Chapter 16. Callan
Callan
Whitbury Municipal Office is located downtown, on the second story above a smoke shop selling incense and healing crystals. Local history holds that the building went up in the nineteenth century as an opera house. Guess there aren’t many opera enthusiasts in Whitbury these days.
“Good morning.” Lenore approaches the plexiglass window, where an administrative assistant with a cherry-red bob clacks away at a keyboard.
Disinterested eyes flick over us from behind wire-frame glasses. “The fee for a marriage license application is forty dollars.”
“Oh, no, sorry.” Lenore laughs a little, flustered, as her gaze cuts to me. “We’re here to see the town clerk.”
The woman’s attention returns to her computer. “In that case, take a number.”
“Come on, Kathleen,” I say. “There’s no one else even here.”
“Take. A. Number.”
Lenore takes a step back and looks around.
With a heavy sigh, Kathleen stops typing long enough to point to a red-ticket dispenser in the corner, half concealed in the leaves of a faux fig plant.
I pull a number and sit down to wait beneath an unsightly mural of the Green Mountain Boys capturing Fort Ticonderoga.
Lenore raises her eyebrows at it before taking a seat.
“Not the strangest place I’ve been on a date,” I joke.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says in a stage whisper. “Is the dusty ficus not doing it for you?”
I snicker. Kathleen shoots us a scathing look from inside her plexiglass prison.
I lean close enough to Lenore to catch the scent of vanilla perfume, warmed by her skin. “More the artwork,” I say in an undertone, and glance at the wall behind me. “Nothing to kill the mood quite like Ethan Allen watching over you.”
Lenore swings around in her seat to look at the mural. “Oh, is that who that’s supposed to be?”
“Sure. You have to squint a little.”
“Well,” she whispers like we’re in a library, “you’ll have to take me out on a second date, then. Maybe one of the founding fathers can chaperone, next time.”
Kathleen calls out “three hundred and fifty-two” to an otherwise empty lobby. We rise from our seats.
I don’t know why I flirt with Lenore when I know it’s a bad idea. It doesn’t help that she plays into it. I know she’s mostly joking, but my irrational irritation at having our little moment interrupted is all too real.
Waking up with her on Saturday morning, making breakfast—it was like a glimpse of what could’ve been. It was worth all the aches and pains from sleeping tangled together on the love seat.
Not that I got much sleep. I lay awake for hours with her head on my chest, staring at the darkened ceiling. One arm was curled around her back, my hand splayed between her delicate shoulder blades, attuned to the deep rise and fall of her breathing, the steady thump of her heart.
I have to remind myself that there is no could have been.
Not when it was made transparent that same morning that she wouldn’t want her brother to so much as suspect we’d spent the night together.
I get that Damien has always been overprotective, but Lenore has never shied away from pushing his buttons.
I don’t know much about the boyfriends she’s had after high school, but it’s easy to imagine the type she would probably go for.
Creative. College educated. Eager to see the world and absorb everything in it.
Someone who takes her to museums and different countries, who loves all the same things she loves, right down to the cramped, noisy city they call home.
I’m never going to be that guy. I couldn’t even get away with pretending. I’m the guy she flirts with at a wedding. That’s where it has to end.
Kathleen clicks her mouse a few times for good measure and folds her arms atop her desk calendar. “Good afternoon,” she says. “How can I help you today?”
There’s a beat of confusion before Lenore says again, “We’re here to see the town clerk.”
“He’s on lunch, but you’re welcome to wait until he gets back.”
“It’s ten thirty in the morning,” I say incredulously.
Kathleen pins me with a stare that could curdle milk. “Bill’s an early riser.”
I hold up my hands in surrender.
“I think what my friend is trying to say,” Lenore offers, “is that we were hoping someone could help us right now.”
Friend. Yeah, I could use the reminder.
“What do you need help with?”
“We were hoping to access vital records.”
“Oh, I can’t help you,” Kathleen says. “You’d need to talk to the town clerk for that.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “We know that. We already told you.”
“Callan,” Lenore says, a mild warning not to piss this woman off—like it would be possible for her to make this any more difficult than she already is.
Kathleen leans back in her swivel chair and looks Lenore up and down. “I recognize you. You’re Gabrielle’s granddaughter.”
We’re saved having to entertain this conversation any longer by the door opening behind us.
William Billings passes through the lobby wearing a red check shirt beneath suspenders and carrying a bag of Chinese takeaway.
“Bill,” I say, flagging him down before he disappears into the back office.
Bill freezes with one hand on the doorknob to the back office.
“They don’t have an appointment,” Kathleen calls, helpless to stop us from behind her fishbowl window.
“Hey, man,” I say to Bill. “Could we talk to you for a second?”
“I’m not on the clock,” he says, watery blue eyes flicking from me to Lenore, “but you can come on back and talk at my desk while I finish my lunch, if you like.”
“Great. Thank you,” I say, relieved. Bill holds the door open and I gesture for Lenore to go ahead of me. We’re led down the hall to a private room with a cluttered desk. School pictures of the numerous Billings grandchildren are pinned to a corkboard.
Bill sets his food on the desk beside an empty Garfield mug, the inside discolored like a ring stain in a bathtub. “So,” he says with a heavy groan, settling in his chair, “what can I do for you folks?”
“We’re hoping you can help us find someone in the town’s vital records,” Lenore says.
