“Charlie, slow down!”
“Emmy, I’m hungry!”
If I got my hand near his mouth, I was pretty sure it would get eaten too, that’s how fast the food was disappearing into his gullet. “Dude, you’re a mess.”
“I love your spaghetti!” he beamed at me, mouth red with tomato sauce. That was great, because it was pretty much all I could really cook. Pasta, pasta, and more pasta. Sometimes I changed things up with my other specialty, grilled cheese. But Cassie did ok with the plain noodles, and Charlie wolfed it down like he had never seen food before.
“Listen, sweet pea, I’m working tonight. So if you wake up, remember that I’ll be back. And your mom is here. My number is in your mom’s phone if you need me. But you have it memorized, right?”
He nodded, shoving another piece of bread into his mouth. “But I don’t want you to go there.”
“Why?” I asked curiously. Charlie shrugged.
“You know, I was really proud of how you shook hands sopolitely today.” Next we would work on eating graciously. Mike had thought table manners meant you were trying to be better than everyone else, and Cassie never bothered to teach him any. Charlie ate a little like the wild dogs of Africa we had seen onPlanet Earth.
“Who was that guy?” he asked around the bread. “At the pool.”
I slid the salad closer to him and gestured at it. “Take a helping, please. And please don’t speak with your mouth full. Both those guys in the parking lot today were Whitakers. You know that name?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “The pool is George Whitaker. And I go to Whitaker Elementary. And the car dealership is somebody Whitaker, and the playhouse, and something else too, I think.”
There were a few more things with Whitaker on them that Charlie hadn’t mentioned. “Yep. The old guy today was George Whitaker. He built the whole Athletic Complex, pool included, for everyone to use.” And for his own glory. Who named crap after themselves? “He was the guy with the cane.”
“And the other guy knows my mom?”
I stopped chewing for a moment. My mouth got dry, and I threw back some water to force the noodles down my throat. “Yep. That’s Luke. He and your mom went to high school together.”
“With you and Tara?”
“No, well, yes, with Tara. But I was in sixth grade when they graduated. I went to the same school, but later.”
He was busy with the butter dish. “You know, pal,” I mentioned casually, “some people like to have bread with their butter.”
“I love butter,” he told me seriously. “Can I eat some just plain?”
“No,” I said as I moved the butter dish out of his reach.
Two hours later, Charlie was in bed, Cassie fed (a little) and asleep, dishes were done and put away, wash in and out of the dryer and folded, the kitchen vaguely straightened though still a mess. I quietly headed out the door, crunching the gravel driveway beneath my ancient Doc Martens. They stood up well to the beer, spit, puke, and other disgusting substances that managed to find their way to the floor of Roy’s Tavern. I tried not to think too much about what those soles had seen.
The engine of my Nana’s ancient white Cadillac Eldorado turned over with a retching noise. This car had been her pride and joy, and another leftover of better financial times. “Come on,” I muttered. The El D rumbled to a start and I slowly backed out of the driveway, then sped down the highway.
Roy’s was a beacon at night in our tiny town. First, it had one of the only neon signs: “ROY” (the S didn’t work, and Roy didn’t hold with apostrophes). Plus, the rest of the town was dead—completely dead—at night. The only action was the cars and pickups pulling out and weaving down the street after another suds-filled evening at the only bar on the main street, and the only bar within fifteen miles.
I quickly parked and jogged in, trying to avoid the mud puddles in the dirt parking lot. I hoped they were just mud. I tied on my apron behind the bar, flashed a quick smile at Roy (he looked sleepy, but he saw everything) and started serving.
Two hours later, my calf muscles were killing me, my arms were tired from hefting trays full of heavy beer mugs, I was sticky, and would probably have a big bruise on my butt where a customer had kindly given me a pinch. And then left a dollar tip on a thirty-dollar tab. I put my tray down and got a quick glass of water. I was wiping my mouth with the back of my hand when I heard, “Emily? It’s Emily, right?”
And there he was again. Luke Whitaker. After six years, I saw him twice in one day.
I tried to casually dab the sweat off my forehead and upper lip. “Hi, yes, I’m Emily. Can I get you something?”
He looked around. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
I busied myself wiping glasses with a bar towel. “Yep, a few nights a week. Something on tap?”
Before he answered there was a crash at the other end of the bar. “Scuse me, I have to get that,” I told him as I grabbed the broom and dustpan.
It was a couple of minutes later when I walked up to his table. He was there with a few other guys who looked familiar to me, guys Cassie had been friends with in high school. Guys who had worshipped Cassie in high school. But she and Luke had been the golden couple for two years, right up until they graduated. Then Luke went away for the summer to work, and then to Georgetown, the only kid from our high school who had ever gone there. And sometime around then Cassie went to Saginaw and met Mike, and that was it.
