A Table By the Window (28 page)

“Really?”

“Don't tell me you're surprised.”

“You're just the first person to tell me that.” Carley realized it was one of the nicest compliments she had ever received. Her red hair would fade and turn gray, but a sense of humor was hopefully eternal.

Coming attractions were showing on the screen in Turtle Creek Mall's darkened theater. “I can't see a thing,” Carley murmured.

Dale took her hand. “About two-thirds up.”

He led her up the aisle. They had to release hands to file sideways along knees to center seats. Carley found the sarcastic quips of the trio of adolescent boys behind them more entertaining than the plot. But it was nice to be out on a date after so long, and Carley decided she could not imagine anywhere else she would want to be this evening.

“Are they disturbing you?” Dale leaned close to whisper.

“No. They're funny.”

“Are you enjoying the movie?”

“Sure.”

Five minutes later, he leaned close again. “You're
really
sure?”

She turned to him. “Are you?”

“No. Let's leave, okay?”

Under a clear sky in the parking lot, he opened the passenger door. “I guess it's not a good thing to go back and recapture childhood. Sorry I've ruined your evening, Carley.”

Carley climbed into the seat. “This is a great evening.”

“Liar.” He said with a good-natured smirk. He went around the car, climbed behind the wheel, and fastened his seat belt. “I'll make it up to you.”

“You don't have—”

“No, really.” Starting the engine, he said, “We didn't have time for dessert. Let's go someplace special. What do you feel like? Something chocolate? Or if you'd like a daiquiri or something….”

“I don't drink,” Carley said. Not that she found anything wrong with it, in moderation, but if moderation was so easy to maintain, why were there so many alcoholics? A med student she had dated three times during college had told her of studies that suggested addictive behavior could be inherited. When had her mother slipped over that line? There was always the fear that she was more like Linda than she wanted to be. “But if you…”

“I don't either. Not since I became vegan.”

Carley looked at him. “But there aren't any animal products in alcohol…are there?”

He smiled and shook his head. The light at Hardy Street turned green, and Dale steered left toward the city. “My brother, Chad, says everything's black or white with me, and I guess he's right. I just can't see avoiding milk while putting alcohol in my system. And besides, back in my drinking days, all it did was make me sleepy. I would be the one lying on the floor behind the sofa, not the one dancing with the lampshade on his head.”

“I know…let's go to Shoney's,” Carley said.

“Shoney's?”

“I'd like to see where you caught the serial killer.”

Easing into a smile, he said, “You would?”

It was an ordinary Shoney's on North 26th Street, within walking distance of the University of Southern Mississippi. No evidence of it being the place where a murderer took his last free meal and a rookie cop became a hero. Carley's eyes scanned the other tables and booths. How many of the diners were even aware of, or remembered, what happened here?

“Tell me about that day,” she said, her spoon spreading the whipped cream evenly over her hot fudge cake. “How did you recognize him?”

Dale, having ordered a sensible bowl of mixed fruit, said, “I had studied the composite sketch for hours. Even taped it to my bathroom mirror.”

“Loretta Malone said the composite wasn't that good.”

“Well, yeah.” Dale hesitated. “I don't know if I can explain this.”

“Please?”

“It wasn't so much his facial features that caught my eye, but his
expression
.” He cleared his throat. “Have you ever exchanged a look with someone and
known
what he's thinking, way down in the pit of your stomach?”

“Yes,” Carley said, suddenly eleven again. A shiver ran through her. “Some call it intuition.”

“He saw my uniform and looked away,” Dale went on. “But in the fraction of a second that our eyes met, I could read his thoughts clear as a bell. He was so clever, in his toupee and dark glasses, so sure he could rub shoulders with decent people, so scornful of the twenty-two-year-old cop waiting for the lettuce tongs. And I knew it was him.”

Shivers prickled Carley's arms again. “What happened next?”

“Well, I couldn't call for backup, not with his keeping an eye on me. So I ate my salad, paid my bill, and drove out of the parking lot.”

“But why?”

“Because I thought he might look through the window. I was nervous, I guess, paranoid. But I was more afraid of making
him
nervous. I didn't know if he had a gun, didn't want a hostage situation.”

“And so you drove around the block?”

“Yep. While calling for backup. But I almost played it too close, for he was walking out the door when I came around from parking in back. I waited until he was too far from the door to run back inside, and ordered him to lie on the ground with his hands outstretched.”

“Did he?”

“He did.”

“Just like that?”

“Well, I was pointing my pistol at him. I'm just glad he didn't notice how badly it was shaking.”

Carley took a spoonful of the neglected cake. “What would you have done if he turned out to be the wrong person?”

“I would probably be pumping gas back in Tallahassee now.”

“What was it like to have your picture in
Newsweek
?”

“Oh, it was nothing,” he said modestly, but with a glint in his blue eyes. “By the way, it was
Newsweek, Reader's Digest,
and several newspapers around the country.”

That made Carley smile. She wasn't the only person at this table with a sense of humor. But she could not return the compliment. As much as she enjoyed his company, she would not allow herself to fall in the ranks of his other nameless and faceless admirers. She had stoked his ego enough by asking about his act of heroism, even though curiosity was her sole motive.

He forked a chunk of pineapple into his mouth and stared at her, chewing.

“What?” Carley said after a minute.

“Once again, you don't play fair, Carley.”

“How so?”

“You keep encouraging me to rattle on about myself, but what do I really know about you, other than that you're from California and related to the Hudsons?”

“I…have a sense of humor?” she offered.

“Not good enough. Come on, Carley, your turn. Or as Stanley Malone would say,
Quid pro quo
.”

“Okay, okay.” She sighed. “My mother died eighteen months ago of cirrhosis of the liver.”

“She was an alcoholic?”

“Yes.”

