And why do I care? I've done my good deeds for the night. Listening to Amelia, dispensing advice, paying for her drink.
Okay, so I wasn't Dr. Phil. I wasn't Mother Teresa either, but it bugged me to see this young girl mangle her life.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, shaking my head at the sight. “And how in the world did you get in?”
Tabitha's gaze slipped down as her Gwen Stefani red lips pressed against each other.
“Who are you? Her mother?” one of the young men demanded with that striving-to-be-tough attitude that young men carry until age and experience tell them they're not.
“I'm her aunt.” Actually, the sister of her aunt, but I figured it was close enough. I flipped my hand toward Tabitha. “And she's a minor, so unless you want me to report you to the bartender or the sheriff, you might want to back off.” I turned back to Tabitha. “Maybe you'd better leave, hon.”
Tabitha glanced at the group, then back at me. Though I was alone, she knew I represented a host of adults in her life, so she slowly got up.
The boy that had stiffed me relaxed.
“And you pay up, sonny. You're not off the hook.”
He glared up at me, but in spite of his tough attitude, he leaned sideways and pulled his wallet out of his pocket, throwing a handful of bills onto the table.
I sighed, but I decided to leave the teaching of manners to his mother, so I just picked up the money. “Look at this as a growing experience,” I said as I slipped the bills into my purse. “Someday you'll thank me for teaching you the value of paying and for the embarrassment of having to do so in front of your friends. Suffering makes you stronger, you know.”
I gave the collective group a quick smile, then took Tabitha by the arm and pulled her away from this motley crowd of losers.
As soon as we were out of earshot of her friends, she grabbed my arm. “Why did you do that?” she demanded. “You embarrassed me.”
I stopped and caught her by her skinny seventeen-year-old shoulder. “You embarrassed you,” I corrected her. “This is a stupid place for you to be.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I was meeting someone, but that doesn't matter because I happen to be of legal drinking age, and you, little scamp, are not.”
“What's the big deal?” She blinked, her teeth working at her lips. “Gramma said you were drunk at Leslie's wedding…”
Gramma had a long memory and was obviously willing to share, but I wasn't going to get sidetracked.
“I thought I made the underage reference fairly clear.”
“But it seemed like so much fun.”
“Like that party you were at that sent you to the hospital with alcohol poisoning?”
Tabitha reared back, her eyes wide. “Does everyone know everything about me?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said quietly. “But that's not always a bad thing.”
Tabitha looked down, wrapping her fingers around each other. “I just get tired of always being…”
“Being what?” I prompted, sensing a struggle in her heart.
“Being good. Being sweet and kind.” She said the last word like it was a disease. “I play in a worship band; I sing Christian songs. I'm supposed to love the Lord, but sometimes it's so hard. My brothers can get away with all kinds of stuff because they're boys, but I have to be a good little mommy's girl and a good little Christian.”
“Believe it or not, you're lucky to have a mom who is involved enough in your life that you can be a mommy's girl,” I said quietly, touching her on the shoulder. “And being a good little Christian leaves you with fewer regrets than being a bad pagan. Listen to the voice of experience, honey.”
Tabitha bit her lip. “Sometimes this seems like so much fun,” she repeated.
“Take another look, Tabitha. A deep, hard look. How many people here are really having fun?”
Tabitha's frustrated sigh answered my question.
“Now, you need to get home. How did you get here?”
“I took my mom's car.”
“I do not want to know this,” I said, waving my hand at her. “Just head out and clean yourself up and make sure you drive the speed limit.”
She nodded, looked back at the noisy crowd in the bar, then with a sigh, left out the back door.
I waited until she was gone, then took another look around. Amelia still sat at the bar, but for now Tabitha was my concern.
The evening air was chilly, and I shivered just outside the door of the bar as I watched Tabitha walk to the car, get in, and drive away.
Different bar, different town. Different, yet familiar. So which way was Helen's place?
As I got my bearings, a rattly diesel truck pulled up to the hotel and two tall young men stepped out.
One of them gave me a slow smile and sauntered over. “Hey, babe. You ready for a good time?”
“Yeah, you know where I can find it?”
The youngster thumped his chest. “Right here, baby. Right here. Let's you and me go back inside, and I'll show you.”
I didn't have the time or energy for this. “Sorry, I don't date outside my species.”
“What's with you?” he asked, his voice growing belligerent.
“Not you. Now, go inside and make up some new pickup lines.”
I turned and started walking away, blinking against the glare of headlights as a car parked down the street. I heard footsteps behind me. The guy was following me.
Did I have “I'm available” written on my forehead? First that loser at the Pump and Grill, and now this character.
I spun around, deciding to take him face-on. “Look, stop bothering me, or I'm going to call the cops.” I pulled out my cell phone, my thumb on the screen, ready to flip it open. He didn't know that my battery was dead. As long as he didn't call my bluff, I'd be okay. And if he did, well, I could always pitch it at him and start running.
“I hope you're not causing trouble again.”
That rough voice behind me was way too familiar.
Jack the Cop, and déjà vu all over again.
“No, Sheriff. I'm not.” The young man held up his hands and backed away.
