Chapter 39
THERE IT IS—EXACTLY WHAT I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR
Oliver
I never knew laughing could make me happy.
Not that it was happy laughing.
Not at first.
But by the time the storm has died down enough that it’s safe to drive again, I’m not pissed anymore.
I’m just—I’m happy.
There’s no chance we’re making it to New Orleans tonight.
I’d wanted to see the city one last time—good memories from a college trip happened down there, even if I know in my bones it’s not where I want to live forever—but we wouldn’t arrive until after dark, and I set up my schedule for six to ten hours on the road every day.
We’d have to leave early to stay on track.
My plans are wrecked. The reservations at random hotels and rental homes along the way, completely not happening now.
I need to recalculate how to get back on track, and tonight, it doesn’t matter.
Screw it all.
I don’t need to go to New Orleans.
In fact, I planned this entire road trip wrong.
I can’t find magic, I can’t find my future, if I’ve planned every stop with eight or ten hours on the road between stops every day, the same way I lived the life I’m leaving behind.
I thought seeing everything, covering the most miles possible, was the best way to find where I’m supposed to settle into a new life. But it’s not. I’m not seeing the potential in any town for how little time I have to explore, given the schedule I set for myself.
Magic requires spontaneity and trust in the process.
It’s something I’ve forgotten in the past four years, but that I know I need to lean in to now.
So I turn off the GPS, take a right on the first state highway we come across, and I drive.
Watching the sunshine come back out over rolling green fields.
Rolling down the windows to breathe in the scent of the rain.
Stopping on a whim at a farmer’s market for fresh peaches and local cheese, and to take a picture with a ridiculously large cow statue.
Daphne’s been quiet.
That’s the only unsettling part.
The storm seemed to upset her, and she’s not bouncing back quickly.
So when she tells me she’s done sitting in the car for the day about an hour after the farmer’s market, I pull over in the first town we come to.
There’s a single motel with a single vacancy tonight. Apparently the next town over is a big college town, and it’s freshman move-in weekend.
I check into it with my fake driver’s license and pay cash.
We drop our bags in the room, and Daphne points out the window at a diner. “Real food.”
“We have peaches and cheese.”
“Save it for tomorrow.”
And that’s how we end up in a run-down little diner where Daphne is telling the server to bring us one of everything.
“One of—what?” I interrupt, not because I care, but more because it’s the first opening I’ve had to give her crap since the thunderstorm, and I want the old Daphne back. “We can’t eat that much food.”
“I’ve never been to this diner before, and I probably won’t ever be back in this diner again, and I’d like to sample everything and see what’s best,” she replies.
She’s wearing lipstick that she picked up at our last ValuKart run, but no other makeup.
Her hair’s a disaster—she made a comment about the humidity, so I assume that’s why it’s frizzy and a little wavy in unpredictable ways—and she’s back in a Miles2Go Cupholder T-shirt, either because she wants to torture me or because she’s found a theme for the day.
I’m choosing to believe it’s a theme and that it’s helping.
Based on how tightly she was gripping the stuffed Cupholder during the rainstorm, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Even with Daphne.
“Gonna need to move y’all to a bigger table,” the server says.
“Bring us your six favorite dishes instead of one of everything,” I tell her.
“Plus all of the sides. Sides are my favorite,” Daphne says.
The only other couple in the diner is staring at us.
That part makes me uneasy, but I have to get used to it.
“And one of all of the sides,” I agree.
“But two of the tater tots,” Daphne says. “One of everything else, two of the tater tots. And do you have cheese dip for them?”
“Yep,” the server says.
“Fabulous. Thank you.”
The older lady doesn’t act like our request was weird, but then, she has to be seventy-three if she’s a day.
She’s probably seen things.
Especially if she’s worked here long.
Daphne and I are in a booth with brown faux-leather seats beneath an ancient photograph of a sports team that apparently won some kind of championship in the fifties. The photo and frame itself almost feel older than the time it was taken.
The other diners are at a white-topped table that clearly has something wrong with its legs, because there’s a thump every time one of them leans on it.
The lighting is dim, which fits with the rainclouds that have come up again and are sprinkling outside.
I lean toward Daphne. “Are you trying to attract attention?”
