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CHAPTER 14
FLORA
I CAN’T EAT ANOTHER BITE. You do it.”
“Me? I don’t think that’s the point.”
“Please, I double-dog dare you to tell me these ribs taste any differently than the ones before them, or the ones before those.”
I glare at Keith, my eyes daggers of contempt, until he has no choice but to rise to the challenge.
“Double-dog dare. Well, if you’re that serious.” Keith gamely picks up a knife and fork, slices off a bite of barbecued meat.
“Who uses a knife and fork to eat ribs? Authentic experience. Come on!”
“You’re very cranky,” he informs me, but sets down the silverware, picks up the bone with his fingers.
“I have good reason to be cranky.”
“And yet, what does it change?”
I glare at him again. He shrugs a shoulder, then takes a delicate bite of pork and chews thoughtfully. “I would say these ribs have a tad more vinegar than the ones before. Or maybe it’s a hint of cloves.”
“You are making that up!”
“Yes. I am.”
Keith sets down the bone. I can’t help myself, I half sigh, half explode in exasperation, throwing myself against the back of the booth.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I don’t remember. I was too busy being grateful for food, any kind of food. I was scarfing and inhaling and chewing like a goddamn animal. I didn’t notice sauce, or flavor or seasoning. I was fucking starving and I ate like a starving woman.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh shut up.”
Another shrug. I want to scream. Or tear out my hair or rip apart this booth. I want to run so far, so fast, that this awful food and those awful memories can never catch me and I’ll never have to think about Jacob again.
Keith had identified two restaurants in Niche that had the same owner-operators for the past ten years. A diner and a pub. So we’d started there, the owners trying to protest it was too early to be serving dinner, me staring them down until the entire menu suddenly became available. It was creepy how easy it was to select entrees. Oh, Jacob would love this, Jacob would like that. Like picking out food for an old friend, or long-lost lover. Which brought back other memories, the chili dog in St. Louis that exploded down his shirt after the first bite and I burst out laughing before I could catch myself. Then froze, thinking he’d smack me, except he started laughing, as well. He’d ordered two more and we’d eaten them greedily at the truck stop, talking about nothing in particular, enjoying our time in the sun.
Who enjoys a sunny afternoon with their own rapist?
And yet that was Jacob, too. He wasn’t a monster all of the time. Or maybe he realized that the moments of normalcy made his monstrousness all the more frightening.
D.D. had given us her rental car. After hitting the two establishments in Niche, we’d driven south to Dahlonega, which had many more restaurants. We’d been eating, I don’t know, forever. Ordering plate after plate while fellow diners stared. My stomach ached. My head hurt. I wanted to vomit, though whether from food or memories of Jacob...
“They remodeled Columbine High School the summer after the shootings,” Keith offers up. He’s pushing the ribs around on the plate with his fork. “The administrators knew it was important to wipe out as many traces of violence as they could so the student body could move on. And they understood that meant not just patching bullet holes, but instituting a whole redesign, especially one that changed up the library, where so many were killed.”
I nod absently. Keith likes to talk. Sometimes I pay attention, sometimes I don’t.
“But the principal argued a new look wasn’t enough,” Keith continues. “They also needed to change the fire alarm tone, which had gone off for hours that day. Just the sound of those notes sent himself and the students back into a state of panic.” Keith paused. “They also removed Chinese food from the cafeteria menu.”
He looks at me. “That’s what the cafeteria had been preparing for lunch that day. Chinese food. No one could take the smell anymore. Again, it led to immediate panic attacks. Poor Chinese food. It probably was a lunch many used to enjoy.”
I stare at him.
