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“WE NEED YOUR HELP WITH something.”
Mari glanced up from her cereal bowl to meet her cousin Jonathan’s eyes.
“The baby’s due in six weeks. Pam says she can handle the morning shift at the café for another three weeks.” He exchanged a swift glance with his wife beside him at the kitchen table and settled his hand over hers where it rested on her swollen belly. Tenderness softened the somber face he returned to Mari. “We need you to work the afternoon shift. Pam and Sage can train you starting tomorrow.”
Mari’s fingers tightened around the spoon handle. “Sage hired me to work in the kitchen. Can’t she handle the afternoon shift? It hasn’t been that busy.”
“Business will pick up in a couple weeks, once the snow clears. And Sage already has stacks of pie orders for Easter. I’ll show you how to handle the griddles too, so you can be ready to take over when the baby comes. I’ll be out for a couple days. Might be a week.”
A whirlpool of emotions churned inside Mari. Fear and anxiety submerged obligation until shame spun to the surface. Jonathan and Pam Redfox had taken her into their home when she had nowhere to go. She came to them with no belongings other than the clothes she wore and a backpack. They sheltered her, fed and clothed her, and gave her time to recover, their kindness a balm to her wounded spirit, soothing hurts old and new.
She owed them.
Still...
“It’s safer working in the kitchen.”
“He’s in federal prison,” her cousin said. “For fifteen years at least. And he doesn’t know you’re here.”
“There were others. They probably think I would recognize their faces. What if they’re looking for me?”
Jonathan stretched his hand across the table to place on hers. Her eyes fell on the warm, tawny tone of his skin, almost a perfect match to her own skin color. She relaxed beneath his brief, gentle touch; she unclenched the spoon and set it beside the bowl.
“No one is looking for you.” His mellow voice repeated reassurances he and Pam had spoken many times since taking Mari under their wing. “It was dark when you made the drops. You wore a hoodie and sunglasses. Right?”
She nodded.
“I bumped into Sheriff Torkelson in Big Timber yesterday afternoon,” Pam said. Her soft gaze conveyed confidence and comfort. “He told me the police raided that meth house in Billings—the last stop you and that loser made. He assured me those people will spend at least three years in prison. And he said they wouldn’t have known their own names that night, let alone remember a young woman delivering drugs to them on Christmas Eve. Seriously, they don’t remember. Plus, the police kept your name out of everything.”
“Oh.” Relief washed over Mari. She sat up straighter. “That’s good to hear.”
“I’m so sorry. I meant to tell you as soon as I got home yesterday.” Pam made a rueful face. “But I stopped to see my mom first, and she distracted me with her plans for the baby shower. If this is how my brain functions before the baby arrives, I can’t imagine what it’ll be like after it’s born.”
Mari found it hard not to smile. “That’s okay.”
Jonathan settled an arm across his wife’s shoulders, a helpless grin creasing his broad face. “As long as you don’t forget how much I love you, nothing else matters.”
“Aw.” Pam kissed his cheek before winking at Mari. “Aren’t I the lucky one to have such a great guy?”
Wistfulness bubbled inside Mari. It must be something to have a husband like Jonathan, a strong yet gentle man who believed his wife hung the moon and the stars. He and Pam had wed two years ago, and now they awaited their first child with infectious excitement. Their love and respect for one another radiated like the summer sun, diffusing a warm glow throughout their cozy little home. Mari sensed that warmth the instant she stepped inside the house the first time—something she’d never experienced in any of the houses she’d occupied in the twenty-two years since her birth. She wanted a home like that of her own someday.
“All right,” she said, tamping down the remaining quivers in her belly. “I’ll help.”
Jonathan’s approving gaze also held respect. “Good. Thank you, cousin. I’ll tell Sage.”
“Wonderful!” Pam said. “It’ll be such a relief knowing I won’t be leaving everyone in a lurch. And it’s just temporary, Mari. Gunnar Cahill works at the café during the summer. He’ll start right after Memorial Day this year. And Sage’s brother Danny will help too. You can return to the kitchen then.” Her brow wrinkled. “If that’s what you prefer?”
“It is... For now.”
