by Mary McNear
“That’s good,” Will said. “And do you know what else is good?”
“What?”
“I’m almost done with your truck.”
“Really?” she said, feeling a rush of gratitude.
He nodded.
“You know, I remember you from high school,” she said suddenly, edging closer. Because there was something about this place—the coolness, the dimness, the quietness—that made her feel almost brave. “You used to sit with your friends on the bleachers at the football field and smoke cigarettes.”
“Yeah, that was me then.”
“Is that you now?” she asked.
“Uh, no,” he said, not looking up. “I haven’t been back to the bleachers since I graduated. And I quit smoking a few years ago.”
“Why’d you quit?” she asked, unabashedly curious.
“Smoking’s an expensive habit,” he said, with a shrug. “Working here,” he added, looking around, “I can’t afford it.”
“Well, that’s good,” Daisy said. “I mean, good that you gave it up,” she added, quickly. “Not good that you couldn’t afford to keep doing it.” She blushed then, afraid that she’d offended him. But he didn’t look offended. In fact, she thought she saw one corner of his mouth lift in amusement.
She watched him work for a little while longer, strangely comfortable with the silence between them. She noticed a smudge of grease on his neck, and she thought, idly, about reaching over and trying to wipe it away with her fingertips. But she came to her senses almost immediately, wondering why she would even consider doing something like that. It was the heat, she decided, and she took a little cautionary step away from him.
“I remember you, too,” he said, glancing over at her. “You were a cheerleader, weren’t you?”
“A cheerleader? No,” Daisy said, faintly appalled. “I was on the volleyball team.” I was the captain, she wanted to say, but didn’t.
He shrugged. “Well, same thing, right?”
“Wrong,” Daisy said, crossing her arms across her chest. “Very different thing.”
“Huh,” he said, stopping his work long enough to pull his gloves off. And Daisy saw then that his eyes were amused again. Amused enough to make her think he knew damn well that being a cheerleader and a volleyball player was not the same thing. Amused enough to make her think he was teasing her, and, what was more, that he was enjoying teasing her.
“That’s it,” he said, stepping back and slamming the engine’s hood. “Normally, I’d take it for a test drive, but you probably don’t want to stick around for that.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” Daisy said. “But thank you.”
“Anytime,” he said, with a smile. His smiles, she saw, were harder to come by than his coworker Jason’s were. But they were worth waiting for. Nice eyes, nice smile, nice shoulders, she thought, taking a mental inventory of Will.
But when she realized that he was looking at her, quizzically, she blushed. He was probably wondering why she was standing there, staring at him, when she was supposed to be in such a hurry, when she was in such a hurry.
“Well, I’d better get going,” she said, backing away from him.
He nodded. “You can pay Jason in the office. I’ll pull your truck out. And, uh, good luck with the lunch.”
“Thanks,” she said, turning to go. But as she walked out of the service bay she looked at her watch. The lunch was starting right now. She felt her earlier panic ebb away, only to be replaced, almost immediately, by an ominous foreboding. Because they were going to have to have this lunch without her.
Jack Keegan sat in his pickup truck, which he’d parked on Butternut’s Main Street across the street from Pearl’s, and considered the possibility that he was crazy. And not just sort of crazy, either, but completely and totally crazy—insane asylum, straitjacket, padded-cell crazy. How else to explain his actions today? He was back in a town he’d sworn he would never return to. He was following the advice of a daughter who, until a year ago, had been a stranger to him. And he was waiting to have lunch with an ex-wife who, he was pretty sure, still hated his guts.
But it got worse. Much worse. Because Jack, who’d given up gambling two years ago, was taking the biggest gamble of his life. He’d decided to move back here, into a cabin an old friend of his—an old drinking buddy of his, really—had left Jack in his will. Jack had quit his job at an oil refinery in South Dakota, given up his apartment, sold all his furniture, and given away anything he couldn’t fit in the back of his pickup truck. And then he’d gotten into that pickup truck and driven five hundred twenty-five miles to this lunch date.
