Still, her symptoms could be delayed. I knock again, then curl my fist and start banging, the hollow door rattling in its frame. I’m just about to kick it when I hear gravel crunching behind me and turn to find Maybelle coming around the side of the building, arms crossed over her chest.
“Boy, what in the hell are you doing?”
Boy. I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country. When I walk into a room, people sit up and listen. No one has ever called meboy, even when I was one. I say brusquely, “She’s not answering.”
Her lips pull into a snarl. “A woman don’t answer the door, she don’t want to talk to you.”
I hadn’t made the best impression earlier, but didn’t care at the time. It’s unlike me, I’m usually more personable. At least, I know when to turn it on. Just not with Rose, and apparently, not today.
Maybelle looks like she’s two seconds from calling the cops. Or skipping that entirely and attacking me with a broom handle. I watch her eyes cut to my fist, still raised from knocking, and make a conscious effort to lower it and take a step away from the door.
“We were in a car crash,” I lie, then place my palm flat on Rose’s door. “That’s how she got the cut. I’m just worried she might have a concussion. Delayed onset—”
“She left.”
“What?“
Maybelle rolls her eyes, then points down the road. “Diner.” Then she turns and stalks off.
Irritation gnaws at me. So Rose, with no phone, waiting on a rental that, as far as she knew, could have arrived at any moment, just walked off without telling me. Typical.
I head down the road after her. Out here, it’s all rural back roads cutting through hills and rolling fields of hay and corn, nothing visible for long in any direction. It’s actually pretty, which I didn’t get a chance to appreciate when we were careening toward the Earth.
It’s hot and muggy, and I’m still pissed off, but it’s a long walk, and somewhere between the motel and the diner sign appearing on the horizon, the irritation begins to fade and I realize I’m starving. I can’t remember the last thing I ate today. I’m usually disciplined about that—when I eat, balancing calorie and protein intake. I have to be, my work requires it. But everything today is all fucked up.
It’s almost four, too early for dinner, which might explain why there’s only one car in the lot—a dusty old Yukon with a cracked taillight, parked crooked across two spaces. The place is genuinely old—not trying to look retro, but actually is. The exterior is a faded yellow that might have once been white. A neon sign in the window buzzes the wordcoffeein unsteady pink light, the ee’s flickering. The sign above the door reads Winnie’s Eats in stripes, one corner peeling away from the glass. My expectations for a decent meal are low.
I swing open the door and am greeted with the scent of fried food and stale coffee, and something sweet underneath, likesyrup or pie. I scan the room and find Rose in a back booth, chin resting in her palm, staring at nothing. The hostess starts toward me, and I wave her off, nodding in Rose’s direction.
Rose doesn’t look up when I slide in across from her.
“You could have told me you were leaving,” I snap.
She doesn’t respond right away. A woman comes over with a pot of coffee—same flat expression as Maybelle, same cantaloupe breasts and skinny legs, though she’s in purple leggings and a t-shirt with a faded Winnie’s Eats logo. Her nametag reads Marielle. They have to be twins. She flips the mug in front of me and fills it, then tops off Rose’s.
“Food?”
I glance at Rose. “Did you order?”
She nods, tearing open a sugar packet and pouring it into her coffee.
“A burger, if you have it. And a side salad,” I tell Marielle.
She narrows her eyes in distrust, and I’m tempted to lift my hands and ask what the fuck I did to the women in this town, but she nods and walks off.
Rose stirs her coffee, and full minutes pass while she stares out the window at nothing.
The silence is grating, and I’m not sure why. I have no problem with silence; I don’t need people to fill the air with incessant chatter. I actually prefer it that way. But I want her to say something, even if it’s to tell me to go fuck myself.
The bruise on her head has deepened since the crash—purple at the center around the cut, edged in deep blue. It’ll show in the wedding pictures, if she actually cares about that.
I’d wondered why she was flying in so late when the rest of the wedding party had been there all week. Pearl told me Rose had wanted nothing to do with the whole thing, had barely agreed to come at all. Hadn’t helped with a single arrangement. Hadn’t shown up to the engagement party. All she had to dowas get on a plane and stand beside the altar as a bridesmaid in whatever dress Pearl picked out for her. And even that, apparently, had been like pulling teeth.
“The car will be here in the morning,” I tell her, sipping my coffee. “At eight.”
She nods, still silent, dragging her spoon in slow circles.
“You’re welcome, by the way.”
