Salem Falls Part 6

"Her brain is the size of a clam. Trust me, she couldn't care less." He nodded toward the udder again, and Addie reached down but could not draw forth any milk.

"Watch." Jack knelt in the hay and took two udders in his hands. He began to pump rhythmically, milk raining into the bucket. Addie marked the synchronic motion and then lay her hand over Jack's. She could feel the flex of the tendons and the muscles tightening as he froze; she looked back to find Jack's face twisted in either agony or rapture at the simple fact of a human touch. He opened his eyes and locked his gaze on hers.

The cow's tail slapped him hard across the face, damp and reeking. Addie and Jack jumped apart.

"I think I've got it now." When she tried this time, a small squirt of milk came from the teat. She continued to focus her attention on the cow, embarra.s.sed now that she had seen Jack with his guard down.

"Addie," Jack said softly, "let's trade."

They were inches apart, close enough to breathe each other's fear. "Trade what?"

"The truth. You give me one honest answer," he said, "and I'll give you one back."

Addie nodded slowly, sealing the bargain. "Who goes first?"

"You can."

"All right ... what did you do?"

"I was a teacher. At a private school for girls. Coached soccer there, too." He rubbed the flat of his hand along the cow's bony ridge of spine, the protrusions of her hipbone. "I loved it. I loved every minute of it."

"Then how come you-"

"Now it's my turn." Jack moved the pail from beneath the cow. The milk steamed, fragrant and fresh, its heat rising between them. "What happened to Chloe?"

Addie's eyes swam. Jack's fingers grasped her upper arms. "Addie-" He broke off, following her stare. To his hands. Which were touching her. Of their own free will.

Immediately, he let go.

"That waitress has an a.s.s like a-"

"Thomas." Jordan McAfee cut his son's observation off, even as he peeked around the edge of his mug to see for himself. Then he grinned. "You're right. She does." Jordan McAfee cut his son's observation off, even as he peeked around the edge of his mug to see for himself. Then he grinned. "You're right. She does."

Darla turned, in the middle of making rounds with the coffee. "Refill?"

Jordan held out his cup. He bit back a smile as his son's eyes fixed directly on the waitress's cleavage.

"You know," Jordan mused, when Darla had left them for another customer, "you're making me feel old."

"Aw, come on, Dad. You were fifteen ... what? A few centennials ago?"

"Do you think of anything besides s.e.x?"

"Of course." Thomas looked affronted. "Every now and then, I worry about people in Third World countries. And then I figure if they all started having s.e.x, their lives would be considerably brighter."

Jordan laughed. As a single father, he knew he had a very different sort of relations.h.i.+p with his son than most other parents had. And maybe it was his own fault. A few years ago, when they'd been living in Bainbridge, Jordan had run a little wild, had brought home his share of women whose names he could not recall the next day.

He set down his coffee cup. "Tell me the paragon's name again?"

"Chelsea. Chelsea Abrams."

Thomas's whole face softened, and for a moment Jordan was actually jealous of his own son. When was the last time he'd he'd been swallowed whole by love? been swallowed whole by love?

"She's got the most incredible pair of-"

Jordan cleared his throat.

"-eyes. Big and brown. Like Selena's."

Just the name made Jordan's shoulders tense. Selena Damascus had been his private investigator when he'd been a defense attorney in Bainbridge. She did have beautiful eyes-a brown you could drown in. Once, Jordan nearly had. But he had not seen or heard from Selena in the fourteen months since he'd moved to Salem Falls and cut back dramatically on his caseload.

"So," Jordan said, rerouting the topic. "Chelsea's beautiful."

"She's smart, too. She takes AP everything."

"Sounds promising. And what does she think about you?"

Thomas grimaced. "That's too big an a.s.sumption. She probably doesn't think about me at all."

"Ah, but that's something you can overcome."

Thomas looked at his thin arms, his concave chest. "With my incredible physique?"

"With your perseverance. Believe me, there are plenty of times I've tried to forget about you, but you keep crawling back into my head."

"Thanks a bunch."

"Think nothing of it. You going to ask her to the Spring Fling?"

"Nah. I have to bone up on my perseverance first, so that when she laughs in my face I don't collapse in a heap." Thomas pushed his French fries through an ocean of ketchup, drawing Chelsea's initials. "Selena used to be great with girl advice."

"That's because she's a girl," Jordan pointed out. "What's going on, Thomas? Why do you keep bringing her up?"

"I just wish we still knew her is all."

Jordan stared out the window at two dogs that were chasing each other, tails scrawling trails in the snow. "It would be nice," he agreed softly. "But I lost my best investigator a year ago."