But there was no turning back now, he reminded himself, running his fingers through his hair. Besides, there was no life for him to turn back to anyway. So depending on what happened next, he’d either risked it all for everything. Or nothing.
And that was assuming, of course, that this lunch actually took place. He and Daisy had agreed to meet at twelve thirty in front of Pearl’s, and it was already twelve thirty-five. Under ordinary circumstances, five minutes barely qualified as late. But these weren’t ordinary circumstances. Besides, Daisy had suggested this lunch a month ago, when they’d last met in person, then e-mailed him a reminder last week, and then confirmed by cell phone last night. Now for her to be late? Or to not show up at all? It didn’t make sense. What was more, it seemed completely out of character for her.
Here, though, he had an uncomfortable thought: What if he didn’t know Daisy well enough to know whether this was out of character for her or not? Maybe being late, or not showing up at all, was in character for her. As soon as he had that thought, though, he rejected it. Because whatever else could be said about Jack Keegan—and a lot of things had been said about him over the years—he was a good judge of character. He’d never have won so many poker games if he hadn’t been. And he knew, when it came to Daisy, that she was as good as her word. As good as gold, really; if she said she would be here, she would be here. That was all there was to it.
He reached for his cell phone on the seat beside him and punched in her number again. But it went straight to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message, since he’d already left one when he’d parked here an hour ago. He pressed end on his cell phone and tossed it back onto the seat. Then he blew out a breath, ran his fingers through his hair again, and tried to think about something, anything, really, other than this lunch.
So, instead, he thought about Butternut, Minnesota, population 1,200. He’d hated this town when he’d left it, hated everything about it: its hypocrisy; its small-mindedness; its gossipy mean-spiritedness. It hadn’t helped, of course, that so much of that gossip had been about him. Still, when he’d seen Butternut receding in his rearview mirror that morning eighteen years ago, he’d felt a grim satisfaction. There. Take that, stupid little town. I’ll be damned if I’ll live here anymore, and damned if I’ll ever come back again either.
But the joke was on him, apparently. Because judging from Main Street’s tidy storefronts and well-swept sidewalks, Butternut had done just fine without him. Better than fine. So much for the supposed disintegration of small-town life in America, Jack thought, looking up and down the block at businesses and shops with cheerful striped awnings on them and brightly painted wooden benches sitting in front of them. And there were old-fashioned streetlights, too, every half block, with big baskets of flowers hanging from them. Very pretty, Jack thought. Very Butternut.
But unlike some towns in summer communities, which seemed to be staged simply for the benefit of tourists, Butternut had more to offer than fudge shops and ice cream parlors. It still had Johnson’s Hardware, for instance, which had been owned by the same family for over a hundred years. And there was Butternut Drugs, where generations of teenage girls had spent countless hours poring over lipsticks and glossy magazines. And there, too, was the Butternut Variety Store, whose original five-and-ten-cent sign had been amended to also include “$1 and up.”
There were some changes, of cours
e. Even Butternut, whose northern Minnesota location was several hours by car from the nearest city, couldn’t escape change forever. Where a ladies’ dress shop had once been, there was now a place called the Pine Cone Gallery, a chic-looking little shop that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Twin Cities.
For the most part, though, the businesses on Main Street had stayed the same. And none of those businesses, Jack knew, was more important to the social fabric of Butternut than Pearl’s. He studied it now from across the street, marveling that from the outside, anyway, it looked exactly the same: same red-and-white-striped awning snapping in the breeze, same hand-lettered BEST PIE IN TOWN sign hanging in the window, same little bells jingling on the door as customers came in and out. He couldn’t really see inside; the glare from the afternoon sun was too bright on the windows. But he didn’t need to see inside to know what the rest of it looked like. He already knew, by heart, every scuff on the linoleum floor and every scratch on the Formica countertop. Not that Pearl’s wasn’t well-maintained; it was. His ex-wife, Caroline, was a stickler for that kind of thing. The whole place, he knew, was scrubbed and buffed and polished to within an inch of its life. Still, it would be showing its age a little, showing it in a way that only added to its charm and its warmth.