Mari picked up her spoon and took a bite of the now soggy cereal. From beneath lowered lashes, she watched as Jonathan stood from the table and then helped his wife from her chair. He pressed a swift kiss to Pam’s mouth. “I’ll be in the garage.”
“I’ll paint for a couple hours.” Pam turned to Mari. “Is that okay with you?”
“Sure. Do you need any help?”
“No. The room’s so small; it’s easier if me and Button are the only ones in there.” She patted her belly, sent Mari a wink and waddled out of the kitchen.
“Don’t forget to keep the bedroom window cracked open!” Jonathan’s cheerful reminder rang from the hallway, followed by the sound of the door to the garage shutting behind him.
It was Tuesday. Gigi’s café, where they all worked, was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. The Redfoxes spent their days off getting their home ready for the baby. Pam was painting the second bedroom where Mari slept; it would be the baby’s room after the baby started sleeping through the night. Jonathan had been refinishing the baby furniture Pam’s parents had retrieved from their attic. The items—a crib, highchair, dresser and a rocking chair—had been in Pam’s family for several generations. Jonathan told Mari he and Pam broke the news of their pregnancy by asking Pam’s mom and dad if they still had “that old crib Pam slept in as a baby.”
He often shared personal things like that with Mari. From the beginning, he told her she was part of his family now. It didn’t matter how distant the connection or the fact he hadn’t known of her existence until a little over three months ago. Mari was a Redfox. She had Blackfeet blood; she’d always have a place in his tribe.
Mari had traveled many roads in her short life, many not of her choosing. Some roads moved forward, others backward; there were parallels, U-turns and crisscrosses, but they all had led to this place: Hollister, Montana, living with the only true family she had left in this world.
A prayer of gratitude capped off days consumed with too many anxious thoughts. It helped her fall asleep. Yet her sleep was seldom restful. The first month had been the worst; bad dreams had kept her tossing and turning in bed every night, forcing her to catch up on lost sleep during the day. Fear, depression and a deep, simmering anger kept her enclosed in the small bedroom. Little by little, with enduring patience, Jonathan and Pam coaxed her out of that room. Every day, they promised her she was safe, no one was after her, she was family and she could stay with them as long as she wanted.
As long as she wanted...
Mari didn’t feel hungry anymore.
She rose from the table and carried the half-empty bowl to the sink. She dumped the cereal down the disposal. As she washed the breakfast dishes and wiped down the table and counters with distracted motions, old worries swam to the surface.
She couldn’t stay here as long as she wanted.
Oh, sure, the Redfoxes would insist she stay; they’d tell her she wasn’t in the way, but Mari had lived in enough overcrowded houses to realize how stressful the situation would get once the baby arrived. New, sleep-deprived parents, a baby waking up at all hours, and a twenty-two-year-old woman with a suitcase full of issues, all cramped together in this tiny house?
Impossible.
She couldn’t help feeling she was already in the way—a feeling ingrained in her from her earliest memories. This was just another temporary home. Another low-wage job. Another place where people cast a judgmental eye on her because she looked different.
She’d learned that sometimes it was better to leave before anyone told her she didn’t belong; then it didn’t hurt as much.
As familiar doubts and fears festered, her heart squeezed with pain at the thought of leaving. She went through hell to get here. She’d be a fool to turn her back on the hope the Redfoxes had awakened within her. Deep down, she felt a strange tug, a curious connection to this little community that went beyond her newfound family; it made her wonder... Was she meant to stay?
Not like this, though. Not as a burden on her cousin’s hospitality. As soon as she had enough money, she’d find a place of her own.
That’s all she hoped for, a home to call her own. Someday, she wanted a family too, a husband and children to shower with love. She had no grand aspirations for a career; not once had she dreamed of being a doctor or lawyer or teacher or any other occupation brilliant or humble. The only vocation she longed for was raising her children, keeping her house, and being the best friend, lover and partner to a good man.
Was that even possible anymore?
“Stop it.” Her self-admonishing whisper splintered the silence in the little kitchen. “Just stop it. Get real. Any guy with even half a brain wouldn’t want a broken girl like me.”
