“Green.”
“That’s right.” Calvin was working on the potatoes now, tumbling them out of their greasy, garlicky foil and splitting them evenly betweentwo plates. “This is a well-balanced meal. Now we just need to work on your well-balanced life.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s part of it,” Liam mused as he dished up the salad. “I’ve been working alot, for a long time. Maybe I just kept coming back up here because when I lived here I didn’t work. I mean, being a camp counselor over the summer isn’tworking, right? So maybe I’ve been drawn to North Fallsbecause it’s the last place I really had any leisure time.”
“Leisure time. And when you had that leisure time, what were you doing with it?”
Hanging out with Ben, obviously.But Seth had been there too. Lots of people had been there.“We talk about kids today being overscheduled. Maybe I’m an overscheduled adult. It wasn’t so much that I was doing exciting things with my leisure time, necessarily,it’s just that it was free. I could just lie on the grass and listen to the river flowing by, if I wanted.”
“And have you done that yet on this visit? Gone to lie in the grass by the river?”
“No. But maybe I will tomorrow.”
“Or maybe you should go see Ben tomorrow.” Calvin gave no indication that he’d just dropped a bomb like that. He was still totally casual as he lifted the steaks off thegrill and slapped them onto the plates.
Liam, on the other hand, was reeling. “Ben. Go see him. You think—no, we’ve been through this. I should respect his wishes.”
“Has he repeated his wishes lately, or are these just the ones you heard fifteen years ago?”
“There was a lot of ‘fuck you’ at the cemetery. And I think he told me to go away. He definitely said I was an asshole.”
“But that couldhave just been the shock talking.”
“And today he kept muttering, ‘Why are you here, why are you here.’ It didn’t sound like he was all that happy about it.”
“Well, he’d just rammed into Laura Doncaster’s cruiser. He probably wasn’t thinking too clearly.”
“Is this real? Do you actually think this would be a good idea, or are you just trying to fuck with both of us?”
“Liam?” Calvin said quietly.“How do you feel right now? Excited, nervous, apprehensive but eager? Maybe even some butterflies?” He found a seat on the other side of the picnic table and casually speared some lettuce onto his fork. “When was the last time you felt this way at your job?”
“So—wait. Was all this stuff about visiting Ben—was it just a test? A trap? You were trying to get me worked up about something so you couldprove I’mnotworked up enough about my career? Or do you actually think I should go see Ben, and you just threw the work stuff into the conversation because you’ve always got to be clever and talking about two or three different things at the same time?”
“What do you want the answer to be?”
“Aw, fuck you, Yoda, you’re not my shrink and I’m not playing your games.” He speared a potato and chompedit, and his hostility melted away as the rich, garlicky butter washed over his taste buds. He groaned in pleasure. “Son of a bitch, I missed these potatoes.”
“The potatoes missed you too.”
“Wait. Thepotatoesmissed me?”
“Yeah, that didn’t work. I was trying too hard—you got me inspired with the ‘Yoda’ business, and the thought ofthreedifferent meanings when I’m usually sweating just to havetwo. I meant—damn it, Liam. Ben loved you. He’s gotten past it—it’s not like he’s been sitting around pining over you, not by a long shot. But he loved you, and he’s missed you. You guys were good friends before you were anything else. Maybe it’s possible for you to be good friends again. If you have the balls to give it a try.”
Liam looked for the trap but he couldn’t find it. “Maybe,” he finallyagreed.
“Okay. That’s enough for tonight. Now you can tell me about your glamorous, outrageous life in the big city, with plenty of anecdotes, hopefully including some about celebrities, and I will listen and enjoy without even the hint of a question about whether your life there is as meaningful as it should be.”
“And you’ll tell me gossip about everyone in town, hopefully withnomention ofcelebrities, and I’ll listen without wondering if there’s a hidden meaning or moral to your stories.”
“Sounds good.”
And with only a few glitches they managed to stick to their conversational plans.
Liam strolled back to the B&B shortly before midnight, not drunk but certainly not in any condition to drive, still pleasantly full from the meal, and overall feeling more satisfied, more at peace,than he had in years.
It was probably just the alcohol making him feel that way, but he’d been drunk plenty of times in the past fifteen years. He could give the credit to the steak, but he’d had lots of steak.
Damn. It was the potatoes. The buttery, garlicky wonders.
It wasn’t North Falls, wasn’t the conversation with Calvin, wasn’t the thought that he could go see Ben the next day with areasonably clear conscience since he was operating with Uncle Calvin’s blessing. No, it was the potatoes.
“I’m going to make them for myself,” Liam said out loud as he turned up the path to the purple house. “I can have garlic potatoes anytime I want.”
But he wasn’t sure they’d taste quite the same in the city. Wasn’t sure the magic would work outside of North Falls.
“I’ll figure somethingout,” he told himself. It was surprisingly optimistic, considering everything that had happened lately. Must have been the potatoes giving him such a good attitude.
