Chapter 6
The marina sprawled to our left, boats rocking gently at their moorings. Rigging clinked against aluminum masts. Salt air mixed with the smell of creosote from the pilings. Gulls wheeled and squawked overhead.
Scout walked beside me with her head tilted back, searching for the first stars. Her boots scuffed on the old brick pavers. She hadn't said much since leaving the theater, still processing what she'd seen.
"I keep thinking about those creatures," she said finally. "The way they moved. Like they were swimming through light instead of water."
"The Kal Del Grau."
"Is that what they were called? I missed that part. I was too busy trying to remember how to breathe." She laughed, a little self-conscious. "You must think I'm ridiculous."
"I think you're experiencing things for the first time. That's not ridiculous."
She looked at me sidelong, her eyes seeking mine. Then her gaze moved past me to the building ahead and she slowed.
Velours Vert sat tucked between an antique shop and a wine bar, its windows glowing warm against the darkening street. Eight tables, maybe ten, visible through the glass. A handwritten chalkboard stood by the door, the menu in elegant script.
Scout stopped on the sidewalk.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
She stood very still, looking through the window.
"Thomas." Her voice was different, smaller. "I can't go in there."
"Why not?"
"Look at them." She gestured toward the window. "Look at what they're wearing. Look at me."
I looked at her. Long blonde hair in a thick ponytail hanging over her shoulder. Her denim shirt was faded and patched. Her canvas pants were clean but threadbare in several places. Her boots were functional, made for walking miles through brush.
"I'm looking."
"I don't..." She stopped and tried again. "Everyone will stare. I'll walk in there and they will all turn and see this girl who doesn't know how to dress for a place like this, who doesn't own anything that would work, who--"
"Scout."
"It's not that I'm embarrassed by my clothes. They're good clothes. They are functional. But this is different and I don't know the rules here and I'll do something wrong and--"
"Scout. We're in Port Townsend, not some Jane Austen novel."
She went quiet. Her jaw was tight. I realized I had never seen her genuinely uncomfortable before. Not when she'd stripped naked to swim in my pond. Not when she'd led me through the woods to her secret place. Not even when she'd gone to the dentist for the first time that she could remember.
But this was alien territory. And for the first time since I'd known her, Liberty Scout Flint didn't know her footing.
I stepped closer and put my hands on her shoulders.
"Your clothes do not matter," I said quietly. "Tonight, you will be the most beautiful woman in that restaurant. You will be the most beautiful woman in any restaurant you ever walk into. And anyone who looks at you wrong is welcome to look at me next."
She stared at me. The streetlamp caught her face and I watched the color rise in her cheeks, spreading from her throat upward, visible even in the low light. She looked down at her boots. Her lips parted as if she was going to say something. Nothing came out.
Finally she just nodded. Her hand found mine and held on.
We walked in.
The server appeared, a woman in her thirties with dark hair pinned up and an amiable smile. She wore a simple black dress and moved between the tables with the efficiency of long practice.
"Welcome to Vivi's," she said. "Table for two?"
"Please," I nodded.
She grabbed two menus and led us to a table near the window. The restaurant was cozy and intimate. It wrapped around us with its warmth, candles flickering on each table, the soft murmur of conversation, the clink of silverware on china.
No one stared. A woman at the next table glanced over, smiled vaguely, and returned to her conversation. An older couple near the back didn't look up at all.
Scout sat down slowly. Her hands moved across the table, touching things. The cloth napkin, heavy cotton with a subtle weave. The polished silverware. The small bud vase with a single sprig of rosemary, its green needles catching the candlelight.
She picked up the rosemary and brought it to her nose. She closed her eyes and some of the tension left her shoulders.
"Wild rosemary grows near the Quinault River," she said quietly. "I didn't expect to find it here."
She set it back in the vase and looked around the room again, slower this time.
Taking in the other diners, the soft light, the way people laughed and talked with no apparent awareness of her presence.
The wall behind the small bar held shelves of wine bottles and copper pots that looked like they'd seen actual use.
"What does the menu say?" She was looking at the chalkboard on the far wall. "I know some French, but I don't know what half of them mean."
I turned to look. The handwriting was elegant, slightly tilted, the work of someone who had written the same dishes many times.
