Those Who Favor Fire (19 page)

He opened his newspaper and skipped through the front pages, pausing at headlines. The world seemed to be going on without him. When he got to the bits and pieces of small news in the later pages he read more carefully but found nothing about a missing Christopher Barrows. Not that he had expected anything. But eventually, if he was reported missing, he might find a grainy likeness of himself on page 12 or thereabouts. God, he was hungry. Where the hell were his eggs?

Moments later, when the waitress carried Joe’s plate over to the counter, he was immersed in his newspaper, which he had spread out in front of him, leaving no room for his food.

“Here you go,” she said, holding his breakfast high in her hand. He raised his head, looked at her intently for a moment, and smiled. She was really something.

“Looks delicious,” he murmured.

The waitress smiled back, her eyes narrowing. “You haven’t seen it yet.”

His smile stiffened. “I meant it
smells
delicious,” he said.

She thought this over, her head cocked, one eye shut, mouth pursed. “No,” she finally said. “I don’t think so.”

It startled Joe to see her slide his breakfast into the warming oven and pour out a large glass of milk.

“Here you go,” she said, putting the milk down in front of him.

“What’s this?”

“This,” she said, raising her eyebrows, “is milk.”

“Milk?”

“You were staring,” she said. “At my”—she swirled her hands in front of her chest as if she meant to pull a rabbit out of a hat—“hooters. Knockers. Headlights. Coconuts. Lungs, as in, ‘set of.’ Ta-tas. Rack,” she said and crossed her arms as if latching cupboard doors.

Joe wasn’t sure what was going on.
Everybody
flirted. He’d watched his father treat a hundred girls the same way, and he’d picked up the habit much as he’d learned which fork was meant for his salad, which for his meat. But there was something in this girl’s hipshot stance that made him think he’d chosen his target unwisely.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he assured her. He had not even been conscious of his actions, which made him wonder what else he commonly did to cause offense.

“Oh, sure you did, although I’m not sure what.” She squinted at him as if he might just be one bug worth squashing, then turned to the oven for his plate. “I’ll tell you what. You apologize and I’ll give you your breakfast.”

Annoyed with both the girl and himself, Joe said an unsmiling “Sorry” and held out his hand for his eggs.

“Oh, come on,” the waitress scolded, shaking her head, holding the plate just beyond his reach. “Let’s try that again.”

Days earlier, Christopher Barrows would have done one of several things, depending on his mood: he would have walked out (without paying for his coffee); called for the manager; done his best to appease the girl. (The cook who stood several feet beyond the waitress, a spatula dripping in her hand, a look of uncertainty on her face, made
the perfect audience: she watched, listened, did not interfere, posed no threat.) Christopher Barrows would never have been sorry, never have said so.

But Christopher Barrows would never have come to Belle Haven in the first place, much less to Angela’s Kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” said Joe. “Truly.” With what was becoming habitual surprise, he felt a keen shard of admiration for this waitress. He had not met her like before or, if he had, had not recognized the breed.

“Much better,” she said, and gave him his eggs.

Just then, a boy of about ten and a woman past sixty came down the stairs at the back of the pantry and tied themselves up in clean aprons. They said their good mornings to the cook and the waitress, smiled at Joe, and set to work. As if on cue, several farmers came into the shop to have breakfast, bringing with them the faint smell of Clorox, mud, gasoline, and sweat. Those who chose counter stools said good morning to the women, the boy, and nodded to Joe. For the first time since arriving in Belle Haven, he began to feel less the alien, a bit more the neighbor. He watched the waitress take a cantaloupe out of the cook’s hands and slice it gracefully into perfect wedges before wiping her hands, removing her apron, and hanging it from a peg. She turned to the cook. “How much do I owe you?”

“For what?
You
made
my
breakfast, remember?”

“For the cinnamon rolls.”

“Bah.” The cook waved her hand impatiently. “Don’t be silly, Rachel.”

“Come over for brownies, then, and we’ll be even,” said the girl named Rachel.

The cook said, “It’s a deal.” And then, as if reminded that Joe had done nothing to earn
his
breakfast, she fished a pad out of her apron pocket, tore off a check, and tucked it under his coffee cup, face down. “Come again,” she said, and turned back to her griddle.