Bill tears open a packet of bamboo chopsticks and winds them in a box of lo mein. “You are aware that the state of Vermont has digitized records going back as far as 1909,” he says mildly. “You should be able to request what you need online.”
“That’s the problem,” Lenore says. “We think this person most likely lived before 1909.”
“How long before?”
“I don’t know for certain.”
“All right.” Bill slurps a noodle and peels a sticky note labeled to-do from his computer monitor. “Tell me what you do know.”
“We know that their last name was Button,” Lenore says, watching as he clicks a pen and tests it by scribbling circles on a paper scrap. “And that they might’ve worked as an artist, or something along those lines.”
“Gender?”
“We’re not sure.”
“Maybe a mother’s maiden name,” he suggests. “A first initial?”
Lenore folds her lips inward and shakes her head.
“You’re not giving me much to go on here.” He chuckles but scribbles the name Button on the sticky note anyway. “You’ll have to give me a few days to see what I can track down. What’s the best number for me to reach you?”
Lenore recites a phone number with a 646 area code. Bill says he’ll give her a call sometime this week, and we rise to leave.
“I’ll see you folks to the door.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” Lenore says.
“I’m afraid I don’t have much choice in the matter,” Bill says, pushing up from his chair. “Can’t have you wandering around a government building unmonitored.”
It’s hard to wrap my head around them being strict on professionalism when the shop one floor below sells $300 bongs, but all right. As we make our way along the bland hall, Bill draws a worn leather wallet from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt.
“Give me a shout if you think of anything else that might narrow the search,” he says. “I also offer a taxi service on Thursday nights and weekends, if you ever need a ride home from the bar.”
Lenore accepts his business card with a polite smile.
“Bill,” I say, bewildered. “We called you for a ride just the other day. You’ve known me since I was six.”
“Is that so,” he says, looking back and forth between us like he’s seeing us for the first time. Recognition alights in his faded blue eyes. “You’re the couple I picked up from the Penalty Box last weekend.”
Lenore makes fleeting eye contact with me before looking away, an embarrassed flush creeping over her. “We’re not together,” I say.
“Ah,” Bill says with a wry smile. “My mistake.”
It’s windy as we leave the building and make our way back to the truck, dead leaves whispering across the sidewalk, that woody autumn smell in the air. The birch trees in the town square are all golden-yellow atop white stalks. Gardeners rake piles of leaves from the lawn into trash bags.
I unlock the truck. Lenore has this intensely distracted look in her eye as she climbs in and buckles her seat belt. I know that look—so lost in thought that the rest of her is on autopilot. Sure enough, her thoughts bubble to the surface before the engine has turned over. “So, that was weird.”
“What was weird,” I say, not interested in playing this particular game.
“That’s twice in one hour that we’ve been mistaken for a couple,” she says. “Weird coincidence.”
I shrug with one hand on the shift lever behind the wheel. “Maybe we look good together.”
“Yeah,” she says dubiously. “Maybe.”
I wasn’t serious about us looking good together.
Lenore looks like she’s out of my tax bracket.
It’s not that anything she’s wearing is brand name, or even especially good quality.
But her look is curated. Clean. Her sweater is loose, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows to reveal a slender wristwatch.
Gold earrings peek out from behind her dark hair.
Even her light-wash jeans, tucked into tall brown boots, look expensive next to my permanent grass stains and the fraying denim around my steel-toed work boots.
“You hungry?” I ask.
A crease appears between her brows at the sudden change of subject. “Sure.”
Lenore calls in our order to go while I drive us over to Chandi’s.
We wait in the parking lot for the allotted fifteen minutes and then I leave the truck idling while I head inside.
It’s busy as ever. Amoy is working behind the counter today, corkscrew curls springing out of a silk bandana.
She and Chandi are identical twins, but it’s easy enough to tell them apart because Amoy is an inch shorter, her face rounder, and her smile a little less guarded than her sister’s.
At the sight of me, she doubles back to grab the order, receipt stapled to the brown paper bag. “I know your usual order, and it doesn’t include French toast.”
I pull a few bills from my wallet and slide them across the counter. “I’m having breakfast with someone.”
“Gabrielle’s granddaughter,” Amoy surmises, tucking the cash into her apron pocket. I give her a nonplussed look. “Chandice told me you came in with her last week. And it was a woman on the phone. I figured it must be her.”
“You guessed right.” I grab the paper bag with a thank-you and turn to leave.
“You should be careful with that one,” Amoy says to my back.
I stop in my tracks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You hear things around town,” she says with a shrug.
I glance at the customers seated along the chrome-trimmed countertop, but no one is paying attention.
At least, no one looks like they’re paying attention at first glance—but look close enough, and you notice all the ways people pretend to look busy.
Stirring mugs of black coffee. Nudging uneaten food around their plates.
I lower my voice. “If you’ve heard someone talking about Lenore, I’d like to know who said what.” I don’t believe that Amoy has ill intentions, but I’m a little irked that people are spreading gossip. It’s inevitable in a town this small, but this feels personal.
Amoy leans across the counter conspiratorially. “Not about her,” she says. “About you.”
I shake my head a little, unnerved. “What about me?”
“People notice things. How much time you’re spending around her. Everyone in town wants the best for you.” I sketch a brow, and she amends, “Almost everyone.”
“I appreciate the concern, but it’s not like that.”
Keen amber eyes study me. “You already know she left town once. Do you really believe you can stop her from leaving all over again?”
“I wouldn’t try to stop her,” I say, even as I know that’s exactly how I’m going to get hurt.