“Can you cook, Ma’am?” Jeb asked. At first, I assumed the drive had made him hungry-my uncle and cousin were always hungry-but then Jeb added, “We need a new cook at the inn.”
Lucy startled. “Jeb, we can’t just-”
“She’s an incredible cook,” I said.
“But-” Lucy started again.
“Dad’s right. We need a new cook, and Ness won’t come without Evelyn. It’s a win-win.”
Lucy gasped. “We can’t just pick someone off the street.”
“We’re not onthe street, Mom,” Everest said.
My cousin’s support was startling and reminded me of another time when he’d stood up for me, but my gratitude whizzed out like air from a popped balloon when I recalled how he’d just manhandled me.
“We can’t promise it will work out,” Jeb said.
“But she’ll stay with me until I’m eighteen even if it doesn’t.” Evelyn was my life. At fifty-eight, living alone with decreasing mobility, there was no way in hell I’d let Jeb kick her to the curb. “You’ll give her a room in the inn.”
“You’re a very demanding girl,” my uncle said.
“You’re uprooting me from my life.” Again.”I have a right to be demanding.”
Jeb glanced at his wife, but Lucy was too busy scowling to meet his gaze. “We’ll supply her with a room, but it’ll impact her salary. Ifit works out.”
Lucy finally flicked a creamy hand, contaminating the air with the essence of nicotine that had yellowed the white crescents of her nails. “All this is well and good, but shouldn’t we sample the woman’s cooking first?”
“The woman has a name. Evelyn. And she made fish tacos,” I said.
“I could eat,” Everest chirped.
Of course he could. My cousin’s appetite was a monstrous thing when we were growing up.
“I’ll go fetch the tacos with her,” I offered.
“No. I’ll go,” Everest said.
“Like I’d trust you to do that,” I said.
“Everest goes with you.” Was Jeb afraid I’d make a run for it?
The thought had crossed my mind, but another one had quickly taken its place: Evelyn wouldn’t be able to run. Besides, where would we go? I had never made good enough friends I could phone for help. I’d tried back in middle school, but kids found me odd and kept away. I remembered wondering if they could somehow sense what I was, smell what I was the same way I could smell their acne serums and tinted lip balms. I’d never dared ask Mom. I was afraid she’d burst into my school and punch the kids for shunning me, which wouldn’t have improved my social status
Evelyn, Everest, and I went upstairs, and then we came back with the taco dish. While Evelyn warmed it in my microwave, I packed. Gathering everything I owned took me fifteen minutes and two blue Ikea bags.
“That’s it?” Jeb picked up one of the bags and tried to wrestle the second one from my hands, but I held on tight.
“That’s it.”
As Jeb and I walked to the black van with the golden Boulder Inn logo, we discussed my last rental payment and the cost of a new window, and then he asked if I had a car, and I shook my head. I didn’t even have a license.
“A boyfriend or friends to say goodbye to?”
I thought about my drug-dealing admirers and the sympathetic prostitutes for all of a second. “No.”
“Really? No one?”
His concern surprised me. I supposed acting as though I hadn’t had a life here wouldn’t serve him.
“I have Evelyn,” I ended up saying so he would stop pitying me.
Lucy and Everest were sampling the tacos when we returned. Evelyn offered my uncle a plate and watched as the tangy goodness vanished down his throat.
“If all your food tastes this good, you won’t have to worry about job security,” he finally said.
Evelyn smiled at me, and her expression dissolved some of the tension that had gelled inside my veins since I’d busted open my front door and set eyes on the past.
A past I dreaded revisiting.
Month later
The inn was packed.
Brawny men of all ages had arrived sometime before lunch, alone or accompanied by their wives, girlfriends, or sons.
I recognized many of the men, but they didn’t recognize me. In my gray housekeeping uniform, I blended with the rest of the staff. Every time someone looked my way, I disappeared into the kitchen where Evelyn was cooking up a feast, or entered one of the unoccupied bedrooms I’d helped prep for the occasion.
Energy crackled in the carpeted hallways, in the living room with its high-beamed ceilings and two-story glass panes, and in the tartan-covered adjoining dens. Every Adirondack on the sprawling porch held a reclined body. Voices chirped. Laughter rang. It was as though the Boulder Pack hadn’t come together in years. But I knew for a fact they met once a week. Well, the men did. The women and children were not invited to regular pack gatherings.
“If you go at it much longer, the metal will start peeling.”
I froze, and the feather duster I’d been using on the sconce next to the elevator tumbled onto the burgundy runner.
That voice…
Deeper, but nonetheless familiar.
Slowly, I turned to face Liam Kolane, one of the men who’d opposed my plea to join the pack the day my father was shot. I wasn’t short for a girl-five-seven like Mom-but I still had to crane my neck.
I hid my loathing for him underneath a smile. “Sometimes the filth is not visible to the naked eye, but it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
A small crease appeared between the dark brows shadowing his reddish-brown eyes.
I picked up my feather duster and continued down the hallway, swiping the long gray feathers over the other sconces.
He didn’t move. “Have we met?”
I looked over my shoulder at him, fake smile still in place. “Not in this lifetime.”