On the morning of the last day I ever spent in Cluff, I walked into the Oak Table Café to a scene of merry chaos.
Everyone was chattering about the happy turn of weather and the resolution of the big case.
I hadn’t seen Rock since I had laid him out. He was leaving the café as I entered. He held a Styrofoam container. He paused, and I paused. Finally I stuck my hand out.
“I’m sorry. No hard feelings?”
He looked from my face to my hand. Then he shook it with a little bit of a crushing force in the fingers. He turned to leave. In the aftermath of all that had happened, I had forgotten to give Rock his phone back, and he hadn’t asked for it. Maybe he didn’t use it much. Or maybe he was too proud to ask me for anything, even his own property. I felt the thin rectangle in my pocket and pulled it out. It had a case of some composite material named for a marine mammal. It had fared better in the fight than I had. I should have use the phone as a weapon. It seemed indestructible.
“Rock,” I said.
He turned back toward me, and I tossed the phone to him underhand. He caught it deftly, gave what might have been a tight-lipped smile, and nodded to me. Then he was gone.
Patton was in a back booth. There was a dark-haired woman across from him, maybe a girlfriend. Strawn, French, and Amy were all nearby, not talking much but smiling contentedly. Max the dog lay on the floor nearby.
I ignored the sign on the brass pole and seated myself.
Everyone nodded at me.
I sat alone.
I saw Mary duck periodically in and out of the kitchen, handling trays laden with dishes. I tried to catch her eye, but she seemed pretty busy.
After I had eaten, paid, and was enjoying another cup of cocoa, Mary came and sat opposite me. She looked great. Her hair was done in such a way that it looked undone but functional, pulled back out of her face and spilling down on her shoulders like a brilliant, fiery cascade. Her apple cheeks were flushed with work and the heat of the kitchens. She wore no makeup, which was refreshing to see. She smiled but looked hesitant, like she had something she needed to ask but didn’t want the answer to.
I set my mug down.
She looked me in the eye. “Why didn’t you kiss me that first night we spent together?”
“As a general rule I don’t kiss on the first date,” I said.
“Is that what we’re doing now? Dating?”
“Is that what you want?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, I like you. I mean, I like the idea of you. You are so sweet and cheerful and kind and just plain good. I liked seeing you help people, and I just felt safe with you. You’re different.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“How do you feel?”
“A lot better. Real good after all that praise,” I said.
“No, I mean about everything.”
“I don’t feel anything about it. It’s just one of those things. Good, if anything. Great, I guess. Happy. Satisfied.”
“No post-traumatic stress?” she asked.
“Nope, and no seasonal disorder either.”
She smiled. “So what are you going to do now?”
I picked my mug up again and looked inside. Just dregs. Outside I saw the semitruck from the motel roll up and park on the far side of the road. The driver got out and started toward the café. He was smartly dressed in a shirt and tie, sports coat, and slacks. A well-dressed truck driver. It seemed a little absurd. It made me smile.
“You could stay. I’m sure Strawn would hire you; he has to replace Lang. Or Agnes—you’d get good tips working here. You could pay me back for totaling my Jeep,” Mary said.
I looked over at the well-dressed truck driver waiting to be seated. Mary stood up.
“Well, let’s consider this a second date.” She moved toward me, bent, and kissed my cheek. It was quick and shy and altogether chaste.
She straightened up. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
She disappeared into the kitchen.
I dug in my pocket and came out with my car key and the receipt from the auto shop in town. The lady there had looked over the Skylark with an eagle eye before telling me that of course she could fix it but that it would be a couple of weeks before it was road-worthy again. She said it would be a pleasure to work on and that besides the recent damage, the Buick was mint. I had paid upfront for the parts and the estimated labor, plus a little more for extras. I left the receipt and key on the table.
Agnes came by.
“You were right; it looks like things really do tend to work out,” she said, glancing at Amy and French and Strawn. “More cocoa?”
“No, thanks. But will you give these to Mary for me, please?”
She tilted her head and said, “Sawyer, I’m going to miss you.” She pocketed the key and receipt in her apron. “What am I supposed to tell her to do with the car?”
I shrugged. “Whatever she wants. Keep it, sell it, but for Pete’s sake, don’t crash it.”
I stood up, and we hugged. Someone called to her for a refill, and Agnes stepped away.
As I walked toward the door, the truck driver was leaving, too, carrying his meal to go.
He smiled at me, and I asked him, “Are you headed south?”
He nodded and agreed to give me a ride. He said he would be ready in an hour and to meet him back by his rig.
I took a long walk to the store, keeping track of the time in my head. I needed new clothes, and I figured I could just junk my
soiled ones.
There was a greasy-haired guy at the counter who nodded to me as I pushed through the doors. There were all sorts of things I had no use for, but in the back corner I found clothing racks. I picked out an olive-colored long-sleeve shirt with three buttons at the top. It was soft at a subatomic level—some sort of new cotton blend. It was as much as a meal for two at the Oak Table. I found some heavy work pants in a dark tan, also too expensive, but I didn’t have much choice. I found a plaid button-up that was mostly green with other colors mixed in. Another couple of meals’ worth.
I kept my boots because there was nothing better in the store than the ones I had. Then I found a coat rack. Patton had emphatically apologized because my coat had been torn and stained in his fight with Lang.
All of the store’s coats were more than a hundred dollars. In disbelief I shook my head and put the coats back. I figured it would be more cost effective to just head south, somewhere where I didn’t need one. I settled on a gray wool watch cap for the interim. I also added a pair of white socks.
I changed into the new duds in a dressing room, tearing off the tags as I went and transferring my pocket junk. Walking out, the clerk looked at me strangely. I laid the tags on the counter. He paused for a beat and then rang them up. I paid him and asked for a trash can. Without a word he held up a bin from under the counter. I tossed my old clothes in but kept the borrowed coat.
The guy seemed to remember how to speak, and he asked me if I wanted a receipt.
“No, thank you,” I said, turning to leave.
“Cup of cocoa?”
I turned back. The guy was filling a Styrofoam cup from an insulated apparatus on the counter next to the register.
“Sure, thanks,” I said.
“We have cocoa in the winter. We do iced tea or lemonade in the summer.”
I felt better in clean clothes, and as I hustled back to the Oak Table, I tried the cocoa. It was lukewarm sugary mud. I spat out the mouthful and dumped the rest of the mess into a snowbank.
That was it, the end of an era. The upward trend of the cocoa scale had bubbled and burst. Time to move on.
Inside the café the well-dressed truck driver had finished his meal and had taken a second order to go. I trashed the empty cup.
I took the coat I had borrowed and draped it over the brass pole that asked me to please wait to be seated.
Climbing up into the semi, I found the inside to be neat and spacious. The driver fired it up, and we sat in silence for a ways, both seeming to enjoy the company and appreciate the quiet.
I felt in my pocket and took out Mary’s photograph. I looked at it for a long, sweet minute, committing to memory our conversations, the sound of her voice, the smile lines at the corners of her eyes, her rosy cheeks. Full lips. The long red hair. Her fire and zest and all the feelings I felt when we were near. All the things you can easily forget. Things I hoped to never forget. I bundled those memories up, sealed the envelope, and filed it away under the ever-growing section of Good in the unlimited library of my mind.
I had told her I had met people on my mission who had meant so much to me in the moment but then it was on to the next moment. I hoped it would be the same for her, that she would go on to the next moment.
I looked out from my perch in the passenger seat of the semi, high above the pavement that melted away behind us like the wake of a ship. Looking up, I could see the sky, and it was long and clear and blue.