I chuckled. “Uh, no, I’m a frat party, remember?”
He winked. “I was making a point,” he said, pulling me closer. “I think you’re stunning, and I’ve really only seen you like this and the way you looked when you came in, so just imagine how speechless I’ll be when you are fixed up.”
I laughed, pressing my forehead into his chest. He was a hopeless mess and I was falling for it all over again. Damn it.
“Fate came back around today,” he said, pulling me all the way to him. I went into his arms, suddenly too tired to argue, and wrapped mine around him. “Decided to bring you from Brad to me.”
“Well—fate and waffles,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“Brad hates waffles,” I said into his chest. “I felt the need to be rebellious.”
“What kind of devil’s spawn hates waffles?”
I chuckled. “Brad Marcus hates everything good and tasty in this world.”
I hadn’t even gotten the sentence finished before Jesse let go of me like I was the last legitimate leper. The temperature change was palpable as Jesse backed up a step.
“What?” I asked.
“Brad who?” he said, his whole tone of voice on a different plane.
I frowned. “Brad Marcus. Why?”
The way he looked at me was—weird. Distrustful. Like I stole his dog or something.
“Brad Marcus,” he repeated slowly, as if I needed to correct him or change my mind. “From Beringson Bank and Trust?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes. You know him?”
“That’s your fiancé?” he said.
“That’s—” I stopped, tilting my head. What was he doing? “What’s going on, Jesse?”
“Did—” He backed up and nearly tripped on a fallen shelf. “Was this a game?” he asked, pointing behind him and then gesturing around. “Did you just play me? All that shit about Jarvis and May? You didn’t get it from them, you got it from Marcus.”
“What the hell?”
He narrowed his eyes like I was a criminal and I was about two seconds away from having enough. But there was something else in his face besides the anger. Hurt?
“Either this is the grandest coincidence ever,” he said, pointing at me, “or you have no fucking soul.”
He walked past me, over the shelves like they were pickup sticks, and squeezed his body through the door.
I turned in place, watching him in absolute stunned silence. The second he disappeared, I followed—not as gracefully. After stumbling my way through, I emerged with fire on my tongue, but the sight of what was once a wall of windows nearly choked me. There were no windows anymore. Only twisted metal was left snaking upward. One of the booth seats was upside down on top of the bar, leaning heavily against the pantry door. The rest of the booths, tables, and chairs were missing entirely, save for one solitary chrome chair planted in the middle of the room like the winner of a contest.
“Oh, holy shit,” I whispered, hardly able to reconcile that room with the one I left not even an hour earlier.
I turned to see the old mammoth white clock still ticking away, all by itself on a piece of wall still attached to a beam. All around it, feathery pieces of insulation stuck out, either blowing in the breeze or glued together by rain. The clock listed slightly to the left, but clearly didn’t care. It just kept ticking. In that moment, I didn’t care anymore, either. Let it tick. It wasn’t going to change my life either way now. I’d already done that.
The sound of Jesse throwing things around stirred me back to his crazy words, and I picked my way around the shards of glass, still barefoot.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I called out before I actually saw him. As I rounded a corner, I saw him pick up something small and flat from a pile of random objects. As I got closer, I noticed they were from upstairs, mostly because my flip-flops were there, too.
I plucked them from the melee and put them on before fate decided to top off the day with stitches in my feet. In Jesse’s hands was the framed photograph of his family I’d seen earlier. The glass was cracked but the photo was still intact.
“That’s what you went back for, isn’t it?” I asked.
He didn’t look up. “Please leave me alone,” he said, his voice tight and low.
Without another thought, I grabbed the picture from his hand and held it behind my back. It was brazen or stupid or childish, and I had no idea what my next move was, but I wanted him to talk to me.
“Feeling guilty for loving someone else?” I said, mentally cartwheeling backward over my word choice. Did I just say love? Did I just say love? I nodded. “Welcome to my world.”
His face tightened, his dark eyes flashing. “I asked you to leave me alone.”
I pushed through the punch to the gut. “And I asked you why you just went all Jekyll and Hyde on me,” I said. “Who is Brad to you and why are you mad at me for it?”
“Did he send you here?” he said, his voice monotone.
