Chapter Nine
W ithout further information to spur me to action, the most productive thing I could do was to relax and center myself. When the storm began to rise—for I was sure it would—I wanted to be ready. That evening, the patio at Darla’s Café was as good a place as any to wind down.
The café was busier than usual, and the tavern door was propped open, letting out the chatter and laughter of a full house.
Complementing the usual gathering of Wilfredians were many members of the crew working on the Empress.
They were easy to pick out from their bright orange construction T-shirts and plaster-dusted work pants.
Darla filled my water glass. “What’ll you have? We’re out of the burgers.”
“What’s the special?” I asked.
“Salmon étouffée. We’re out of that, too. Folks from the work down at the Empress are hungry tonight. How about a patty melt with tuna?”
“Sign me up,” I said. “And an iced tea.”
Darla left without jotting down my order. She never did write down orders but juggled them in her brain with the facility of a mainframe computer, never forgetting who couldn’t stand pickles, was gluten-free, or routinely split their slice of peach pie with their wife.
Now that Sam had withdrawn from me, I felt especially alone.
Tables were full of families. Across the patio, Buffy and Thor tucked into ice cream at a table with their grandmother, Patty.
Duke and his housemate Desmond chatted amiably over pints of beer.
Tohlers occupied two adjacent tables, playing cards and apparently finishing the last of the étouffée.
At least I could distract myself with a novel.
The books would have foreseen this circumstance and hidden one away in my bag.
I dug in my purse but came up dry. Not even a pamphlet.
This disconnection with my magic was getting worse.
What was going on? My grandmother’s warning about Aunt Beata again rose to mind.
Darla returned with a glass of iced tea. “What were you doing out last night? It’s not like you to wander around after dark. Montgomery spotted you headed toward the meadow.”
“Out? I stayed in.” All night. Thinking of seeing Ian’s body in the atrium, I squeezed my eyes shut a moment.
A strident voice traveled the patio. Both Darla and I looked up to see Wanda a few tables away, leaning toward Ruth Littlewood.
Ruth Littlewood, Wilfred’s champion bird watcher and a library trustee, fondled the ever-present binoculars dangling from her neck.
Before she retired, she ran a vegetable canning operation.
These days she used her executive skills in natural history, researching local wildlife habits and updating her bird list.
“ Puss in Boots ,” Wanda said. “Can you believe it?”
I couldn’t make out Ruth’s response.
Darla returned her attention to me. “I’m sure I saw you last night.
Montgomery did, too. You were strolling up the Magnolia like you were on your way somewhere important.
Montgomery thought you were stopping at Lalena’s, but you kept going.
” Seeing my blank look, she added, “I guess we were mistaken.” She left to take another table’s order.
I steadied my breath. So far, my plans to relax were not gaining traction. Maybe Darla had seen Lise Bloom. At a distance, we might be mistaken for each other. Lise might have taken a shortcut through the trailer park to return to the retreat center.
“It isn’t right.” Wanda’s voice carried.
Cats clearly upset Wanda. I wasn’t sure how happy she’d be volunteering at the library with Rodney roaming the premises, but one thing was sure: if the choice was between Wanda or Rodney, the cat stayed.
Wanda’s stiletto gaze in my direction let me know she’d marked my presence. Ruth turned, too, and shook her head. Ruth, keeping her gaze on me, said something under her breath to Wanda.
All I wanted was peace and quiet. No—no, that wasn’t right.
I wanted Sam’s company and the murmuring of the books.
Both had been inexplicably ripped from me.
Did I have enough magic without them to discover why?
At least I could sit at home with Rodney in my lap and eat dinner in peace. I’d get my patty melt to go.
I scanned the patio for Darla, and my eyes lit on a spiffily dressed man with a charming smile, the man I’d seen arguing with the construction worker the night before last.
To my surprise, he crossed the patio and placed a palm on the chair next to mine. “You’re the librarian here, aren’t you? May I sit with you? The other tables are taken.”
I stood and stuck out a hand. “Josie Way.”
“Josie Way, what do you say to a drink in the tavern?” He tossed his head toward Wanda and Ruth’s table. “Don’t ask me why, but we’re getting the stink eye. We might find it more peaceful inside.”
He was generous to pretend their glances were for anyone but me alone. Darla would bring my dinner into the tavern. I’d talk later to Wanda about Rodney and her fear of cats. “I’d like that.”
Darla’s Café was split into three zones: the patio, the café proper, and the tavern.
On summer evenings, the patio was where I preferred to be, as did the rest of Wilfred.
At dusk, the crickets chirped in the meadow, and Darla had planted pots of black-eyed Susans that glowed under the lights strung on the patio’s awning.
The café itself, with its black-and-white checkerboard floor and utilitarian booths, was my favorite spot for a breakfast of Darla’s shrimp and grits and an earful of town gossip.
