Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Yes, I knew it was entirely possible that Reverend Wilkie and Sue Langtree had something to do with Reverend Hessel’s death.
Except, right away, I was sure they didn’t.
And it wasn’t because they did something kind for a teenage girl.
It was because Detective Lehmann thought the murder was the result of a robbery gone wrong.
A robbery committed by a meth addict. Not a generic drug addict, a specific drug addict: a meth addict. A tweaker. A cranker. A meth head.
I couldn’t see what that had to do with Reverend Wilkie or Sue Langtree. I didn’t see how two people that old would even know anything about Tina.
Consequently, having reached a dead end, I didn’t do much the next day.
Friday. Well, that’s not completely true.
I took care of my grandmother, I spent a lot of time calling people trying to get them to volunteer for the plant sale, and I took an Oxy vacay in the afternoon by telling Nana Cole I was desperate for a nap and making her promise to stay out of the kitchen.
Finding volunteers was a nightmare. I got three people to commit to Friday and two for Saturday which meant I was nowhere near finished calling up strangers and asking them to do something for absolutely free.
I mean, the people I was calling were all people who’d volunteered before, so that should have made things easier. Should have, but didn’t.
In fact, I think it made it harder. One woman barely let me finish asking before she said, “No. Absolutely not. Last year you promised I wouldn’t have to move anything. Not a thing. I spent the whole day moving ten-foot trees.”
“This is a seedling sale,” I replied, though for all I knew there were ten-foot seedlings. Some of the trees around here did get very big.
Early Saturday evening, Nana Cole and I were watching 9&10 News—Prince William had just turned twenty-one—when there was a knock at the back door.
As I got up, I said to her, “Be nice.”
“What do you mean be nice? Who’s here?”
Ignoring her, I went to the back door and let Bev in. Despite it being summer, she wore a gray cardigan over a flannel shirt. She carried a casserole in her hands.
“It’s sort of a chicken cordon bleu. With noodles.”
“Sounds great. She’s in the living room.”
“Who is it?” Nana Cole yelled from the other room.
“It’s Bev!” her friend yelled back.
“Thank you for doing this,” I said.
Bev went into the living room while I set the casserole on the stove.
I turned the oven up to three-fifty, assuming that they’d want some chicken casserole later.
Knowing this was a possibility—and that I’d be going out to have dinner—I’d served us each a small salad for dinner.
Mostly I’d moved my lettuce leaves around the plate.
There were a few rumblings from the living room, so I decided I’d better get in there.
“Your hair looks awful.” Bev said to my grandmother, because it did. “How about we wash it.”
I could tell Nana Cole wanted to say no and throw her out, but I’d been refusing to wash her hair for most of the week.
Bev continued, “I’m sorry I upset you. You know I only said what I said because I’m concerned about you.”
“I don’t like people sticking their noses in.”
“That’s what friends do, Emma. They stick their noses in.”
Nana Cole snorted, and said, “Then you must the best friend on the planet.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I think you’ve said enough. Let’s get you into the bathroom so we can wash that mop.”
Ten minutes later, I was getting out of the Escalade across the street from Elaine’s Table.
I’d never been before. I had driven by the charming, baby blue clapboard house that—like Main Street Café—had been converted into a restaurant, but I’d never thought about going there.
It was a farm-to-table restaurant, which I had to guess meant they bought things directly from local farmers.
Not sure why that was a good thing, but apparently it’s something to brag about.
I arrived first and was seated at a table on what was once the wrap around porch.
It had a postcard view of Masons Bay’s Main Street, which made the town look exactly like the kind of place city dwellers dreamed of after an hour and a half commute.
To me, though, it looked like something out of Stephen King, and I would not have been all that shocked to see vampires, werewolves or zombies stumbling down the street.
The waiter, who looked to be in his forties, was balding on top with a ratty little ponytail in the back. I was sure ponytails were out of fashion but worried a bit that they might have come back—in which case, ick!
He offered to get me a glass of wine, but after looking at the menu I declined.
The wine was expensive and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money.
I also wasn’t sure if Dr. Stewart was treating me or if we were going dutch.
I hoped we weren’t going dutch but had to face the very real possibility that we might be.
There’s a weird kind of structure to gay dating.
I did often go out with guys Dr. Stewart’s age, and they were almost always as successful as he was.