I realized with relief that Jack had someone else in his sights, and in spite of my tough talk, I was glad for his solid presence behind me and the authority his uniform and his presence exuded.
“Just talking to the lady, that's all.” The guy gave Jack a feeble smile. He motioned to his friend, and they went into the bar together.
I made sure they were gone, then turned to Jack. “You always sneak up behind people and start talking in that gruff voice of yours?”
Jack angled me a curious look. “Sorry.”
I relented. “Well, thanks. He was getting to be a nuisance.”
“Actually, I thought I'd intervene for his protection.” His expression was serious, but I caught the faintest movement of his lips.
I gave in and smiled first. “To serve and protect by keeping the foreheads and insteps of carbon-based life-forms of Harland safe from all newcomers,” I joked.
His mouth lifted just a bit.
Tough crowd.
“Are you headed home?” he asked.
“That's the plan.” Then, with horror, I realized something else. “I am allowed to go to the bar, right? I'm not breaking the conditions of my bail, am I?”
“Did you start another fight?”
“I didn't start the first one.”
“Sorry.” He held up his hand as if to stop me from beating on him as well. “So, where are you staying?”
“Helen's.”
“She's a good person.”
“For now, it's a bed and… well… a bed.” I gave him a casual shrug. Cool and in charge. But I couldn't help wondering why he was suddenly making with the chitchat. I guessed even policemen needed to cut loose from time to time.
The door of the bar opened, emitting a burst of noise and pounding music into the quiet evening. A petite figure stood on the step, lo
oking around as if trying to decide what to do.
Amelia.
She saw me and waved. “Hey, Terra,” but when she saw Jack, her hand faltered midair. As she looked from me to Jack, her smile slipped away and her features hardened. Then she turned and left. She probably thought I had arranged to meet Jack here.
“You spent the evening with Amelia?” Jack asked, arching one questioning eyebrow my way.
I deflected the query with a shrug, stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. “We talked some.” And then I caught his next question before he could even ask. “And a friend is taking care of Madison.”
“So she comes to the bar.” Jack's sigh hit a raw nerve.
“To get away from a guy that…” Gear down, motor mouth. Amelia asked you not to tell him.
“That what?”
“Never mind.” I knew the guy code. Man friends are never wrong. Man friends stick together through thick and thin.
Jack gave me a penetrating look, but I wasn't budging. Amelia already thought I had broken her trust—I didn't need to shatter it completely.
A chill feathered down my spine, but I forced myself to hold his intense gaze.
“Amelia's in a bad place right now. I think she needs help.”
“She's had offers of help, which she's turned down.”
“She or Rod?”
Jack frowned, and I remembered the friendly hello Rod got when he came to the restaurant. Jack probably wouldn't believe me if I told him that I suspected Rod had sabotaged that situation as well.
Time to leave. “Thanks for saving me from the hope-'n'-scope guys. Enjoy your evening.”
Jack's expression stayed somber, and as I walked away I had to force myself to keep looking ahead. I could feel his eyes on my back.
Chapter Eight
What are you doing spending your evenings in a bar, girl?” Cor DeWindt glowered up at me as I set his coffee in front of him.
“Harland, Montana. Where secrets go to die.” I sighed. “I didn't figure Jack for the tattletale type.”
“Jack? Did you see Jack last night?” Cor's eyebrows shot up in interest.
Deflect. Deflect. “I went to the bar to meet a friend. So how did you know I was there?”
“My friend was telling me about a pretty young girl with curly hair and freckles who looked like she was laughing at some private joke. I figured it most probably was you.” Cor gave the sugar container an extra shake and set it down.
“I thought you weren't supposed to have sugar.”
“I thought you were smarter than that. Going to a bar in a strange town.”
“Don't change the subject.”
“Father Sam isn't here yet—you don't need to do his job.” Cor wrinkled his eyebrows at me, but I figured his frown was worse than his bite. “And you, Miss Bar-goer, don't need to lecture me on my habits when it looks like you've got a few bad ones of your own.”
“Is Father Sam coming?” I needed to get Cor on another topic. This one was heading to nowhere land.
“He's late this morning. Probably listening to some older woman trying to make her confession, and then he'll give her some job to do, and she'll think it's all over until she sins again.”
“At least she has some supervision,” Father Sam said, coming up behind me.
“So, Father Sam. Got the flock all sheared and herded up?” Cor asked, giving the half-empty sugar container a surreptitious push back to its original resting place. “Now they're shriven so they can go out and do it all over again.”
“It has been a busy morning.” Father Sam slipped into his booth and gave me a conciliatory smile. He wore his collar today, and a dark jacket, which gave him a very official air. But official in a comfortable way. He looked like a man a person could trust.
Cor glanced up at me. “You're not Catholic, are you?”
“She has the look of a Protestant, I think,” Father Sam said.
I wasn't sure how a Catholic or a Protestant looked, but I wasn't about to become either. God and me—not so much with the talking. He didn't bother me; I didn't bother Him. “Father Sam, would you like tea with your pie? Banana cream is back on the menu.”
“That would be lovely. Thank you.”