***
IT WAS THE LAST TUESDAY in March. The calendar said spring had arrived, but winter was taking its time leaving. A storm had blown in last Saturday night and dumped another five inches of snow in Sweet Grass County. Since mid-January, the weather had delivered piles of the white stuff almost every week. Snow accumulated so high alongside driveways, roads and walkways, the county had to bring in bulldozers and dump trucks to move it to the large field next to Hollister Elementary.
Mari dodged sludge and patches of ice as she walked alongside the road leading to the center of town. Her feet were snug and dry in the calf-length, fur-lined snow boots Pam had given her in January. “A late Christmas present,” Pam had said, waving aside Mari’s refusal of the expensive gift.
Mari wished she had these boots on Christmas Eve when she’d fought her way through chest-high snowdrifts, a freezing wind battering her bare face and hands with ice pellets that stung like shards of glass. Only a flimsy pair of ankle boots protected her feet that night. The following day, Jonathan told her how lucky she was she didn’t get frostbite or hypothermia.
In all her dreaming, she never envisioned herself living in a place where it snowed this much. Louisiana had been her home until she was fifteen, then Houston, Texas. Mari had never seen snow like this until a few days before Christmas Eve when Jeff crossed the state line between Kansas and Nebraska.
But she didn’t want to think about that right now.
She didn’t have far to walk. The Redfoxes lived a block north of central Hollister, which wasn’t an official town but an unincorporated community that dated back to the late 1800s. Pam said Hollister boasted a population of 140 people. “One hundred and forty-one when Button is born. That’s just Hollister proper. It doesn’t include all the ranch and farm families scattered around the area.”
Pam had been born and raised in Hollister, so she knew everyone. Her dad, Wyatt Gunderson, was one of the top saddle-makers in the country. Pam said people traveled to his workshop from all over, some just to observe him at his craft. He and his wife Angela often encouraged Mari to stop in for a visit, but she didn’t think she was strong enough to do that yet.
Mari sucked in some cold air. She imagined leaving the safety of the café kitchen tomorrow to help wait tables out front would be a nightmare. All those people. She’d have to talk to them. Would they laugh at her thick southern accent? Would they remark on the color of her skin or the shape of her eyes?
“It’s a good place to live,” Jonathan had told her the first week after her arrival. “Good people. Sure, there’re a few troublemakers. Small towns can go either way, bad or good, because there’s safety in numbers. Hollister is a small town that doesn’t let the bad win.”
His words comforted, but she’d need more than that to wash away the pain and mistrust generated from years of being told she was too different to fit in.
Still, if she expected to move forward, she had to take the first courageous step. She squared her shoulders and focused on the view ahead of her.
There wasn’t much to Hollister. The town boasted a couple dozen houses and businesses clustered on either side of one main road. Until the 1920s, before the state route that bypassed the town arrived, Hollister had been a larger, thriving community with a hotel, several stores, two restaurants, three saloons, a cheese factory and a flour mill. People throughout the region had flocked there for Saturday night dances, horse races, rodeos and gambling. Jonathan said it’d been a rough and rowdy place back then, popular with the cowboys.
Hollister was first settled by Norwegian immigrants. They built the elementary school, the Lutheran church and the Grange. Those buildings still stood. The central part of town had a few buildings that dated back to the early 1900s on either side of the road. Their brick and wood exteriors, mellowed and weathered with time, appealed to Mari.
She paused for a moment. If she squinted her eyes and blocked out the rusty mobile home on her right and the tiny 1930s bungalow with its sagging front porch and lopsided TV antenna on her left, she imagined what Hollister must have looked like back in its heyday. Sometimes, she imagined she was on a movie set for an old Hollywood western.
Hollister sat above Sweet Grass Creek and below the Crazy Mountains at the western edge of the high plains of south-central Montana. She looked to the Crazies now, but they stayed partially hidden beneath bulky grey clouds. She’d seen them fully just once, on Christmas morning, sharp and magnificent against a clear blue sky, their peaks pure white interspersed with purple granite where it was too steep for the snow to cling. Months later, she still experienced the same curious pull towards those mountains she’d sensed then, as if something waited there for her to discover.