None of them were ever as attractive as he was though.
With an older, successful but unattractive guy, I knew without a doubt that he was picking up the bill.
With Dr. Stewart—so good-looking—I had no idea.
What I did know was that if we went out together in West Hollywood and competed to see who would get bought more drinks, I would lose. Big time.
For those reasons, I might be paying for dinner. Or at least my half.
He walked into the restaurant about twenty minutes late. “I’m so sorry,” he said as he sat down. “My shift ran over and then, well, I had to go home and clean up. You know, I wanted to put my best foot forward.”
Wow. He wanted to put his best foot forward for me. That was weird to think about. Maybe I was paying for dinner.
“You know, I don’t know your first name,” I said.
“Edward.”
“Do you like Ed, Eddie, Ted, Ward?”
“Edward is fine. What about you? Hank or Henry?”
“I like Mooch.”
“Do you? I suspect there’s a story there.”
“Not really. It’s just what kids called me in school.”
“The nice kids or the bullies?”
“Just kids.”
He looked at me, a bit concerned, and said, “I think I’ll go with Henry.”
“Okay,” I said. Henry hadn’t actually been a choice. It never was. I didn’t like it, but apparently everyone else did. The waiter came over again and asked Edward if he’d like something to drink.
“Should we get a bottle of wine?” Edward asked me.
“Oh, um—”
“We’ll have a bottle of the Wyandot Cellars Cab Franc,” he said with confidence.
The waiter hung around for a moment and told us the specials. Edward added an order of popcorn perch as an appetizer. After the waiter walked away, Edward asked, “So, Henry, how did you end up here?”
I considered being cute and saying I drove from my grandmother’s house, but I knew that’s not what he meant.
I said, “I came out from L.A. to take care of my grandmother.”
Yes, I know, that was a total lie. But I was hardly going to tell him I’d taken one Oxy too many and ended up in the psych ward. That was not first date chit-chat. In fact, I’m not sure I’d tell a man as sexy as Dr. Edward Stewart something like that until our twenty-fifth or thirtieth anniversary.
“You’re here for good then,” he said.
“Oh God no! I’m moving back to L.A. Soon, I hope.”
“Oh, I see.” He seemed genuinely disappointed. Which was weird. “Someone else is going to take care of your grandmother?”
“No. She’ll be able to take care of herself.”
“But she recently had a stroke?”
“Yeah. She’s getting better.”
“Well, that’s good.”
I suspected he was doing math in his head, asking himself why I came to take care of my grandmother months before she had the stroke and why I was going to now be able to leave. I smiled in hopes of distracting him from tiny little details.
“Why don’t you tell me what you plan to do when you get back to Los Angeles,” he said.
Crap. What did I plan to do? I hadn’t thought much beyond getting back there.
Would I go back to being a barista and hustling drinks at Rage?
I probably would, but it sounded super lame.
I needed to be more ambitious than that.
I mean, he’s a doctor, which was like the definition of ambitious.
And ambitious people didn’t really like un-ambitious people, right?
“Oh, you know, I have a degree in communications. UCLA,” I said.
“Oh, good school,” he said. And that was exactly why I mentioned it.
“I might look for something in the entertainment industry.”
Of course, I’d already done that. Most of what was available to me were unpaid internships and desk jobs that paid worse than being a barista. I mean, the only step-up I could imagine would be waiting tables in a decent restaurant. And that would be my life for, like, forever.
“Maybe I’ll go to grad school,” I said, though it was certainly news to me.
“And what would you study?”
“Film?” You know, something steady to keep me from that dreaded waiter’s job.
“Production?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Theory.” I was, after all, very good at watching movies. Though, I really had no idea where I’d find a job doing that. But then graduate school might answer that question.
“I like an ambitious man,” he said. I almost jumped out of my chair. I was right to make up an ambition. Then he said, “I hear Central Michigan University has a very good film theory program.”
Why would he know something like that?
“I did my undergrad there,” he said, answering my unasked but mentally shouted question. Gazing into his beautiful face, I couldn’t help but think that if I saw him for any length of time, I was going to have to go to graduate school just to keep his interest.
“Where is Central Michigan University?”
“Mt. Pleasant?”
“And where—”
“Near Midland.”
“In Texas?”