Three hours later, after a marathon unpacking session, Rosie was hungry. “Dad?” She poked her head into his study. “Hey, Dad, can we get something to eat?”
He pulled off his reading glasses as he leaned back from the computer screen. “I can’t leave this, sorry. I’m in the middle of a live meeting. Why don’t you head to Dina’s and get yourself something?” He pulled the wallet from his back pocket and handed her a few bills. “Oh, and go to the hardware store to get yourself a key made.”
“For the car?” Rosie asked. If it ever stopped raining, the little beige convertible would be a pretty sweet ride.
He handed her his keys. “Just the house for now.”
“Okay,” she said halfheartedly, putting the key ring into her purse.
Dina’s was a diner in the middle of town. With only a few booths and a handful of stools at the counter, the diner wasn’t very big, but it was comfortable enough.
“Sit wherever,” the plump waitress said, waving a laminated menu at Rosie.
Rosie walked past the stools at the counter to a booth in the corner and plopped down. The cook looked up at her from his work, grunted a sound of acknowledgment, then went back to chopping onions. Rosie glanced around. She was the only one there.
“Where is everybody?” Rosie asked.
“People haven’t been getting out much lately,” the waitress said as she set down a glass of ice water. “You new here?” She pulled a pad and a pen from the front pocket of her white apron.
“My dad lives here. Bennet. Bennet Nett.”
“Oh, Mr. N. Sure. You must be Rosie, the daughter he’s always talking about.” She gave Rosie a genuine smile. “Well, I suggest a burger. One, because they’re pretty good, and two, because we’re out of most everything else. Except pie. We always have pie.” She motioned to the tiered plates of pie on the counter.
“A burger with everything on it and a slice of pie it is,” Rosie said. “Do you have apple?”
“Sugar, we have everything,” the waitress said before squeaking away in her white tennis shoes.
Rosie peered out the window at the deserted street. First Street was Middleton’s “downtown” area, but it didn’t amount to much. Next to the empty bus station stood an old brick hardware store. Farther down was the post office and Middleton High and then the grocery store. Then out near the cliffs on Zumbay Road were the church and the graveyard. That was Middleton.
If Rosie was starting fresh, then she would have to try to meet people. There had to be kids her age; there was a high school. Of course, someone had just died, and, given the age of all of the pallbearers, Rosie had a bad feeling that the burial this morning was most likely for a teenager. The current circumstances didn’t make it the most appealing time to be the new kid in Middleton, right in the middle of a tragedy. But she knew, maybe better than anyone, that everyone could probably use a good distraction. And she was more than willing to be that distraction.
A few minutes, later the waitress returned with the sizzling burger. Rosie swallowed the hard lump in her throat. Her stomach churned.
The waitress caught her eye and said, “You’re looking a little glum. What’s going on?”
Rosie shook her head. “I saw that funeral today. I hate to ask, but who was it?”
“Mackie. Mackie Blackwell. Really sad story.”
“What happened?”
“He was out on Zumbay Road with a blown bike tire.”
“Zumbay?” Rosie remembered the name. That was the street they’d driven in on. “The road that winds past the graveyard?”
“Same one. Except Mackie was about a half mile out, at the big curve over the ravine. Around midnight he calls his friend Omar to pick him up because it’s starting to rain. A big storm is coming. Omar drives to get him, doesn’t see him in the storm, and . . . well. They found Mackie’s body about halfway down the cliffs.”
“That’s terrible.” Rosie eyed the grease puddle that oozed onto the plate from the burger.
“Omar insists he didn’t hit him. That he never felt a bump or collision. He thinks Mackie jumped out of the way—over the guardrail—and lost his balance. But others aren’t so sure.” She sighed as she poked her pen into the dark curls piled on her head. “Either way, the whole town’s crying their eyes out.”
“But not you?”
“I’ve done my share of crying.” As she said it, the lights caught her face and the hard lines of years of worry became visible. “Somebody’s gotta go to work, and if my husband won’t get off his sorry butt, then I guess it’s up to me.” She shrugged and squeaked back to the kitchen.
Rosie took two small bites of the burger. She didn’t feel very hungry anymore. The waitress returned a few minutes later with a piece of apple pie. She gave a disapproving look at the partially eaten burger.
“So,” Rosie started. “Omar’s responsible for his friend’s death?”
The waitress nodded slightly and continued. “Tore those boys apart. Used to be the three of them: Mackie, Jack, and Omar. They were inseparable. Played football together since they could walk. In fact,” she filled Rosie’s water glass, “they even buried an old football with Mackie. It had their three names on it: Mackie Blackwell, Jack Blackwell, and Omar Arglos. Side by side. Kind of a pact that they’d be friends forever, I guess. But not anymore.”
“Jack?” Rosie said sipping her water. “Who’s Jack?”
“That would be Mackie’s twin.”
“His twin! Oh no. That must be awful.”
“It is. And I can’t say for sure, but since the accident—and I mean the whole month Mackie was in that coma—I haven’t seen Omar and Jack together.”
The waitress disappeared into the kitchen as the bells on the diner door jingled and a boy about Rosie’s age walked in. He was thin, but he had the body of an athlete and walked with the dexterity of a cat. Shaved into the back of his close-cropped Afro was the number 44. Just like the number on the jersey of the boy who ran out in front of their car at the graveyard. He was lucky he didn’t get hit!
As he made his way to a stool at the counter, Rosie tried to catch his eye, but he didn’t so much as glance in her direction. This was it—her chance to make a friend before school started. She cleared her throat, but he just sat there. She coughed, but he kept staring straight ahead.
Rosie looked intently at the boy, who was mumbling something but still ignoring her. Drastic times called for drastic measures so she moved her fork to the edge of the table, gave it a little shove, and let it clang on the floor.
Still he didn’t turn.
“Omar,” the waitress said as she came out of the kitchen’s swinging doors, coffeepot in hand. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
Rosie gasped. That was him, Omar, the boy who everybody thought killed his friend.
“Didn’t want to be home anymore and I got hungry,” Omar replied.
“You didn’t go to the luncheon?” the waitress asked.
Omar shook his head. “Jack was there. He told me . . . well, you know how he feels about me.”
“It’s tough,” the waitress said. “You boys were so close.”
The waitress poured him a cup of coffee and brought over a piece of coconut cream pie. Then she walked over to Rosie’s booth. “How about you, Peaches, anything else?” The waitress pulled the pad from her apron pocket. Rosie lifted her water glass. The water on the table swirled and beaded into a strange shape. It almost looked like a tiny 44.
Rosie shook her head as she pulled her dad’s twenty from her small purse. “Nothing else, but—” she touched the waitress’s hand and whispered, “could you use this to pay for Omar’s bill too? Don’t tell him it’s from me though. Well, it doesn’t matter—he doesn’t know me anyway.”
“Sure, hon. That’s sweet of you.”
Rosie slid to the edge of the seat, taking one last bite of pie as she got out of her booth. She walked slowly past Omar, whose head was tilted like he was talking to someone next to him.
“I didn’t see,” he said. “It was dark. Should be me in that grave. Should have been me, bro.”
Rosie looked around to see who he might be talking to, but there was nobody else in the diner.
An uneasy chill settled around her. She looked up at the air vent right above her, but it didn’t seem to be on. She moved to the door. The glass on the door’s window had fogged up and the words Help him appeared in shaky letters. Rosie gasped and spun around to see who could have written it but even the cook and the waitress were gone—there was only Omar at the counter.