Salem Falls Part 3

Jack ducked his head, refusing to meet the man's eye. "No," he said, clearing a table. "I don't think so."

It wasn't that Wes Courtemanche was such an awful guy-he just wasn't the right one for Addie, and nothing she said or did seemed to convince him otherwise. After about twenty minutes, a date with Wes took on the feeling of slamming oneself repeatedly into a brick wall. They walked side by side through town, holding Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate. Addie glanced across the green, where the lighted windows of the diner resembled holiday candelabra. "Wes," she said for the sixth time, "I really have to go-now."

"Three questions. Just three tiny questions so I can get to know you better."

She sighed. "All right. And then I'm going."

"Give me a minute. I've got to make sure they're good ones." They had just turned the corner of the green when Wes spoke again. "Why do you stay on at the diner?"

The question surprised Addie; she'd been expecting something far more facetious. She stopped walking, steam from her cup wreathing her face like a mystery. "I guess," she said slowly, "because I have nowhere else to go."

"How would you know, since you've been doing it all your life?"

Addie cast him a sidelong glance. "Is this number two?"

"No. It's number one, part b." b."

"It's hard to explain, unless you've been in the business. You get attached to creating a place where people can come in and feel like they fit. Look at Stuart and Wallace ... or the student who reads Nietzsche in the back booth every morning. Or even you, and the other police officers who stop in for coffee. If I left, where would they all go?" She shrugged. "In some ways, that diner's the only home my daughter's ever known."

"But Addie-"

She cleared her throat before he could finish speaking. "Number two?"

"If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?"

"A mother," she said after a moment. "I'd be a mother."

Wes slid his free arm around her waist and grinned, his teeth as white as the claw of moon above them. "You must be reading my mind, honey, since that brings me right to my third question." He pressed his lips over her ear, his words vibrating against her skin. "How do you like your eggs in the morning?"

He's too close. Addie's breath knotted at the back of her throat and every inch of her skin broke out in a cold sweat. "Unfertilized!" she answered, managing to jam her elbow into his side. Then she ran for the b.u.t.tery windows of the diner like a sailor from a capsized s.h.i.+p who spies a lighthouse, lashes his hope to it, and swims toward salvation. Addie's breath knotted at the back of her throat and every inch of her skin broke out in a cold sweat. "Unfertilized!" she answered, managing to jam her elbow into his side. Then she ran for the b.u.t.tery windows of the diner like a sailor from a capsized s.h.i.+p who spies a lighthouse, lashes his hope to it, and swims toward salvation.

Jack and Delilah stood side by side chopping onions, taking advantage of a slow after-dinner crowd to get a head start on tomorrow's soup. The scent of onions p.r.i.c.ked the back of his nose and drew false tears, but anything was preferable to finding himself backed into corners by Darla. Delilah raised the tip of her knife and pointed to a spot a foot away from Jack. "She died right there," Delilah said. "Came in, gave Roy h.e.l.l, and collapsed on the floor."

"But it wasn't her fault Roy had put the wrong side order on the plate."

Delilah looked at him sidelong. "Doesn't matter. Roy was busy as all get-out and didn't want to take any fuss from Margaret, so he just said, 'You want your peas? Here're your G.o.dd.a.m.n peas.' And he threw the pot of them at her."

Delilah sc.r.a.ped her onions into a bucket. "He didn't hit her or anything. It was just a temper he was in. But I guess it was too much for Margaret." She handed Jack another onion to chop. "Doctor said her heart was like a bomb ticking in her chest and that it would have given out even if she hadn't been fighting with Roy. I say a heart stopped that day, sure, but I'm thinking it was his. Everyone knows he blames himself for what happened."

Jack thought of what it would be like to go through life knowing that the last conversation you had with your wife involved throwing a cast-iron pot at her. "All it takes is a second and your whole life can get turned upside down," he agreed.

"Mighty profound from a dishwasher." Delilah tilted her head. "Where'd you come from, anyway?"

Jack's hand slipped and the knife sliced across the tip of his finger. Blood welled at the seam, and he lifted his hand before he could contaminate the food.

Delilah fussed over him, handing him a clean rag to stop the bleeding and insisting he hold the wound under running water. "It's nothing," Jack said. He brought his fingertip to his mouth, sucking. "Must've been hard on Addie."

"Huh? Oh, you mean her mom dying. Actually, it gave her something to throw herself into, after Chloe." Delilah looked up. "You do know about Chloe?"

Jack had heard Addie speaking to Chloe in the tender, idiomatic language of a mother. "Her daughter, right? I haven't met her yet, but I figured she was around here somewhere."

"Chloe was Addie's little girl. She died when she was ten. Just about ruined Addie-she spent two years holed up in her house, nothing but her own upset for company. Until her mom pa.s.sed and it was up to her to take care of Roy and the diner."