Baffled by their conversation, Joe watched Rachel slip a flat wallet from the back pocket of her jeans and remove a twenty-dollar bill. She crumpled it in her fist and cautiously jammed it into a gleaming bucket that sat next to the coffeemaker. It made a crunching noise, like someone walking on gravel. When she caught him watching her, she slowly lifted one eyebrow, removed her hand from the bucket, and turned to the older woman who had come in with the boy to help and was now filling small silos with sugar.

“Rusty and I are going to the movies tonight,” she said. “Want to come along?”

“Do we get popcorn?”

“Goes without saying.”

“Count me in. Be nice to give Angela an evening to herself.”

“Hang on a minute,” the cook said, gently flipping an egg. “I don’t want an evening to myself. It’s Thursday, Rachel.”

“Good grief,” Rachel said, smacking her forehead. “So it is. I’ll meet you back here when I drop off Dolly and Rusty after the movie.”

“Fair enough,” said Angela, the cook. “See you then.”

“And I’ll pick you two up at seven sharp,” Rachel said, waving at Dolly, the silo-filler, and Rusty, the counter boy. “See ya later.”

As Rachel walked out of the shop, Joe wolfed down the last of his breakfast, scrambled off his stool, still chewing, wrenched his wallet out of his pocket, and thrust a ten at the boy. Then he quickly pocketed the change and rushed out after her, leaving neither thanks nor tip behind.

        Out on the sidewalk, Joe looked up and down the street, as excited as he’d been as a boy spotting his first doe. He finally saw her, a block away. Hurrying to catch up, he noticed that she was standing absolutely still and staring across the broad street into a small parking lot tucked between a hardware store and Paula’s Beauty Salon.

A man and a woman said something to her as they walked by, looked back at her as they continued on, but she seemed not to notice them. She was still standing there, her arms hanging loosely at her sides, when he slowed, wondering what to say. Finally, he called her name. It felt like a song on his tongue. “Rachel?”

She didn’t answer but, after a moment, turned her head to look at him. What he saw on her face, the anger there, stopped him in his tracks.

“Did you want something?” she asked him, distracted and impatient.

He thought she might still be angry with him. He wondered if he ought to say no and go on his way. But he didn’t want to do that, and he rarely did things that he didn’t want to do. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry about that stunt I pulled back there.”

For a moment she looked confused. Then, “You already said you were sorry.”

“Well, I was hoping you’d maybe have lunch with me or something. Give me a chance to atone.”

She turned again to look across the street. “We’ll see,” she said.

“Or if you’re not busy right now I could buy you a cup of coffee.”

“I’ve already had too much.” Still without looking at him, she said, “You’re a reporter, aren’t you?” It had the sound of an accusation.

“Why would you think that?”

“They do stories about the fire sometimes.” Now she turned back toward him and put her hands on her hips. “Most of them have lousy manners.”

Joe, too, put his hands on his hips. They looked like kids at recess, squaring off. “Well, I’m not a reporter.” The men at the gas station and, later, Ian had not seemed reluctant to talk about the fire out under the fields, but perhaps this girl Rachel was a more suspicious sort.

“You really want to do penance?” she asked, turning away from him once again, still absorbed with something else, something that had nothing to do with him, he now realized. He waited. After a bit she said, “Come on, then,” and stepped off the curb.

With Joe following, Rachel walked quickly across the street and up to the door of the hardware store. “Damn,” she said softly when she found it locked. She glanced at her watch. Joe glanced at his. Eight-fifteen. The store opened at half past. Rachel backed up to the curb and squinted at the windows of the apartment above the store. They were open, their shades up.

“Earl!” she called. “Earl, it’s me, Rachel.”

After a moment, a balding, fiftyish man appeared at one of the windows, a mug in his fist. “Why, Rachel,” he said through the screen. “I must be dreaming. You finally ready to run away with me?”

Rachel smiled at him. “Do me a favor and open up early,” she said. “It’ll just take a sec. I need something in a hurry.”

“For you and you alone,” he sighed, a hand to his chest. “Be right down.”

