Her throat knotted.
And she thought about the tigers.
When she was little, she’d loved tigers as passionately as she’d loved horses. She’d draw pictures of them to hang on her walls. And then one day three of the grades at her school had gone on a field trip to the zoo. She’d been so excited to go.
But then she’d seen the tigers pacing in their cages... back and forth... back and forth.
She found a bench and sat down. And she’d put her face in her hands and just wept. She didn’t know why, for certain, but she felt a sort of desperate, panicky sorrow for the tigers.
It was so incredibly unlike her that Jonah had been concerned and embarrassed all at once, astonished to see his scrappy sister transform into an astonishing baby. He’d been frantic in his attempt to shush her.
But Eli had given her the napkins from his ice cream cone to wipe her eyes, and then he’d sat next to her on the bench and arranged his arm across the back. She’d pressed her skinny little shoulder blades against it and he’d pressed back with his arm, so that no one except them knew they were both taking and giving comfort.
“It’s not right, Eli,” was the best she could do by way of explaining. “It’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
She could still remember how he smelled that day. Like a boy, earthy and grassy and sweaty and wild. He didn’t say much. Back then he stuttered when he got excited. So Eli mostly listened.
He got the stutter under control over the years. Eli always got everything under control.
“I know.” She could feel him suffering on her behalf. “That won’t be you, Glory.”
Only Eli understood it had nothing at all to do with her being afraid of the tigers and everything to do with those cages. Those cages and the tigers’ beauty.
A year after that, he’d given her a little stuffed tiger for her birthday. It was kind of a secret between the two of them. And she’d gotten in the habit of moving her tiger around the house every day, just so the tiger knew itcouldmove, and then the habit stuck.
It occurred to her that Glenn might actually be working toward issuing a no. Because he was no pushover. He knew for a fact that she was a risky choice as waitress, that he needed a good one, that he wanted someone to stick around for a long time, because he was a smart businessman. And he knew, like she did, that she didn’t belong here in Hellcat Canyon forever.
She was also a Greenleaf. Possibly the only Greenleaf who had saved every penny she’d made or found since she was twelve years old. Nevertheless.
Glenn sighed. “Be here tomorrow at eleven for the lunch rush. We’ll throw you in at the deep end, see how that goes.”
She exhaled in exultant relief. “Ilovethe deep end.”
“I know you do, kiddo. I know you do.” He sounded sort of amused and resigned. As if he already knew how it would all turn out but he was willing to watch the show.
They shook hands on it firmly, and he pushed away from the chair, casting one final glare at the flyer.
“Owlets,”he muttered again irritably on his way back to the kitchen.
“Bye, sprinklers!” Glory called to Giorgio as she left.
She tried not to skip, but she indulged in one on the way back up the street.
Halfway home she paused to admire the billboard. The men had finished slapping it up, and it was now shining on the highway.
HOOT ARE YOU?
The new album by The Baby Owls
There they all were, beards and flannel and glasses, only probably about fifteen feet taller than real life.
Thatwas a good omen for certain. She figured she needed to at least put in a full day’s work before she hit Glenn up for the second part of her plan.
Chapter6
Eli pulled out of the parking lot of Heavenly Shores, bemused by the mazelike turns his job often took. He’d arrived to address a pissed-upon rhododendron; he’d departed with a date with a hot blonde.
Not the worst day he’d ever had.
