Stevie was staring at her, open-mouthed.“Don’t move!”She rummaged for her phone.
“Stevie,” Corinthia added, “if you take a photograph of this I will bury your body beneath six feet of white sand.”
“Don’t be such a grump,” Stevie said, cheerfully ignoring the threat and snapping the photo.“There!It wants your book, see?”She turned the phone screen around to display it.
Whack.The bird knocked Corinthia square in the head with its sharp, strong beak.
“Ow!”Corinthia resisted the urge to swat the beautiful, personal space-invading bird away.
“Aw, it likes you,” Stevie said.
“It most certainly does not.”The bird shuffled its feet and more gently plucked at Corinthia’s hair, as if apologizing.Or considering lining its nest.“Go on, bird,” she said.“Go home.”
The weight of the bird increased for a moment then lifted away entirely as the bird flew to a nearby branch.It looked at Corinthia reproachfully, as if to say,I am home, before disappearing into the oak branches.
6
Aftertheirshortjauntinto the Refuge, Corinthia and Stevie headed to the parking lot for the weekly pop-up market of food trucks and local vendors.
They stopped a few yards from Drew’s D-Lites, their planned dinner destination.Kitschy Florida art covered the outside of the vehicle: painted palm trees, surfboards, alligators, and flamingos, plus a few oranges and mermaids for good measure.Inside, Drew was wearing an open Hawaiian-print shirt over her black tank top, along with Ray-Bans and a Panama hat, because Drew was fully committed to the bit.
Corinthia nudged Stevie.“Go on.”
Stevie didn’t move.
“Justtalkto her.”
Stevie shook out her hands in a spasm of nervous energy.“I can’t.”
“You were both flirting with each other yesterday!”
“But what if she was just beingpolite?”
“Ask her if she’d like to join a book club for two.”Corinthia gave Stevie a push to get her moving.
They approached the food truck counter.
Drew slung a kitchen towel over her shoulder and greeted them both with a smile.“What can I get you ladies today?”
Stevie, who had gone entirely mute, nudged Corinthia.
Corinthia eyed the menu board with great seriousness.There were only a few menu items, but she gave them proper deliberation as if they were engraved on linen paper, in French, at the finest restaurant.In a way, they were just as inscrutable, with names like The Devil Dog, The Pickle Pooch, and The Drewburger.The Orange Drew was Drew’s version of an Orange Julius: fresh-squeezed orange juice, milk, real vanilla, and a hint of egg for froth.
“We’ll have two Devil Dogs and two Orange Drews, please.”
“Two Devil Dogs and two Orange Drews, coming up.”She slapped the counter for emphasis, then turned away to work the machinery.
“You were supposed to say something,” Corinthia murmured to Stevie.
“I got nervous.”
Corinthia sighed.Surrounded by the reassuring brick and mortar of civilization, waiting for a bounty of Drew’s D-Lites, she had a strange impulse to bulldoze it all; let it fall; roll out the quilt of the Refuge as far as the eye could see, all of Shadow Ridge carpeted over, even the library a heap of broken shelves and aged paper, a tattered copy ofLolly Willowesthe only readable text left under a roof cracked open to the sky.
When their order was ready, they collected it, and Corinthia had almost turned away when she remembered to ask: “Have you seen a woman dressed all in blue out here today?”
“Blue?Blue…” Drew leaned on the counter and cocked her head.“Not that I recall.Only a pretty lady in a blue t-shirt,” she added, and tipped her hat at Stevie.
Stevie glanced down at her own t-shirt, only just realizing it was blue, then looked back up with a grin.