Jack pressed the cloth against his cut so hard he could feel his pulse. He thought about the plate he'd stolen fries from today, heaped with food no one had touched. He thought of all the times he'd heard Addie talking to a girl who didn't exist. "But-"

Delilah held up a hand. "I know. Most people around here think Addie's gone off the deep end."

"You don't?"

The cook chewed on her lower lip for a moment, staring at Jack's bandaged hand. "I think," she said finally, "that all of us have got our ghosts."

Before shutting off the grill and leaving with Darla, Delilah had made Jack a burger. He was sitting on the stool next to Chloe's now, watching Addie close up. She moved from table to table like a b.u.mblebee, refilling the sugar containers and the ketchup bottles, keeping time to the tune of a commercial on the overhead TV.

She'd come back from her dinner engagement silent and disturbed-so much so that at first Jack was certain she knew about him. But as he watched her attack her job with a near frenzy, he realized that she was only being penitent, as if she had to work twice as hard to make up for taking a few hours off.

Jack lifted the burger to his mouth and took a bite. Addie was now hard at work on the salt shakers, mixing the contents with rice so that the salt grains wouldn't stick. On the television, the Jeopardy! Jeopardy! theme music swelled through the speakers. Without intending to, Jack found himself sitting higher in his seat. Alex Trebek walked onto the stage in his natty suit and greeted the three contestants, then pointed to the board, where the computerized jingle heralded the first round's categories. theme music swelled through the speakers. Without intending to, Jack found himself sitting higher in his seat. Alex Trebek walked onto the stage in his natty suit and greeted the three contestants, then pointed to the board, where the computerized jingle heralded the first round's categories.

A method of working this metal was not mastered until 1500 B.C. B.C.

"What is iron?" Jack said.

A contestant on the television rang in. "What is iron?" the woman repeated.

"That's correct!" Alex Trebek answered.

Addie looked up at Jack, then at the TV, and smiled. "Jeopardy! fan?" fan?"

Jack shrugged. "I guess."

In the 1950s, this Modesto, CA, company became the first winery with its own bottle-making plant.

"What is E. & J. Gallo?"

Addie set down the salt container she'd been holding. "You're more than just a fan," she said, coming to stand beside him. "You're really good."

Nine of the twelve chapters in this book of the Bible set in Babylon revolve around dreams and visions.

"What is Isaiah?" Addie guessed.

Jack shook his head. "What is Daniel?"

In the original Hebrew of his Lamentations, each verse in three chapters begins with a new letter, from aleph aleph on. on.

"Who is Jeremiah?"

"You know a lot about the Bible," Addie said. "Are you a priest or something?"

He had to laugh out loud at that. "No."

"Some kind of professor?"

Jack blotted his mouth with a napkin. "I'm a dishwasher."

"What were you yesterday, then?"

A prisoner, thought Jack, but he looked into his lap and said, "Just another guy doing something he didn't really like doing." thought Jack, but he looked into his lap and said, "Just another guy doing something he didn't really like doing."

She smiled, content to let it go. "Lucky for me." Addie took the mop that Jack had brought from the kitchen and she began to swish it over the linoleum.

"I'll do it."

"You go ahead and eat," Addie said. "I don't mind."

It was these small kindnesses that would break him. Jack could feel the fissures beginning even now, the hard sh.e.l.l he'd promised to keep in place so that no one, ever, would get close enough to hurt him again. But here was Addie, taking him on faith, doing his work to boot-even though, according to Delilah, fate had screwed her over, too.

He wanted to tell her he understood, but after almost a year of near silence, words did not come easily for him. So very slowly, he took a handful of French fries and set them on Chloe's untouched plate. After a moment, he added his pickle. When he finished, he found Addie staring at him, her hands balanced on top of the mop, her body poised for flight.

She believed he was mocking her; it was right there in the deepest part of her eyes, bruised and tender. Her fingers wrung the wooden handle.

"I ... I owed her, from this afternoon," he said.

"Who?" The word was less than a whisper.

Jack's eyes never left hers. "Chloe."

Addie didn't respond. Instead, she picked up the mop and began to swab with a vengeance. She cleaned until the floor gleamed, until the lights of the ceiling bounced off the thin residue of Pine-Sol, until it hurt Jack to watch her acting fearless and indifferent because she reminded him so much of himself.

By the time Addie pulled the door shut and locked it behind her, it was snowing outside. Fist-size flakes, the kind that hooked together in midair like trick skydivers. Inwardly, she groaned. It meant getting up early tomorrow to shovel the walkways.

