“I retook those pictures,” I tell her. “And they look fantastic. I’ll be sending them to you tomorrow.”
“We’re very grateful to you,” Thomas tells her.
The look on his boss’s face causes me to scan the table for sharp objects to hide. She looks like she wants to take our happiness and crumple it up before grinding it under her booted heel. It goes without saying that dousing it in gasoline and setting it on fire would be the inevitable ending.
“I’d like to see you in my office tomorrow, Thomas. Nine a.m.,” Constance says before turning around and practically marching out the front door.
As soon as she’s gone, I tell Thomas, “I think you’re in trouble.”
He looks visibly shaken. “What could she possibly do to me?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But whatever it is, I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
THOMAS
Even with Constance doing her best to intimidate us, Finley and I are having a wonderful evening together. In fact, my boss gave us a mutual enemy which seems to have brought us closer together.
Once our food arrives, I tell my new friend, “There’s no way you’re ever going to be able to eat all of that.” Her eyes brighten at the challenge. “Never say never.” Then she glances at the baked potato and grimaces.
“Don’t you like baked potatoes?”
She shakes her head. “It’s in foil.”
“That’s probably how they cooked it.” While this makes sense to me, it still looks like a problem for her.
“Would you mind taking the foil off for me?” Finley asks.
“Off your potato?” She nods her head, so I reach out to remove the sheet of aluminum. As I do this, she turns away and sticks her fingers in her ears. Once I’ve accomplished the task, I crumple the foil and tuck it under the side of my plate. “All done,” I tell her.
Finley turns around, looking relieved. “Thank you.” As she doesn’t say anything else, I assume she doesn’t want to explain what that was all about. “Want a bite of my taco?” I ask her.
She studies my plate before saying, “I really don’t.”
“You don’t like tacos?” I ask.Who doesn’t like tacos?
“I like all the ingredients,” she says. “I just don’t like them together.”
Finley has some definite opinions about food, but I guess we all do. For instance, I like both hot chocolate and marshmallows, but I don’t like marshmallowsinmy hot chocolate.
We turn our attention to our meals, and don’t talk a lot beyond the basics. Once again, the silence isn’t strange so much as it’s pleasantly unusual. I hate when people feel the need to talk just to avoid quiet. But for some reason, that seems to be the standard.
I polish off my tacos and declare them the best food I’ve eaten in Elk Lake. Finley eats a surprising amount, but she doesn’t finish both of her meals. Instead, the waitress brings her a to-go container. As she drops it on the table, she says, “I don’t have a small container for the peas, but I brought you a piece of foil so you can keep them separate.”
Finley looks panicky, so I hurry to intervene. Looking up at the waitress, I ask her, “Do you have a paper coffee cup instead?”
When she nods her head, I pick up the foil and hand it back to her. “We won’t need this.”
When the waitress is gone, Finley lowers her head to avoid eye contact. “Thank you.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. I know she feels overly observed, and not in a good way.
Once Finley packs her food, I ask, “Should we order dessert?”
“I would love to,” she replies, “but I don’t have a spare centimeter of space left in my stomach.”
“We could order it to go, and you could take it home for breakfast.”
Instead of commenting on dessert, Finley tells me, “I don’t like the sound foil makes, and I don’t like how it feels against my skin.”
