‘-and Dee felt the same way and Dee’s not a jerk-’
‘Dee’s overprotective,’ Mare said, starting to see the past more clearly. ‘But you still should have talked to me, damn it. You didn’t even talk to me.’
‘I tried,’ he said, and tilted his empty coffee cup again, and Mare sat back, knowing he had tried, and that he was right about her keeping him away before that, too, keeping secrets like I’m a witch, because that kind of thing was hard to explain and could get Dee and Lizzie burned at the stake or whatever they did to witches in the twenty-first century, probably studied in Area 51 or something, and then Pauline stopped to fill his cup for him, peering at him over her glasses.
‘So you’re back, are you?’ she said. ‘Where you been?’
Mare looked up. ‘Pauline, we’re having a conversation here.’
‘Yeah, everybody heard you.’ Pauline raised her penciled-in eyebrows. ‘Just like old times, you whipping him into shape again. You can take your sunglasses off. The sun went down in here after breakfast.’ She nodded at Crash again. ‘So where you been?’
‘Italy,’ Crash said.
Italy. Mare looked away, at the jukebox selector on the tabletop, biting her lip. Italy. She began to flip through the cards. She’d stayed in Salem’s Fork and kept her secrets and cried for months, and he’d gone to Italy. Where there was probably dust and sunshine.
‘No shit.’ Pauline balanced her arm on her hip, holding the coffeepot dangerously near Crash’s ear as she absorbed that.
Crash slid two quarters across the table to Mare - just like old times - and she swallowed hard. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t taken her to Italy, she didn’t speak Italian anyway. Of course, neither did he back then. He probably did now. Italy. She blinked back tears. Hell, she’d have gone to Outer Mongolia if he’d asked.
No she wouldn’t have. Dee and Lizzie would have gotten burned at the stake without her. She was the only one who knew how to use the shotgun. Lizzie can make muffins, Mare thought, but I can lock and load.
‘Good food in Italy?’ Pauline was saying.
‘Yeah,’ Crash said, and Mare could tell from his voice that he was watching her, so she put the quarters in and punched some buttons at random.
‘Italy’ Pauline said, as Kim Richey began to sing. ‘Damn.’
So I didn’t punch the buttons at random, Mare thought as Kim sang about buying a new red dress to keep her spirits up because her boyfriend was gone. Damn subconscious.
‘So in Italy-’ Pauline began.
‘You should go tell someone about that, Pauline,’ Mare said from behind her sunglasses. ‘That’s hot news. Don’t want it to cool off.’
Pauline nodded. ‘Back in a minute,’ she said and headed for the kitchen.
Crash didn’t look exasperated anymore, just tired. ‘Mare, there wasn’t any reason to stay if you didn’t want me around, if you wouldn’t talk to me. And I knew why you wouldn’t. I swear, I didn’t see that trash barrel roll into the street. I was watching the road, I don’t know where the hell it came from. I have replayed it over and over in my head, and I swear-’
Mare blinked at him. ‘That’s okay, that could have happened to anybody, I’m not mad about that.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not it at all.’
‘I wouldn’t have taken any chances with you behind me.’ He met her eyes, straight on. ‘You were everything to me.’
Kim sang, ‘You’ll never know how much I love you,’ and Mare sat back. ‘Well, I’m nothing to you now, so it doesn’t matter, does it?’
He leaned forward, and Pauline came back to take their order.
‘Maxine says welcome back, and she saw this movie about Tuscany and wants to know if that’s where you are.’
Mare scowled at her. ‘Since when do you ask questions for Maxine? You’ve had Maxine completely terrorized for years and now you’re her lackey?’
Pauline grimaced. ‘It’s supposed to be this big secret, but Maxine bought the diner two days ago.’
Mare’s annoyance vanished. ‘Oh, bad luck, Pauline.’
‘No shit,’ Pauline said. ‘You’re not going to believe this one: starting tonight, we’re serving martinis.’
‘No.’ Mare leaned closer. ‘How the hell did she get a liquor license that fast?’
Pauline leaned in, too. ‘You got me. I’d say she was giving blow jobs, but I don’t think Ferris Tuttle over at the license bureau has a dick.’
‘Good point,’ Mare said.
‘Do you mind?’ Crash said to both of them.
‘So is that where you are?’ Pauline said to him. ‘Where Maxine said? Tuscany?’
‘Yes,’ Crash said.
Pauline turned around and yelled, ‘That’s where he is, Maxine.’
Over behind the counter, little dark-haired, rumpled Maxine gave him a thumbs-up, and Crash gave her a nod and turned back to Mare, looking as if he were thinking, This is why I left.
‘So,’ Pauline said. ‘What’ll it be?’
Crash said, ‘Two hamburgers, one medium well, one medium rare, pickles on both, cheese on the medium well, fries, two Cokes, one diet, with water chasers. Wait fifteen minutes then bring a chocolate milkshake. Large.’
‘Hungry, are you?’ Mare smiled at Pauline. ‘I’ll have-’
‘I just ordered for you,’ Crash said, looking impatient.
‘That’s what we always got. Can we finish our conversation now?’
‘Well, I’ve changed,’ Mare said. ‘You leave a woman alone for five years, she’s gonna change.’ She smiled at Pauline again. ‘I’d like ketchup on the medium rare burger and a lemon slice in the Diet Coke and in the water, please. And make the shake a strawberry.’
‘I like chocolate,’ Crash said.
‘Then get your own,’ Mare said, and he ordered a chocolate shake.
‘Not much of a change,’ Pauline said to Mare.
‘Thank you,’ Mare said, and Pauline topped up Crash’s coffee cup and left.
Crash picked up the sugar dispenser. ‘She’s right. Adding lemon doesn’t change the basic order. I still know you. And you are something to me, damn it. You’re-’
‘You do not know me,’ Mare said, staring at Crash’s coffee cup.
‘You ran five miles this morning and waved to Mother at the tattoo parlor,’ Crash said, getting ready to pour sugar into his coffee but keeping his eyes on her. ‘Then you came here and had orange juice and a doughnut for breakfast. Why are you making this so hard? Why do there have to be so many secrets and so many rules and why does everything have to be so damn hard?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Mare stared at the coffee cup until it sparked blue, and then she slid it over two inches as Crash glared at her and poured sugar onto the table where the cup had been.
‘And I know you. I’ll bet you five bucks that you’re wearing blue lace under that god-awful coverall. You always wore blue lace under anything butch.’ He grinned at her then, for the first time since he’d come back, and she lost her breath because she’d forgotten how his smile lit up his whole face.
‘I am not wearing blue lace,’ Mare lied, and tried to think of anything besides how good it felt to have him smiling across the table from her again. Like how easy it was to move things like muffins and coffee cups and how hard it was to move little things like sugar grains. She stared at the sugar and began to separate out grains, biting her lip as she concentrated.
‘I can see the lace.’ Crash put the sugar dispenser back. ‘Right there at the top of your zipper.’ He picked up his spoon, looked down for his cup and saw the pile of sugar instead, and said, ‘What the hell?’ as Mare looked down to see her zipper had slipped enough for a flash of blue lace to show at the top.