He closed his eyes now and imagined himself walking through the front door at Pearl’s, past the red leather booths that lined the front window, past the smaller tables for parties of two and four in the middle of the restaurant, and up to the counter, with its row of chrome swivel stools that children loved to spin on. And there, at the counter, he imagined Caroline, a smile on her face, a pot of coffee in her hand, saying “Hello there. What can I get for you?”
But that smile wasn’t for him, he realized. It was for another customer. And so were the friendly words. Because when she saw him, she’d be shocked. Shocked and angry. And instead of saying “What can I get for you?,” it was more likely she’d say something like, “What the hell are you doing here?”
No, not hell, he decided. She wouldn’t say hell; she wasn’t a big one for swearing. She’d say something like hell, something that let him know, in no uncertain terms, that his being here was not a good thing and that she wanted him to leave. The sooner the better. He felt a trickle of perspiration start to work its way down from his temple to his jaw. Just thinking about seeing her was making him, quite literally, sweat.
He reached over now and turned the air-conditioning up and pulled the visor down against the noonday sun. But it didn’t help. He glanced at his watch again. Daisy was now ten minutes late.
He swallowed, hard. His throat was parched, his mouth as dry as sandpaper. He reached for the water bottle in the drink holder and saw that it was empty. Not that it really mattered. It wasn’t water he wanted, anyway. He wanted a drink, a real drink, a neat tumbler of single-malt whiskey. It swirled around the glass in his mind’s eye, its amber color the loveliest thing he had ever seen. No, not the loveliest, he corrected himself. Because the loveliest thing he’d ever seen was in Pearl’s, right now. She was the reason he was here, sweating in the arctic chill of his air-conditioned truck. He’d give Daisy five more minutes, he decided. Then, with or without her, he was going in.
At the exact moment Jack Keegan made that resolution, Caroline Keegan was sitting in her cramped office behind the coffee shop, staring at a monthly bank statement on the desk in front of her. She’d already reviewed it carefully, committed it to memory even. But she kept staring at it, hoping the numbers would somehow magically rearrange themselves. They didn’t. She sighed, stretched, and bent to examine it again. Nope. Still the same. She’d have to make that appointment, after all. The one with the bank, the one she’d been absolutely dreading having to make.
But before she could do that, her cell phone rang. She glanced down at the display. It was Buster, her boyfriend of three years. She hesitated, then let the call go to voice mail, then felt guilty about letting it go to voice mail. Of course, Buster never minded when she didn’t take his calls, though sometimes, honestly, she wished he did mind. Just a little. But that wasn’t fair, she told herself. He didn’t mind because he knew she’d call him back when she found the time. And she would. It was just that, lately, it seemed to be getting harder for her to find the time. Well, she’d think about that later, she decided, scrolling through her cell-phone’s contacts for the bank’s number. But she was interrupted again, this time by a light tap on the door.
“Do you have a minute?” Frankie, who was the cook at Pearl’s, asked as he opened the door just wide enough to poke his head in.
“Yes, of course,” she said, though she suppressed a little flicker of irritation as she said it. She wasn’t irritated at Frankie—the man was a saint—but at the constant interruptions that every workday brought with it. Normally, she didn’t mind those interruptions; she even welcomed them. They were what kept her from getting bored. Not today, though. Today she needed to do something about the problem staring up at her from her desktop.
Still, she smiled at Frankie as she simultaneously motioned him into the office and locked the bank statement back in her top desk drawer.
“What can I do for you, Frankie?” she asked, as he lumbered in, immediately filling the entire space with his massive bulk.
“Um, well, it’s not for me. It’s for the customers. They’re complaining—whining, really—that it’s too hot in Pearl’s,” he said, in a tone that suggested they were being unreasonable. Frankie was so loyal to Caroline, and to Pearl’s, that he took even the most minor customer complaint personally. “I don’t think it’s that bad, though,” he added. “I mean, we’re having a heat wave; what do they expect?”
