The house was quiet.
That was never the case. Especially lately.
Music, video games, the dog, the two cats, the back door slamming, the churning washing machine, and the sighing dryer were always part of the house’s audio track. But now it was as if someone had pulled the plug on the whole operation.
Even though it was warm outside, and the sun poured through to the kitchen table, a shiver ran down Emily’s spine.
Something ominous was in the air.
Emily looked down at her feet and watched her toes curl and uncurl.
Then she got up to make them stop, dumped the icy coffee into the sink, and did her best to shake it all off.
Robb Ellis found his Destiny.
And that turned out to be a five-foot girl with white-blond hair who figured that anyone who had a father with an impressive law-school degree, a mother who ran a business in the same building, and a credit card already issued in his own name had something substantial to offer.
So when Destiny kissed Robb that morning and then pinned him down on the leather couch, all he could think was that he was super happy he’d brushed his teeth.
And he wished that he hadn’t turned off the pounding dance music on the emergency-preparedness radio.
It would have been the perfect sound track for the morning.
Sam was waiting for her in the shadows of the doorway next to the entrance of the gift shop.
But he was too late.
When Robb Ellis’s SUV pulled up to the Orange Tree, Sam watched as Destiny leaned over and gave Robb a deep, moving kiss, as if he were going off to war and she would think of him every minute of every day until he returned.
Once she was out of the truck and Robb had driven off, Sam emerged without so much as a good morning or a hello.
“We need to talk.”
Destiny’s enormous eyes focused on Sam. She handed him her Styrofoam cup of coffee and grinned as she pulled out a key from her purse.
“I didn’t expect to see you here waiting for me! It’s my lucky day.”
Destiny turned the key in the lock and flipped the sign in the front window to Open. She then skipped to the back of the store and hit the switch for the fans and the lights and pressed Play on the music dock. Destiny moved to the beat as a boy band started to sing.
By the time Destiny got to the counter, Sam had his wallet out and handed her five bills. All one hundreds.
“I’m going to pay for your relocation. Tell your boss an out-of-town emergency came up and take off tonight. There’s bus service. Or the train.”
He wasn’t looking at her. But she was staring at him.
She reached across the counter and pushed the bills back at him. “Put your money away. I’m not going anywhere. This place is home now.”
Sam finally met her gaze. “I can give you more. I have an ATM card.”
But Destiny turned her back on him and pulled a tube of pink, shiny lip gloss from her bag. In one swirl her lips were glistening like candy.
“Don’t be crazy. I just told you, I’m staying. There are all kinds of possibilities for me in this town.”
When she swung back around, she was looking at Sam in a new way. It was like she was hungry and he was a plate of buttermilk pancakes. “Why do you want to get rid of me so bad?”
Sam could feel his face grow hot. “You’re trouble. I don’t need it.”
Destiny stood up straighter, making her chest stick out and her flat-flat stomach recede into a curve. “Really? Trouble for who?”
Sam put the money back in his pocket and started for the door. “You’re leaving. It’s just a matter of when.”
He heard Destiny as he headed off down the sidewalk.
And she was laughing at him.
14
It rained Monday night.
That didn’t happen much in the summer.
One minute the sky was a star field, and the next a warm shower was falling from above.
Emily and Sam were lying on the grass on a blanket out back behind Sam’s apartment, and when the sky opened up, they ran for cover.
Now they were on the old couch that was under the awning at the building’s entrance.
Sam’s arms held her close, and Emily felt completely connected to the most interesting person she’d ever known.
He had spent years living on the road, held hostage by his unhinged father, and he now appreciated everything in a way that made the simplest events seem magical.
They were there for each other. They were meant to be together.
And they would be.
Always.
Emily inhaled and smelled soap and some kind of salty sweetness that was always present on his neck. The stubble of his beard was rough against her face. She felt foolish that she had worried about a meaningless girl in a gift shop. The outside world was no threat to what they had.
Emily kissed Sam, and the force of what she felt took her breath away.
So moments later it was as if icy water had managed to fall straight through the awning when he said:
“I think Robb is with Destiny.”
Did she hear him correctly? Was he talking about Robb Ellis and the drunken girl from the Thai restaurant who she hoped no one ever saw again?
“What do you mean—‘with’ her?”
Sam’s voice was even:
“With her. Like together as a couple.”
So that’s what was on his mind.
She and Sam were together in each other’s arms, and that’s what was in his head?
She struggled to sound as calm as possible. “Really? Why do you think that?”
Sam’s voice was unemotional. “I saw them together.”
“Where?”
Sam was matter-of-fact. “In front of the Orange Tree.”
Emily let this sink in. She didn’t work this past Monday at the restaurant. She didn’t need to be picked up.
So why was Sam in front of the Orange Tree?
She realized, now, that she hadn’t heard much about his day. He had a tutor and, of course, he always played his guitar for at least two hours. But she’d been at his apartment since after lunch. Why was he just now bringing this up?
