But the fear that left her arms and legs quaking was not paranoia, and she’d had it twice before. Once on the day of her mother’s death, and the second time when… no, she wouldn’t go there. She shook her head.
“I just know my sister. Okay? She calls if she’s going to be ten minutes late. She can be flakey about some things, but she’s punctual. Today is the anniversary of our mother’s death and we spend it together every year. It’s a big deal. Get it? She wouldn’t miss it; she wouldn’t be late. Not unless something drastic had happened. There’s something wrong, and you will be looking for her. This whole place will be looking for her.”
Bette wished she hadn’t said the words as she hurried into the warm summer evening.
The loud rattle-like call of katydids reverberated from the trees surrounding the parking lot.
Crystal loved katydids. She’d even named one of their cats after the loud insects, which at times had driven Bette to insomnia in the summer, when they were especially loud. She’d taken to wearing earmuffs to bed to drown out the sound.
She shivered and climbed into her car, heading for home.
4
Then
Crystal chose her usual table near the stone fireplace in Luna’s Cafe. The embers crackled and popped, and she gazed at the orange flames leaping into the dark cavern of the chimney. As she pulled off her coat, the door to the coffee shop opened, and Weston Meeks stepped inside.
A light dusting of snow coated his hair and the shoulders of his dark coat.
It was most likely the final snow of the winter. One of those freak storms that arrived at the end of March to remind them that Mother Nature always got the last word.
Crystal had been attending Meeks’ class since January, but she’d never run into him outside of class.
Weston leaned over and shook the snow from his hair. When he looked up, he saw her. She smiled and waved him over.
“Join me,” she told him, as he walked to her little table.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to interrupt your quiet evening.”
“If I wanted a quiet evening, I would have gone home,” she said, settling into her chair.
The waitress, a petite Goth girl with black lips and black hair, stopped at their table.
“Hi Polly,” Crystal said. She frequented Luna’s Cafe and was on a first name basis with all the staff.
“Hi Crystal, what can I get ya?”
Crystal smiled. “I’ll have a cafe au lait, and he’d like espresso straight up with two sugars.”
Weston gaped, glancing from her to the barista before nodding yes.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“What?” She winked at him and picked up the menu, though she suddenly had no appetite.
“How did you know what I wanted? I mean, I’d say you guessed, but how could you have guessed that?”
“Maybe it was on your website at the college. Or I could have overheard you talking about it in class one day.”
He frowned, and Crystal watched him consider both possibilities. He shook his head.
“No, no way.”
Crystal leaned across the table and whispered. “I’m magic.”
His eyes widened, and he glanced at her hands. She wondered if he expected to see a wand clutched in her fingers.
“Or I’m just very perceptive,” she added.
“I don’t think anyone is perceptive enough to be that accurate. Come on, tell me,” he said, peeling off his black scarf and draping it over his chair.
“Maybe,” she said. “Not tonight, though. Tonight, I want to hear about your poetry.”
He studied her, and she could see he didn’t want to let the subject go — but finally he leaned back, conceding defeat.
“I’ve been writing poetry since I was ten,” he said. “The year my parents got divorced, followed by my mother moving to California. I needed an outlet. I lived in Detroit. Most angry kids got into fights, but the neighbors in the apartment above ours had immigrated from Chile. Their mother, Camila, had four children. She started to bring me empanadas and read me the poetry of Pablo Neruda. I got hooked on both. I’ve been writing poetry and music ever since.”
“Neruda wrote beautiful poetry.” Crystal smiled. “I spent a few months in New Orleans, and I saw an exhibition of Pablo Neruda while I was there.”
Weston’s eyes twinkled as if speaking of a poet he loved made him come even more alive.
“What’s your favorite by him?” he asked.
Crystal drew a deep breath and closed her eyes, remembering the displays, the huge canvases covered in black calligraphy. She’d read the poems for hours returning to one in particular again and again.
“Tonight I can write the saddest lines,” she recalled.
He quoted a line further into the poem, “I loved her and sometimes she loved me too.” A flush rose to his face as he said the words.
His eyes found hers and all the sounds and movement in the cafe seemed to stop. Even her breath, the steady lilting sound, disappeared.
“Café au lait,” Polly announced, sliding a purple mug, resting in a green saucer, onto the table.
Crystal blushed and smiled up at her.
Cafe Luna refused to serve customers on matching dishware, one of the many reasons Crystal loved the coffee shop.
“And espresso with two sugar cubes," Polly added, pushing Weston’s drink in front of him.
He smiled and lifted the tiny black-and-white, spotted espresso cup off the dainty orange plate and laughed.
“I like your style in here,” he told Polly.
She winked at him.
“We celebrate diversity at Cafe Luna.” Polly ambled away, her big combat boots enormous on her tiny body.
Weston directed his attention back to Crystal. “I’ve never been in here before. I think I like it.”
Crystal studied him. For an instant she’d felt… a secret tucked in his chest and throat. A shadow slipping back and deep, hiding from the part of her that sensed people’s mysteries. The part of her that knew he drank espresso with two sugar cubes, that he loved dogs, but didn’t own one, and that he ran from the past as if it wanted to devour him.
“Do you write poetry, Crystal?” he asked, lifting the little silver spoon and swirling the sugar in his cup.
She nodded. “I do. I believe poetry is in everything, music, conversations, the rustling of autumn leaves, making love.”
He stared at her and then rubbed his hands together as if he’d gotten a sudden chill.
“I agree, completely,” he said. “I tell my students poetry is swimming in the ocean, walking in the woods, hugging your child — all of it is writing a poem. We just don’t always commit the experience to the page, but when we do, we have the chance to touch people in a way that rarely translates in conversation.”
“I love that,” she murmured. “I’ll have to take your advanced poetry class next semester.”
“Yes, you should,” he said. “What are you going to school for, Crystal?”
She dipped her face forward, feeling the frothy cream stick to her nose.
When she lifted her head, Weston grinned.
“Professional circus clown,” she confessed.
He laughed.
“I didn’t know we offered that at Michigan State. I must look into expanding my portfolio. Really, though. Do you want to be a writer for a living? A poet?”