“Surprise!” Caleb was standing by the hostess stand, wrapped in a gray scarf and navy pea coat and looking like an actual L.L.Bean model. He didn’t know that of all the things Betty hated in life, surprises were number one. “I skipped off of work early, grabbed a bottle of wine and thought I’d join you.”
“It’s midnight,” she said, and hoped her voice wasn’t shaking. Her blood was pounding furiously in her ears. Betty had trained herself for no surprises,ever, even innocuous ones like this.
“Exactly! Do you know how rare it is for me to ditch work by midnight on a Wednesday?” Caleb worked in finance in some sort of job that Betty didn’t even pretend to understand. She knew he made boatloads of money and worked grueling hours, which meant he was available only in limited gulps and for expensive meals. It suited Betty perfectly.
The diner was totally empty, so she couldn’t think of a reason he shouldn’t stay.
“We only have screw-top wine,” she said, gesturing at the bottle. “I don’t think I have anything to open that.”
“I was a Boy Scout,” he said, and pulled a corkscrew from his pocket. “I always come prepared.”
Something about her look must have given her away, that she had no idea what he was talking about.
“That was our motto,” he said. “Boy Scouts always come prepared. Your brothers weren’t ever scouts? Or you were never a Brownie? Oh my gosh, my sisters were so competitive over cookie sales.”
“No,” she said, and she heard herself. Clipped, tense. “They were never Boy Scouts.”
“Oh, well, all right, it actually was pretty nerdy. Don’t judge me.”
She liked this about Caleb, how he defused her live wire of tension. She thought about how in elementary school, a few girls in her homeroom were Brownies. How envious she was when they wore their uniforms, when they had badges on their sashes. She asked Patience about it once, if she had gotten to do that when she was Betty’s age, and Patience looked horrified.
“Don’t ever mention that to Mom or Dad,” she’d whispered when they were in bed that night.
“Okay but—”
“No, just don’t, okay? I asked once. It’s not worth it.”
Patience didn’t have to elaborate. Betty was only seven or eight, but she well knew by then that her dad was mercurial, nearly dangerous. For a period back then she thought her mother could protect her, but later she’d learn that was as delusional as thinking she could join the Girl Scouts.
“Anyway, there’s that girls’ group at the church,” Patience had said, before rolling over and turning her back on Betty. “That’s why Dad started it. To give girls something like that. But for our own kind. He lets me lead the baking classes now, which is sort of like science, so it’s not so bad, it’s pretty good.”
Tonight, Betty seated Caleb at a booth by the window, theone that Zeke, Sybil and Julian had opted for the very first night she met them.
“I’ll go get some mugs,” she said. “We don’t really have wineglasses.”
“And bring me your very best saltines.”
Betty had once told him the only thing she’d trust to eat there were the soup crackers. That he remembered this felt like a small gift. Almost no one remembered anything about Betty, which was exactly as she designed it, and she knew, she really did, that she couldn’t want more. But what if she did?
She thought of Levi. Of Patience. Of Noah. Of Jacob. Of how she hid her bike in the woods because it was pitch black out, then walked into town and bought a bus ticket to Charleston with cash. Of how she lingered on the edge of the tree line for a long minute, standing in the shadows, and watched the fire grow from something terrifying to something beautiful. From Charleston, she made her way to Charlotte, eventually settling for a beat in Baltimore.
What if now she wanted more?
No,no.
More was dangerous. More was reckless.
If only that were enough to stop her from wanting it.
31
Night Eleven
Zeke
Zeke was sosore that he couldn’t move off his (ridiculously oversized, he could see now) couch. He understood grueling, but he hadn’t really understoodgruelinguntil he started physical therapy in earnest with his three surgeries out of the way. His trainer’s neck was the size of Zeke’s thigh, and that was pretty much all he needed to say to Sybil to give her an indication of what he was up against.
“And he has a tattoo of a tiger on it, on his neck,” Zeke moaned. “In case you need a clearer picture.”
