No doubt about it. This was going to be a cowboy day.
“Where did you get the bacon and eggs?”
“Hooch and I went for a run. Hit the Harris-Tooter. Weird name for a grocery store.”
“It’s Harris-Teeter.”
“Right. Makes more sense for product recognition.”
I noticed an empty pizza box on the counter.
“I’m really sorry about flaking out last night.”
“You were exhausted. You crashed. No big deal.”
Ryan gave Boyd a strip of bacon, turned, and locked his baby blues onto mine. Slowly, he raised and lowered both brows.
“Not what I had in mind, of course.”
Oh, boy.
I tucked hair behind my ears with both hands. The right side stayed.
“I’m afraid I have to work today.”
“Hooch and I expected that. We’ve made plans.”
Ryan was cracking eggs into a frying pan, tossing shells into the sink with a jump-shot wrist move.
“But we could use some wheels.”
“Drop me off, you can have my car.”
I didn’t ask about the plans.
As we ate, I described the crash scene. Ryan agreed that it sounded like drug traffickers. He, too, had no idea about the odd black residue.
“NTSB investigator didn’t know?”
I shook my head.
“Larabee’ll autopsy the pilot, but he’s asked me to deal with the passenger’s head.”
Boyd pawed my knee. When I didn’t respond he shifted to Ryan.
Over second, then third cups of coffee, Ryan and I discussed mutual friends, his family, things we would do when I returned to Montreal at the end of the summer. The conversation was light and frivolous, a million miles from decomposing bears and a shattered Cessna. I found myself grinning for no reason. I wanted to stay, make ham and mustard and pickle sandwiches, watch old movies, and meander wherever the day might take us.
But I couldn’t.
Reaching out, I pressed my palm to Ryan’s cheek.
“I really am glad you’re here,” I said, smiling a smile with giggles behind it.
“I’m glad I’m here, too,” said Ryan.
“I have a few animal bones to finish up, but that shouldn’t take any time at all. We can leave for the beach tomorrow.”
I finished my coffee, pictured the shards of skull I’d extricated from the charred fuselage. My cupcake smile drooped noticeably.
“Wednesday at the latest.”
Ryan gave Boyd the last strip of bacon.
“The ocean is everlasting,” he said.
So, it would turn out, was the parade of corpses.
8
RYAN COULDN’T DROP ME OFF. I HAD NO CAR.
I called Katy. She arrived within minutes to taxi us downtown, cheerful about the early-morning errand.
Yeah. Right.
The air was hot and humid, the NPR weatherman negative on the subject of a temperature break. Ryan looked overdressed in his jeans, socks, loafers, and chopped-sleeve sweatshirt.
At the MCME I handed Ryan my keys. Across College, a kid in an extra-large Carolina Panthers jersey and crotch-hangers headed in the direction of the county services building, bouncing a basketball to a rhythm he was hearing from his headphones.
Though my mood was gloomy, I couldn’t help but smile. In my youth jeans had to be tight enough to cause arteriosclerosis. This kid’s drawers would accommodate a party of three.
Watching Katy then Ryan drive off, my smile collapsed. I didn’t know where my daughter was going, or what plans Ryan shared with my estranged husband’s dog, but I wished I were heading out, too.
