Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One (17 page)

"May God above not care …"

Over Jack's lament, she hears her mother's
voice.

"You have to go down and get him, Cass," she
whispers, "show him the way to get out…"

"May God above not care …"

Cassie woke up gasping, drenched in sweat
and, over the painful hammering of her heart, the anguished words
still echoed in her empty room.

"May God above not care …" she
whispered.

Chapter
Ten

The morning sun, streaming through the dusty
motel window, finally roused Cassie from her fitful sleep. Her eyes
still red and puffy, she winced at the headache that pounded
beneath her temples from crying herself to sleep the night before,
and glanced at the cheap clock radio on the bedside table; nine
forty-five it read. If Jack had woken up from his stupor yet, he
must have gone on without her.

“
I hope he has the
granddaddy of all hangovers!” she muttered to herself.

"Show him the way to get out…"

Cassie sat back on the bed as a wave of
guilt and shame swept over her.

As mad as she was at Jack,
and she
was
still mad, she knew the things she had said to him the night
before had come from her own hurt and anger, and not from his
drinking binge. Jack had let her tag along all the way back from
Arizona, more than that, he had gone out of his way to become her
friend and she had treated him like dirt the first time he
disappointed her. Jack Leland hadn’t killed her mother and, as much
as her own pain made her spurn alcohol, she knew that whatever
reasons Jack had for drinking were his own and wouldn’t be resolved
through bitterness and anger.

She might have had a chance of helping him,
if last night hadn’t gone the way it did. Jack had started to open
up to her at the restaurant, who knew what might have come of that?
Now though, he was most likely on his way home again, miles up the
highway and glad to be rid of her.

Cassie gathered her belongings and repacked
her duffel bag. She would hike up to the highway and see if she
could thumb a ride north towards Washington.

As her hand reached for the knob of the
motel door, she remembered…

The
books
!

How could she be so dumb? Jack wouldn’t have
left town until the shipment of books arrived! Maybe she could
still catch him and apologize. Though he wasn't likely to forgive
her, at least she could try.

Cassie decided to check the café first, and
if Jack weren’t there, she would walk down to the bookstore, where
he'd said he would wait all day.

Breathlessly she left the motel and headed
across the parking lot.

It was a bright morning, and the air was
thick with the scent of the ocean, as gulls soared and swooped
overhead, calling raucously to one another in their endless search
for food.

Jack was in the café. Seated, again toward
the back, he had a cup of coffee and an unopened newspaper on the
table before him, but seemed interested in neither. Instead, he sat
watching the door, his eyes lost in thought. When his gaze caught
Cassie’s, the girl saw a flash of great relief and even greater
embarrassment, as he raised his hand. Suddenly Cassie was
mortified, wishing she were anywhere else in the world but
here.

How could she explain herself to Jack,
apologize for the way she had treated him? Her feet felt like great
lead weights as she slowly made her way down the aisle to where
Jack waited.

“
Sit,” Jack said softly, gesturing to the seat across from his
own, “please.”

Cassie sat, unsure what to do, and an
agonizing minute passed. Jack cleared his throat twice, fumbling
with his napkin and silverware, and Cassie was about to speak when
the waitress sauntered over to their table to lay a menu in front
of her.

“
Here ya go, Hon," she said,
smiling at Cassie, "I thought
this
one was going to take up
roots here waiting for you.” She gave Jack a withering look, her
hands resting on ample hips. “How about you, Diamond Jim, a fresh
cup of coffee or do you prefer it cold?”

Jack graced her with a sour smile. “Fresh
coffee would be great, thank you.” The waitress snorted and left
with Jack’s cup.

A long silence passed. Cassie glanced up,
feeling Jack’s gaze on her and he didn’t look away, his face pale,
his eyes wide and far-off. Cassie had to fight the urge to squirm,
growing nervous and self-conscious beneath that relentless stare
until, finally, Jack blinked, shaking like a man waking up from a
dream and realizing that he wasn’t asleep.

“
Well,” said Jack,”that was
quite a soap opera we performed last night.” Cassie, who couldn’t
think of a thing to say, only nodded.

He sighed. “I don’t suppose
that
sorry
begins to cover my behavior but, for what it’s worth, I
am.”

His words took a moment to
register in Cassie’s brain.
He
was apologizing to
her
! Cassie
blinked, and blinked again, trying to force out some
response.

“
I’ll understand,” Jack
continued, his eyes on the table in front of him, “if you’d rather
find your own way from here on out, but I’d like to at least buy
you breakfast and part as friends." He sighed again. "I’m really
very embarrassed and very sorry that you had to see me that way. It
doesn’t happen often and, even then, I usually have at least a
shred of dignity and find my own way home. I guess…um…”

“
Wait,” Cassie interrupted
in a rush, “please don’t say you’re sorry again. I came down here
to apologize to you!”

"What?" Jack said.

"I let you wander off alone last night," she
said, "when I knew you were hurt, and then I used your condition as
an excuse to vent on you for stuff that you didn’t have anything to
do with." Cassie’s lip began to tremble, "I thought we were
friends, but I didn’t act like one last night.”

There was a long pause as they each,
hesitantly, looked up from the table to catch the other’s eye.

“
Well,” said Jack, “I guess
we owed each other an apology, and, as that’s been said," Jack took
a deep breath, "I think we should put it behind us and get some
breakfast.”

“
Really?” asked Cassie, “You
mean it?”

“
Sure,” Jack replied,
smiling, “unless you’d rather I keep apologizing all the way to
Long Beach.”

Cassie laughed with relief. When they had
finished their meal, Jack set down his fork and looked up, he
seemed nervous, glancing at her and then away.

“
I’ve been thinking,” he
began.

“
Yes?”