Jack stood a distance away, the lapels of his sports jacket pulled up to s.h.i.+eld his neck from the cold. Addie was a firm believer that someone's past deserved to stay in the past-she herself was surely a poster child for keeping secrets. She didn't know what kind of man walked around in a New Hamps.h.i.+re winter without a coat; she'd never met someone who was bright enough to know the answers to every Jeopardy! Jeopardy! question but willing to work for minimum wage in a menial job. If Jack wanted to lie low, she could offer him that. question but willing to work for minimum wage in a menial job. If Jack wanted to lie low, she could offer him that.

And she wouldn't think about his unprecedented reaction to Chloe.

"Well," she said, "See you tomorrow morning."

Jack didn't seem to hear. His back was turned, his arms stretched out in front of him. Addie realized, with some shock, that he was catching snowflakes on his tongue.

When was the last time she'd thought of snow as anything but a hindrance?

She opened the door of her car, turned the ignition and carefully pulled the car away. In retrospect, she did not know what made her look back into the rearview mirror. If not for the yellow eye of the streetlight in front of the diner, she might never have seen him sitting on the bare curb with his head bowed.

With a curse, she took a hard left, curving around the green to the front of the diner again."Do you need a ride?"

"No. Thanks, though."

Addie's fingers flexed on the steering wheel. "You haven't got a place to stay, have you?" Before he could protest, she got out of the car. "It so happens I know of a room for rent. The bad news is you're going to have a roommate whose disposition isn't always very sunny. The good news is if you get hungry in the middle of the night, there's a h.e.l.l of a kitchen you can raid." As Addie spoke, she unlocked the door of the diner again and stepped over the threshold. She found Jack holding back, haloed by the falling snow. "Look. My father could use the company. You'd actually be doing me a favor."

Jack didn't move a muscle. "Why?"

"Why? Well, because when he spends too much time alone he gets ... upset."

"No. Why are you doing this for me me?"

Addie met his suspicion head-on. She was doing this because she knew what it was like to hit rock bottom and to need someone to give you a leg up. She was doing this because she understood how a world jammed with phones and e-mail and faxes could still leave you feeling utterly alone. But she also knew if she said either of these things, Jack's pride would have him halfway down the street before she could take another breath.

So Addie didn't answer. Instead, she started across the checkerboard floor of the diner.

Tonight, one of the Jeopardy! Jeopardy! categories had been Greek mythology. categories had been Greek mythology. This hero was given permission to bring his love Eurydice back from the underworld but lost her by turning back too quickly to see if she was following. This hero was given permission to bring his love Eurydice back from the underworld but lost her by turning back too quickly to see if she was following.

Addie wouldn't be like Orpheus. She kept walking with her eyes fixed ahead until she heard the faint jingle of bells on the door, proof that Jack had come in from the cold.

September 1999 North Haverhill, New Hamps.h.i.+re Aldo LeGrande had a four-by-four-inch tattoo of a skull on his forehead, which was enough to make Jack take the bunk farthest away from him. He didn't react when Jack set his things down, just continued to write in a purple composition notebook whose cover had been hand-decorated with scribbled swastikas and cobras.

Jack began to set belongings in a small tub that sat at the foot of the bed. "Wouldn't do that if I were you," Aldo said. "Mountain uses that to p.i.s.s in in the middle of the night."

Jack let the warning slide off his back. He had spent a month at Grafton County. Every new inmate started out in maximum security and was then allowed to pet.i.tion for a move to medium security after two weeks of good behavior. Two weeks after that, the inmate could move to minimum security. Each time Jack had moved pods, he'd had to face some kind of test from the inmates already living there. In maximum, he'd been spat at. In medium, he'd been jabbed in the kidneys and gut in corners too dark for the security cameras to see.

"Mountain will get over it," Jack said tightly. He stacked his books from the prison library last and then shoved the plastic container under the lower bunk.

"Like to read?" Aldo asked.

"Yes."

"How come?"

Jack glanced over his shoulder. "I'm a teacher."

Aldo grinned. "Yeah, well, I work for the state paving roads, but you don't see me painting a dotted yellow line down the middle of the floor."

"It's a little different," Jack said. "I like knowing things."

"Can't learn the world from a book, Teach."

But Jack knew the world did not make sense, anyway. He'd had four weeks to ruminate on that very topic. Why would someone like himself even bother listening to someone like Aldo LeGrande?

"You keep your a.s.s tight and prissy like that," Aldo said, "and you're gonna be candy for the other boys."

Jack tried not to feel his heart race at the other man's words. It was what every man thought about when he conjured an image of jail. Would it be irony or biblical justice to be convicted of s.e.xual a.s.sault and then find himself the victim of a prison rape?

"What're you in for?" Aldo asked, picking his teeth with his pen.

"What are you you in for?" in for?"

"Rape," Aldo said.

Jack did not want to admit to Aldo that he had been charged with the same offense. He didn't want to admit it to himself, either. "Well, I didn't do what they say."