“Uh huh. Diane Perkins working at Goode’s today?” Iasked.
“Diane works most every Saturday,” he answered blandly, beginning a cautious descent. “Best cook theyhave.”
“You ever gonna tell me what’s going on with youtwo?”
He snorted. “‘Bout when you tell me what’s going on with you andSilas.”
“I already told you… I don’tknow.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s doing with me and Diane, either.” He hesitated. “You wanna know the truth,Everett?”
“No, lie tome.”
He ignored me. “Truth is, I was fixing to… to court her. Todateher, as the kidssay.”
As the kids say.I shook my head as I followed slowly down the stairs behind him. “What wentwrong?”
“I broke… I mean,bruised… my foolleg.”
“Sowhat?”
“So the poor woman ended up taking care of me, that’s what.” He shook his head and paused with his hand on the railing to look up at me. “Don’t wanna be a burden on anyone. And that’s just what I told her when I told her to stop coming around to seeme.”
“You told herthat?”
He sighed. “You may not have noticed, but the woman’s a good bit younger than I am. Fourteenyears.”
“Inoticed.”
“Don’t want her tied down to me, taking care of meforever.”
“But you care about her, don’t you? And she cares about you, otherwise she wouldn’t have kept bringing you dinner all the time and blushing whenever you say something nice abouther.”
He clomped down to the bottom step and opened the door. “Yep. Goes to show, you haven’t cornered the market on idiocy,Everett.”
“What’s that supposed tomean?”
He turned around once he reached the sidewalk and lifted a hand to my shoulder. His green eyes were serious as they met mine. “It means when a good person loves you, Everett, you don’t turn your back on it. You don’t let your pride or yourfearhold youback.”
“That’s not what’s happening with me and Silas.” It wasn’t. It wasn’t fear or pride that held me back, it was… it wasloyalty. A totally differentthing.
“Of course not.” Grandpa Hen sighed. “Well, one thing’s for sure, you’re a Lattimer through and through.” He clapped me on the shoulder and turned toward the diner. “No one can ever say we did anything the easyway.”
I frowned and followed him as he opened the glass door of therestaurant.
The diner was packed this morning, its bacon-and-coffee-deliciousness spilling out onto the street along with the noise of two dozen O’Learians chatteringaway.
I recognized most of them already, oddly enough, and I lifted my hand to return wave after wave as my students and their parents, and O’Leary Hardware patrons, and people I recognized from the Pumpkin Festival meeting a few weeks back, all greeted me byname.
I was starting to think I enjoyed the aggressive O’Learyfriendliness.
“Hey!” Silas said, standing up as Grandpa Hen approached. Si and Dare had gotten a table in the center of the diner, right between Frank and Myrna Lucano’s table and the table where Jamie Burke, Julian Ross, and Julian's brother Constantine weresitting.
I greeted Dare as Grandpa shook Si’s hand. Hen’s annoyance with Silas had disappeared about an hour after I’d come home from Silas’s house the first night. “Good to see you smiling, Everett,” was all he’d said, but the next time Si’s name had come up in conversation, he’d smiled andnodded.
After Grandpa sat, Si turned to me. His blue eyes were so warm when they met mine, and I could see by the way he looked at my lips that he wanted to kiss mehello.
I stuck out my hand and watched the light in his eyes dim just a little as he shook it and sat backdown.