As they waited in silence for Earl to unlock the door, Joe tried to guess what kind of bee had landed in this girl’s bonnet. She fidgeted impatiently, seemed angry all over again. But she had left the coffee shop smiling, her eyes glad. He stood and watched her expectantly. She looked ready to spring.

“Come on in,” Earl said as he held the door open for them, looking curiously at Joe. “Morning.”

While Earl switched on the lights, Rachel walked unerringly to a display of spray paints, all colors. After a moment, she handed Joe a can of red, one of yellow, tucked a green and an orange under her arm.

“You’re a pal, Earl,” she said as she paid for the paints, then collected her change and headed for the door. “Say hi to Mag for me.”

Out the door, down the sidewalk, and into the adjacent parking lot they went. “How are you at butterflies?” she asked him.

“Butterflies?”

“You know. Butterflies. Can you make butterflies?”

“Well, I can’t say—”

“Here, you can have red and yellow. Or would you rather have these?”

“No, I—”

“Just make sure you shake them up real well first.”

And then, as he was about to write her off as a complete lunatic, Joe saw what Rachel had seen after she left Angela’s Kitchen.

On one side of the parking lot, Paula’s Beauty Salon presented a scarred, brick flank, innocent and bland but for a single emblem. It was an irregular circle of black paint about four feet across. Inside it were three K’s, the middle one bigger than the others, like a monogram of sorts.

Rachel shook one paint can in each hand, the little balls inside sounding like tap dancers. Tentatively, Joe followed her lead. Rachel uncapped both of her cans. Standing directly in front of the wall, she spent a minute or two contemplating the graffiti, giving the cans an occasional shake, then suddenly lifted her right hand and in one swift, unflinching movement turned the largest of the
K’
s into a bright orange
B
. To the spine of the
B
she added a mirror image. She swirled color, the green can hissing wildly, into each quadrant. Topped her butterfly with drooping antennae, fleshed out its body, obliterated the black of its skeleton. She was finished before Joe had even uncapped his cans.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Should you be doing this?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. “I mean, aren’t you worried someone will see you?”

“Worried someone will see me? You think I should be worried?”

“Well, these people can be pretty vindictive, can’t they?”

“Oh, I suppose,” she said, setting her paints at her feet and taking his from his hands. She gave them a vigorous shake and pried off their caps. Shouldering him aside, she began to work on the second K. “We outnumber them a hundred to one, but we act like a bunch of sheep. Too scared to rock the boat. Well, it’s my boat, too, and I’ll damned well rock it if I want to.”

To Joe, her butterflies were inescapably ugly, for he had seen their larvae. But they had a frozen sort of dignity, like fossils or dead trees.

“You think I should be afraid of them?” She added a flourish of yellow to a fresh wing. “I’d rather be afraid of them than afraid of me.”

Joe picked up a can of paint.

When they were finished, three ungainly butterflies struggled to breach their bizarre cocoon.

“Come on,” Rachel said, rubbing colors between her palms. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

It wasn’t until they had crossed Raccoon Creek and turned up her hill that Joe suddenly realized he’d never told Rachel his name.

“I’m Joe,” he said.

“I know.” She smiled. “Pleased to meet you.”

“How’d you know my name?”

“Belle Haven’s a small town,” she said. “Not much happens around here without everyone hearing about it in pretty short order. For instance.” She glanced at him without breaking stride. They were walking at a good clip up the steep road, and both of them were breathing hard, spending wind on both work and talk. “I know you arrived in town last night, driving a mobile home, got stuck on the bridge”—she tossed her head in the direction of the creek—“and ended up out at Ian’s campground.”

Joe whistled through his teeth. “This is a small town.”

“Which means you won’t get away with anything while you’re here. At least half a dozen people saw us go off together in the direction of my house.” She grinned at him. “Do you think I’d be walking up this hill with you otherwise?”

Joe shrugged. “I had wondered,” he said. “I figured you were a trusting sort of person.”

At which Rachel laughed. “You got that part wrong,” she said. And then, after a pause, “But not entirely.”

At the top of the hill and the end of the road, Rachel’s house sat by itself, the nearest neighbor halfway down the hill. She led Joe across her front yard and onto her porch.