Dear God, please let my child keep her mouth shut. I’ll make it up to her, I promise.
Cara sorted the plates and glasses into stacks, but when Adam moved to carry things in the house with me, I suggested he start on the grill instead. His surprise was obvious, but Cara distracted him by asking if the dogs could eat the leftover veggie patties. Either I was lucky, or she was even better at reading people than she’d implied.
What was with me anyway? Adam had been a Marine, for God’s sake. I couldn’t imagine someone who’d need protection less! And protection from what? Other than the dark energies—which for all I knew really could be a manifestation of stress—nothing was sinister. Terrifying, yes, but only because we lacked explanations. Nothing so far had convinced me that Cara’s pregnancy, in itself, was a bad thing.
We just needed answers. Or rather, I needed answers, since I hadn’t shared my questions with Adam or Cara. Was there a connection between Cara’s beach guy and Sal? Was I right that Sal had wanted to meet Cara? Why Cara? How did Sal’s eyesight tie in to all of this? And if I was leaping in the right direction, then wouldn’t that mean Sal had to know something about Cara’s baby?
So, really, the leading question was: How do I make Sal talk?
Suppressed or Repressed?
A week later, even that question was still unanswered. Sal hadn’t made an appearance at Riverhouse Coffee, or come into the shop, and he hadn’t called—much to Maureen’s annoyance.
“I don’t understand!” she’d complained on Thursday after her fifth day in a row of asking. “He seemed so into you!”
“Obviously not.”
“He was! I’m really good at these things!”
“What? Mismatch-making?”
I wasn’t offended by his lack of interest because meeting me had just been an excuse to meet Cara. After days of mulling over what little I knew, I was certain of that if nothing else. But not knowing why both worried and aggravated me.
I’d resorted to driving by his house before work, on my break to get Eileen from school, and once I’d even driven by after work—but Eileen’s probing questions about our change in route made me nix a repeat of that drive-by. I felt silly, like a mooning, post-breakup teenager trying to catch a glimpse of an ex. After all, what would I do if I saw him? Beep and wave like an idiot? Jump out and accost him at his mailbox? Hi! I was in the neighborhood and wondered if you’re part of a secret government genetics program. You are? Fascinating. So what’s with you and your clone following Cara around . . . ? Trying to recruit her?
Or had they already? Maybe her baby was the next generation, and they’d erased her memory so . . .
Jesus, stop already!
Right. Whatever this was, it wasn’t science fiction. And Cara’s situation was too important to waste time hoping I’d run into the one person who might be helpful. I needed to knock on his damn door and ask.
Chicken.
No. Selfish. Clearly, he’d tried to protect me at the donut shop, so I wasn’t afraid of him. But if I knocked on the door and started asking questions, he’d do the same, and volunteering for a tête à tête was pretty much my idea of hell. Whereas if I happened to run into him and could get him talking . . .
Buy a lottery ticket while you’re at it.
True. Better odds, because now it was Saturday morning. The downtown crowds had multiplied in the gorgeous spring weather, so I plastered on a smile as I shouldered my way down Market Street. Definitely selfish. Cheerful support for Cara was one-thing, but I’d flat-out avoided talking to Adam during my daily phone calls with her. He wanted actionable intelligence, not far-fetched theories like human parthenogenesis.
An extended family had commandeered an entire street corner—tourists, from the matching hot pink t-shirts—and one of the older kids seemed less than thrilled at his surroundings. He grumbled as he gave way for me, but I didn’t blame him. Since I’d had last Saturday off, it was my turn to work, but Azalea Festival days were tough for all except the most outgoing. And The Urban Nymph was sandwiched between the parade route and the street fair, so thousands of people would be milling past all weekend. Maureen would have the joy of working alone tomorrow, and even without the parade there would still be nearly as many people. The shop was usually closed on Sundays but Phil was too savvy to let her pass up that much potential revenue. At least he was willing to pitch-in and help with lunch breaks.
Thanks to the parade route being cordoned off, I’d had to park a ridiculous number of blocks away; but by dashing between two floats I unlocked the shop just in time to flip the lights on and turn the ‘Open’ sign around. The parade would last until about noon, and I didn’t expect any walk-ins until it ended, but hey, if Maureen wanted the shop open at ten, so be it.
I stowed my purse under the counter, opened the sales program on the computer, and started to count the cash into the antique register. You’d think Maureen would’ve wanted a modern sales register and scannable barcodes to keep track of inventory, but no . . . she loved the nostalgia invoked by this old brass beast’s ringing ca-ching and its ‘to die for!’ engraved panels. Nevermind, it took up valuable counter space, or that we had to write tickets by hand and enter each purchase into the sales program. It was so . . . so . . . redundant.
My mood was getting out of hand. Between stress and my regular nightmares, sleep had been hard to come by this week, and I really, really needed coffee. Mine had gone cold
