CHAPTER TEN SAWYER
C HAPTER T EN
SAWYER
“Where are you off to, boy?” Sully calls out as he heads down the path toward my cabin.
I twist my hat so it’s sitting properly on my head—don’t need to be yelled at again. “Headed off to get some breakfast, then the hardware store.”
“Where are you going for breakfast?”
“Uh, I was just going to grab something at the Whistling Kettle.”
“A muffin isn’t going to get you through the manual labor I have in store for you today. Let’s go to Strawberry Fields.” He takes me by the arm and pushes me toward the path between the cabins that leads out to the main street.
“Uh, are you sure?”
“Yes, that’s where I was headed anyway. The boys are meeting me there.”
“Okay, if you don’t mind me imposing.”
“Would it be imposing if I told you to come? Stop making a fuss and walk.”
“Sure thing,” I answer, holding back my smile.
I’m pretty intrigued at the prospect of breakfast. I haven’t explored many of the restaurants here because I’ve been too exhausted to do anything other than eat a few protein bars before passing out.
And this morning, I knew I needed a change from my usual protein bar.
My body is aching. I spent all day yesterday cleaning up the horseshoe pits.
They were overgrown with grass and weeds, and it took a trusty sharp-edged shovel to cut through the grass.
When I went to go get more water, I didn’t expect to see Fallon by herself, attempting to install the lobby floor.
There was no way I could go pass out in my cabin, knowing she was attempting that on her own, so I stayed.
And now my knees and back are screaming at me.
Looks like doing renovations at thirty-five is very different from doing them at twenty-five.
“What kind of food does Strawberry Fields have?” I ask, trudging beside him down the pine tree–lined path.
“Regular food. Why?” Sully asks.
Okay ...
“What’s your favorite thing to order?”
“What’s it to you?” Sully looks over at me as we step onto the sidewalk that runs parallel to the main road.
There is absolutely no traffic this morning, not a single car as we cross the street.
The town is one giant circle, with Strawberry Lake at its center.
I’ve learned you either have a business on the outside circle—the other side of the road—or the inside, which is where the cabins are, offering guests a beautiful lake view.
Most of the eateries are on the outer circle.
Behind them are either a forest of pines or sheer, deadly cliffs.
“Just trying to think about what I should get.”
“That’s what menus are for.”
Well, there goes my attempt at a conversation.
We walk the rest of the way in silence, and when we reach the diner, Tank and a man I don’t know are standing outside, waiting.
Sully gives them a wave. “Hope you don’t mind I brought Phil with me.” Sully motions to me.
Phil?
Is that what he thinks my name is?
“Phil, nice to meet you,” Tank says as he shakes my hand. “I’m Tank and this is Roy. He owns Rigatoni Roy’s, the best Italian restaurant in the mountains.”
Rigatoni Roy, your quintessential animated Italian man. What do I mean by that? Imagine what every Italian restaurant owner in the movies looks like. Round, short, with a large black mustache that extends past his rosy cherub cheeks. That’s Roy, but instead of black hair, his is peppered with gray.
He’s what I’d call a zany side character who brings some comic relief to intense situations. A character who adds to the dynamics of the world-building, really pulling readers into the small-town feel.
“Nice to meet you, Phil.”
“Pleasure is all mine.”
“Enough with the pleasantries.” Sully pushes past us and enters the diner with Roy. “I’m hungry.”
I start to follow, but Tank stops me with a hand to my shoulder. “Did you tell him your name was Phil?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Who the hell is Phil?”
Tank nods slowly. “His brother, who passed away quite a few years back.” Tank pulls on the back of his neck. “Just go with it.”
“Are you sure? Shouldn’t we correct him?”
Tank twists the end of his mustache. “Probably, to help him understand better, but I just don’t have it in me.
I know Fallon spends her time telling him the truth, but he’s.
.. he’s my best friend; I can’t watch the heartbreak in his eyes.
The sadness. I know there aren’t many more months I might have with him, so I keep it simple and just go with what he’s saying. ”
“Understood,” I say. “I guess I’m Phil.”
I’m not entirely comfortable with pretending to be someone I’m not, but then again, Tank is his best friend, and he knows what’s best for Sully—who am I to try to step in and make a change to what works for them?