At first, when Addie was watching Jack, she told herself it was because he was a new employee-she needed to make sure he didn't put the salt back on the storage shelf where the sugar was supposed to be; she had to be certain that he loaded the dishwasher in a way that would maximize cleaning and minimize breakage. Then she admitted that she was watching Jack simply because she wanted to. There was something mesmerizing about seeing him run a mop over the checkerboard floor, his mind a million miles away. Or listening to Delilah with rapt attention, as if learning how to make bouillabaisse was one of his life's goals. He was handsome, certainly, but plenty of handsome men had come through her diner before. What was so attractive about Jack was his exoticism-the fact that he looked completely wrong there, like an orchid blooming in the desert, yet acted as if there was no place else he'd rather be. To Addie-who felt as much a part of the diner as its bricks and mortar, and equally as unable to separate from it-Jack was the most fascinating creature she'd ever seen.

She was figuring out a tab one afternoon when Jack looked up from wiping down the counter, glanced out the front window, and suddenly sprinted into the kitchen. Curious, she followed, to find him handing Delilah an order.

Addie pulled it from the cook's hand. "There's no one at table seven," she said.

"There will be. Didn't you see him? The kid with the long hair and the philosophy book-he's on his way in."

Addie knew immediately to whom Jack was referring. The student was a fairly new regular but a consistent one. He came in at 2:20 every day but Sunday, slid into the booth in the back of the diner, and pulled a dog-eared paperback of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil Beyond Good and Evil from his battered knapsack. Every day for the past three weeks, without any deviation, he'd ordered a BLT, hold the tomato, with extra mayonnaise. Two pickles. A side of cheese fries, and black coffee. from his battered knapsack. Every day for the past three weeks, without any deviation, he'd ordered a BLT, hold the tomato, with extra mayonnaise. Two pickles. A side of cheese fries, and black coffee.

Delilah pushed the sandwich toward Jack, who picked it up and hurried into the front of the diner. The student was just sliding into his customary booth when Jack, smiling triumphantly, set his usual order down in front of him.

The kid paused in the act of removing his book from his knapsack. "What the f.u.c.k is this?" he asked.

Jack nodded toward the window. "I saw you coming. And you've ordered this almost every day for the past three weeks."

"So?" the student said. "Maybe today was the day I wanted a f.u.c.king burger." He shoved the plate across the booth, so that it toppled off the edge onto the banquette. "f.u.c.k you and your mind games," he said, and he stormed out of the diner.

From her vantage point by the swinging doors, Addie watched Jack begin to clean up the food. He angrily wiped mayonnaise from the plastic seat and stacked the pieces of the ruined sandwich back on the plate. When he turned around, he found Addie standing beside the table. "I can take that for you," she said.

But Jack shook his head tightly. "Sorry I lost you a customer."

"It wasn't intentional, I'm sure." Addie smiled a little. "Besides, he was a lousy tipper."

There was something in the tense curve of Jack's shoulders and the flat blank of his eyes that told her he had been slapped down before when he'd only been trying to go out of his way for someone. "Some people don't know what to do with an act of kindness," Addie said.

Jack looked directly at her. "Do you?"

What kindness would you show me? she thought, and shocked herself. Jack was an employee. He was as different from her as night was from day. But then she thought of how, that morning, he'd taken over the grill for Delilah and had made pancakes in the shape of snowmen, then slipped them onto Chloe's plate at the counter. She thought of how they would move around the empty diner in tandem after closing, clearing and sorting and shutting down for the night, a dance that seemed so smooth they might have been doing it forever. she thought, and shocked herself. Jack was an employee. He was as different from her as night was from day. But then she thought of how, that morning, he'd taken over the grill for Delilah and had made pancakes in the shape of snowmen, then slipped them onto Chloe's plate at the counter. She thought of how they would move around the empty diner in tandem after closing, clearing and sorting and shutting down for the night, a dance that seemed so smooth they might have been doing it forever.

Suddenly she wanted to make Jack feel what she had felt lately: that this once, there was someone on her side, someone who understood. "Stuart's been coming here for years, and every morning I pretend I have no idea what he's going to ask for, although it's always the same-ham and cheese omelette, hash browns, and coffee. Jack, I know you were only trying to help," Addie said, "but on the whole, customers don't like having a.s.sumptions made about them."

Jack stuffed the dirty wipe into the waist of his ap.r.o.n and took the plate back from her. "Who does?" he said, and walked into the kitchen, leaving Addie to wonder if his response had been a wall to make her keep her distance or a clue to help her understand.

In Meg Saxton's opinion, phys ed was an inhumane form of humiliation. It was not that she was hugely fat, like the people Richard Simmons visited because they couldn't even get out of bed. Her mother said she was still growing. Her father said there was just enough of her to love. Meg bet neither of them had had to suffer through shopping at the Gap with their friends, pretending there was nothing that interested her on the sale rack so that they wouldn't see her picking from the size fourteens.

The two girls the phys-ed teacher had picked came front and center, with a confidence that said they were used to standing there. Suzanne Abernathy was a field hockey captain; Hailey McCourt had led the soccer team to a district champions.h.i.+p last year. They stared down the group of girls, sorting the athletes from the losers in their minds.

"Sarah."

"Brianna."

"Leah."