But instead of asking that, she simply said: “Oh.”
And then she was silent.
Her “oh” hung in the air, and she saw it like a letter in the alphabet, not an expression.
O.
At some point in the day, Sam had gone to the Orange Tree.
O. O. O.
What did that mean? She focused on the letter.
O
O
O
The shape was appearing in her mind now like a zero. It was a circle. It was complete.
And then Sam said: “I went to talk to her. That’s when I saw them.”
Emily felt her left eyebrow arch. Involuntarily.
He went to talk to her?
Did he just say that?
O. O. O.
Yes, that’s what he’d said.
Emily opened her mouth but didn’t say Oh. Instead, with an even voice, she found herself asking: “Why did you want to talk to her?”
Sam didn’t look at her, but he also didn’t make it sound like a big deal.
“I wanted to tell her to leave town. I tried to give her money to do that. I know the kind of person she is. She would have taken it, but Robb Ellis got in the way.”
Emily opened her mouth again and in a whisper said:
“Oh.”
This time when she said the word it was:
Ohhhhhh.
The h’s had appeared.
The oh had two syllables.
There was disclosure happening.
And this news was now all a surprise to her.
He was honest about things.
The boy raised by the born liar was the truth teller.
Sam proceeded to explain to Emily that Destiny would use people. He could see it. She would take things. She would cause damage.<
br />
And now she was conning Robb Ellis.
He had known something like that was coming.
But what he didn’t say was that Destiny was also some kind of emotional magnet, and that he felt her pull. He didn’t say that her body was full and bursting out of her clothing and available to him.
No.
He didn’t say that.
He was honest, but he wasn’t able to fully admit that to himself, much less to Emily.
He didn’t have to.
Because she knew.
Emily gave Sam a quick kiss good-bye in the car. Her car.
She hoped that she gave the appearance that nothing was wrong.
Because nothing was wrong.
Right?
Wrong.
Sam and Emily. Emily and Sam. This moment. Forever.
She couldn’t take a picture of them as a couple and put that image in a frame and call it done. As in, this is it. The two of us.
Pure joy and true love and even ecstasy were like all things in this world. They had limits.
And borders.
Sam Border.
One moment he could give her his heart and she could possess it completely, but what she had to hope for was that he moved in the same direction she did.
She had to believe that if someone else crossed his field of vision and grabbed his attention that it was fleeting.
Just a distraction.
But now this.
The girl named Destiny had more in common with Sam than she did. They had fathers in prison. Mothers who were gone. They had lived on the edge of something.
Did that mean they understood each other in a way she never would? Did it mean that he felt drawn to her?
Emily saw the way Destiny looked at Sam. She was attuned to people’s emotions enough to know exactly what was behind that.
And she also saw some kind of understanding in his eyes when he looked at that strange girl.
She could see that he was afraid.
Not of Destiny.
But of himself.
15
Emily double-clicked the computer in the restaurant kitchen. It recorded the time you arrived for work and sent an e-mail.
She grabbed one of the black aprons from the clean stack in the supply closet, tied it around her waist, and forced herself to be in the moment.
She needed to be here at Ferdinand’s, not thinking about Sam or Robb or Destiny. Certainly not about Destiny.
Emily went through the door to the back alley to get the rolling plastic trash bin that was used for recycling the wine bottles. It sometimes got left outside.
And there, pressed up against the brick wall of the old building (their clothed bodies intertwined like the two mating pythons she had seen in a documentary on the Discovery Channel), were Robb Ellis and Destiny.
And Destiny was now wearing the workers’ uniform of Ferdinand’s Fine French Restaurant.
When Robb Ellis called and said that he had the perfect new employee, someone who could work the floor or help in the office with the accounting, Leo said to bring her in.
The owner had seen right away that the young woman was a fireball of enthusiasm, and he’d hired her on the spot. So what if they now had too many service people? Leo would just let someone go.
Maybe Emily Bell, who had locked herself in the freezer and cut down the expensive insulated door curtain. It wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t help but blame her.
Business was down this month, and that ambulance out front hadn’t done anything to help. He couldn’t stop himself from wanting her out of his sight.
And so now, Wednesday morning, he assigned Emily to train Destiny Verbeck. The larger plan was taking shape. He’d get the new girl to replace the one with the bad luck.
Emily didn’t know anything about Leo’s employment plan. She only knew that Sam was right: Robb Ellis and Destiny were together.
They came in from the alley soon after Emily found them. Robb had a streak of sparkling pink lip gloss on his upper lip. Emily thought about telling him but decided not to, which was unlike her.
Instead she took in the fact that the uniform’s black wraparound skirt that was supposed to hit at the knees touched Destiny’s ankles. And somehow, that seemed sexier than the way the other girls wore the garment.
