oops. No wonder those young oil guys were staring at my mouth. I thought they were flirting with me.”
Apparently, everything is flirting to Wanda.
Boone’s doodling on a napkin when I walk by with the coffee pot. For a brief second, I fantasize he’s writing his phone number for me. After his cold behavior at Pete’s, he’s done a one-eighty this morning. I’m not sure where we stand, but I think Wanda’s been right about the flirting.
Glancing down at his hand, I bobble the pot of coffee I’m holding. I feel it slip from my grasp and attempt to catch it with my other hand. This only causes me to slam the bottom and change the trajectory of the liquid from down to up, and out.
With my eyes closed, I cringe and wait for the inevitable splash on Boone. Except the yelp of pain I expect from him comes out as deep laughter.
Slowly peeling open one eyelid, I squint at him in dread. Mentally I’m prepared for his back to be doused in coffee. Instead, he’s spun his stool sideways, his large hands gripping the side of the coffee pot. There’s not a splash or a drop of liquid on him, the counter, or the floor.
“How’s that possible?” I ask the coffee pot.
“What?” he asks, a grin shining on his too handsome face.
“I felt the pot drop and was sure it would splash all over you.”
“Must’ve caught it in time.” He sets the pen down and continues to smile at me.
“You were facing the other way. I—” I have no words. Staring at his doodle, I nearly drop the pot again.
“Maybe you should set that down.” He lifts the pot out of my reach, refills his cup, and places the coffee on the counter. “You feeling okay?”
“What is that?” I find my voice and point to the group of symbols he’s doodled on the napkin.
As if seeing it for the first time, his eyes widen and he sweeps up the paper before folding it. “Nothing. Random Minkowski diagrams.”
Opening his wallet, he tucks the napkin inside and pulls out cash. Holding it out to me, he waves it to get my attention. “Here you go.”
I’m still staring at the spot on the counter where Boone was doodling the same symbol I drew on my boob. I have no idea who Minkowski is, but I make a note to look up the name when I get home.
There’s no way he saw it through my shirt at Pete’s. Gotta be a coincidence. Has to be. I glance down at my chest to double-check the drawing is gone. No trace of black ink peeks out from my V-neck.
It’s not a complicated design. Kind of like a ship’s wheel, only missing a couple of lines. I’m sure a lot of people draw circles and spokes coming out of them. Like a kid’s drawing of a sun with an extra circle.
“Earth to Lucy.” His voice sounds far away.
Blinking a few times, I bring myself back to the present. “Sorry. Uh, thanks for the tip.”
Accepting the bills, I stuff them into my apron. I don’t bother checking the amount. Because like every other time, he’ll have tipped twenty percent.
“Gotta get to work.” He pauses. “You sure you’re okay?”
I nod, still lost in figuring out if it’s the same pattern.
“I, uh . . .” He stops speaking.
Glancing up at him, I find he’s staring at me, concern all over his face.
“Maybe we can hang out some time? Other than here.”
His eyes are more green than amber today. As I focus on his eyes, his pupils widen and I swear the color of his irises shifts more to green. Must be the fluorescent lights in here mixing with the sunlight.
“Sure?” My voice turns my answer into a question.
Tony’s voice yelling, “Order up,” snaps me out of my brain haze.
“No rest for the weary.” I pick up the coffee pot and head toward the kitchen.
“See you tomorrow, Lucy.”
Something about hearing my name formed by his lips ignites a blush on my cheeks.
“You too, Boone.”
He flashes his too beautiful smile at me right before he walks out the door.
I’m in trouble.
Falling for him is not part of my plan.
When Mom died, she left me alone in a house filled with ghosts and a mortgage we took out to cover her medical care. No way I could pay for student loans and a house on a retail job. Selling became my only option.
Turns out the real estate market in a forgotten town isn’t hot. Took me almost a year to sell the house with three price drops. When the realtor finally presented me with the lowball offer that wouldn’t require me to declare bankruptcy, I took it. First thing, I paid off all the remaining debts. Her small life insurance went toward my student loans.
Essentially, I’m broke again, but out of debt.
I guess that’s a silver lining.
With just enough to make a rainy day fund, I packed up and drove out of town in my dumpy old car stuffed to the roof with the few possessions I wanted to keep.
Among them, Dad’s beloved copy of the Zane Grey book. I can picture it sitting on my bookshelf in my apartment.
