“Shh. Mel’s going to take his order.”
They fell into silence as Mel’s heavy steps took him towards the booth behind Kate. She tuned her ears for any whisper of underhanded moneygrubbing. The first time Clark tried to barter over the price of eggs, she was going to flip.
“Hi, stranger.” Mel greeted him with the same warmth and openness with which he greeted everyone. His friendliness crawled under Kate’s skin. Clark didn’t deserve Mel’s good nature. He deserved a one-way ticket straight out of town. She believed in universal good. Everyone had wonder and joy inside them. Everyone could be reached with kindness. But…this guy made her so mad she could spit. “What can I get you?”
“Yeah, can I have a double stack of buttermilk pancakes and a black coffee to go? With a side of bacon, too.”
Even with her back turned, Kate could picture him in her mind’s eye, sitting unmoved with the perfect winter backdrop behind him. His voice was as flat and lifeless as she’d heard it. Still, she applauded his order. Simple, direct, and he even got some of Mel’s famous double-crispy bacon. Maybe he was human after all.
“To go? You off somewhere?”
“Work.”
“Work? It’s Christmas Eve, kid. Didn’t anyone tell you?” Mel chuckled. He always made conversation with his customers. Maybe it was a small-town gossip thing or maybe it was a Mel thing, but he liked keeping up to speed with the movement of his community.
“It’s a Tuesday. I work on Tuesdays.”
Apparently, Clark didn’t appreciate the perceived intrusion.
“Ah. I see.” There was a pause, awkward in its length. Kate picked at her own pancakes to give off the appearance of not eavesdropping. “It’s just…I don’t know if anyone’s gonna be in the Woodward office this morning. Most people would have the day off for the festival. Besides, even if anyone is in, they won’t be there until nine, at least.”
“All because of Christmas?”
“Yeah. Christmas is kind of a thing around here.”
Understatement of the century. Christmas was a way of life, and Clark couldn’t even begin to understand how terribly he’d disturbed it. A pang of sympathy tugged at her. His cronies in Dallas almost certainly worked on Christmas Eve, the poor big city stiffs.
“I’ll just have my breakfast here, then. Thanks.”
“Don’t you have a family or anything to visit? I know it’s not any of my business, but you seem pretty young to be wasting your holiday in a boring office.”
“You’re right.” Newspaper pages rustled. “It isn’t any of your business.”
“Buttermilk pancakes, bacon and coffee.” Another awkward pause spread between them like butter on a biscuit, ending only with Mel tapping his pen against his tiny ordering notepad. “Coming right up.”
The interaction ended with Mel whistling as he returned to the kitchen and Michael turning back to Kate with untamed shock. He probably expected to see steam coming out of Kate’s ears. If anyone had told her she wouldn’t be hopping mad at Clark for speaking to someone in her town that way, she would have laughed in their face. But her mind caught on something and unraveled like a home-knit sweater.
Don’t you have a family?
It isn’t any of your business.
For the first time since meeting him, the anger and hurt serving as Kate’s most recent and dear best friends were nowhere to be found. In their place stood a different creature altogether. She no longer hated the man threatening to take her life away.
She pitied him.
All of her assumptions about him had to be, on some level, incorrect. In her mind, she fancied him living the perfect, big-city rich boy life. A huge family who lavished him with gifts and privileges, love and understanding.
Yet, here he was. Alone. In a diner booth. On Christmas Eve. Waiting for his office to open so he could spend the day working.
How sad was that?
Kate’s entire heart smashed open, and the blindness of her own rage smacked her in the face. Guilt bittered the coffee in her mouth, but it was soon replaced. Her eyes widened, she reached for Michael’s hand, and let her hopes get as high as they pleased.
This was a solvable problem. Clark Woodward’s loneliness was 100% solvable.
“Can you distract him for a few hours?” she asked, knowing full well the monumental burden she’d shoved onto her friend’s admittedly toned shoulders. Michael’s eyes widened. As usual, he was an open book. Fear wrote itself on his every page.
“What?”
“I think I have a plan.” Well, half a plan. Quarter of a plan. A fraction of a plan. She’d work out the rest on her bike. “Can you distract him until, like, noon? And then bring him to the old Woodward place? I think that’s where he’s staying.”
“You wanna leave me with that?”
Kate stood and threw on her layers of sweaters and scarves, all while her mind wrote plans and made to-do lists. When she was done, she gave him a firm pat on the back for good luck. She wouldn’t want his job, either, but he was the only person she trusted with the task. No one said no to Michael. Even in a world with Tom Hanks, Michael took the top prize for most effortlessly likable guy on earth.
“You’re the best guy in town. If you can’t do it, no one can. I believe in you.”
“But—!But—!”
His protests faded as she sprinted from the diner and hopped on her bike, which was waiting outside for her. As she pedaled towards the massive mansion on the far side of town, speeding past Dickensian facades and garlands, Kate’s motives solidified. There was only one way to save Miller’s Point. There was only one way to save the festival. There was only one way to save the solitary man