“Thank you,” Tank says in a gruff voice, and then we walk into the restaurant, only for me to stop dead in the doorway, my body refusing to take another step toward the horrifying sight in front of me.
What the actual living... hell.
Wall to wall, the restaurant is lined in floor-to-ceiling shelved cases, stuffed full of troll dolls.
The old nineties trolls.
The ones that will give you nightmares with their bulgy eyes, gem belly buttons, and fetus-like fingers and toes. With tall hair in every color of the rainbow, their scrunched faces are twisted into identical, spine-tingling grins that can freeze even the hardiest of souls into a Popsicle of fear.
I’m pretty open-minded when it comes to my flavor of decor, but I can tell you right now, this motif is not working for me.
Concern is etched on Roy’s face as he sidles up next to me.
“It’s shocking at first,” he whispers, “but as long as you don’t look them in the eye, they won’t haunt you in your sleep.
” He claps me on the back and directs me toward the booth in the back of the diner where Tank has taken a seat with Sully.
Easier said than done. When their eyes follow you as you walk, it’s hard not to look at them...
Roy gestures for me to slide into the booth first, but I shake my head, staring at the troll-encrusted wall. “I can’t sit next to those things.” There’s no way in hell I’m going to be trapped in the booth. I’m going to require a slick exit—an old one-two step straight to the door.
“Afraid they’ll break through the plexiglass and try to eat your food?” Roy asks with a smile.
“Yeah,” I answer honestly. I can see it now: I’m midway through my breakfast and feel a little tappity-tap on my arm, only to find the one wearing clown pants standing like the devil on my shoulder, grinning.
Fuck. No.
Roy lets out a good, hearty laugh—the type of laugh that I know is his signature—and then he slips into the booth, his rotund belly sliding along the table.
I slide in after him, but instead of looking around the diner, getting a feel for it, like I normally would for world-building research, I keep my eyes focused on the menu.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sully asks.
“The trolls freak him out,” Roy answers.
“Oh, for crying out loud. They’re dolls, Phil. You’re telling me you’re afraid of some little dolls?”
Yes... yes, I am.
I swallow hard. “No, just, uh, shocked is all. I wasn’t expecting the restaurant to be decorated like this when I walked in. Doesn’t give off the troll vibe from outside.”
“Faye has been working on this collection for years,” Tank says. “She’s going to open a museum in the back and charge admission.”
Who the hell would pay to see more of this chilling display?
“There are more trolls?” I ask.
“Boxes,” Roy says. “She’s a fanatic. It’s not just dolls but memorabilia as well. I like that she collects them. Shows her freaky side.” He waggles his eyebrows and twists his salt-and-pepper mustache. I nearly throw up in my mouth.
“Hello, sirs,” a woman says as she sidles up next to us, pen poised on a piece of paper.
Wearing a floral-print peasant dress, she looks like she was plucked from the nineteenth century and plopped in the middle of this mountain town.
Her thin gray hair is in a loose bun on the top of her head, with little wisps framing her face, while silver-framed glasses sit perched on the tip of her nose.
She could easily pass herself off as an angry schoolteacher, the one in the story who puts everyone in their place while wielding a wooden ruler—a unique character who doesn’t have much of a role in the main plot other than to pop in with little anecdotes here and there.
But her straitlaced, buttoned-up appearance appeals to me in a storytelling kind of way, and I make a mental note to remember her. If I weren’t sitting with Tank, Sully, and Roy, I’d pull out my phone and make notes—just like I used to when I first came to LA.
Huh, when was the last time I had the urge to write something down like that? A characteristic that sparks a thought in my head? Not in a while, that’s for sure. Wow, I might actually be getting back—albeit slowly—my writing mojo.
Perhaps later today, after I help out Sully, I’ll write down a few notes about the weathered waitress.
.. as for the troll restaurant, I’ll save that for the thrillers I have stored away.
But this lady brings a lot of character to the table herself.
She’s a curmudgeon behind the counter, but she just might be a useful source of knowledge when it comes to love.
Hmm, just like Sully.
“What would you like?” she asks, running her tongue over the corner of her mouth.
“Good morning, Faye,” Roy says, leaning close to me and batting his eyelashes.
He smells like garlic.
And tomatoes.
The man is a walking Italian dish.
Wait... this is Faye?