“Oh my God.” That was it. I tossed the picture back on the pile and grabbed the front of his T-shirt, pulling him to me. Trying to get him to feel something again. “You’re being a dick. Quit talking in circles and answer my question.”
He stared down at me, all kinds of pissed off radiating from him. “Okay, I’ll play,” he said, which I knew should tick me off but I didn’t know why yet. “Your fiancé—”
“Quit calling him that,” I said.
“Is the leader of the march to repossess my land.”
All the fire turned to liquid inside me as I processed his words.
“What?”
“That’s right,” he said, walking past me. “You still telling me you don’t know what I’m talking about?”
I turned in place, stunned. All I could do was shake my head. He gave me a long look that I couldn’t read.
“Right before the fire, I applied for a loan to buy some of the land on either side of here.”
I remembered what Jarvis had told me about that, so I nodded.
“So you do know about that?” he said, pointing.
“Just what Jarvis told me.”
He closed his eyes. “Jarvis.”
I nodded again. “He and May told me you were having trouble with a land deal—that was before I knew you were you.”
He blinked several times. “When was this?”
“This morning,” I said, flinging my hands to the sides. We had just had this conversation. “At breakfast? You came up to our table?” At his non-reaction, I continued. “Seriously, do you not remember that moment?”
“Yeah, I remember,” he said, as if he were suddenly somewhere else.
I shook my head. He really was Jekyll and Hyde. Maybe I was better off not with him. I gestured with a hand. “Go on.”
He continued to look at me oddly, but did a little head shake and kept going. “They turned me down, so I went somewhere else. Got preapproved, but when they contacted the owner to let them know of an interested buyer, turns out that Beringson was the owner.”
“Why didn’t they tell you that when you applied for the loan?” I said warily.
“And then everything flipped,” he said, ignoring my question and shoving trash aside with his shoe. “My house burned down, and suddenly Beringson wanted to buy me out.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because they bought out who I was financed with, and—”
“Saw the chance to score the rest.”
“Bingo,” he said, pointing at me. Not like we were in agreement, but like he’d just shown me Hell. “I didn’t want to sell. Not here and not my personal property. So they devised a new plan. They had it all reappraised and shockingly decided I’d been underpaying for years.”
“Seriously?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Now they’re trying to repossess.”
I was infuriated, and trying not to attach the Brad I knew to such a horrendous thing. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Yes, it is,” he s
aid, facing me. “And it’s been going on for years now. All through Beth’s death, Jamie’s issues, legal crap and unending insurance nightmares, the one constant has been Beringson Bank and Trust.” His jaw tightened. “And Brad Marcus.”
I took a step forward. “But Brad is just one man. He’s one of the masses—”
“Who has single-handedly led this crusade, Andie,” Jesse said, crossing his arms. “He’s come here himself twice to sweet-talk me and throw condescending insults on his way out.”
My stomach burned, knowing exactly what he meant. I just didn’t want it to be true. I’d seen the absolute golden side of Brad. The side that was so amazing. I’d also seen his business persona on occasion. I knew Brad was ruthless when it came to business, but I never thought of him as heartless.
“Brad came here?”
Jesse stepped close enough for me to see the tired fight in his eyes. “I can tell you exactly what he looks like, down to the bleached teeth and the tailored Kiton suit.”
My last little shred of hope fell. “Shit,” I said under my breath.
“Yeah.” He tugged at his wet T-shirt. “I’m not as ignorant as I look.”
As he strode past me, back toward the horrible remnants of the storefront, I turned to watch him retreat. My whole body hurt.
“I didn’t know any of this, Jesse,” I called out. “You don’t believe me—fine. But I’m telling you I knew nothing till May and Jarvis—”
“Jarvis—” he said through his teeth as he spun around. He crossed the space between us in two steps, grabbing my hand. “Come here.”
I went, not that I had much of a choice. He pulled me along with him, behind the bar counter that remained squatting like an island in the middle of mass chaos. Along with the five-hundred-pound register and commercial refrigerator. It amazed me that the bar, register, and stools were left unbothered. Then again, they were like the old cars built in that same era, solid and virtually indestructible, and probably all bolted together in concrete with the place built around them. It was sad to see such a landmark be taken down like that. A couple of the metal signs remained behind the bar, on the wall flanking the pantry where I’d been.