The smile and the extra warmth in his voice touched a forgotten emotion and created a deep, inexplicable yearning for a father I never knew, and for my sister, whom I did know but who was embarrassed by me.
I hurried away, discomfited by my reaction. He was just being polite. And I was speed-reading more into his comment than was meant.
On my way back to the kitchen, I refilled the cups of an older couple buried in their newspapers. The rest of the diner was empty, and Helen had taken advantage of the quiet to duck out to the bank.
The sun shone brightly. The day was off to a promising start. Then I walked into the kitchen and into the whirlwind.
“You're lazy, that's what. Fiddling with that computer when you should be doing books. Reading when you should be prepping.” Mathilde's face had turned an alarming shade of purple as she shook her fist at Lennie, her shrill voice piercing the morning quiet. “If it wasn't for me, this place would go down the tubes.”
What was Mathilde doing here? The kitchen was supposed to be a no-Mathilde zone for at least another hour.
“Our only customers are Father Sam and Cor and the Dubinskys, and all they do is camp and drink coffee.” Lennie rubbed the side of his nose as he spoke, then scratched the side of his head.
“Stop doing that. You look like a moron when you do that,” Mathilde screeched.
I was about to make a strategic retreat when Mathilde whirled around and caught me in her crosshairs. “And you!” she shouted, stabbing the air with her pudgy finger, little bits of saliva silvering the air between us as visions of tuberculosis and influenza danced through my head. “Lazy. Sneaking food in the bathroom.” She nodded, her eyes narrowing as she glowered at me. “Don't think I don't know about that burger Helen slipped you your first day here.”
I should have taken Helen more seriously when she warned me about Mathilde's X-ray vision.
“I'm sorry. I hadn't eaten anything, and I didn't want to eat in front of the customers.” I kept my voice even, hoping that reasonableness would do what sucking up wouldn't.
Mathilde's sour look showed no promise of reconciliation.
I swallowed back the retort I so longed to give her as my hands crept instinctively back to the ties of my apron, ready to undo the knot and pull it off. A symbolic gesture that, in the universal language of waitresses, says, “I quit.”
And then what? I thought of Leslie—of the money I owed her and of my mostly empty wallet. Of Jack's intent look when he told me I had to stick around.
Whether I liked it or not, for the first time in my life, I was in a situation where I couldn't really afford to quit a job, to walk away. Against my own will, I was stuck. And because I was stuck, I had to find a way to work with this horrible woman.
The idea choked me almost as much as the words I forced through my tight throat. “I'm sorry, Mathilde. It won't happen again.”
“You bet it won't.” She held my gaze a beat, driving her point home, and I conceded by looking away, giving her the tactical advantage.
I slipped out of the kitchen before she had a chance to ask me where Helen was. The coffee wasn't ready, so I stared at the dark liquid dripping into the pot and wondered what I was doing to myself. When I left Seattle, I promised myself that I was never going to let anyone humiliate me again. I was never going to let anyone have control over my life.
Now, a week after making that promise, it was happening again. The only way to get through this was to find a way to get into Mathilde's good graces.
The laughter from the television mocked my morose mood. I glanced up at the television set that Mathilde insisted stay on while she was working. A rerun of Laverne and Shirley, Mathilde's favorite show, flickered back at me. I pulled a face at their relentless cheerfulness.
And then I had a sudden flash of rare and brilliant insight.
The time was right. The breakfast rush was over, and the lunch rush was still an hour away. The diner was almost deserted except for Father Sam and Cor, who were locked in an intense theological debate while playing their usual game of cribbage.
I punched Cor's and Father Sam's lunch orders into the POSitouch, glanced at Mathilde, who was, as usual, glaring at the computer screen and muttering. Then I took a breath and took a chance.
“Mathilde! A stack of Vermont. Burn one; take one through the garden and pin a rose on it. And frog sticks in the alley.”
Mathilde stared at me. The three customers within hearing distance stared at me.
Then, while I stared down Mathilde, wondering if maybe this time I had truly lost my job, I saw the most peculiar sight. Mathilde's face lost its scowl, and—could that be? Was I seeing things? No. There it was.
The glimmerings of a smile.
“You put that into the POSitouch?” she said, catching herself in time, her glare slamming over the glimmer.
“Didn't even have to 911 it,” I replied.
She nodded, acknowledging my comment, pushing a plate under the warming lights. “Order up, soup jockey.” Then she started making Father Sam's pancakes, the stack of Vermont, and Cor's hamburger and fries, the burned one and frog sticks.
Helen was on her break, and as I walked past her to get coffee and hot water for Father Sam and Cor, she looked up from the crossword puzzle she was doing. “What have you started?” she hissed, sticking her pencil behind her ear.
“Get to memorizing, Laverne,” I said through the side of my mouth.
The bells above the door jangled, and a peculiar, unwelcome lift rose in my chest as Jack stepped in.
He gave me a little wave as he walked over to his father's table.
I snagged the pot of Java and walked over, determined to be a mature adult woman in charge of her life. Or at least taking charge of her life.
“Terra's been giving her orders in that old-fashioned diner talk,” Cor said to Jack. He gave me a grin. “What do you call apple pie and ice cream?”
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