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Tristan was struggling with breakfast, determined to scramble some eggs rather than eat yet another bowl of cereal. But doing anything with just one arm was difficult. He broke eggs into a bowl then picked out the shells.
He put butter in a hot skillet, but it burned because he was distracted. He kept sta Vto ;
Yesterday he’d had to give excuses to the two women as to why he couldn’t stay. Lucy had believed him. She’d kissed his cheek and told him he worked too hard.
But Miss Livie had looked at him the same way she did when he was twelve and had told some lie about where he’d been and what he was doing. Even his mother didn’t catch hi
m in lies the way Miss Livie did.
Tristan figured that by now she’d connected him with Jecca’s nighttime absences. But as far as he could tell, she didn’t seem to disapprove of the secretive way they were meeting.
She probably thinks we’re going to my house and screwing our brains out, he thought, then cleaned out the skillet again. He had burned the second batch of butter.
Tris wondered what Miss Livie would think if she knew the truth, that he hadn’t so much as kissed Jecca.
“Probably wouldn’t believe me,” he muttered and put the eggs back in the refrigerator. Forget trying to cook; he was going into town for breakfast.
On impulse, he picked up his phone and called Kim. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Not yet.”
“Could I take you out to Al’s?”
“That would be nice. I have some good news to tell you.”
“Yeah? About what?” he asked.
“I’ll save it until I see you. By the way, how do you like Jecca?”
“Every time I go to Miss Livie’s, your Jecca is upstairs.” That’s the closest he could get to not lying.
“That’s better anyway, as she’s spoken for. I’ll see you at Al’s.” She hung up.
“What the hell does that mean?!” Tristan said to the phone. “‘Spoken for’?”
In spite of his handicap, Tris was at the diner in about ten minutes and he impatiently waited for his cousin Kim.
She came in, smiling, kissed his cheek and took the bench across from him. Al’s Diner had been the height of fashion in the 1950s when the ’57 Chevy ruled the road and Elvis Presley was making a name for himself. The place had been a great success then, so Al—the son—saw no reason to change it. The booths were the same, the round stools at the long counter were the same. There were little boxes on the wall for each booth, and you could choose your music. No one minded that there were no songs past 1959.
“So what do you want to hear this morning?” Kim asked as she flipped through the charts. “B9, Paul Anka’s ‘Diana’ or D8, Jerry Lee Lewis belting out ‘Great Balls of Fire’?” Kids in Edilean used to pride themselves on memorizing the call numbers of the songs.
“Nothing,” Tris said as he drank his coffee.
“Somebody’s in a bad mood,” [ moht="0e Kim said. “Your arm bothering you?”
“Days with nothing to do are driving me insane,” Tris said.
“Sorry, but I think it’s going to get worse.”
“What does that mean?” Tris was frowning.
“You are grumpy today. What’s put you in a bad mood?”
Tris couldn’t say that her words of Jecca being “spoken for” had done it. “What’s your good news?”
“Reede is coming back this weekend.”
“Yeah?” Tris asked and smiled. He hadn’t seen his friend and cousin in over two years. It had been Kim who’d asked him to take over Tris’s practice. His father was willing to work the whole time Tris’s arm was in a sling, but his mother objected. She was determined to go on the cruise she’d booked!
