It wasn’t a date, per se. It was a meeting.
But neither one had dressed for a meeting.
Darry had picked her up in a spit-clean, mint-condition, white-with-black-trim BMW. When she complimented it, he told her it was little more than a relic, really. “A ’94. My dad’s,” he’d said, his hands deep in his pockets as they strode awkwardly from her front door to the Beemer.
He wore a red-and-black flannel shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows revealing sinewy, tanned forearms. Form-fitting jeans concealed brown boots. His hair was gelled, and he smelled like cloves. He was all local. Nothing like his principal persona. Nothing, either, like Tom.
She wore black leggings and a dusty pink blouse—billowy and soft. Her trusty blue bracelet and a pair of authentic diamond stud earrings that she had given Kayla for her eighth grade promotion. Sometimes it felt odd wearing Kayla’s things, like Beverly was stealing. Sometimes, though, it felt right. Like her daughter was close to her.
Tonight, it felt right.
They arrived at Eat Street with a rush of other Saturday night diners, but the waitress was a friend of Kayla’s—go figure—and she waved Beverly and Darry through the crowd at the hostess stand.
Beverly didn’t like this sort of preferential treatment, and especially not when she was with, well, a man who wasn’t Tom. Even after his death. Maybe especially after his death.
She let it go, though, in favor of scavenging for some pebble of truth in a pile of pain.
“I can bring water or soft drinks. Not the hard stuff, though. You’ll have to wait for the real server,” the girl said. It was innocent enough. Presumptuous, but innocent. Still, Beverly felt herself get warm in the neck. Splotchy, probably.
She made light. “Oh, hah. Just a water for me.”
“I’ll take a hot cocoa,” Darry replied with a warm smile.
Knitting her eyebrows anxiously, Beverly flattened her hand on the table in front of the well-meaning girl. “Make that two.”
“How was your day?” Darry began, his palms open, expression soft.
She fell back decades. To another time they’d been here, at Eat Street. In all, not much had changed. And, well, everything had changed.
Beverly tried to pretend that she could see Darry as the grown-up professional he was. “Weird, actually. The neighbor kids—you know Elijah? Elijah Best.”
He nodded.
“He and Vivi, the new girl.” She lowered her chin. “You know Vivi?”
“Nice girl,” he replied. “Different.”
“Different?” Beverly felt reporter mode kicking in, but she tamped it down. “She’s a beautiful girl.”
“Ethereally so,” Darry agreed. “But that isn’t what stands out.”
Beverly was caught off guard by this. “Really?” Vivi was stunning. So stunning that she was almost odd-looking. Like an out-of-place supermodel in a teenager’s body.
“She spends all her time with Elijah. Even made a special request to have her schedule rearranged.” He shook his head. “We couldn’t oblige, but she’s…at once both confident and scared as a mouse.”
“Hm.” Beverly stowed the nugget away. “Anyway, they came by digging up history. This old article—actually, this old series I wrote about some woman who went missing. I guess they’ve decided to take it on as their history research assignment.”
Darry nodded. “Right. Belinger’s class. ‘Local Lore and Small-Town Secrets.’” He chuckled. “It’s caused problems before.”
Beverly’s ears perked up. “Problems?” she asked. “Like…Belinger’s gotten in trouble for the assignment?”
Darry cocked his head and scratched his neck. “No?” Then, he lowered his voice. “Look, Bev, I can’t do this. I can’t tell you if I wrote up Christie Spectre. I can’t even tell you if I ever wrote up Tom. It could mean my job, Bev.”
“I’m not asking you to give up those details,” she protested, a sly smile curling her lips. “Actually, my biggest question is very simple.”
He appeared to relax. The waitress dropped off two mugs, each topped with an absurdly towering mound of whipped cream.
“What can I get you two?” the waitress asked. A different girl. A tad older. Just as familiar.
Darry held his hand in gesture for Beverly to order. She asked for the number four.
Darry copied her order.
The waitress left, and Beverly leaned forward.
“You said Tom didn’t run the creative writing club. If he didn’t, then who did?”
He gave her a hard look. Seconds passed. The noise in the diner grew to a pinnacle then ebbed low to a valley. Forks and knives clattered on plates. Laughter sputtered to life and tuckered out.
Darry folded his arms and inched closer. “Bev, you know who ran the club.”
The look in his eyes was half sadness, half something else. Not pity, no. A dare?
She nodded carefully. “Did you like her?” She hadn’t planned to ask that. It just fell out.
But gone were the stilted delays. The moments to measure words and consider audience. They’d found a rhythm. In the noise of Eat Street on Main in the little Michigan town where they had shared their first kiss.
“She was a snake. If it wasn’t one thing that meant her undoing, it was sure to be another. You didn’t hear that from me, but Bev”—he frowned—“you knew all along. Didn’t you?”
Shaking her head, Beverly caught the waitress heading their way. Two matching plates balanced on one of her arms—the French dip and curly fries. One of Eat Street’s best-loved comfort meals.
After thanking the girl and settling into their first bites, Beverly answered Darry. “We had Kayla. We had…love.” Despite their past, Beverly found it easy to share all of this with Darry.
“I get it.” He took a hearty bite of his sandwich and spoke with a full mouth. Some things never changed. “I loved Monica. Thought I did.”
“Love changes, you know.” Beverly took her own bite, not bothering to dab her lips anxiously, like she might if this were a first date with a handsome stranger. Indeed, it might be a date. And Darry was handsome. But neither was a stranger to the other.
“I disagree.” Darry’s gaze froze on her. His hands were pressed to the table, on either side of his plate. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“You don’t think love can change?”
“I think people can change. I think people do things to change their love. How they love. If they love. But…real true love”—he shook his head—“doesn’t change.”
Beverly’s pulse quickened. She lowered her food back to its plate, dropping it. Her appetite vanished, and her stomach churned.
In that moment, she missed Kayla more than ever. Kayla would have something to say about real true love. Real true love was that between girlfriends. Sisters. Real true love was that between mother and daughter.
Nausea churned in Beverly’s stomach. She tried to swallow it down with the lump in her throat, but tears broke out along her lash line. Her sinuses cleared like the calm before a storm, and her mind went wild. She shouldn’t be there, at Eat Street. She shouldn’t be living her life, eating dinner with old friends—old flames. She shouldn’t be smiling or happy or living. Everyone and everything should be dead along with Tom and Kayla and Beverly’s only-ever known happiness. Including real true love. It was dead, too. Six feet under.
“Love can die,” she managed, her voice hoarse as a single tear burst over the levy of her eyelid.
“People die,” Darry murmured back, his hand finding its way to hers where she gripped the edge of the table. He didn’t squeeze it or rub, he just rested it there while he locked eyes with her. “People die, Beverly. Love doesn’t.”
Stumbling, climbing through the thick haze of grief, his words seized Beverly. Real true love didn’t die. It didn’t even die if the one you loved died.
Kayla had been the love of Beverly’s life. Plainly. And she’d never have to explain that to anyone. Not Darry, not anyone.
Could there be something else now that Kayla was gone? Could there be a different love to grow in the desert of Beverly’s heart?
Maybe Darry was right, though. Maybe there already was a little love left in there. Maybe nothing new had to grow at all. Maybe the seed had been dormant since high school. And now? Now she had the chance to water it.