"Coq au vin," I read. "That's chicken braised in red wine with mushrooms and onions.
Ratatouille, which is vegetables, uh... tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, slow-cooked together, I think.
Braised short rib with root vegetables. Duck confit, which is duck leg cured in salt and then cooked slow in its own fat. "
Scout listened with her focused attention, the same look she had when tracking game or identifying plants. Learning, gathering information.
"What do you recommend?" she asked.
"The braised short rib. I think you'll like it."
"Then I'll have that."
"And I'll have the duck confit. We can switch if you don't like your choice."
The server appeared. We gave her our order.
"Can I start you with something to drink? We have a lovely C?tes du Rh?ne that pairs beautifully with both the short rib and the duck."
"That sounds perfect," I said. "A glass each."
The server smiled and turned to Scout. "And may I see your ID?"
"I'm twenty-one," Scout smiled.
"I'm sure, but I still need to see your ID. State law. We must all comply, oui?"
Scout went still.
The silence stretched. One second. Two. Her face had gone carefully blank, the expression of someone trying very hard not to show what they were feeling.
She doesn't have ID.
The realization hit me like a cold wave. Of course Scout didn't have ID. She had been homeschooled in the woods by her father. She had never driven a car. She had never needed to prove to anyone that she was who she said she was.
And I had walked her into a restaurant and ordered wine without ever thinking about it.
Scout looked at me. Her eyes held something I hadn't seen there before. Embarrassment, trying hard to hide itself. A kind of exposure she hadn't prepared for.
The server's smile became uncertain, her gaze moving between us.
"Actually," I said, keeping my voice easy, "we'll have iced tea for both of us instead. The astringent quality of the tea will pair nicely with both dishes, I think. Cuts through the richness."
The server nodded, her professionalism smoothing over the moment. "Of course. I'll have that right out."
She moved away. Scout's relief was visible in the slight drop of her shoulders, but she didn't quite meet my eyes.
"I should have known," I said quietly. "That was my failure, not yours."
"It's fine."
It wasn't fine. I could see that. But she didn't want to dwell on it, and I owed her at least that.
"How do you know so much about this kind of food?" she asked, changing the subject deliberately. "Did you grow up with it?"
"I grew up working-class in South Seattle. I knew more about the McDonald's value menu than coq au vin. A Big Mac was a special occasion."
"Then how?"
"I learned, after I married Sybil." The name felt strange in my mouth, here in this warm room with Scout across from me.
"She was five years older than me. Her family had money and they moved in circles I didn't know anything about.
Private clubs. Charity galas. Restaurants like this one, though fancier.
I had to learn to exist in her world. That's the only reason I know a French menu. "
Scout was watching me carefully.
"The marriage did not last, but you still grew. You still have all this."
She gestured vaguely at the restaurant, the menu, the whole accumulated knowledge of a life I'd lived before.
"I took away good things from the marriage. Little details like knowing French foods. But mostly the understanding that quality matters, in cooking and in craftsmanship and in how you treat people." I paused. "The marriage failed, but not everything about it was a failure. You're right about that."
The candle flickered between us. Scout turned her water glass slowly, watching the light refract.
"Did you love her?"
The question was quiet. Direct and earnest.
I took a moment before answering. The honest answer was complicated, and Scout deserved the honest answer.
"I loved Sybil very much. I was head over heels in love with her at first. I met her when I was twenty years old and she was twenty-five, and she was the most sophisticated woman I'd ever known.
Beautiful. Confident. She knew things about the world I couldn't even imagine. I would have done anything for her."
"What happened?"
"The love withered. Slowly, over years. We didn't notice it dying until it was already dead." I looked at the candle flame, steady in its glass holder. "People say love is like a rock. Steadfast. Unshakeable. Something you build a foundation on. But love isn't like that at all."
"What is it like?"
"A tree. Big and strong and encompassing when it's healthy.
It can shelter you from storms, give you shade, bear fruit.
But if it doesn't get enough sunlight and water, it will eventually die.
And a dead tree looks like a living tree for a long time.
The shape is still there. The branches. But inside it's hollow, and one day a strong wind comes along and the whole thing falls. "