“Do you think they’ll let me sing?” asked Cole.
“No!”
Before Cole could protest, Bergman dusted the crumbs off his seat and plonked his butt down opposite me. “Somebody’s a collector,” he said, nodding to the stamp prints.
“Or a pack rat,” Cassandra suggested as she sank down beside him, pointing out a shelf running all the way around the room about twelve inches below the ceiling. It sagged so badly under its load of fake plants, old tins, and cracked china that I was glad I’d chosen a middle-of-the-room chair.
Cole pulled a napkin from the dispenser and wadded his gum up in it. “If you could collect anything, what would it be?” he asked. Raising his hand like he meant for the teacher to pick him next, he twirled it around in the air a few times before pointing it at Bergman.
He answered instantly. “Girls’ phone numbers.”
Cole grinned. “I might be able to help you there. How about you, Lucille?”
“I don’t see the point,” I said. “Whatever it was would sit there gathering dust I’d never have time to wipe off.”
Alice’s mum came to take our orders. Her round, cheery face lifted my spirits instantly. I searched her with the extra sense that had come after my first death. Nope. No powers on her. She was just naturally fun to be around.
“G’day!” she said joyfully in that broad accent so many Americans confused for British. “It’s too bloody cold for camping. Tourists?” she guessed.
Vayl gave her his tight-lipped smile. His accent was so slight you hardly even noticed it unless he was upset. But as soon as he began talking I could see her trying to place his origin. “We are from Hollywood,” he said. “Our company, Shoot-Yeah Productions, is planning to do a film here next summer. Perhaps you have heard of us?”
As she shook her head, her mouth ratcheting open in a suitable show of awe, Cole added, “We specialize in action films starring some of America’s hottest new stars. And we’re always looking for fresh new faces.” His grin told her she might just be the freshest he’d seen yet. He stuck out his hand.
“My name’s Thor Long-fellow.”
“Well, isn’t that exciting?” she said as she gave it a dainty shake. “I’m Polly Smythe. Are you looking for extras? I can scream like bloody murder. Wanna hear?”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Cassandra. “Unfortunately our casting director had to stay back in California. He’s deathly afraid of wallabies. Oddly enough, he has no problem with crocodiles. But the wallabies make him crazy. Poor thing.”
All during Cassandra’s comment, delivered in a serious but angelic manner, Cole’s face had brightened to Jonathan-apple red as he struggled to hold back his laughter.
“Crazy, huh?” said Polly, frowning at the eccentricities of western Americans.
Cassandra nodded her head gravely. “He saw one at the zoo last year and spent the next week in the hospital. ‘Giant hopping rats!’ he kept squealing, rather like a Tourette’s patient. Only he doesn’t have Tourette’s, does he?” she asked Cole.
“No,” Cole squeaked, shaking his head rapidly as little gasps of overripe giggles escaped his quivering lips.
“Oh. Well, that is too bad.” Polly glanced down at the pad in her hand, remembered why she’d come to the table in the first place, and said, “What can I get for you today?” A diaper for Cole, because he’s not going to be able to hold it in much longer.
“You going to be all right there, dude?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“Do you want me to order for you?”
Another nod.
So I did. And after Polly left, Cole buried his face in a pile of napkins and leaned under the table, leaving the rest of us to pretend that our companion made a habit of howling into paper products before every meal.
The food sucked less than the music, though it left me with such a greasy-spoon aftertaste that Vayl suggested a walk might settle my stomach. Leaving a few bills on the table he told our desserting crew,
“We will meet you at the rental house.”
Within moments we’d left Crindertab’s and he’d pulled me around the corner into an empty side street.
He pressed me up against the stone wall. “It has been too long,” he breathed as his lips grazed my nose, cheeks, chin. His cane began a slow slide up my leg.
I swallowed a burp. My breath tasted like fish and chips. Great. I didn’t even know if he liked Murray cod. And I’d run out of mints somewhere between Sydney and Canberra. Also my chest itched like I’d dipped the girls in formaldehyde before strapping on a wool bra for the evening. I hadn’t felt less sexy since I’d broken my ankle in ninth grade and watched them pull the cast off to reveal—ugh. I still shudder to remember that moment. Me, sitting on the patient’s table hiding my face while Dave (who’d come for moral support) laughed like a wind-up clown and yelled, “Oh my God, it’s outta control! Quick, somebody call Gillette!”
I directed my words into Vayl’s chest, trying to ignore his roving hands, not to mention that tiger-carved treasure tickling my calf, as I said, “It’s been less than twenty-four hours, you nympho.” But I missed it like crazy. And I couldn’t help comparing that setting to this one.
His island, which office gossip had branded as a working gold mine, was a private paradise in the Philippines with a white-sand beach, a redbrick house fit for a family of ten, and a series of orange groves, which Vayl laughingly said brought him a more preferable income than ore, since at least the fruit grew back. If I closed my eyes I could still feel the warm ocean breeze brushing over my skin and through my hair, following the path of Vayl’s kisses.
We’d have been there still if Pete hadn’t interrupted our bliss with his urgent, only-you-can-pull-this-off, mission and then dropped the bomb that he’d already sent our regular crew in ahead of us so no way could we refuse to go. The son of a bitch. I might’ve begun to get mad again, thinking of the danger he could’ve put my people in. But he had taken major steps to appease me. Plus, Vayl, close and real, made it tough to hold grudges.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held him tight. Because it felt like floating to snuggle with someone who cared that much. And rubbing against his buttons was even better than scratching. He seemed to like it too.
“To the house,” he said hoarsely, taking my hand.
“To the car first,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere without my weapons bag.” And once we got there, Jack did such a pathetic you-should-walk-me tail drag that we decided to take him and Astral too.
Night had fallen while we’d eaten. And enough streetlamps had been broken or left bulbless that it was easy for us to move through the shadows without being seen. Because of that, Wirdilling should’ve felt like a sheltering hand, hiding us from unwelcome eyes. Except its bones were shattered. And maybe its spirit too. Plastic bags and dented beer cans littered the street outside the single row of stores that passed for downtown.
To the left of Crindertab’s sat a beauty shop called JoJo’s with a sun-bleached picture of Hugh Jackman taped to the front window to encourage guys, as well as gals, to take advantage of their no appointments needed! policy. The organized client could stop into the library adjacent to JoJo’s first to pick up a dust-covered book, or maybe an old issue of New Idea magazine from the stack I saw teetering by the front door.
Completing the set of businesses south of the main drag, or Wirdilling Drive as the city father had named it, was a mobile home with bright green siding and a six-foot sign that yelled kippings general merchant to ignorant shoppers. Kippings sat just across from our side street, which allowed drivers access to its two white gas pumps. At one end of the building a red box with the word post painted on it also reminded them where they could drop their letters if their schedules demanded a drive-by. Less stressed individuals could follow another sign inside to the actual post office.