The same was true of the restaurant’s custom top. Emily fit into hers, but on Destiny, the blouse slipped off her shoulders, looking strangely French. And because it was too long, she knotted it at the waist.
It was now, Emily thought, like some kind of exotic costume.
Destiny wore a rope of green glass beads around her neck and matching green glass miniature-wine-bottle earrings. There was real liquid inside that you could see if the light was shining just right. Emily noticed right away, but Destiny pointed out the bobbles in case she hadn’t.
Destiny had found a black satin ribbon that had been left behind from someone’s birthday celebration, and she tied it around her head to keep her platinum straw hair out of her eyes.
It made her look like an adorable present.
Emily wanted to run right out the door. But instead she tried her hardest to smile as she said, “I guess you’re going to be shadowing me. Well, working as a bus girl is a lot more complicated than it looks.”
Destiny nodded. “Tell me about it! One of the places where I waitressed served this flaming duck in orange sauce, and we all had to cook the last part by pouring brandy over the thing. Right at the table! Can you believe that? I almost caught a few customers on fire!”
Emily found herself swallowing hard. “So you’ve worked in a restaurant before?”
Destiny tugged on her shirt, exposing more of her left shoulder. “Oh, yeah. Coffee shops. I was a waitress in a sushi place and learned how to make the California rolls. That was crazy. And I worked at a chop house, and they let me cut up the meat, but I was too small to really carry the carcasses, so I got replaced.”
Emily was hoping that her wide smile didn’t look too fake. “Wow. That’s great. So you pretty much know your way around a kitchen?”
Destiny tilted her head to the side and her oversize eyes widened. “Well, I don’t know my way around this kitchen. Show me, Emmie!”
As it turned out, Destiny pointed out to Emily that the heating drawer with the bread had the temperature set too high, and that was why the rolls were always drying out.
Destiny wrapped folded napkins around the handles of all the metal water pitchers to stop the constant dripping from the condensation.
She fixed the hinge that stuck on the swinging door going out into the dining room by shoving in the pin at an angle.
And an hour later, when a skillet of grease burst into flames and neither of the chefs could find the lid, Destiny picked up a box of salt and put out the fire in an instant.
Emily was in awe.
And all that was before a lunch customer named Michael Schwartz, who was seated at table eight, got a lima bean stuck in his throat. His dining companion jumped to her feet after he suddenly, midsentence, stopped breathing.
The diner silently flapped his thick arms like a huge bird as his face began to turn blue. People around the dining room began shouting about the Heimlich maneuver.
Emily was frozen by the kitchen door, but Destiny sprinted across the room and slammed Michael Schwartz’s back with the heel of her small hand. She did it so hard that it looked like an assault.
Destiny whacked the man five times and then, on the sixth hit, the lima bean shot right out of the guy’s open mouth onto his plate and bounced into his water glass.
There were cheers from the other diners as the large customer began gasping for air, but Destiny didn’t acknowledge them and ran straight into the kitchen.
Emily found her crying in the stockroom. Destiny explained that her own mother had died by choking, and no one had been there to save her. She didn’t add that there had been an overdose involved.
After that Emily asked to go home early
for the day. She’d had enough. It did not go unnoticed to her that the owner looked thrilled to get her off the clock.
How could she feel anything but sympathy for someone whose mother had died? Especially in such a tragic way?
And how could she feel superior to a girl who was better on her first day at every aspect of work in the restaurant than she was?
Destiny was not what she appeared to be.
And nothing was more unsettling.
16
Things were changing for Clarence Border.
It was now Wednesday, and on Monday the doctor with the hairy arms and the thick eyebrows was going to see him again for a battery of new nerve testing. And Clarence was determined to make that trip outside of prison very worthwhile.
It all revolved around his leg.
Whenever he could, Clarence now took off his artificial limb and leaned it against the toilet, which, like nearly every toilet inside the prison, was made entirely of stainless steel.
All the plumbing was behind the wall, leaving no parts that could be broken off in a fit of rage or scavenged in order to make weapons. There wasn’t even a proper seat. Or a handle.
The average person in America flushes a toilet eight times a day, but the average inmate flushes the toilet thirty times a day. This is because a prisoner uses the toilet as an ashtray, a garbage pail, and even a place to cool down soda cans. And Clarence often used the metal bowl to cool down his fiery stump.
He got up off the cot and lifted his leg into the water. He was about to press the metal button on the wall to flush when he saw his future in his peripheral vision: a mud-colored mouse moving along the far wall.
Clarence kept his stump in the toilet bowl, and with lightning speed lifted his artificial leg, bringing it straight down on the rodent. The mouse’s skull flattened on impact.
It was truly Clarence’s lucky day.
He grabbed the bloodied mess and put it into the zip-lock plastic bag that only days earlier had held the mouse’s decomposing third cousin. And now this little rodent would have plenty of time to rot before the doctor’s appointment.
Clarence suddenly realized that he was smiling.