30. Breakfast for Dinner #2
Bustin’ Joe’s Diner is a recent addition to the area, a 24/7 American-style monstrosity with red-and-white stripes on every-thing and appropriately shiny red padded booths inside.
Bikers stop there on the way to rallies - there are a handful parked out front now - but the only other patrons when they step inside are a very tired-looking couple with a tiny, fat baby in a high chair, and an old man reading a newspaper while he drinks his coffee.
The broad-shouldered, middle-aged bikers are sitting at the bar on stools much too high for them, so their leather boots dangle a foot off the ground.
They sit down at a booth and Bastian picks up the slightly sticky menu with just his thumb and forefinger, like it’s a poisonous snake.
‘It’s laminated,’ he says ruefully.
‘Don’t be a bitch,’ says Briar. ‘I once watched you eat a burger van hot dog off the ground.’
‘I only ate the sausage,’ says Bastian. ‘The bun cushioned the blow.’
A bored-looking man comes wandering over, not wearing a name tag, not holding a notepad and pen. He’s incongruent with the theming; this man has never put curlers in his hair or called a patron ‘sweetheart’ in his life. Briar is mildly disappointed.
‘Drinks?’
‘I’ll have a . . . banoffee milkshake, please.’
‘No you won’t,’ Bastian says, disgusted.
‘I will. Thanks. And tap water.’
The man nods and turns to Bastian. ‘You?’
‘Do you have chamomile tea?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll have sparkling water.’
The guy looks like he wants to roll his eyes, but Briar does it for him, so he just taps a finger on the table and wanders off to fetch their liquids.
‘Do you think he even works here,’ Briar says quietly, ‘or does he just get off on asking people for their orders?’
‘Nobody who doesn’t have to would ever willingly spend any time here. The salt shaker is an eagle with a hat on.’
It’s true. The pepper shaker is just a pepper shaker, which is another disappointment. ‘Are you going to sit and gripe all night?’
Bastian’s chin is resting in his cupped palm. He turns from the salt eagle to Briar, a flash of defiance in his eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Okay, great, I was just checking.’ Briar drums a hand on the table and then lays it down flat to prevent it from happening again. ‘How does it work? With you and Alistair?’
Bastian goes back to looking at the eagle. ‘Well, when two prefects like each other very much, sometimes they—’
‘Ha ha. I mean . . . is he your boyfriend?’
‘No, Briar, he’s not my boyfriend,’ Bastian says, like this is the most puerile thing he’s ever heard. ‘He’s going into politics.’
‘Right. And it’s 1956, so obviously having a boyfriend would be a huge problem.’
‘It would, actually, if you’ve been paying attention.’
‘One sparkling water, one tap water,’ polo shirt man says, plonking them both down on the table. ‘Your milkshake is coming. Do you know what you’d like to eat?’
‘The pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, please, and some scrambled eggs,’ Briar says, as Bastian looks on in horror. ‘What? It’s all-day breakfast. Do you want anything?’
He shakes his head like he’s still trying to clear it of the horror of pancakes, and says, ‘The house salad.’
‘You want to add chicken?’
‘I’m a vegetarian.’ This is interesting. Briar supposes it makes sense, based on Bastian’s childhood fascination with all things that crawl, but it’s strange to be presented with more evidence that they have no idea who Bastian is any more.
The waiter looks mildly disgusted. ‘It’ll suck without chicken.’
Bastian slides the menu across the table towards him. ‘My vegetarianism continues, regardless.’
The man concedes to him with his hands held up defensively, in an it’s-your-funeral kind of gesture. When he’s gone, Bastian picks at the paper sugar and sweetener packets tucked in with the condiments, idly rearranging them by colour and genre. ‘Did you break into my room the other day?’
‘Um.’ Briar had forgotten this, amid everything else. ‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Find what you were looking for?’
‘I didn’t read your diaries,’ Briar says, sounding enormously guilty. ‘I did read . . . There was a notebook. Had some stuff in. The pledge, I think. Some . . . poetry. And my letter, from that summer.’
Bastian grimaces. ‘I wish you hadn’t.’
‘Sorry. I called my mum about that Christmas, she told me some stuff, but it didn’t make sense. I was . . . panicking. Do you want the letter back?’
Bastian shakes his head in a quick, sharp jerk, then finishes fussing with the sugar and spreads his palms flat. ‘If Alistair found out you’d read the school pledge, he’d kill you,’ Bastian says. ‘I’m not speaking metaphorically.’
Briar thinks of that seventh-year butcher scholar, shot while he was running away.
‘I know.’
Bastian’s temper is rising. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve been protecting you and your friends behind closed doors.’
‘Well. Thanks.’
‘Take this seriously,’ Bastian says, rapping his fist against the table. ‘These aren’t just harmless pranks, no matter what they’ve told you. The most powerful men in the country are deeply invested in what happens here, and they don’t take interference lightly.’
‘So why aren’t they here already?’
Bastian lets his fingers fall flat again. ‘Because we need them to know that we have things handled. That we’re in control.’
Briar thinks of the videos on Tate’s phone. They’ll be bad news for Bastian. That future he’s counting on might not be waiting for him after all.
‘Look, he’s been asking me to take more drastic measures for weeks, because I’m the only one powerful enough to do it without leaving a mark, and so far, I’ve refused,’ Bastian says, leaning across the table.
‘Out of some . . . misguided sense of sentiment. But he thinks you’re fair game now.
If any of you try again on Thursday, I can’t protect you any more. ’
Thursday. There it is. Hardly directions and blueprints, but it’s a start.
‘All right, calm down,’ Briar says, backing off before Bastian can realise what he’s given away.
‘You don’t need to worry about it. No more pranks, I’ll stay away from your Trials.
’ It’s so easy for the lie to slip out. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I came here to talk about. ’ Another lie. Or a half-lie, at least.
Bastian leans back in his chair, then takes a measured sip of his drink. He’s nervous. His hand is gripping the glass too hard, like he’s worried someone’s going to take it away from him, and then he lets go as if he’s noticed. ‘Then why did you come here?’
‘Because I meant it when I said I missed you,’ Briar says, watching to see what kind of reaction this provokes.
Flushed cheeks. Dilated pupils. Another awkward grab for his sparkling water, which he almost spills down himself.
Everything else might be complicated, but this part could be easy.