Mari tore her gaze away. She continued walking, quickening her steps as she passed a long, single-story building on her right with black, wood-louvered swinging doors marking its main entrance. The Hideaway was a saloon and steakhouse with a dance floor. Jonathan and Pam enjoyed going there a few times a month for dinner and dancing. They always invited Mari to join them, but she declined.
Next door to the saloon stood a two-story building: The Mercantile. It was the one business in Hollister open every day of the week and the only place in town to buy groceries without having to drive twenty-five miles down to Big Timber or forty miles up to Harlowton. It was also a general store, hardware store, liquor store and post office—all under one roof.
The mercantile wasn’t her destination, though. Two doors led from the wide, wood-planked front porch into the building. The first door on her right was a glossy, cheery yellow, its upper glass pane emblazoned with purple lettering: The Reading Room. Open Weekdays 9am-5pm.
Mari opened the door and stepped inside, the coziness of the cheerful space bathing her in its warmth. This was her favorite place to hang out when she wasn’t working.
She discovered it back in February the same week she started her job at Gigi’s café. On the first two days, she’d left the café as soon as her shift ended at three o’clock and hurried back to the house, her head lowered, eyes on the ground. On the third day, something across the street from the café had caught her attention. Soft light beamed from a large picture window. In the gloom and cold of a winter afternoon, the window shone like a beacon, drawing her closer. Hands buried in her coat pockets, shoulders hunched, she stood outside the window, gazing in.
She saw a long, narrow space stretching to the back of the building, exposed brick walls decorated with colorful paintings and gilded mirrors, and books everywhere, on shelves low and high, stacked on scattered tables. A stuffed armchair beneath a floor lamp beckoned. Bean bags and floor pillows begged for someone to sit on them. Every corner breathed vibrancy and light and a sense of comfort and welcome. Without a second thought, Mari opened the door and stepped inside.
She’d been opening that door and stepping inside every weekday since.
Mondays and Tuesdays were the best days because those were her days off. Each morning after breakfast and helping Pam with chores, she headed for the Reading Room to spend the day. She’d found her own little nook on the left-hand side between two high bookcases; it had a loveseat tucked against the wall where she liked to curl her feet up and read to her heart’s content. For the most part, no one bothered her there. Sometimes, someone wandered into the space, looking for a book, but Mari kept her head down, not encouraging conversation.
But it wasn’t just the books and the privacy that drew her there. The best reason for loving this place was the woman who owned it—a vibrant Black woman named Shawna Johnson. She was the only non-white resident of Hollister that Mari knew of other than herself and Jonathan.
Shawna introduced herself to Mari that first afternoon and invited her to help herself to coffee from the kitchenette area in the middle section of the space. Shawna didn’t ask questions. She didn’t pry. She only said, “You’re welcome here, Mari Jones, and you can use this space however you like. Relax and read. Food’s allowed, and there’s internet if you need it. There’s a mother’s group that comes in every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon that can be a little noisy, but most days it’s quiet. This is a free library and a community gathering place. You can take books home, but if you keep them, I just ask you replace each book you take with two other books from your own collection.”
Mari stared at her, tongue-tied at first. She had spoken little in the past month and was unused to being around people other than Jonathan, Pam and Pam’s family.
Shawna stood there for a few moments, her soft brown eyes frank and assessing. Then she nodded her head as though coming to some vital conclusion. “You just be you, Mari. If you ever want to talk, I’m working in my office in the back section. That’s where I write.”
“Write?”
“Fiction. Romance with a little suspense. Do you like romance books?”
“I like all kinds of books.”
“Then you’re in the right place.” Shawna waved her hand towards the back of the building, the silver and gold bracelets embracing her wrists jingling like dainty bells. “I need to get back to work. Just had a new idea. I need to jot it down before I forget.” She disappeared from view, mumbling to herself. Soon, the clacking keys of what sounded like an old-fashioned typewriter punctuated the air.
This morning, the Reading Room was quiet. A quick glance towards the back section where Shawna had her workspace revealed an empty chair in front of an elegant cherrywood desk. The desk held a typewriter, a stack of paper, a pewter mug filled with pens and pencils, and a vase of daffodils.
