Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“I’d pretty much insist on it,” Bram said. And there was that happy grin.
* * *
Peach’s Diner was an institution in Garnet Run, and it was one of the few places that Zachary felt at home outside 666 Casper Road.
When his family had moved to Garnet Run at the beginning of his junior year of high school, Zachary hadn’t made friends. He hadn’t joined clubs or done after-school activities. After all, why would people like him any more here than they had in Cheyenne?
Instead, when he couldn’t stand being in his house any longer, when the sound of his mother’s voice on the phone, tracking down what she’d believed were leads, had wormed its way into his head such that he absolutely had to get out of the house now, he’d taken his sketchbook and his iPod, and he’d come to Peach’s Diner.
He’d order a piece of pie and sit at a booth in the back and draw everything that crowded his mind.
Sometimes Melba, who was still a waiter there, would slip him a plate of fries or a grilled cheese sandwich. She’d say a customer had sent it back and it’d just go to waste otherwise, so he didn’t need to pay. But even at sixteen, Zachary had seen it for what it was: kindness. An act of kindness for a pitiful boy that no one else was kind to. And he’d loved her for it.
“My favorite customer!” Melba said as they walked in. “Been a long time, sweetie.”
“Hey, Melba. How are you?”
“Can’t complain, can’t complain.”
It was her standard answer. Though he had known Melba for twelve years, he knew almost as little about her now as he had the first time he’d come in.
“And who’s this?” she asked, with a twinkle.
“Bram Larkspur, ma’am. Nice to meet you.”
Melba raised an eyebrow at Zachary, as if to congratulate him on something. Zachary looked at the floor.
When they were seated and had menus, Melba put a hot tea in front of Zachary without asking.
“What’s good here?” Bram asked.
“I don’t really care about food. You should ask Melba.”
Bram goggled.
“You don’t...care about it?”
“No. I mean, it’s a necessary part of staying alive and all that. I’m just not terribly invested in specific foods as opposed to others.”
Bram raised an eyebrow, but just nodded.
“What would you recommend?” he asked Melba. “Just has to be vegetarian.”
Melba’s eyes got wide at that.
“Well, not the veggie burger,” she said conspiratorially. “Only a few tourists passing through ever order them, so I think we’ve had the same box since about 1997.”
“Noted. No veggie burger, then.”
“You know what,” Melba said, sliding the menu from his hand. “I’ll just have Cal cook you up something. No meat,” she repeated, giving him a thumbs-up.
“Thanks, that’d be great.” Bram’s smile was irresistible, and Melba smiled right back at him.
“The usual, sweets?”
“Yeah.” Zachary handed her his menu.
“What’s the usual?” Bram asked.
“Whatever Cal feels like giving me.”
When the food came, Zachary’s was meatloaf with gravy, mashed potatoes, peas, and a biscuit.
Bram’s was a baked sweet potato with cheesy broccoli and sour cream on top, a bowl of chili with corn bread, and a side of mac and cheese.
“Wow,” Bram said. “Looks amazing. My thanks to Cal.”
Melba winked at him, then mouthed to Zachary, I love him.
“Oh my god,” Zachary muttered, but Bram didn’t seem to notice, too busy tucking into his potato.
Once they’d eaten for a few minutes, Zachary said, “I just want to apologize again for earlier. I should’ve thought about—”
Bram waved his apology away.
“I get it. You don’t have to apologize again. Thanks.”
“Okay.”
“So does your family live in Garnet Run too?” Bram asked, firmly changing the subject. Zachary had thought he wanted it changed; but not to this. He nodded.
They lived in the same house as when they’d moved here all those years ago, and which Zachary hadn’t returned to in years. When he’d been looking for a place to live himself, the house on Casper Road had appealed to him first because from it he could reach everywhere he might want to go in town without driving past his parents’ home.
Bram raised an eyebrow, listening intently.
“It’s just my parents. We’re not very close.”
“Oh,” Bram said. “Sorry to hear that. What was it like, being an only child? I can’t even imagine. Was it peaceful? I bet it was really peaceful.”
Bram was smiling, clearly picturing his own rowdy clan.
“Um, well. I wasn’t an only child.”
Bram froze.
Zachary didn’t talk about this. But then, he didn’t talk to people much.
“I have an older sister. Had. Have, I don’t know.”
Past tense, present tense, so strange for a person to be a tense. To have been a tense. No, to be a tense—present, even if the tense is past.
“She disappeared when I was fourteen and she was seventeen. In Cheyenne.”
Bram’s blue eyes were wells of horror and sympathy.