Everyone at the table had finished eating now, and only Bobo ordered coffee. Teacher ordered cherry pie, and at Lemuel’s urging Manfred got the coconut pie. Creek brought it to him. She was as pleasant with him as she was with everyone else—no more. But no less, he told himself.
Well, he hadn’t ever imagined it would be easy to make an impression on her, even though he was the only male close to her age in Midnight. A girl as amazing as Creek would know she had plenty of options just down the road.
And that was what flipped him over to the “cool with it” option about the incident with Lemuel. Creek liked Lemuel well enough to call him “Uncle.” So she wouldn’t be disposed to date anyone who publicly freaked out about Lemuel being an energy-sucking vampire.
Manfred was relieved to find a practical reason for doing what he instinctively felt was the right thing. After all, if you live next door to an apex predator, you shouldn’t go around poking him with a stick.
Fiji rose to depart, and a chorus of protests went up. (This group was as clannish as it was disparate, Manfred thought.) “Guys, I have to get home and feed Mr. Snuggly,” she said, and there was a collective groan. She raised her hands, laughing. “Okay, it’s a silly name, but I inherited the name along with the cat,” she said. “I think he’s gonna live forever.”
Bobo, Chuy, and Joe began a mild argument about how long Mildred Loeffler had owned Mr. Snuggly before she passed away. Fiji lingered long enough to chip in some solid information. The vet’s records indicated that Mr. Snuggly had lived with Mildred for a year before her demise, that he had been a kitten when Aunt Mildred had taken him in for his first shots; that set the cat’s age at four years. “So Mr. Snuggly’s in the prime of his life,” she finished, and putting a careful ten dollars by her plate, she left.
There seemed to be no moon that night. The plate glass windows were filled with blackness. “Should I walk back with her?” Manfred asked in a low voice. “Or would that be, you know, sexist?”
“That would be sexist,” Olivia said. She smiled around the table. “But I’ll step outside to watch until she gets to her house.”
Manfred didn’t believe for one minute that Olivia’s real purpose was to ensure Fiji’s safe journey back to her cottage. Fiji was safe, and Olivia knew it. Manfred was sure Olivia was going to the door to examine the two strangers more closely.
What a complicated evening it had turned out to be. “Is every evening here like this?” he asked Lemuel.
“Oh, no, never before,” Lemuel said. He seemed quite serious.
Joe and Chuy had been arguing over whose turn it was to walk Rasta, whom they’d left at home, so they didn’t hear Lemuel’s remark. But Bobo looked at him quizzically. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“Don’t worry,” Lemuel said. He smiled at Bobo. Most people would have found this terrifying, but Bobo smiled back, perfect white teeth flashing in a tan face. Bobo would be comfortably handsome the rest of his life, Manfred realized, and tried not to be envious.
The Rev made a silent departure, leaving his plate quite clean and not waving good-bye to anyone. As he passed Olivia at the door, he patted her shoulder. Olivia did not speak, nor did he. After she’d stood in the doorway for approximately the time it would take for a woman to get to her cottage after crossing the Davy highway, Olivia returned to the table.
The two men by the door had eaten all their pie and drunk all their coffee. Creek had come by the table twice to see if they needed anything else, and she’d left the bill between them on her second pass. Still the two were exchanging idle comments, as if they’d realized they had to justify their presence at the table.
Finally, Madonna came out of the kitchen and rang the bell on the counter. “Guys and gals, I love being a social center for this little town, but I need to get Grady and Teacher home, and I need to watch me some television. So you all clear out and let us close up.”
You can’t get any more straightforward than that, Manfred thought.
Those who hadn’t paid got out their wallets. Manfred noticed that the two strangers paid Creek in cash before they slipped out the door, watched closely by Olivia, Lemuel, and Manfred.
“They’re all wrong,” Manfred said to Lemuel. He watched as Olivia left the diner by herself, moving quickly and neatly.
Lemuel’s snow-slush eyes regarded him briefly. “Yes, young man, they are.” Madonna was standing by Teacher, holding Grady, who was heavy-eyed. Lemuel rose and stepped away to pat the baby on the head. Grady didn’t seem to mind Lemuel’s chilly touch; a pat on the head and a smile was all it took to make the baby gleeful. He stretched out a little hand to Lemuel, who bent to give it a quick kiss. Grady waved his arms enthusiastically. Lemuel drifted closer to the door. Though Manfred hadn’t noticed Madonna and Grady tense at Lemuel’s attentions, he did notice when they relaxed.
Abruptly, Manfred felt foolish. Why had he been so concerned? Two men he’d never seen had eaten in a restaurant and lingered in a somewhat odd way. Lemuel had held his hand. Why should he worry about either of those things?
As Manfred rose to take his own departure, a bit shakily, he thought about his sudden change in attitude. Had his physical proximity to Lemuel affected his judgment? Was his reversion to “everything is probably okay” a valid viewpoint or some kind of mild euphoria induced by Lemuel’s leeching?
Lemuel turned to give Manfred one last enigmatic look before he left the Home Cookin Restaurant.
Bobo, exchanging good nights with Joe and Chuy, seemed oblivious to any undercurrent in the evening . . . and so did the rest of the Midnight people. The strangers had (Manfred assumed) piled into their pickup and driven off, never to be seen again. But as Manfred walked past the area between his house and the pawnshop, he saw that the anonymous silver car was gone.
He suspected strongly that Olivia Charity was following the strangers.
And he thought, It would be interesting to know why they were here. And why Lemuel is different from other bloodsuckers. And—who’s Aubrey?
Then Manfred reminded himself that he was here to work, and to work hard. He was planning for his future. The problems of these people were not his problems.
But he thought about those people until he went to sleep that night, all the same.
4
Two mornings after that, Fiji sat on her small back porch, looking at the herb garden with some satisfaction. She’d put in an hour’s work this morning before breakfast, and she felt satisfyingly relaxed and pleased with her labors. She was wearing her oldest jeans and a torn sweatshirt stained with the results of a long-ago painting project, its sleeves hacked off to elbow length. In her stadium chair, her feet propped up on her weeding stool, Fiji was utterly comfortable. She had a big mug of tea and a blueberry scone on the little table beside her.