One Night (10 page)

But not when Garland sang the Rainbow song. Weirdly, for those few minutes, except for a few sniffles and sighs, the theater was dead silent. Then the song was over, wicked Almira Gulch came to call on Dorothy’s family, and the party roared back to life.

I tugged on Tom’s sleeve. “Anything like this in Lakveria?”

He shook his head, smiled, then pulled me closer and whispered in my ear, “When I am the king.”

*

“I’m hungry.”

“After all that popcorn?”

Tom wiped his hands on his jeans. “Buttered popcorn. What do you say, Kelly Ray?” He paused to savor the moronic rhyme. “What do you say we make a night of it? It’s barely after two, and this may be my only chance ever to watch the sunrise in Dakota City. What have we got—three, four more hours until that happens?” He frowned.

“Of course, you probably have to go to work. What are you delivering tomorrow, any idea?”

You, Your Highness, you. “The good thing about my job, Tom, is that I never know what the day will bring. I’d be happy to pull an all-nighter with you, but I’d like to ask for one condition.”

He was on some kind of high. The hour. The freedom. The movies and popcorn. “Ask me anything, Kelly Ray.”

“After we watch the sunrise and before you go to the hotel, could you pop into my work and meet my boss? After I disappeared yesterday, I’m not sure how things are for me at the office. It would be great if I could introduce you.”

“Would that help?”

“I’m sure it would. Promise?”

“I have a condition, too. Say yes to my condition and then I’ll promise.”

“What is it?”

“Would you buy me more food? When I went to the rest room between movies, some men there were talking about an all-night diner with great pie. Leo’s. I heard raspberry is in season. No, wait, that’s not right.”

“Probably it is right. Leo makes great pie.”

“No, I meant that it was two scarecrows talking about the pie. What do you say to this plan: raspberry pie at Leo’s, a sunrise, your boss.”

It should have been easy to agree. While I wasn’t sure we wouldn’t be intercepted by security at the station door, and I had no guarantee Tom would actually talk to Kit, at least he was happy about staying with me. As long as I fed him.

But not Leo’s. Anywhere but all-night Leo’s.

Still, this was Dakota City. Where else could you go? The bars closed at one and so everything else shut down, too.

“You don’t want to go there?” he asked.

“It’s an old hangout,” I said.

He understood right away and he gently touched my arm. “Old patterns, right? Well, some other place. It doesn’t matter.”

Old patterns. It was the closest either of us had come to referring to our after-dinner conversation. Four hours of Judy Garland and her costumed devotees had intervened, and now my prickly outburst seemed silly and distant. I slipped my arm through his and started walking. “There is no other place, not at this hour. If we were in the suburbs, we could go to a Perkins. But I’m not sure we’re that desperate; besides, the buses quit running at two. There’s another thing, though, about Leo’s. The cops keep a close watch on the place. Leo doesn’t allow stuff to go on inside, but…” I shrugged. “You can meet people there, make connections, or maybe hook up with a friend who might know where there’s a party. So when they don’t have real stuff going on, the cops come by and look tough.”

“Then let’s hope there’s real stuff going on.”

Luck held. The Dakota City police must have been busy with more serious things than looking for a runaway prince at an all-night diner. There were no patrol cars parked by the hydrant in front of Leo’s.

No cops, but everything else was as I remembered: Leo was behind the counter, looking bored. Black plastic chairs and shiny stainless-steel tables. Ten red-topped stools at the counter. Black and white tile floor. Glittery jukebox programmed with sixty-three songs, all of them Etta James.

It had been two years since I’d been to Leo’s. Two years since I sat on a stool and drank the coffee and ate the always-good pie. Two years. Not since that night.

That night I sat there, stool number three from the left, and chatted and flirted with Dewey Devine, falling (as always) under the spell of his rowdy red hair and icy blue eyes and red trumpeter’s lips.