After finishing my shift, I drive home, thinking about the symbol and
possible reasons why Boone would doodle it.
Dropping my bag on the kitchen counter, I head straight for the worn binding of West of the Pecos in the bookcase.
I slip the book off the shelf and curl up in the corner of my old red velvet love seat I bought at a garage sale when I first moved here.
Apologies to Mr. Grey, but I’m not interested in reading his western tale. I’m looking for my old doodles. The ones I drew in Dad’s collection to make the books pretty when I was four or five and thought all books were coloring books.
Resting my palm on the cover the way someone who is about to swear an oath on the Bible would, I calm my breathing. The colorful dust jacket is long gone and the binding is loose enough the book wobbles in my hand as I hold it.
It’s impossible that Boone was drawing the same pattern I used to doodle.
Has to be.
Flipping the pages, I spot my messy pen drawings. Most are of people, probably portraits of my family. A few oddly shaped animals float above them.
There, in the middle of the title page, is a messier version of the symbol from the Center. A child’s version of what Boone drew on his check.
With shaking hands and a twisting feeling in my stomach, I close the book before I drop it.
It must be a common scientific symbol I’m not aware of. When I got home from the Center last week, I snapped a pic of the drawing on my chest. I can upload the pic and do a reverse image search on Google.
The first result is the radioactive symbol with its familiar three triangles in a circle.
Close, but not quite right.
A captain’s ship wheel also shows up in the results, but it has too many lines.
A shooting target has too few.
The closest to my drawing is a radar symbol.
Radioactive captain’s wheel radar target.
That doesn’t make sense.
While I’m searching, I enter “earth symbol” and click on the first link, which takes me to a Wikipedia page.
The graphic is a cross inside a circle. Next to it is a circle with a cross on the top, like an upside down symbol for a woman.
The circle encompassing the cross definitely matches the mystery icon.
Still doesn’t explain why this combination is something I drew as a kid, someone added in the margin of an article about crop circles, and Boone doodled.
I can’t make the connection.
Next I enter Minkowski in the search bar and find an article with an illustration of his spacetime diagram. It’s similar, but doesn’t have the circles. I try to understand his idea of four dimensions, but my brain glitches when I get to the formulas.
Strange thing to doodle on a napkin while eating pancakes.
Trusting my gut, I slip West of the Pecos between the family Bibles on the lowest shelf—more tucked away and out of sight than it was before.
FRIDAY IS HOTTER than Satan’s balls. Even parked in the shade behind the diner, my car is about eleventy billion degrees inside. The silver sunshade thing that Wanda bought me has kept the plastic on the dash from melting into a puddle, but hasn’t prevented my little Honda from turning into a dry sauna that smells vaguely of french fries. It’s possible that while I was working someone broke into my car and used it as an air fryer.
Leaning into the car without committing to sitting on the molten fabric seat, I slip the key into the ignition and turn it so I can lower the windows and blast the air conditioner. It should be cool enough to drive in about an hour.
After mere seconds inside of the car-shaped oven, sweat drips down my face and I have boob sweat.
Why does anyone live in this desert?
‘At least it’s a dry heat’ is lying propaganda. Arid or humid, hot is hot.
Heat rises from the asphalt and from the open door of my car, creating shimmering waves in the midday sun.
I could go home, take a cold shower, and plant myself in front of the window air conditioner. Not today, Satan.
Instead, I swing by the apartment, wave at Jim through his screen door, change, and quickly pack a bag for the lake.
Driving east of Roswell, the landscape gently swells and drops in hills and arroyos covered in scrubby bushes. In case I forget I’m in the southwest, a few tumbleweeds cling to barbed wire cattle fencing running alongside the narrow two-lane road.
At the sign for Bottomless Lakes, I turn and follow the winding asphalt through more scrub and a few occupied campsites. Obviously these happy campers don’t care about sleeping among rattlesnakes and scorpions. I’d have to be paid a lot of money to sleep in the desert. I’d accept a slightly lesser amount to sleep outside in someone’s backyard.
The parking lot by the largest lake holds about a dozen parked cars. On the weekends, hundred of people will cram themselves on the manmade beach. That’s why I avoid coming here on Saturdays or Sundays even though I have the days off work.
The name Bottomless Lakes is a lie, but these turquoise pools are deep enough to have fooled the first cowboys who tried to measure their depth with lengths of rope.