She fiddles with a saltshaker and shakes her head. “The first rule of eating at diners after being used to Michelin star restaurants is that you have to be brave with your choices.”
She’s still annoyingly subdued.
So I do what Daphne would do.
I make a snarky comment. “Thank you for explaining that I’m not in Michelin territory anymore. I couldn’t possibly have figured that out on my own.”
“Would you have ordered chicken-fried steak?”
Dammit. She has me there. “Probably not.”
“Chicken-fried steak is to diners what Cod Pieces is to fast food.” She kisses her fingertips. “And I’ll bet you a hundred bucks we get a plate of chicken-fried steak among her top six favorites.”
“You’re betting me my own money.”
“If you’d stopped at my car on our way out of town, I could’ve grabbed my wallet and credit card, but nooooooo, you had to get us four hours down the road before I realized the car was moving.”
I swipe my hand over my mouth.
She truly is funny once I’m not annoyed with her.
The idea that I would’ve grabbed her wallet and ID for her and not kicked her out of the car—
Her eyes twinkle, and that same feeling that I had in the thunderstorm hits me again.
I’ve lived an incredibly boring existence.
All of the money in the world, every opportunity right at my fingertips, and every choice I’ve made has been safe and convenient and for the good of everyone around me.
It was always easier than figuring out who I wanted to be.
What I wanted to do.
And I don’t have to be that person letting others steer my ship anymore.
I don’t want to be.
I sip from the mason jar of water that our server set down before taking our order. “Protest anything lately?”
She lights up more. It makes my heart thump oddly in my chest again.
“Yes,” she says. “Last week, in fact.”
“Mistreatment of a barn cat?”
“I told you how my best friend’s dad was a chef?
He wanted to open a restaurant in this cool old Victorian house in town, but he died about ten years ago—Bea’s mom too, that’s why Bea had to leave college, to move home and finish raising her brothers.
So he never got to open his restaurant, but Bea told her ex-boyfriend all about it.
While they were dating, I mean. Not after they broke up. ”
“As one would assume.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “So Jake promised Bea they’d open the restaurant together, but he was the one putting down all of the money for everything while Bea was giving him all of the ideas for how to make it great and getting all of the socials going and getting the community excited about it, and then—guess. Guess what happened.”
I’m cringing, and only partially because I suspect doom while Daphne’s still smiling. “He broke up with her?”
“Ding ding ding! He dumped her like a week after signing the papers on the building, and then he took the name her dad was going to use and totally bastardized it, and she’d moved in with him, so she needed a place to stay, which was nice in a way because I got to pay her back for when she took me in when I needed a place to—why are you smiling? ”
I sip my water again. “Your storytelling skills remain unmatched. Please continue.”
Her eyes narrow. “So I was protesting his restaurant last week.”
“Was it working?”
That smile pops out again, the rainbow after the storm. “Oh, hell yeah.”
“Did you get arrested?”
“Bea’s ex’s brother is a local cop who’s a total terror, and he would’ve loved to arrest me, but I think he has very direct orders from the chief not to.
Everyone’s afraid I’ll call in a favor from some bigshot attorney in the city and sue the town all to hell if they piss me off.
I still might, since he arrested Bea a few weeks back for absolutely no good reason. ”
That has my brows lifting. “Your best friend and roommate is also a jailbird? Why did I picture her as the opposite of you?”
“She is—and was—innocent, Oliver. Keep up. When Jake dumped her, she bought a bus and converted it to a food truck to prove she could be more successful than him when she didn’t even have a real building, and Simon—” She drops her voice and leans closer, not directly cutting a glance at the other couple, but I can sense that’s what she’s worried about.
“Simon?” I prompt.
“You know Simon Luckwood?” she whispers.
I scan my memory banks and shake my head. “The name is unfamiliar.”
“He’s an actor in In the Weeds—that horrible TV show?”
I suddenly realize I haven’t asked where she’s living. And that feels vitally important to figure out quickly.
Someone will notice she’s gone. Possibly someone regularly stalked by the media. Which means maybe the media will notice she’s gone.
But didn’t she say her friend didn’t have any money? I’m confused. “You’re hanging out with actors?”