Whaddaya mean you can’t come and play with us? Kelly, we need that violin. No one plays it like you. Baby-sitting, you’ve got to be kidding. How boring is that, come on now, Liz Turner’s on bass. Okay, then, be good. Some other time, there might be some dates at the Jitter Joint, I’ll keep you in mind, yeah, I mean it. Too bad you’re too young for the real clubs. Baby-sitting. Oh, oh, oh, Kelly.

Then he whispered.

Here, hold out your hand, just so you know there’s no hard feelings and that I’ll love you forever. This, girl, is in case baby-sitting is as boring as it sounds, quick in the pocket, we don’t want Leo to get mad. Tonight at eleven, exactly four hours from now, I’ll do mine, you do yours, and no matter where we are, it will be like we’re together.

If I remember it right (and who’s to say that I do?), at that moment he kissed me here, touched me there. Exit Mr. Smooth.

Oh my God. And I
liked
him?

My laughter must have been louder than Etta’s singing, because when I caught my breath I saw that everyone in Leo’s was looking at me. “Sorry,” I said.

“You okay?” Tom asked in the lowest of whispers.

“I’m fine. Just went off on a little memory riff. Habit of mine.”

“Are you sure you want to stay? Are you really okay?”

“I am so fine, Mr. Buckhorn, I can’t tell you. Maybe a little bit sad, but fine. Now let’s get some pie.”

We grabbed a table for two next to a large group of Tin Men and Dorothys. A waitress took our order and hustled away. She returned in a flash. Tom took one bite and set down his fork. “Oh, Kelly,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I’m in love.”

“The pie’s that good?”

“It’s that good. I’m in love with whoever made this pie.”

I pointed to Leo, who was chewing a toothpick and working a crossword. Tom twisted and looked, turned back to his pie. “Maybe not,” he said.

Not in love, but still hungry. He ordered seconds. While he was waiting, I went to the rest room. By the time I came out—it was a one-toilet bathroom and the two witches ahead of me were having trouble with their costumes—he was done with his pie, and three cops sat at the counter.

I slid into my seat. “What took so long?” he asked.

“The witches were having trouble with their skirts. See what’s at the counter? Maybe we should go now.”

He didn’t look.

“Cops, Tom.”

“I know. I saw them come in and I knew you’d be worried and then I realized I’d had enough, this was stupid.”

“What are you saying?”

“I made a call. Leo’s adding it to the bill; sorry. I didn’t have change for the phone I called my uncle while you were in the bathroom. Actually, I called his valet, Andre, on his cell phone. I thought that maybe at four in the morning it would be the best way to leave a message for my uncle; he is the king, after all. I’m just learning all this, but instinct tells me that you don’t mess with an old king’s sleep.”

My mouth went dry and my heart slowed to a funeral beat. “What did he tell you?”

“What do you mean? I told Andre that I was fine, not to worry, I was out on the town, I was being discreet and no one would find out. I said that if they were still looking for me, they could stop because I’d be back. There’s a breakfast meeting I’m supposed to attend, and I said that I’d be there. Why do you look like that? You should be pleased. You can relax, they won’t bother us now.”

Not on your life, I thought. Not as long as they think you’re with the ex-doper who works for the ruckus-raising one-armed radio host. “And then what did he say?” I asked slowly. Meaning, did he tell you who I was?

“Nothing. I hung up before he could say anything at all.”

“Did you mention where we were?”

“Why does it matter now?” He tapped on the table. Obviously, the questions irked him. “It was the right thing to do. Maybe you should call home, too.”

Home—there’s a thought. “I can’t.”

His lips puckered a bit, but before he could say “Why?” I heard a familiar voice and knew immediately that it was all over. I was about to wake up from what must have been only a long, sweet dream. Stupid me. I’d been so worried about cops or bodyguards finding us. But I’d never once thought about running into someone who knew me. A loudmouthed, nosy someone.

“Well, look who’s here!”

I turned in the chair. It wobbled a bit. “Hey, Sandi.”

“Little late to be out on the town, isn’t it?”

“Back atcha.”