The aroma of fresh coffee and a hint of the fragrance Shawna wore permeated the space. She must be in the mercantile. A connecting door stood between Shawna’s workspace and the adjacent store. Mari had discovered that when the woman wasn’t at her desk, patrons could often find her next door visiting with the owner of the mercantile, Samuel Pettersen, a big, gruff Norwegian in his forties.
Mari toed off her boots and placed them on the rubber mat beside the door, then she padded to the kitchenette and made herself a cup of coffee from the single-serve pod coffeemaker. She added some cream and sugar and stirred the brew before bringing the cup to her lips. She smiled, glad to know she was the only one there.
Two minutes later, she sat on “her” loveseat, legs tucked beneath her. She pulled a notepad and pen from her backpack and flipped the pages to the most recent entry.
One thousand, eight hundred and fifty dollars.
That’s what she had saved so far since starting her job at the café. Making some rough calculations, she figured she’d have enough money to buy a decent used car in another month or two. It might make more sense to rent an apartment first? She’d read that babies typically slept through the night at around three months old. Pam would need the second bedroom at that point. There was an empty apartment above the café. Jonathan said he’d lived there before he married Pam. Mari wondered if Sage would rent it to her and, if so, for how much? At least six hundred a month, Mari guessed; it was a nice, two-bedroom apartment.
Everything depended on her staying in Hollister. But, how could she stay if she couldn’t save enough money to get her own place? There were higher-paying jobs in the bigger towns. She should get the car first. That way she’d have the freedom to explore the area on her own.
Anger sifted into her thoughts, tightening her grip on the notepad. She had a car once. And an apartment. Nothing fancy, but they’d belonged to her. So she assumed, until the day someone took them away from her.
But she didn’t want to think about that right now.
“I don’t understand why they can’t wait just another week or two and have their wedding in June instead of on Memorial Day weekend. The weather will be so much better. The lilacs in my garden will be in full bloom. I told Sage I can fill the church with them. And she can put them in her bouquet.”
Mari lifted her head, ears perked to the conversation taking place on the other side of the bookcase.
“If Spence had his way, they would’ve married yesterday,” Shawna said, patient amusement in her tone. “And Sage told me she has her heart set on a simple bouquet of white roses, lavender and sagebrush.”
“Sagebrush in a bouquet? I can’t picture it. Roses and lavender are a special order that time of year. So spendy! I can make her bouquet for free.”
“Just be glad they’ve invited the whole town to their wedding, Viv. Sage said she wanted none of us to do anything but relax and enjoy her special day. Stop creating stress for yourself.”
“I’m not stressed,” Viv said with an emphatic sniff.
“Come have some coffee. You need to give me the recipe for that casserole you brought to bingo night last week...”
Mari cracked a smile as the voices floated away. Viv Jacobsen popped into the Reading Room once a day, often twice, to share the latest news and gossip with Shawna. The older woman did most of the talking, but it appeared Shawna didn’t mind. After many such visits, Mari spied Shawna zipping back to her desk to jot down notes—material for the book she was writing, Mari guessed, or ideas for other stories.
Pam said every small town had a gossip and that, as gossips went, Viv wasn’t a vicious one. Jonathan didn’t share the same kind opinion; Vivien Jacobsen was a busybody who should pay closer attention to the goings on in her own family. Her son Elias was spending way too much time at the Hideaway these days.
Mari didn’t share with her cousin that Viv knew of her son’s supposed drinking problem; she’d once overheard that woman confiding her worries to Shawna.
Mari overheard a lot of things in the Reading Room. Most everyone who lived in Hollister stopped in at some point. Most of them seemed unaware of her presence. A few gave her a nod or a smile, but they soon forgot she was there, which is what she preferred. In the bad times during her childhood, when she hadn’t been able to find a place to hide, she figured out a way to keep still and quiet. She imagined herself shrouded in a magical cloak that made her invisible, projecting a kind of nothingness in her outward demeanor that didn’t draw attention. It had worked. Not always. But most of the time.
