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“Every guest is important. Americans pride themselves on treating everyone equally, don’t they? Whether someone is of the ruling class or not, they get treated the same way, no?”
She grips the wheel and wheezes. “Oh, honey. You have a lot to learn about the United States. Also, the ruling class? Nobody uses that phrase.”
Noted.
“This is precisely why I’d love for you to join me for dinner tonight,” I say, latching on to this perfectly legitimate reason.
She slows the car down and shifts to a higher gear as the car climbs the hill, the forest around us growing thicker and thicker. “So, you want me to come to dinner because you want to pick my brain about America. Not because you like my company?”
Hailey shoots me a small smile, but in the dimming twilight, I can see a tinge of hurt.
“Hailey. Of course, I enjoy your company. Good gods, where are my manners? Hailey, I want to have dinner with you because I’m having a wonderful time, and I don’t want this day to end. I would be honored.”
“So formal. Where did these impeccable manners come from?”
I ignore this question. “We can go anywhere you like, wherever you would be comfortable in Daisy Dukes.”
She chuckles.
“What’s so funny?”
“You saying Daisy Dukes in that accent. You get cuter and cuter.”
I frown. “Earlier, you said you found me pretty, and now I’m cute. I don’t know what men accept as compliments in America, but I can assure you I am neither of those things.”
She laughs, shaking her head, then makes a U-turn at the next bridge. “Great. How do you feel about crawdads and bluegrass at a bar full of extremely unpretty men? You’ll fit right in.”
“Splendid. I don’t know what crawdads are, but you have piqued my interest.”
“Also called crawfish, mudbugs…”
Bugs. Very well, it’s decided.
I don’t understand Hailey’s fascination with bugs. However, I would eat a dozen Mothmen as long as it made Hailey smile.
8
Hailey
It may not be the Thistle Rock Inn, but The Jigsaw is better.
Formerly a sawmill, the bar is located deep in the mountains, near where Toad and I grew up. The cavern-like space is packed for a Tuesday night, with people gathered family-style around workbenches converted into dining tables. Any hunk of metal left behind by the mill company was saved from the scrap heap and turned into something functional or aesthetic. The walls are decorated with vintage tools and machinery, and the place maintains the original massive sliding doors that open onto the old delivery dock. It’s out here on the dock, now strung with lights and decorated with potted plants to give a more intimate setting, where Ben and I find a cozy spot to sit together, a spectacular view of a late summer evening sky between the rolling green mountain peaks.
He orders a bottle of wine and an artichoke dip appetizer, and I request a family-style crawdad boil for us to share.
Ben takes to my instructions on how to eat crawdads like a fish to water.
“Hold the little guy on both sides of the tail, then twist and snap.”
“It’s like tiny, spicy lobster!” Ben booms delightedly.
“And if you’re feeling brave,” I say, proud of my pupil, “you can suck the juice out of the head.”
I expect the prince to be grossed out, but he watches me do this, fascinated. So fascinated that I blush under his gaze.
“And you catch them how?”
“There’re a couple different ways. My Papaw taught me from a young age to wade into the creek behind his house, lift up a rock and catch one by the tail. “They swim backward, so all you have to do is grab ’em. But be careful of the pincers. Some folks use a net or traps, but you don’t have to. And then, you can use bait to lure them out of the ground. They burrow down into the mud, and you’ll see their teeny holes. That’s why some people call them mudbugs.”