“They expect to eat their breakfasts in an air-conditioned coffee shop,” Caroline said, automatically.
“It is air-conditioned,” Frankie objected. “The system’s just a little old.”
“Frankie, that system is more than just a little old. It’s ancient. It needs to be replaced. You and I both know that. Now our customers know it, too.”
Frankie sighed, an enormous sigh, and shoved his gigantic hands into his apron pockets. “Well, what do you want me to tell them?”
“Who’s complaining?” she asked.
“Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester, and Cliff Donahue.”
She frowned. They were all good customers. “Just . . . just comp their lunches and turn up the fans,” she said. “And ask Jessica to put extra ice in all the water glasses.”
He nodded and turned to leave.
“And Frankie? I’ll ask Bill Schelinger to take another look at the air-conditioning. Maybe there’s something he can do with it, at least until I can . . .” Her voice trailed off. She had no idea if, or when, she’d be able to afford a new system, not when Bill Schelinger had already told her it would cost over ten thousand dollars.
“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Frankie said, flashing her one of his rare smiles. “It’ll all work out. You’ll see.”
“Thanks, Frankie,” she said, gratefully. And then, with a little frown, “Is Daisy back yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, she’s late then,” she said, her eyes traveling to the clock on her desk. “Which is strange, because believe it or not, she wants me to have lunch with her here today. A sit-down lunch. She made me put it in my date book and everything.”
“That’s nice,” Frankie said. And it was nice, Caroline thought, but it was also a little odd. Of course, she and Daisy had lunch at Pearl’s every day in the summertime, but they usually just grabbed it whenever they could. They rarely had either the free time, or the free table, to have it together. Maybe, Caroline thought now, Daisy was trying to make some time for them together in an otherwise hectic summer. And she couldn’t argue with that, could she? Since Daisy had started college, their time together had felt all too brief to Caroline.
“Well, I’ll be getting back to work,” Frankie said, and then he was gone. And Caroline was left to chew distractedly on her lower
lip and add the faulty air-conditioning to her list of worries. But she was interrupted again, almost immediately, by another knock on the door.
“Come in,” she called out, her impatience flaring at this latest interruption.
The door opened, tentatively, and Jessica, her waitress, leaned in.
“Caroline?”
“Yes, Jessica?” Caroline said, stealing herself for this exchange. Jessica was Daisy’s best friend, and although the friendship between the two of them had long been a mystery to Caroline—Daisy, the perennial honor student, on the one hand, and Jessica, the hopeless scatterbrain on the other—she tried to be respectful of it. She’d hired Jessica six weeks ago, after she’d failed out of cosmetology school, as a favor to Daisy. But Caroline had regretted it ever since. Of course everyone had a learning curve when they started waitressing. But Jessica’s was all curve and no learning.
“Um, there’s a problem with a customer,” Jessica said hesitantly, her brown eyes wide in her heart-shaped face.
“Yes?” Caroline said, impatiently. Every minute Jessica spent standing here was a minute she wasn’t waiting on tables.
“Well, it’s kind of awkward, but . . .” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly and fidgeted with her apron strings.
“Jessica,” Caroline said, closing her eyes and willing herself not to lose her temper, “please tell me this isn’t about one of your ex-boyfriends eating here again. Because I’ve told you before you’re going to have to wait on them the same way you’d wait on any other customer.” And she sighed wearily, because the way Jessica waited on any other customer was with a fairly consistent level of incompetence.
“Oh no, it’s not one of my exes,” Jessica said now, tucking one of her unruly brown curls behind an ear. “It’s . . . it’s actually one of your exes. I mean, not one of them,” she qualified, shifting her weight nervously from one foot to the other. “Just your ex. Your ex-husband, I mean. He’s sitting at one of the tables. And he says he wants to see you.”
“My ex-husband? Here?” Caroline said, her mind a perfect blank.