"Izzie."

Gilly was picked-she was no athlete, but she was quick and smart. The choices narrowed, leaving only a small huddling puddle of girls who had little coordination. Meg s.h.i.+vered each time a name was called, as if each time one of them walked away, a piece of protective armor had been removed.

Finally, only two girls remained: Meg, and Tessie, the Down syndrome kid who'd been mainstreamed this year. Hailey turned to Suzanne. "What do you want? The r.e.t.a.r.d or the tub of lard?"

Laughter rained down on Meg. Beside her, Tessie clapped her hands with delight.

"Tessie, you're with Suzanne," the phys-ed teacher announced.

As the ball was set into play, Meg stared at Hailey, thinking of boils and leprosy and third-degree burns, horrible things that would take away her honey hair, her Cover Girl complexion, and leave her in the same boat as the rest of the misfit world. Then the ball came directly toward her. "Saxton!" Hailey yelled out. "To me!"

Meg lifted her foot-how hard could it be to kick a soccer ball?- and let loose with such force she slid and landed on her b.u.t.t in the mud.

The snickers of the cla.s.s didn't take away from this slow-motion moment, the ball spinning skyward like a missile. Meg was a little stunned at how far it went, even if it was soaring in the complete opposite direction from Hailey. The ball continued so far out of bounds that it landed on the baseball field.

Hailey walked past Meg, deliberately splattering her with even more mud. "If you can't shoot straight, hippo, pa.s.s the ball!"

"Hailey!" the teacher said sharply. And then sighed. "Meg, go get it."

Meg jogged off, painfully aware of Hailey whispering about the way she looked while she was trying to run. One day she'd be reincarnated as an anorexic. Or a supermodel. Or maybe both at the same time. Head down, Meg concentrated on the fire in the pit of her lungs and her belly, instead of the tears p.r.i.c.king the backs of her eyes.

"Here you go."

A man handed her the out-of-bounds ball. He was tall, and the sun caught his hair like it did Gilly's. He had a kind smile, and she would have thought he was incredibly handsome if he wasn't as old as her father. "Don't kick it with your toe," he said.

"What?"

"Raise your knee, push your toes down, and hit it with your shoelaces. Swipe under the ball." He grinned at Meg. "You've got more power in one leg than that blond girl has in her whole body."

Meg let her eyes slide away. "Whatever," she muttered. She slogged onto the field, letting the action fly around her. She was facing her own goal when the ball slammed her in the back of the knees. "Knee up, toe down, on the shoelace!" Meg heard his voice again, and without thinking about it, she did exactly what he said. Meg heard his voice again, and without thinking about it, she did exactly what he said.

The ball flew low and strong, driving straight toward the opposite goal. Maybe it was the surprise that Meg Saxton had actually hit it; maybe it was-as that man had said-that she had power she didn't even realize-but for whatever reason, the ball streaked past the defense and snugged in the net.

For a moment, everything stood still, and Meg felt herself suddenly cloaked in the thick satisfaction of doing something perfectly right. "Killer shot!" one girl said, and another patted her on the back. Gillian ran up to her side. "Unbelievable. Did you cast a spell?"

"No," Meg admitted, a little amazed this had happened without witchcraft.

But Gillian's attention was on the field, where the man was walking off, hands in his pockets. "Who's your coach?" she asked.

Meg shrugged. "Some guy. I don't know."

"He's cute."

"He's old!"

Gillian laughed. "Next time," she said, "ask his name."

The bas.e.m.e.nt of the diner held the lion's share of the food that couldn't fit in the narrow kitchen: a stacked ladder of hamburger rolls and breads, huge tins of sweet corn, tubs of ketchup large enough to fill half a bathtub. Jack had been sent down there by Delilah for a fifty-pound bag of potatoes. Hefting the bag onto his shoulder, he yanked it out of its spot on the shelf and found himself looking right at Roy.

The old man was in back of the metal shelving, his fist closed around a bottle of cooking sherry. "Oh, s.h.i.+t," he sighed.

"Addie's going to kill you."

"Only if she finds out about it." Roy offered his most charming smile. "I'll let you watch whatever you want on TV for a week if you pretend you never saw me."

Jack considered this for a moment and nodded. Then he balanced the potatoes on his shoulder, trudged up the narrow stairs, and dumped the sack at Delilah's feet. "Start peeling," she ordered.

"Have you seen my father?" Addie demanded, hurrying into the kitchen. "We've got a line a mile long at the cash register."

Delilah shrugged. "He's not here or I'd have tripped over him. Jack, you see Roy in the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

Jack shook his head but he didn't meet Addie's eye. Then, with impeccably lousy timing, Roy sauntered through the bas.e.m.e.nt door. His face was glowing, and even from across the room Jack could smell the cheap alcohol on his breath.

Addie's face went bright red. Tension filled the confines of the kitchen, and Jack tried to ignore the fact that someone was going to say something any moment that he or she would regret. Words, he knew, could scar.