If I think about lakes without bottoms, my mind goes straight to the Loch Ness monster or giant alligator-like creatures in the Great Lakes.
Who knows what lives in the depths?
For that reason alone, I’d be justified in keeping to the public pools.
But those are filled with kids—screaming, splashing, peeing in the water, kids.
No, thank you.
I’ll take my chances.
Plus, geologists proved that these lakes are really deep, but not bottomless. More like limestone cenotes, or sinkholes, that filled with fresh water over time.
Parking my chair and towel on the sand, I carry my pink, donut-shaped floatie to the water’s edge. At first touch, the chill of the water sends goosebumps along my heated skin. My body is stuck in a moment of contrast between hot and cold, wet and dry.
When the water hits my knees, I half-dive, half-belly flop into the lake. As cool relief washes over me, I exhale and flip onto my back for a few seconds before submerging my whole body again. Surfacing, I exhale and revel in how quickly the overheated, sticky feeling of the day washes away.
Swimming the breast stroke, I head straight for the far side.
I plan to swim a few laps, then come back for the inflatable and float for a while.
A few yards ahead of me lies a row of buoys, marking the edge of the designated swim area. During the week, there isn’t a lifeguard on duty. Visitors are supposed to honor the random border between safety and danger.
I dunk my head into the cool water and glide beneath the boundary line.
’Cause I’m a rebel.
With steady strokes, I swim out to the middle of the lake. This is where the freshwater shark or lake monster would be enticed by my fluttering legs to leave the safety of its underwater den, speed toward the surface, and either chomp me to bits or swallow me whole. At some later point, someone might notice the unattended donut or a ranger might discover my car parked alone in the lot as dusk approaches and the park closes.
By then it will be too late for me.
Treading water, I wait for the attack to come. When it doesn’t, I decide to swim back to shore.
After taunting death for another two laps, I scoop up my donut and float in the safety of the designated swim area.
With my head dipped over the edge of the floatie, my hair skims the surface behind me while my butt and feet hang out in the water. Sunshine warms my face and chest, arms, and the tops of my thighs. The heat dries the droplets of water on my skin.
Yawning, I close my eyes against the bright glare of sunlight reflecting on the lake’s surface.
In the background, I hear a few kids splashing in the water near the shore. A hawk whistles overhead, probably contemplating if he can carry off one of the smaller toddlers.
Eyes closed, I drift around the swim area, buffeted by a faint breeze that pulls small waves along the lake’s surface.
All week
I’ve watched Boone for more napkin doodling. He’s been sitting at the counter and we chat while he eats breakfast. No more doodles, but definitely more flirting.
I still can’t find a source for the drawing in my dad’s book. Nothing on the internet matches exactly and my brain hurts from reading too many articles involving physics.
When I feel my donut bump against a buoy, I spin myself and kick my legs to propel myself away.
The sound of kids splashing and yelling fades. I yawn again, feeling sleep tugging at me in the warmth of the sun.
Safe in my pink donut, I give in to the sleepiness. A short nap is the best idea I’ve had since deciding to come swimming.
“LUCY!”
In my half-dream state, I hear someone calling my name. Whoever it is has also stolen my covers. Cold air brushes my skin and this makes me unhappy.
I stretch my arms out to the side to locate the blanket, but come up short. With a huff, I roll over to my side to reclaim a corner of the blanket.
“Lucy!”
My bed wobbles and dips before transforming into a waterbed. With a leak.
“What the hell?” I inhale a mouthful of water, coughing and sputtering as my arms flail through the air. Opening my eyes, I realize I’m still at the lake. Or more aptly, I’m in the lake, floundering like a cat thrown in a bathtub.
“Lucy!” Someone calls my name.
With a grip on my donut, I spin myself around to find the source of whoever is calling me.
That’s when I notice the black wall of a thunderstorm to the west. Wind kicks up bigger waves on the water, creating small whitecaps.
I also notice I’m the only one in the lake. Everyone else has left. Not only that, I’m in the middle, far from the safe area of the buoys. Scanning the shore, I spot a familiar tall figure waving his arms and shouting.
My own personal lifeguard.
Boone.
What’s he doing here?
Thunder rolls in the distance.
My grandfather’s warning comes to mind: if you can hear thunder, you’re at risk for getting struck by lightning.
Tinfoil Heart Page 7