CHAPTER 33
The next morning at eleven thirty, Corin met Nicole at Rob’s Ruby Rocket Diner, just off Highway 24 and fifty miles east of the city, focused on one thing: getting answers.
The door squealed like a pig in labor as he opened it, and he glanced around the restaurant. There were ten or eleven tables, all of them empty except for the one farthest from the front door where Nicole sat staring at him.
He eased toward her, studying her eyes, which were serious and seemed full of concern. When Corin reached the table, he slid into a red vinyl chair straight out of the sixties, folded his hands, and rested them on the table next to the salt and pepper shakers that were even older than the chairs. He brushed the remnants of a French fry off the table and interlaced his fingers again.
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”
She didn’t answer, just nodded.
“Is there a reason you wanted to meet at a restaurant an hour from town in a dive that probably hasn’t seen a mop since Washington was president?”
Corin had been so focused on Nicole, he hadn’t noticed a plump blond woman in a uniform two sizes too small standing at their table, pen and pad in hand.
Whoops.
She slapped two glasses of water onto the table. “We’ve only been in business since the Lincoln administration. And we did a remodel when Roosevelt came into office.”
“Which one?”
“Teddy.” She smiled and asked what they wanted.
“You have a great sense of humor.”
The waitress nodded and winked at him.
Corin ordered iced tea and a hamburger and Nicole ordered black coffee and French onion soup.
“Why here?” Nicole said. “Because he probably wouldn’t follow you out this far and wouldn’t think of you coming into a place like this if he did.”
“Who is ‘he’?”
“The person who is after the chair and would possibly even kill to relieve you of it.”
The scene with Mark’s linebackers flashed into Corin’s mind. “Jefferies, right?”
“I’m not going to tell you who it is.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
For the first time Corin wondered about Nicole’s mental stability. She had never been anything but fully self-assured. She appeared that way now. But this was the first time she’d said something crazy.
Actually that wasn’t true. From the start her ideas had been dancing on the edge of the universe.
“Why not?”
“It’s part of your growing up. You need to learn who to trust and who not to trust rather than be told.”
“My growing up? I’m thirty-four years old.” Corin bent his cardboard coaster two ways so he could spin it like a top on the grease-stained table.
“Some people die still as children.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think you know, Corin.”
He did know. He’d heard a single traumatic incident in a person’s life could freeze his emotional age at the moment the event happened. So intellectually he might be thirty-four but emotionally he was, what? Ten? “So I’m ten years old?” The coaster slowed to a stop.
“It’s time to face your fear. You’re in the midst of doing that, which I applaud you for.”
“What does facing my fear have to do with telling me I’m still ten years old?”
“I didn’t say that, you did.”
“I’m scared of drowning. So what? I’m sure a lot of people are.” He dropped a penny in his water glass and watched it sink to the bottom. “And I am trying to face it.”
“How?”
“I sat in the chair again.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? That surprises me.” She stared at him till he dropped his eyes.
The waitress arrived with their food. A welcome distraction. It gave him time to think. Should he tell her? The revelation he’d received probably wouldn’t surprise her. Nicole had almost predicted it.
“When I sat in the chair I got the impression I should call my brother.”
“I see.” Nicole sipped her coffee and studied him over the top of her cup. “Are you going to?”
“I doubt it.” Corin devoted the next five minutes to devouring his burger and slurping down his iced tea. Nicole stayed silent but continued to laser him with her piercing blue eyes.
“Why me?” Corin slid his water glass back and forth in front of him, the penny sitting in the center of the glass, looking bigger, feeling bigger than it was. Just like his fear. “Why did you give the chair to me?”
“You were the one I was supposed to give it to.”
“And how did you determine that?”
For the next two or three minutes Nicole only looked at him as she took small spoonfuls of her soup. It was unnerving. He was about to ask again when she finally spoke.
“I’ve been watching you and the other possibility for many years now. It became clear early on you were the most likely candidate, but I couldn’t give it to you till the time was right.”
“You’ve been watching me for years?” Corin leaned back in his chair and scowled. “That creeps me out.”
“Does it surprise you?”
No. It didn’t. Based on what he knew about her, it didn’t shock Corin at all. The confidence with which she’d given him the chair and their interactions since made it seem like she’d known him all her life.
He pushed his plate to the side of the table. “Why me? Why not the other one? I’m no one special.”
Nicole smoothed her pants as a lilting laugh escaped her lips. “That is so far from true.”
“It is true. I’ve done nothing.”
“You can do a dance step around your destiny for a time, but you can’t escape it forever.”
“What destiny? What are you talking about?”
“Your destiny. To have the chair.”
“It doesn’t make sense. I’m not female for one thing. Plus I’m full of doubt, full of fears. I’ve made—”
“Mistakes you regret with everything inside.” Nicole smiled. “Welcome to the human race. Let me read you something a friend gave me many years ago.” She pulled out a yellowed envelope and from it drew out a small gray note card.
“You are no one and you are everyone. You are glorious and you are nothing. You are mountains and valleys, You are glory and sin, And even when in the heart of your glory you can’t comprehend how deep His passion for you runs, Take hold of who you are. Know it in your soul. Run before the wind of the destiny He has created for you, And seek Him in every moment.”
Nicole slid the card back into her purse and wove her fingers together. “Do you understand?”
Corin reached to his left and grabbed a French fry off his plate. “You’re saying God chose me.”
“Yes. But be careful. Death has always surrounded the chair. As has healing. Dark and light. Evil and goodness. Joy and sorrow.”
“And His purpose in my having the chair is what?”
Nicole smoothed her coat. “That is the one part of this whole drama I have no doubt I know the answer to.”
“What’s the answer?”
She slid her chair back, stood, leaned over him, and patted his shoulder. “We’ll talk again soon, Corin. Stay strong and believe.” Nicole snatched a twentydollar bill from her purse and dropped it on the table. “He is for you.”
The click of her heels on the old linoleum floor seemed muted as she walked away. Or maybe it was because his brain was spinning too loudly for him to hear well.
He popped the French fry in his mouth. It was cold and he spit it into his napkin which he crumpled and tossed onto his plate. Corin stood and glanced at his watch.
The guy fixing his store window wouldn’t be done for another two or three hours. Tesser hadn’t returned his call so this was a perfect time to get in a workout. Time to go for a long inline skate. Time to get his mind off the chair and his brother and his own nagging neuroses.
But as he left the restaurant, something in the jangling of the bells on the front door gave him the feeling he wasn’t going to get it.