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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
She came?
Carine hadn’t truly expected Heidi to join her, much less make an appearance at Dylan’s dressed to the weeknight nines. In Carine’s estimation, Heidi was the only person in Eastern North Carolina who could make large floral prints look chic rather than muumuu-ready. The fabric of her black poet’s shirt was decorated with oversized white dahlias, the same cool tone as her pristine jeans. Wedge sandals added to her already towering height.
As Heidi maneuvered through the dining room, Carine couldn’t take her eyes off her. She’d claimed a table near the open deck doors where there was a perfect view of the stage, and everyone else had a perfect view of Heidi and Carine. Heidi had risen to the occasion. When Carine had chosen the spot, she hadn’t been thinking about seeing or being seen, though. She’d been anticipating that there’d be inevitable conversation gaps, and the jazz quartet would be compelling enough to compensate for the silence.
As a joke, Carine often told people that she talked for a living, but she had no solid foundation to riff off of when it came to Heidi. The nature of their association was developing in unexpected ways, and Heidi hadn’t answered her question about what they weredoing.
Carine was treading water without knowing how deep it was. She was trying to do all the right things, but Heidi kept showing her that there was no rulebook. Carine had always considered herself a wild child and hadn’t realized how much she thrived with rules and structure.
She liked Heidi’s brand of structure. It excited, not stifled.
“Passed an amazing-looking oyster platter on the way in,” Heidi announced in her wry wildlife observer tone. “Not sure if I’m in the mood for shellfish, but I’m tempted.” She hung her purse on the back of the chair opposite Carine’s and sat in the seat nearest the deck door. “Nice place.”
“Mm. I come here a lot for work lunches.”Okay, valiant attempt at making conversation.Now say something nice, Carine. Say something flirty to set the tone of this thing.
“I like your shirt.” Despite her childish blurting, Carine managed to smile instead of cringe. She’d used an identical tone as the one she’d deployed in ninth grade during her short-lived interest in joining a popular mean-girl clique. She’d never quite mastered the art of setting people up just to tear them down.
Heidi fondled the gold pendant of her necklace and perked up one corner of her mouth. “Do you?”
“It’s different. You always have different stuff.” Carine groaned inwardly.
Lord, where’d your vocabulary go? Try to keep up.
Knowing what to say had been easier when she’d had no interest whatsoever in Heidi because back then, she hadn’t cared what she said or how Heidi might have taken the words. She didn’t wish to go back in time, but she did wish she could snatch forward some of that brazen confidence she’d had that had evidently trebucheted itself into the sun at some point in the past two weeks.
The server joined them at the tableside and tapped the end of his pen against his order pad. “You want your usual, Carine?”
“No, I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Can I get the full menu?”
Myron pressed a hand over his heart and rolled his eyes up into his head like he was about to faint.
“Oh, stop that mess. I am not that predictable.”
“You’re so predictable that the cooks start searing tilapia the moment you walk through the door. Now what are they gonna do with the tilapia?”
Carine drummed her fingertips on the tabletop consideringly. There was a chance he was joking. There was also a chance he wasn’t, and she didn’t want to be responsible for wasted fish, even if the waste wasn’t precisely her fault.
“I would like to see the full menu, also,” Heidi said. “And I’d like the wine list and a cup of coffee, please.”
“Regular or decaf?” Myron tapped his pen again and blinked at her. “You know, you kind of look familiar.”
“Half regular, half decaf. You look familiar to me, as well. I’m certain I graduated high school with your father, so thank you for reminding me of my age this evening. If I weren’t feeling tender enough about my mortality, that would have done the trick.”
Myron’s posture instantly steeled as though Heidi had direct access to her former schoolmate and would immediately inform him of his son’s behavior. “Uh, you don’t look as old as he does. I mean, shoot. I guess that’s not a compliment. It’s just—”
“Actually, scratch that. Regular coffee, please. No decaf. And yes, I’m aware of the time. Thank you, dear.”
Carine could scarcely discern the flush of pink in Myron’s cheeks as he turned and scurried away.
Putting her elbow on the tabletop and locking her gaze on Carine, Heidi propped the side of her head atop her fist. “Can’t really go anywhere in this town without someone recognizing me for something. Usually, they just stare from afar and whisper. I can sometimes hear them talking about me in the bathroom when they don’t know I’m in there.”
“What do they say?” Carine asked.
“Oh, just the usual gossip. Rehashing the past. Talking about me dumping Tim for some woman who ended up dumping me.”
“Did that happen?” Carine had heard the same rumor, but hadn’t dwelled on it. The love lives of the erstwhile Dowd couple hadn’t been any of her concern at the time.