“Oh, but I’m not a working girl, I’m not the one who’s always gotta run, gotta get to work.” Sandi was a nosy loudmouth, for sure, but generally a good-hearted one. I’d only ever seen her at the St. Ambrose meetings, true, but there’d been six months of those, and I’d never seen or heard her so edgy. Sharp and edgy, ready to strike—you could almost feel it. I glanced at Tom. He was fixed on Sandi, warily watching the woman as her fingertips riffled the sugar packs on our table.

I dropped my voice. “You okay? Drinking, maybe? Do you need to call someone?”

Birds have eyes like hers: dark, piercing, empty. “Drinking? You really think I’d be here if I’d started drinking again? Do you think I’d be standing here on my two feet if I were drinking or using again? If you ever listened, girl, you’d know my story. You’d know that when I crash, it’s spectacular.

“And as for that phone call, I’ve already made one, and that’s my problem, sweetheart. I called my daughter. It was her birthday. You know what’s special about her birthday? Of course you don’t, you don’t listen. Her birthday is the one day of the year she allows me back into her life. Allows me a five-minute phone call. But of course it never lasts that long. She’s like you, Kelly. Gotta run, gotta get to work, gotta go now. She’s even sort of in the same business as you, she works for a newspaper in Chicago. She takes classified ads over the phone. Not nearly as glamorous as what you do, working for Kit Carpenter, world-famous radio host, but then we can’t all have famous aunties, can we?” She took a breath, finally, and turned to give Tom the once-over. “You’re cute. Want to join me at the counter? I’m old, sure, but I’m a much better listener than she is.”

Sandi walked away, leaving Tom and me to stare at each other.

“Kit Carpenter is your aunt?” he said at last. The edge to his voice was razor-sharp; the chill in his voice was glacial. “I bet you’re not really a delivery girl.”

“I work for my aunt. I do her research and I run her errands. I guess that makes me Kit Carpenter’s delivery girl. So, you know who my aunt is.”

“Of course I do. Even if my uncle and the others hadn’t been talking about her, I’d know.”

“They were talking about her?”

“She was pestering everyone for interviews, they say. You know why that won’t happen? Because they think she’s uncontrollable. That’s the word they used. Uncontrollable.”

“Good for her. Why should all those old men think they can control her? Just because she goes after a story they don’t want her to have, they call her uncontrollable?”

“Would you take a moment, Kelly, take just a moment to think about why they don’t want her around? Can you possibly get it into your dope-soaked and detail-stuffed head why they don’t want some rogue reporter tearing at them?”

I sat back. “Let’s not get personal, Prince Tomas. Don’t insult me.”

He pushed on. “Something more than a story is at stake. My country.”

I made a noise. “Your country, Tom Buckhorn? Tell me, when’s the first time you ever set foot in Lakveria?”

He took a moment. “I’m not Texan,” he said finally. “I’m not a British schoolboy. I’m Lakverian. My mother was Lakverian, my father was, and all the people before them. My grandfather was king. His father was king.
His
father was king. I’ll be the king. That’s who I am. Look at how wrong it was for you to live with a borrowed identity, Kelly. Well, it’s no different for me. I can’t be anything but who I am. And I’m the crown prince of Lakveria.”

He dropped his head in his hands. Rubbed his eyes. Looked up. “This whole day—it’s just been one long lie, hasn’t it? You led me along at the end of a lie, just to see what you could dig up. Get the guy talking, learn his secrets.” He reached out and tapped my head, less gently than the time before. “And you filed it up there, tucked it away until you could turn it over to Kit Carpenter.”

It took all the juice that I had, but I kept looking him straight in the eye, glare for glare. Steady on, Kelly. Keep it cool, keep it steady. Underneath the table, though, my foot tapped the real rhythm.

I pressed a hand on my knee. The tapping stopped. “Tom, I didn’t set out to trick you into anything. When I ran into you at the hotel, it was just by chance. I really was simply taking a book to Simone.”

“I believe that, but when you saw your chance, you ran with it. Smell of the chase and off you go. I don’t know what you plan to do with your life, Kelly, but take it from me: You’re a natural at your aunt’s business.”