The tavern, however, rarely tempted me. It was a boxcar-like addition to the café you could enter through the parking lot or through a red-padded door from the dining room.
Passing from the café to the tavern was like crossing the border to a different country.
You went from the café’s bright cheer and aroma of bacon and waffles to a dark, beer-scented cave with the TV tuned to sports.
Despite Oregon’s longtime smoking ban and Darla’s many air fresheners, the faint stink of cigarettes as old as the Nixon administration lingered in the ancient indoor-outdoor carpeting.
Tyrone and I found a booth not far from the bar. “You seem distracted,” he said.
“I am, a bit,” I replied. Tyrone was too modelperfect to attract me, but those warm brown eyes and smile encouraged me to talk.
“I don’t blame you, what with those ladies staring at you. What’s their deal?”
Orson, casting a curious glance from Tyrone to me, slid a platter with my patty melt and fries in front of me. “Anything for you?” he asked Tyrone.
“A beer, please. Whatever you have on tap.”
Orson returned to the bar, and I dug into my dinner. “Strangely, I think it has to do with cats.”
“That’s a good one. Tell me more.”
“One of the women, Wanda, seems really uncomfortable around the library’s cat.
She even took offense to Puss in Boots , the book for children’s hour this week.
She’s a new volunteer at the library.” I made an exaggerated frown.
“And she shows up tomorrow for her first shift. I’m afraid she’s going to want me to shut out the cat. ”
“I know how to handle that,” Tyrone said. “ The Cat in the Hat . Put it face-out.”
“Or T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats .
” I couldn’t help but smile. I was already feeling better.
I remembered Wanda dancing at the retreat center, swinging her fringed shawl so gracefully at the partner who wasn’t there.
“I think Wanda’s lonely. She’s new in town and hasn’t made many friends.
” Except Ruth , I thought. “Her brother lives here, but he’s busy. ”
“You have my sympathy. People like her, you have to draw a line, or they’ll run you down. I know what I’m talking about. Let’s not give her any more of our attention. Tell me about you.”
For the next half hour, Tyrone and I talked. He told me about books he liked—he wasn’t much of a reader, but lately he’d been interested in the stoic philosophers. He was staying at the Wallingford Guest House and had come to Wilfred from somewhere out east.
“I wanted a new start,” he said. “I haven’t been here long, but Wilfred is a sweet little place.”
“I used to live near Washington, D.C.,” I told him. “Worked at the Library of Congress. I came to Wilfred to get away from Washington and discovered I loved it here. Small-town life has its advantages.”
Tyrone’s gaze lost focus. He shook his head as if to shake away a memory.
“You ever think of how much of life is chance? You just do the next thing, then the next thing, as if life is a river and you’re on a raft with no rudder.
” He pushed away his empty beer glass. “I’m through with that.
I want to be more purposeful with what I do with my life.
Instead of running from, I want to be running toward . ”
“I get that.” Escaping Washington had awoken not only my magic, but my entire life.
I would always be a librarian—I loved books too much not to be, and besides, I was good at it.
But I could also use my skills to pursue justice.
In the past few years, for the first time, I felt in control of my life.
My thoughts veered toward my freaky lapses in magic and the specter of Ian’s body on the atrium floor. Almost in control, that was.
“I got caught up in the idea that you had to have money to be worth anything, that respect was about the nice car and the fancy watch.” Tyrone smiled widely and lifted a palm to wave at Candace from the Beauty Palace.
Candace tossed her hair and returned his smile. She took a seat at the bar. Looking over her shoulder at Tyrone, she smiled again.
Tyrone was popular with the ladies, that was for sure.
I had the feeling he’d been piloting that particular boat in life’s river just fine.
As charming as Tyrone was, I would take Sam over him any day.
Tyrone’s strong jaw and melting eyes were nothing next to Sam’s intense gaze and eccentric habits.
Advertising had it that a person had to look like Barbie or Ken to inspire love.
Truth was, when you loved someone, the tiniest detail— a goofy smile, a receding hairline, a habit of snapping fingers when remembering something—became a draw far more alluring than perfect teeth.
That said, it was nice to talk with a handsome man and to feel appreciated as a woman—and a friend. I wouldn’t say no to another drink with him sometime.
“It takes courage to change your life’s course like that,” I said.
“If you only knew.” Tyrone’s voice was quiet.
Whatever this change he was gearing up for, it was important to him.
Following his gaze to the bar, I determined that this diversion in course was perhaps less important than his immediate goal.
I’d leave him to talk with Candace. The barstool next to hers was open, and she tossed a flirtatious look Tyrone’s way. Tyrone nodded toward her.
“Thank you for the conversation.” I rose and slung my purse over my shoulder. “I’ve got something I need to do at home. See you around.”
Tyrone drew his attention back to me. “See you later, Josie. It was great talking with you. Don’t let the anticat lady get you down.”