On Mari’s second or third visit to the Reading Room, Viv had tried to engage her in conversation. Mari responded with a brief greeting which didn’t deter the older woman from commenting on Mari’s “lovely southern accent.” Then she asked where Mari was from. To Mari’s relief, Shawna jumped in before she could answer and tugged Viv to the back section with the enticement of some fresh newsy tidbit.
In the six weeks since Mari first ventured inside the Reading Room, only one other person had encroached on her space: Gunnar Cahill. Without waiting for an invitation, he dragged a bean bag in front of the loveseat and plopped himself into it.
“Hey. I’m Gunnar.” He held out his hand, his teeth strong and gleaming in a friendly, open smile. He had the lean physique and confident demeanor of a football quarterback. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties.
Mari shook his hand, a reluctant smile tilting one corner of her mouth. He had green eyes, almost the same shade as hers. “Hi. I’m Mari.”
“You’re new here. Where’re you from?”
“Louisiana.”
“Cool. I’m from New Hampshire. I’ve been here two years. There’s an apartment above the Merc; that’s where I live. I teach third through fifth grade at Hollister Elementary.”
She frowned. “You teach three grades?”
“It’s basically a one-room schoolhouse.” He grinned. “Crazy, right? When I found the job opening, I just had to apply for it. I have some distant relatives in the area, so that helped. So, I hear you’re working at the café. I help there in the summer. We can hang out sometimes.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sense any negative vibes from him, and she didn’t get the impression he was putting a move on her. He seemed like one of those outgoing types, nice to everyone.
“I started a book club that meets here the second Friday every month,” he said. “You should join. I’ve seen you here a lot, so I know you like to read. It’s a good opportunity to meet people.”
“Maybe.”
He stood. “Think about it. I need to grade some homework. See you around.”
Since then, whenever he visited the Reading Room, he gave her a friendly wave, but he kept his distance. Jonathan told Mari from the start that her story was only hers to tell, if she chose to; he and Pam wouldn’t reveal details of Mari’s past to anyone. It appeared they’d spread the word to the people of Hollister to leave Mari alone.
For now, anyway. Once she started waiting on customers at Gigi’s, she would no longer be able to hide. She’d have to talk to people, ask what they wanted to order. She would have to smile too; it wouldn’t be fair to Sage—who’d been so generous to hire her—to be antisocial.
Mari stared into space; the notebook forgotten. Just because people didn’t approach her didn’t mean they weren’t talking about her. They all knew the story of how Travis Hollister found her hiding in his barn on Christmas morning, how she bit his hand so bad he needed stitches. She gave him a black eye too. Jonathan said Travis’s buddies teased him for weeks afterwards for letting a woman half his size beat him up. Her cousin chortled when he relayed the news. Travis seemed more upset about the razzing than the injuries. Pam guessed Travis still felt embarrassed about the incident. Other than the day back in February when his brother Spence proposed to Sage at the café, Travis hadn’t set foot inside the restaurant; Pam said he used to stop in for lunch routinely.
Mari remembered seeing Travis that day. It’d been her fourth day on the job. Caught up in the excitement, she’d hovered just outside the swinging door that led to the kitchen, watching with dozens of others as Spence Hollister proclaimed his love for Sage Dolan and asked her to marry him. Everyone cheered and clapped. There were lots of teary eyes too. Even Mari became emotional, her eyes misting. As she dabbed the corner of one eye with her shirt sleeve, she felt someone staring at her. Through the crowd, she found a pair of eyes focused on her—grey eyes set in a face chiseled in stone; the same grey eyes that glowered at her on Christmas morning. They weren’t glowering at the moment, but they weren’t smiling or friendly either. She couldn’t tell what they were, only that they made something shift deep inside of her, a curious sensation she’d never experienced until that moment. She escaped to the kitchen.
If Travis was still angry with her, he had perfect right. She’d trespassed onto his property, and she hurt him. When he’d pulled the horse blankets off her, waking her up, she thought he was part of the nightmare she was having. She thought Jeff or that truck driver had found her. Scared witless, she attacked Travis the second he grabbed her arm. She felt certain anyone else in her situation would have reacted the same way. Still, she should apologize to him when she had the opportunity. If she ever saw him again, she’d talk to him, away from prying eyes, and explain things.