Next to them, where the pantry wall-door now stood ajar, was a still-dangling photo of Jarvis and May. It hung crooked and cracked in the middle, but still there. Resilient, like the people it portrayed, I thought.
“Is this who you met?” Jesse asked, pointing.
They smiled at me from the photograph, looking maybe ten or so years younger. Jarvis’s eyes weren’t quite as saggy and May’s hair had more of a style. They were sitting on the bench out front, him with his arm slung across the back behind her, and May leaning in toward him. They looked to be laughing at something.
“Yes,” I said, not seeing the reason for the melodrama. He pulled the picture off its nail and handed it to me. “What?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, just returned my gaze, unblinking. I blew out a loud breath and shook my head, glancing back down at the photo. And did a double take.
At the bottom, in small print, were dates under their images.
Jarvis Martin James ~ and ~ Celia May James
1931 – 2011 1933 – 2011
Chapter Nine
“Two thousand eleven,” I said, trying to process the information that refused to cooperate with my logic. “That doesn’t make sense.” I held it up to Jesse. “This is done like they’re—”
“Dead,” he finished with a nod. “Exactly. They died last year, within eight months of each other.”
I started to laugh and handed him back the photo. “Okay, whatever,” I said. “I’m tired, but I’m not that tired.” I pointed to where the booths used to be. “I had breakfast with them, Jesse. This morning. You saw us.”
I started to walk back around the counter, looking up at the rain that continued to fall. I was getting weary of being wet.
“I saw you,” he said. “You were alone.”
I turned on my heel and fixed him with a what-the-hell look. “You’ve hit your head or something,” I said. “They were sitting across from me.”
“Did they eat?” he asked simply. “Order anything?”
I opened my mouth and then paused. “No, but they drank coffee.”
“They always have coffee.”
I backed up. “What?” I shook my head as I stared at him. “You’re a loon.”
“No, I’ve just seen them a few times myself,” he said. He turned the framed picture over and held it in front of him for me to see.
Taped on the back were two newspaper clippings, starting to yellow at the edges from the tape. Obituary announcements. I read the first few lines of each before they swam in a sea of new tears.
“That’s—not possible.”
“I was a pallbearer at both funerals, Andie,” he said, hanging the picture carefully back up on its nail, as if being straight mattered anymore. “I promise you it’s possible.”
I blinked my vision clear, knocking the tears free. I was the one that was a loon, not Jesse. Not only had I lost my dignity, and my self-respect, but now that I was seeing ghosts my sanity was probably in question as well.
“But—” But what? I didn’t know. There were no other words.
“They seemed real?” Jesse said, and I realized that those were the words I wanted.
“Yes.”
“I know.”
I looked up and met his eyes, and realized his anger wasn’t in them anymore.
“You’ve seen them, you said.”
He nodded and looked back at the photo. “Jarvis died in his sleep one night, with no warning. After that, May just—I don’t know—gave up. She wasn’t long after him.”
I remembered how they were together, finishing each other’s sentences. Best friends. Soul mates.
“At first, I thought I was losing it,” he said. “I’d see them early in the mornings, just a glimpse, and then nothing.” He shook his head and looked over to that same place. The empty spot where we’d sat. “That was their booth,” he said. “They came for breakfast every morning without fail, after they sold the diner to me. It was their baby, it’s all they knew.”
“They still do.” He looked back at me. “Jarvis said they’re usually here every day by eight, but they were late today.”
Jesse laughed. It was unexpected, and the sound bounced around me. But it quickly caught in his throat and I heard him draw in a quick breath as he swiped at his eyes with a finger and thumb. He leaned against the bar with both hands as if the weight of what had landed there had finally reached him.
“Where the hell will they go now?” he said under his breath.
I stepped forward as the quiet rang around us, and reached out, afraid of his rejection, but equally afraid of not trying. I knew he was angry at my connection with Brad, but I couldn’t just—walk away. The pull was too strong, or I was just too delirious, but suddenly I needed to feel connected with him.
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