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Good on him. He did kind of look like a new man. And his date was beautiful, with her long, yellow-blond hair and sparkling sky-blue eyes. Vern’s eyes were only for Millie; he was puffed up with pride, but I wasn’t sure that was doing it for her. She looked unsure. He hadn’t even noticed me yet.
“You guys look so good,” Samantha said. “Can I take your picture for the library’s Instagram page?”
“Why?” Vern asked at the same time the question popped into my head.
“I snap photos of all kinds of things, just so people can see what a cool town Wisper is. I’m hoping to get our following up so maybe more people will come to the library.” She looked at me. “Remind me to take a picture of the restaurant sign outside before we leave.”
I nodded as Vern looked at me finally. Why did she have to take pictures of everything? Was that a generational thing? She’d already taken pictures of our drink glasses. Why on earth would anybody want to see that?
Millie smiled, turning to give Samantha a side view. She sucked in her trim stomach and fluffed her hair. “You can take our picture.”
Vern seized the opportunity to touch Millie, wrapping his arm around her waist as Samantha pulled her phone from her bag under our table. “Thanks,” she said, grinning at the odd couple, and she took a quick photo. “Well, enjoy your dinner. Oh, I’m so sorry. Millie, Vern, this is Frank.” She motioned to me, smiling at me, too, and my heart skipped a beat. It stuttered into an uneven rhythm as she blinked, probably wondering what to call me.
Was this a date? Technically, it was, but we didn’t really know each other. She wouldn’t call me her boyfriend. If she did, it would’ve felt ridiculous. I was too old to be anybody’s “boyfriend.” “Frank’s a deputy. He works for the Sheriff’s Department.”
Vern shrank back a step, releasing his hold on Millie. “Uh, yep. Pretty sure I knew that.” He faced me. “Howdy, sir. I apologize for the trouble I mighta caused you in the past.”
That stopped me in my tracks. This was definitely a different Vern. Before, he would’ve flipped me off and spat in my direction. What the hell had happened to the guy? Maybe he’d been doing some soul searching since his idiot best buddy had been carted off to federal prison. Carey arrested the guy, and Abey’d had the pleasure of hauling his worthless ass to the feds in Jackson after he beat his wife, neglected his kid, and broke all kinds of laws six ways to Sunday.
Now, Vern had a job at the community center. I’d even seen him around town helping people just ’cause they needed it. He didn’t get paid to hang Christmas lights for Avery Fletcher at the flower shop after she’d dropped a bucket full of flowers, slipped on the spilled water, and broken her leg. No one asked him to deliver groceries to Veda Alderson after Carey had taken her license away ’cause she’d run her old Buick into the tree in her front yard for a third time, but he did it anyway. If the people of Wisper were talking about it, I was definitely hearing about it, and I’d heard plenty recently about Vern.
I stuck my hand out to him. “The past is the past. Good to see you doin’ well, Vern.”
The nod and small smile on his face as we shook was my good deed for the day; I wasn’t known for being overly friendly.
Millie threw Vern some kind of look. Maybe she hadn’t known about his many arrests, but I’d figured everyone in Wisper knew. Finally, she looked at me. “I’ve seen you outside the station. It’s nice to meet you. My best friend is Devo. She works at Ace’s House next door.”
“I think I remember seein’ you there. Nice to meet you too.”
Vern held his hand out toward Millie, urging her on to their table when the hostess mentioned it was ready. I hoped he had enough cash to cover the fancy dinner they were about to order, but then I figured Theo Burroughs probably paid him pretty well. “Ma’am,” he said to Samantha.
Millie responded with something that resembled half a smile and the other half a wince.
“Have fun,” Samantha said as they walked away, and I hurried around the table to hold her chair for her before she sat, but she didn’t wait for me. Scooting in, she placed her napkin over her thighs again and looked up at me.
I thought there might’ve been a glint of defiance in her eyes, like she knew I was old-fashioned, but she didn’t want to admit she was interested in those kinds of gestures from me.
Maybe that was generational too. The thing was, though, it had nothing to do with her being a “pretty little lady” and more to do with her being my beautiful date. I held the chair for everyone I ate with, man or woman. It had nothing to do with who they were but everything to do with who I was.
She interrupted my thought when she spoke. “Vern helps me sometimes at the library when I need something fixed. He does it for free. Isn’t that nice?”
I nodded again, wondering if my neck would be sore later for all the damn nodding I was doing, and why she hadn’t told me she needed help. I would’ve fixed anything for her, and I was there often enough.
“So where were we?” she asked as I sat. “Oh yeah. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What was your childhood like? What do you want from life?”
I tried not to groan out loud. I hated lying to people, but in this instance, maybe a white lie was a better way to go. Part truth, part fib. “It was fine. I was adopted.” I contemplated what to say next. Would she run? But I wanted to tell her. I took the chance. “And family. Always imagined I’d have a family by now.”
She chewed the inside of her lip for a minute, staring into my eyes, then looked down, taking a sip of her wine and brushing over the family thing when she asked, “You were adopted? What was that like?” Some kind of look flashed across her face, but I had no idea what it was about.
“Mm,” I said and shrugged.
“Your adoptive parents were good to you?”
I nodded.