“Your father?”

“Not in the picture—whoever he was. I was sent to a foster home, then a group home when I was fourteen, because my mother chose an abusive boyfriend over me.”

He looked stricken, his brows dented. “I'm sorry, Carley. You deserve better.”

Carley's spoon swirled whipped cream and fudge. “No sympathy, Dale, please. I only told you this because you pressured me. It's not all bad. A group leader at the home helped me through a lot of my teenage angst, and encouraged me to go to college. I juggled classes and waiting tables, taught school for a while after graduating, and now I'm here.”

“An entrepreneur,” he said.

“Yes. One of those.” She hesitated, wondering if she dared prompt another lecture on being too trusting. “And…that's why I want to give Brooke Kimball a chance.”

Now it was he who hesitated. But warmly. “I understand. I'll just say for the record that I still think it's a bad idea.”

“And I appreciate your concern.”

She truly did. There was something going on between them that they were both aware of—a budding mutual affection. But when he took her elbow at her front door an hour later, she backed away.

“I'm sorry, Dale. I have a rule about first dates.”

A falsehood, actually, for she had dated so few men that it had not seemed necessary to make rules beyond that they treat her like an intelligent person. But she had never been out with a man responsible for so many broken female hearts before. If she wanted to stand out from the adoring masses, this seemed the best way to begin.

“Can we count my cooking for you as the first?” he said good-naturedly.

Carley laughed. “I don't think so.”

“Then, how about if I drive away and come back in ten minutes?”

“Good night, Dale.”

“Okay, Carley. I understand.”

But he did not use that opportunity to ask her out for a second date. “I'll see you later, then.”

You did the right thing,
Carley told herself as she flossed her teeth at the bathroom mirror. Dale was obviously not like any of the from-prince-to-frog guys her mother had attracted like iron shavings to a magnet. But
she
was not her mother—she wasn't even the Atlanta debutante, Pascagoula accountant, or one of the myriad local beauties hoping their phones would ring.

When Carley's telephone did not ring the whole next week—at least with Dale's voice on the other end—she tried not to dwell upon it. She had learned in college that worry was an energy drain as well as a migraine trigger, and she needed every bit of energy and clearheadedness for Annabel Lee Café.

Interviews from Monday through Thursday had resulted in five employees she would begin training in two weeks. Paperwork consumed the time between interviews, and so she had very little work for Brooke. Still, the girl had pedaled over every morning, just to see.

“Here you are,” Carley said on Friday morning, handing her an envelope.

The girl tore the bit of tape on the flap and took out the check. “A hundred and six dollars!”

Please buy some clothes with it,
Carley thought, for she was wearing the
Objects Under This Shirt…
disaster again. “I took out taxes. The paper-clipped sheet shows how much, and how many hours you worked.”

Carley felt competent enough to keep the books, purchase supplies, and compute payroll, but she had taken Aunt Helen's and Stanley Malone's advice and hired a local CPA for serious accounting.

“I'm going to put a bulletin board outside my office for time sheets,” Carley went on. “You'll need to make sure I added up the hours correctly every payday.”

The girl held the check to her heart. Or rather, to the offensive pink letters. “I trust you, Carley.”

“Always double-check, when you're dealing with money,” Carley said, echoing Stanley Malone's sentiment of six months ago. She smiled at the girl. “Now, why don't you take it on over to the bank and open an account?”

“Okay!”

Emmit White walked in seconds after the girl walked out. “Then it's true?” he said with a backward frown toward the window. “You hired that Kimball girl?”

“She had good references, and has worked hard for me so far,” Carley said. “What do you think of the place, Mr. White? Would you like a guided tour?”

“I walked through the other night. It looks all right.”

When Carley stared at him, he shook his head. “You don't think I gave you my only key, do you?”

“Well, no.”

“Landlords have rights. Go ask Malone if you don't believe me.”

“I believe you.” She sighed and pulled a chair from the nearest table. “How about some tea?”

“Not thirsty. But what about that Kimball girl? Did you see that filth on her shirt?”

“She'll have a uniform when we open. And besides, she'll be washing dishes in back.”

“She's a tramp. Just like that cousin of hers.”

Even though Carley had no idea what the cousin reference was about, she was angry enough at the
tramp
comment to order him to leave.
Entrepreneur,
she reminded herself, drawing in a shaky breath. And an entrepreneur did not allow personal feelings to get in the way of the business.

“Mr. White,” she said, forcing steadiness into her voice. “I'll never forget how you changed your mind about renting this place to me. But please remember that you're my landlord, not a business partner. Therefore you have no say over whom I hire. And Brooke Kimball may look like an adult, but she's still a girl.”

He glared and pointed toward the door. “That's my wife's name on that sign.”

Carley was opening her mouth to argue further when a quotation from Longfellow slipped out of the mental files of her college education.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility
.

The embittered man before her had suffered—and was still suffering—because of his family. Gentling her tone, Carley said, “And we'll make her proud.”

Mr. White looked at her with mouth pressed tight and eyes narrowed.

Oh dear, here we go again,
Carley thought.

Until she realized he was not frowning, but struggling to maintain composure. And he lost that battle, for tears meandered down both wrinkled cheeks. Carley hurried into the kitchen and tore off a paper towel.

When she returned he was slouched in the chair.

“Here,” she said.

“Sorry,” he murmured, wiping his eyes and then blowing his nose.

“Please don't apologize. You have a lot on your shoulders.”

“I know it ain't right. Blamin' the girl for what her kin did.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don't know?” he asked, tone incredulous. The bony shoulders rose, fell. “When that cousin of hers, Tracy Knight, lived with them, it weren't enough she was sleeping with half the fellers in Lamar County. She went and stole Mona's husband, Rick, and them with a seven-year-old boy.”