“You’re in better shape, too,” Trix told him. “Leaner, maybe a little better built. In the car, when you hugged me, I could tell.”
Now that she mentioned it, he did feel different. For several seconds he studied her again, then he flagged the waitress as she went by. “Another whiskey, please.”
“Do you want another Heineken, honey?” the waitress asked Trix.
Trix laughed uneasily. “Damn right.”
And so they ate and drank and waited, talking very little. There was nothing they could have said that would not have seemed either redundant or ridiculously trivial.
But when the glasses were empty and they’d eaten their fill-and even after they had ordered coffee and the dregs were cooling-no one had come over to talk to them, and no one Trix recognized had come through the front door. The restaurant had a bar that ran its length, right across from the booth where they sat, and from what Jim could tell there weren’t even any single women there.
The waitress had brought the check, but they weren’t in a hurry to pay, though they could feel her silently willing them to give up the table. He had to fight the urge to be up and out of there, to be doing something- anything-to find out what had happened to Jenny and Holly. What would he do, Google “vanishing people”? He would get crazy Bermuda Triangle stories and Amelia Earhart.
Are you sure? he wondered, and realized he wasn’t.
Another twenty minutes went by, and the waitress had obviously become uncomfortable. If he and Trix had been talking, they wouldn’t have drawn any real attention, but even the bartender kept glancing at them uneasily because they just sat there, waiting.
“Are you two sure I can’t get you another cup of coffee or another drink?” the waitress asked.
Jim looked at Trix, who shook her head. “We’re good, thanks,” he told the waitress.
But this time the woman didn’t go away. She hesitated before speaking.
“Are you waiting for someone? It’s just, you keep looking at the door.”
Jim stared at Trix a minute, running his forefinger over the rim of his coffee cup. Then he started to stand. “We’re going,” he said. “I’m sorry we took up the table so long.”
“No, no,” the waitress said. “No one’s waiting. I just wondered if you needed anything.”
“Jim,” Trix said, staring at him. “Let’s… please let’s just get another cup of coffee. A little while longer, okay?”
He glanced at her and then the waitress. “All right,” he said, sitting down. “Decaf.”
Trix asked for a cappuccino, and when the waitress left them alone, she slid back her chair. “I’ve got to use the bathroom,” she said.
“Hey,” he said as she started to walk away. “One more cup and then we go.”
Trix froze, looking back at him. “And then what?”
Jim stared at his empty cup. “Maybe we wake up in the morning and it’s all back to normal.”
“Like Scrooge?” Trix said, and it was obvious she did not believe it for a second. “Yeah. Maybe.”
She headed off toward the back of the restaurant, where a sign painted on the wall pointed the way to the restrooms. Jim fiddled with his cup until the waitress came and refilled it with decaf. As she walked away he poured a little cream and took a sip, flinching at the burn of the hot liquid.
“May I sit?”
Jim glanced up, startled to find an old woman standing beside the table.
She smiled. “I’m sorry. I’m always doing that. My friends tell me I walk on cat feet. I didn’t mean to make you jump.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” he said, studying her.
Once she would have been considered tall for a woman-especially in her youth, which must have been sixty years gone, at least-but now age had stooped her so badly that she had lost several inches. Deep wrinkles lined her face with the gentle scars of time. And yet her eyes were a kaleidoscope, hazel flecked with gold, bright and alert and full of humor. She wore her white hair to her shoulders, unlike so many women of advanced age.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked.
She smiled. “Quite the contrary, Mr. Banks. May I sit?”
Jim frowned and glanced toward the bathroom, then focused on the woman again. He was unsettled now. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Now she looked… cross. The perfect word for the disgruntled expression on the old woman’s face. “You’re being quite impolite, James. Or is it Jim? Yes, I suspect it is. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners? It’s rude not to offer an old lady a seat, Jim, especially when she’s already asked for the courtesy.”
He shook himself and half stood, nodding. “Yes. I’m sorry, please sit down.”
Quite the contrary. Did that mean she meant to help him? He stared at her as she settled into the spot Trix had vacated in the booth.
She laughed softly. “Ah, yes. Now you’re thinking, ‘The old hag doesn’t look especially magical.’ Or something like that. Though perhaps not ‘hag.’ Not from you.”
He started to protest and glanced toward the back of the restaurant again.
“Don’t worry. Trix will be along in a minute or two. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, but it couldn’t be helped, I’m afraid. It’s been quite a busy day. A young man in Jamaica Plain needed to prove that his great-great- grandfather had never deeded a piece of property to the city that… well, never mind. I had to guide the young man to the original deed, and the hundred-year lease, which was all the city had.”
Part of Jim wanted to laugh in her face. It was such a cliche, wasn’t it? The wise old woman, like some kind of Gypsy fortune-teller. But she wore a jacket and skirt ensemble that must have cost seven or eight hundred dollars, easily, and her haircut hadn’t come cheaply, either. This was no sideshow crystal-ball gazer.
A scam, then? Had Trix set him up somehow?
But the instant he had the thought, he pushed it away. Trix’s anguish was genuine, and so was her hope. Which left only one possibility.
“Jesus,” Jim whispered, staring at the woman. “You’re for real.”
When the Oracle of Boston smiled in delight, it took a dozen years off her face. “Oh, excellent,” she said. “It’s refreshing to meet someone who just dives right in. Saves time as well.” She held out her hand. “Veronica Braden.”
Jim shook her hand, not at all surprised by the firmness of her grip. He took a ragged breath, only then realizing that he had stopped breathing for a moment. The hours that had passed since this afternoon when he had woken from his nap had been a long nightmare, but Trix had been right to chide him for his doubt. The impossible had turned his world upside down and ripped away all that he loved. He would waste no more time with what was possible and what was not.
“You make it hard enough to meet you.”
“I enjoy the… tradition of the process.”
“So, can you find them?” Jim asked, a heavy question. “Do you know where they are?”
“Ah,” Veronica said, arching a brow, kaleidoscope eyes alight with secret knowledge. She smiled, and Jim knew she harbored secrets. “Those are two different questions. Finding Jennifer and Holly is not the same as knowing where they are.”
Jim put a hand over his mouth as though afraid the wrong words would come out. The waitress arrived with Trix’s cappuccino. She glanced at them oddly, but Jim gestured for her to put the cup down and she did, casting a curious look over her shoulder as she retreated once more. “I don’t understand,” Jim said quietly.
“You will.” Veronica touched his hand, and her hand was cool. Then she picked up Trix’s cappuccino and drained half the cup in three long sips.
“That was-”
“She won’t have time to drink it,” Veronica said, sliding her chair back. “Come along.”
As the Oracle rose, the illusion of vitality dropped away. She moved stiffly but with a kind of imperious air; perhaps she had earned it. Her hand shook as she gestured toward him. “Pay the bill, dear. And leave a nice tip for your server. New girl. Only been here a few weeks, and she needs the reassurance as much as the money. Terrible job, having to smile at people all the time.”
Jim obeyed, sliding the cash from his wallet and tucking it into the faux-leather binder in which the bill had arrived.
