Page 49

“Zombie,” Taylor deadpanned with such agility, both she and Oscar chuckled. The glimmer that flashed in his eyes struck Analise.

“How about orange juice?” she asked.

“What’s a zombie doing in Mora?” Oscar remarked in his gravelly voice.

“Just passing through,” he said, perusing the menu.

“Nobody passes through twenty miles off I-35,” said Liam. “Unless you’re a complete fool.”

Analise whacked the bill of Liam’s trucker hat.

Taylor released an uneasy laugh, but it died when his gaze landed on Analise’s hand curled around the orange juice she set before him, the one brandishing her engagement ring. Analise immediately released the OJ and busied her hands, covering the diamond.

With a restrained face, Taylor pored over the menu and all of its three breakfast choices: eggs of any configuration, pancakes, and doughnuts. Without looking at her, he said, “What do you recommend? No—just surprise me. I don’t care. I’ll eat anything.” He set the menu down gingerly and asked softly, “When’s the wedding?” His expression was masked, awaiting her response.

“Saturday,” she said, “nothing big. My fiancé has a huge family and I don’t.” Why am I telling him all this? Why did he ask?

“I got engaged once,” he said, “twice actually, but the last woman realized I was still in love with the first,” he said this directly at Analise, “so she dumped me.”

Oscar guffawed. “You sound like a real ass.”

Analise now whacked Oscar’s hat bill

Liam held up a crossword puzzle and said, “What’s a nine-letter word for medical history? Ends in S.”

“Anamnesis,” the stranger said without removing his eyes from Analise.

“Aha!” Oscar jostled him on the shoulder. “He’s a smart ass.”

Analise scrubbed the flush from her face and went to the kitchen. Willa, her co-waitress, was in there. She was old enough to be Analise’s grandmother and sometimes functioned as one because Analise had none. “Willa, can you take the new customer at the counter?”

Willa plumped her generous boobs with a smirk and grabbed her order for the Sans-Book-Club moms. “That hottie? Honey, Tom Selleck could sit there, and it wouldn’t be enough to make me deal with the Crusty Crabbies.” She lowered her chin at Oscar and Liam and then lifted her brow at Taylor. “Get his story though. Definitely has one.” With a wink and cluck of her tongue, Willa yanked her jeans up over her flat butt.

Analise scuttled to Hank, the lone cook. He played hockey with some sizzling eggs, back and forth on the flat steel grill, wagging his hips to Hall & Oates playing from the boom box. Analise snagged the cigarette butt from his mouth before more ashes dropped into the eggs. She reached into his apron pocket, grabbed a new cig and his lighter, jammed the cig into his mouth, and flicked the lighter in one practiced motion. “Waffles. Strawberries. Got it?”

Hank scrunched his pocked nose. “The hell am I supposed to make waffles?” he said out the side of his mouth.

Analise squatted to the stainless steel shelving at Hank’s ankles. She pushed aside mixing bowls, a large grater, unidentifiable contraptions that resembled utensils, and baking pans, until she seized upon a waffle iron. “Ha! How long have you worked here?” She smacked it onto the counter.

“Since the beginning of time,” he said, “but waffles aren’t on the menu.” He scraped the scrambled eggs onto a plate.

Analise went to the industrial fridge and yanked it open. She moved aside half-priced Halloween cookies and clutched the container of strawberries resting next to a pan of banana cream bismarks. Their pastry chef—heaven forbid she be called a baker—probably needed the strawberries that afternoon to make strawberry creams, but she wouldn’t miss a handful.

From inside the kitchen, Analise heard the café door open again. But instead of another stranger, she recognized the prattling and wailing and grabbed a pan of cookies. She set the strawberries next to Hank, snatched the plates of eggs, and floated out of the kitchen. She slid the eggs to the Crusty Crabbies, then announced operatically to her church-friend Wendy and her tow-headed children, ages four and eighteen months: “I haaaave Ghosts! I haaave Pumpkins! I haaave Monsters!” The children were dressed in the same garb they’d most likely been wearing the past week post-Halloween, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. Analise held a Frankenstein cookie next to the toddler’s cheek and made her best monster face. The toddler burst into effervescent giggles. Analise made another monster face, sending both children into spastic belly fits.

She caught Wendy’s sideways glance at Taylor’s stare while she continued with a game of Scary Monster, curling her fingers next to her bugging eyes, and then tickling the children. After a few minutes of gab with Wendy, Wendy corralled her frosting-coated tots, thanking Analise, and scooted them out the door, fanning one more gaze at Taylor.

Now came the late morning lull. Bookless Club moms settled into their post-coffee coma, furtively checking their phones, clearly desperate for time to stop altogether. Liam was in a slow-motion egg feed, and Oscar’s were suffering from neglect. He was interrogating Taylor.

Analise snatched the coffee pot and dangled it over the counter in front of Taylor. “Never too late to start an addiction,” she said, mustering a breezy, casual tone.

His polite grin communicated her joke wasn’t amusing. She scrambled to recover. “Has Oscar discovered all your deep dark secrets yet?”

“Me!” Oscar jabbed a wrinkled finger into his chest. “He’s the one doing the interrogating. Asking about the Larssons.”

Taylor massaged his neck in a strained fashion and stared at the countertop. When he lifted his gaze, he bypassed Analise for Oscar. “Did you know the Larsson family?”

Oscar stabbed at his greasy eggs. “Everyone knew the Larsson family.” He held up the skewered forkful. “I’m guessing so did you.”