“I brought you something,” Manfred said. “Here.” He handed her a cup with a spoon.
“What is it?”
“Butterfinger Blizzard,” he said. “I just guessed.”
“Oh, boy,” she said, and started in on the ice cream right away. “This is great!”
“You’ve had one before, right?”
“No, never. Connor’s on a very restricted diet.”
She didn’t explain why, and Manfred thought it would be pushy to ask. Manfred felt he might’ve undermined Shawn with the ice cream and that Shawn would not appreciate it. It felt strange to be on the parental consent side of things. “I hope I’m not in trouble,” he said.
“Not with me,” Creek assured him, and he felt better.
“I think it’s great that he wants Connor to eat healthy,” Manfred added quickly.
“He’s got some health issues,” she said, between bites of ice cream.
“Oh?” Manfred asked, “Allergies?” But when the pleasure on her face vanished, he realized he’d stepped over a boundary. “Sorry. Midnight people like to play things close to the chest.”
Her smile reappeared. He felt a rush of relief. “That’s one way to put it,” she said. “Yeah, my dad is pretty strict about us eating in restaurants, especially Connor. What about your dad? Was he hard on you?”
“I don’t know,” Manfred said. “I never met him. I don’t know who he was.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Were you adopted?” She had flushed, which made her look even prettier, he thought.
“Nope. My mom was single, and she never told me anything about my dad.”
“I guess you asked her a lot,” Creek said, obviously feeling her way.
“Over and over, especially when I was little.”
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I’m assuming you had to find ways to handle that. Were other kids mean about it?”
“I don’t think it would be as bad now, but then, in a sort of rural area, it was pretty tough.”
Creek obviously had a dozen things to say, but she seemed to be thinking twice about all of them. “Well, that sucks,” she said finally.
“Yeah, it kind of did,” he agreed, and they rode the rest of the way to Midnight in silence, working on their Blizzards. Manfred didn’t think the lack of conversation was uncomfortable; he characterized it as thoughtful. He pushed aside his own childhood mystery with the ease of long practice and instead focused on Creek’s. What kind of father keeps two kids chained to a convenience store in a little town that’s almost dead? And then has issues about them eating in restaurants? Manfred noted that was limited to out-of-town restaurants. The Lovells got takeout from Home Cookin regularly.
Manfred was beginning to wonder if there might be something sketchy about Creek’s not getting her scholarship, too. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he could tackle a line of questioning that would confirm or deny that suspicion, so he tucked the idea away for further examination.
He pulled into the convenience store parking lot before five o’clock. The old truck was back, parked over at their house next door, so Shawn and Connor had returned. Manfred debated going in to hand her over to her dad, then realized that would just be weird. She wasn’t eight years old, and this wasn’t a date. Plus, Shawn was probably watching.
“Thanks,” Creek said. “I appreciate the ride and the Blizzard.” She left the DQ cup in the cup holder, Manfred noticed.
“Glad to do it. Ask again,” he said, striving to sound casual. “And by the way, your hair looks great. You get about an inch cut off?”
Surprise flashed across her face. “Yeah,” she said. “I can’t believe you noticed.”
Not getting a lot of attention at home, Manfred noted. “My grandmother always wanted my opinion on her hair,” he said. “That’s what she said, but she really wanted me to tell her she looked great and not a day older.”
Creek laughed. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t believe you when you tell me I look great?”
“I’m going to make a deal with you,” Manfred said. “I’ll do my best to always tell you the truth.” He had no idea why he’d said that, but he knew instantly it had been the right thing to tell her.
“That’s an interesting deal, Manfred Bernardo. Okay. I’ll do my best to do the same.” And Creek opened her door and walked swiftly into the store.
When the door swung shut, Manfred went home, but it took him an hour to settle back to work.
26
Manfred had had a civilized idea while he shopped in Davy, one he was sure his grandmother and his mother would approve. Late the next morning, he walked down to the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon with a bottle of wine. Chuy was in the salon part of the store. He was painting a design on some acrylic nails, which were on the fingertips of Olivia Charity, back from wherever she’d been on her trip.
After Manfred greeted both of them, he asked Olivia, “Can I look?”
“Of course,” she said, and he bent over to see the design. Her fingernail pattern was dark blue and light blue chevrons.
“Really pretty,” he said. And it was, but he realized he didn’t know Olivia very well at all. He would never, in a million years, have believed this was her choice.
“Joe, Manfred is here!” Chuy called, and Joe emerged from behind a chest of drawers.
“Hey, man,” Joe said. “How you doing?”
Manfred presented the wine to Joe, since Chuy was occupied. “Thanks for a great evening,” he said. “Even if we did get in a fight afterward, the food gave us the strength to withstand the attack.”
“Thanks, and have a seat,” Joe invited. “I was just taking the old drawer pulls off the drawers and looking at the restoration hardware I could get to replace them. Nothing that can’t be put off. I’d rather talk than work, any day.”
Manfred hadn’t planned on staying, but he found he welcomed the prospect of talking to other people in a different room. He sat down in the extra plastic rolling chair on the client side of the manicure table. Joe pulled up a folding chair that had been positioned looking out the window.
“That was quite a shock, to hear that you guys had been jumped,” Chuy said, taking Olivia’s left hand in his own. “I’m sorry we didn’t hear you yell. Creek tells me she came to your defense. That Creek, she’s a firecracker, huh?”