“
Well," Jack said, "maybe I
could give you a ride all the way to Portland, now that you’ve
gotten some material for your book." Jack toyed with his
silverware, barely making eye contact.

"That way," he went on, "you wouldn’t have
to spend any more money on a motel, and if you had any questions or
needed any material you could just call me and I could e-mail you
what you needed. You could get in on the summer classes that way,
instead of waiting until fall."

Cassie thought furiously, trying to come up
with an answer.

“
Um," she stammered, "I was
hoping to get some pictures while I was there. Maybe talk to some
people and get a feel for the place myself.”

Jack nodded, stirring his coffee.

“
Yeah, there’s that." He
seemed defeated, but pressed on, "I was just thinking that it might
be nice to get an early start, and we could cut east at Tillamook
this afternoon and have you there by nightfall.”

“
That’s awfully nice of you,
Jack, but I really need to spend some time on the Peninsula, I need
to get it firsthand.”

“
Of course,” Jack replied,
chewing his lip, “of course you do. Oh, I thought you’d probably
want this back.”

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled
out a small paperback book, removed the newspaper clipping, and
handed it to Cassie.

“
I’m sorry about your mother,” Jack said softly, and his voice
seemed to quaver for a moment, “it must be very hard.” Cassie
looked up and, in the bright sunlight shining through the
restaurant window; Jack’s eyes glistened as though on the verge of
tears.

“
Well,” he said suddenly,
jumping to his feet, “we had better go see if the pinhead has
gotten my books in yet or not.”

Cassie had the uncomfortable feeling there
was more to Jack’s reaction than she was catching, and she frowned
as she slipped the obituary back into her Bible and followed Jack
out to the van.

They spent the rest of the afternoon waiting
in the Spring Leaves bookstore. The shop was on the first floor of
a very old building on the main street of town. “Right between the
kite store and taffy shop,” Jack had commented wryly, “just like
mine.”

Two worn, concrete steps led up to the main
door and into the small, cluttered shop. The front room was
perfectly square, all four walls covered, floor to ceiling, with
books. Several tables filled the open space, stacked high with
works by local writers, cookbooks, and the latest best-selling
novels.

Amid the tables were two
overstuffed leather chairs, the one nearest the window had a sign
taped to the high back that read:
Sebastian’s Throne, sit at your own risk!

Curled in the seat of the
chair was Sebastian himself, a massive gold tomcat with piercing
green eyes and white tufted ears. He lay contentedly, in sure
authority of all he surveyed, his great ginger bulk filling the
seat from arm to arm. Cassie felt sure, looking at him, that no
one
ever
tried to move him from his throne.

In the very center of the room sat a small
island with a cash register and a wheezing old monochrome computer
monitor. Cassie’s nose twitched at the smell of sage-scented
incense burning in a copper dragon by the register. The pinhead, as
Jack had referred to him, was a slight, balding man with round
glasses and a pronounced lisp. Full of nervous energy, he spent the
afternoon bustling about his shop and harrying the small handful of
patrons that wandered in. Cassie watched him move the same stack of
paperbacks three times in an hour.

The two men traded intermittent small talk,
but their conversation was strained, and the owner seemed to be
afraid of offending Jack in some way, possibly concerned about what
the larger man might do if angered.

Jack, for his part, did nothing to encourage
this perception, but nothing, Cassie noticed, to discourage it
either.

After perusing the shelves, he had promptly
relocated the cat from his throne to the floor and, taking a
magazine from a nearby rack, began to read.

Sebastian had stalked from the room, not to
be seen again that day.

Around two that afternoon, as Cassie
returned to the shop after wandering down Main Street in search of
an ice-cream cone, she found Jack standing at the cash register,
scribbling out a check. The nervous little owner stood, with a
pasted-on smile, gazing longingly into a box of perhaps twenty-five
old books. Jack signed the check with a flourish and even shook the
pinhead's hand as he turned to go, tucking the box safely under his
arm. Cassie could tell by the excited flush of his cheeks the
volumes he had wanted were there.

As they loaded the box in the van, Jack
could no longer contain himself.

“
They're perfect!” he
exclaimed, clapping Cassie on the back. “
Much
better condition than I had
hoped, the buyer is going to be ecstatic!”

“
That’s it, isn’t it?"
Cassie laughed. "It’s not about making the sale; it's about
finishing the quest. That’s what you love, being able to find the
one book that no one else can, and deliver it. It's your holy
grail!”

Jack stared at her a moment and then,
throwing back his head, roared with laughter,

“
Of course that’s it!" He
cried, "Did you think it was the money? It’s the hunt that
matters!” Jack laughed once more, rubbing his hands together like
Ebenezer Scrooge at his counting table.

"Now, young lady," he said, "you and I are
going to celebrate! The finest restaurant on the Oregon Coast is
just up the road.”

“
Oysters?” Cassie laughed.

“
That may be on the menu,
yes." Jack grinned, "The Queen Victoria makes
the
best
Oysters en Brochette.
You'll
love it!"

*

The Queen Victoria Restaurant had once been
an enormous farmhouse. More than a century old, it had been
renovated a decade earlier by a gourmet chef who had decided to
retire from working in Paris and open a small restaurant in her
hometown.

Creamy white alpine lace covered each of the
dozen or so small tables scattered throughout the dining room, and
dinners were served on fine china with silver. Cassie glanced
surreptitiously about the room, feeling a little underdressed in
her jeans and hiking boots. Jack noticed and smiled.

"Don't worry about it," he
chuckled, "this is the coast. Formal dining wear includes beach
shorts and
Birkenstocks
."

Cassie grinned, feeling less conspicuous
when she noticed that several other patrons looked as though they
might have just walked up from a day on the beach.