It might take every ounce of her courage, but she’d do it.
***
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, she wondered if she’d have any reserves of courage left when and if she came face-to-face with Travis Hollister.
There were just a handful of customers in the café when Pam trained her on waiting tables, but Mari’s heart pounded in her ears as she shadowed the other woman around the room. She sensed everyone watching her. Her hand shook so bad as she took the orders, it was almost impossible to make out her own writing. Good thing Pam remembered everything and relayed it to Jonathan. Neither of them mentioned the coffee Mari spilled or the two water glasses she dropped on the floor and broke.
When two o’clock arrived, and Pam flipped the sign on the front door to Closed, Mari’s relief was palpable.
Pam gave her a high five. “You did it. See? It’s not so bad.”
“Are you kidding? I broke two glasses. Plus, I wrote most of the orders wrong.”
“Oh, honey, that’s nothing. On my first waitressing job when I was attending college in Bozeman, I spilled a bowl of chili on a guy’s bald head. Turned out, he was the mayor.”
“But I was so nervous and awkward.”
“Tomorrow, just pretend everyone’s naked,” Jonathan said.
“Okaaay,” Mari said. “That’s not creepy at all.”
“I read it’s supposed to help you feel like everyone is just as vulnerable as you are.”
Pam made a face. “I don’t think it will help any of us imagining Squeak Farris naked.”
Sage emerged from the kitchen, catching the tail-end of the conversation. “Squeak naked? What are you guys talking about?”
Even Mari laughed at the woman’s scandalized expression, but she stopped when she realized they were all staring.
“First time we’ve heard you laugh,” Jonathan said.
“Such a pretty laugh too,” Sage said. “Just like the rest of you.”
Mari flushed. “I’m not pretty.”
“What?” Sage fisted her hands on her hips. “Why would you say that? You’re not only pretty, you are one of the loveliest young women I’ve ever seen.”
“I second that,” Pam said, beaming.
“I realize you’re just saying that to boost me up.” Mari frowned. “I get it. But don’t bother.”
Sage hesitated for a few seconds before reaching out and touching Mari’s arm. A light, brief touch. “If no one’s ever told you you’re pretty, then they were blind, stupid or both.” She changed the subject upon seeing Mari’s discomfort. “Can you guys close up? I need to get home. Danny didn’t go to school today. He has a bad cold.”
Jonathan nodded.
“I can ask Shawna if she’d mind making some chicken soup,” Pam said. “I don’t know what she puts in the stuff, but it cured the last cold I had fast.”
“That’d be great,” Sage said. “But only if she has the time.”
Pam dug her cell phone from her apron pocket. “I’ll find out.”
Sage tossed everyone a smile and a wave and left.
While she helped Jonathan clean the griddles and front counter, Mari reflected on what Sage had said. Her boss had been nothing but kind and generous to Mari since the first day. Despite it being the restaurant’s slow season, she created a job for Mari and paid her a fair wage. On the days Mari didn’t have much work to do, Sage taught her how to make pie dough and fillings. She didn’t pry into Mari’s background or mention what Mari did to Travis, even though Travis was Sage’s future brother-in-law. She let Mari be.
What Sage did, however—and it was something Mari only just realized—was offer constant praise. Whether complimenting Mari on the neat crimps she made on a pie edge, or how spotless the kitchen was, or mentioning how peaceful she found Mari’s quiet demeanor; everything she said carried the intent to lift Mari up, not put her down.
Today was the first time Sage said anything regarding Mari’s appearance, though.
No one had ever told Mari she was pretty.
A few times, she’d received the comment she was cute; she figured that was because of her height. She was petite, just under five foot four. Until two years ago, she’d kept her hair short, never longer than a bob. Now, it fell, straight and black, to her shoulder blades. She admitted her eyes were attractive; when she was little, someone once told her—it must have been a grade school teacher—that green was the rarest eye color in the world.
As for the rest of her? As a teenager, she sometimes spent hours staring in the mirror to figure out which parts of her came from her mother and which from her father. Her cheeks were high, and her face was square. Her nose was broad, and her mouth was wide. Almond-shaped eyes held a hint of a slant at the upper, outside corners. Her skin people with no imagination called brown.
Once, when she was sixteen, she came across a photo of a model with skin almost the same shade as Mari’s. The caption read, “Her luxurious hair color brings out the yellow-gold highlights of her tawny skin.” Mari liked that word. Tawny.
Right now, after months of winter-weak sunshine, her skin had paled to a yellowish-brown. At the height of summer, it darkened to a richer, orange-brown shade, similar to Jonathan’s.
Her father was Black. Her mother mixed race. Until last year, Mari assumed her mother was Spanish Creole. Now she knew her mother was also part Blackfeet. Mari and Jonathan shared the same great-great-grandmother, who was full Blackfeet of the Piegan Tribe. That woman married a French fur trader. One of their five children, a daughter, had some kind of falling out with her parents and ran away, and that woman was Mari’s great-grandmother.
Back in early January, Jonathan and Pam took Mari to the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning for a brief visit. His mother and two sisters lived there. Jonathan had planned the trip for a while, and he wasn’t comfortable leaving Mari behind. Now she wished she’d been more present during that visit. Many details remained vague, but she remembered an older woman with sweet, inquisitive black eyes and a mellow voice like Jonathan’s. Mari wanted to go there again.
She spoke her thoughts out loud to her cousin. “Will you and Pam go up to the reservation after the baby’s born?”
“Yes. In July for the North American Indian Days. It’s our biggest tribal gathering of the year. You’ll come too.”
Mari fell silent for a few minutes. She concentrated on removing a stubborn spot from the overhead vent. “Not sure if I’ll still be here.”
“You will.”
She threw him a sidelong glance. “You sound so positive.”
“This is your home now.”
She shouldn’t have started this conversation. She dropped the rag into the bucket. “I’ll go help Pam clean the bathrooms.”
***
THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY, Mari was working alone in the restaurant. It was one-thirty in the afternoon and unlikely any more customers would come in. The last two left ten minutes ago; Sage had waited on them, and Mari cooked their orders. One burger and one grilled chicken patty, both with side orders of fries and coleslaw.
Jonathan had rushed Pam out the door a few hours ago when Pam thought she was going into labor. It turned out to be a false alarm, but Pam and Jonathan were staying at the hospital in Livingston for a few more hours just to play it safe.
Sage had stepped out a few minutes ago to return a crock pot to Shawna; she said she’d be back in a half hour but reminded Mari to call if she needed help.
Perhaps being “thrown into the fire” was the best way to learn, Mari thought as she gathered condiment bottles to refill. These past few hours, she hadn’t had time to think about negative things, only concentrate on getting the orders correct.
Wednesdays and Saturdays seemed to be the busiest days. Today, the pace had been slow enough that Sage handled the booths and the sit-down counter, allowing Mari to focus on the cooking. Jonathan had covered the basics with her last week; he probably sensed something like this would happen. It wouldn’t surprise Mari if he insisted Pam stop working.
How wonderful it must be, having a husband like that. Jonathan watched over his wife like a hawk. He didn’t hover or smother, but he was cautious of his wife’s safety and well-being at all times. Pam was the center of his universe.
Mari lined up the ketchup bottles on the counter, then she kneeled down behind the counter and opened the cupboard next to the grill that stored the commercial-sized jugs of ketchup and mustard. The interior was unusually messy. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of spilled pickle juice. Sticky splotches marked both shelves and the inside of the door. It could be the spill happened this morning when Jonathan was in a rush to leave.
She pulled everything out of the cupboard. Then she filled a bucket with warm soapy water. She was on her knees, half buried inside the cupboard and scrubbing the back wall, when she heard a masculine voice say in an appreciative drawl, “Well, now, I sure hope the front end looks as good as the back end!”
Her head shot up and hit the cupboard ceiling. Panic flooded her. Breath trapped in her throat, she scooted out of the cupboard, her hands scrabbling for something to defend herself. She latched on to a glass jar, rose jerkily to her feet and swung around, the jar hoisted and ready to throw at the man who’d sneaked up on her.
She froze.
Travis Hollister stood on the other side of the counter. Shock wiped the teasing grin from his face. He cleared his throat. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”