Jackson left through the back, returning to his truck, as Clench walked in the front door.
They were like the moon and the sun, Clare thought. Cool and warm. She’d been reading Tales of the Arabian Nights and other fairy tales of her childhood, slipping into a poetic mood from time to time. This was true, though. Jackson had dark hair and eyes so dark you couldn’t look into them. It was almost like looking at someone wearing sunglasses. Was he looking at you when you were looking at him? Clench was ruddy and had bright blue eyes and at least you knew what he was looking at, if not always exactly what he was thinking.
Clench handed her an old teacup.
“I dug this up. It’s not chipped or anything so I can’t figure out why anyone, least of all my folks, would have thrown this out.”
It was a willow ware pattern in a bright blue.
“This is so pretty, Clench. What do you want for it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not extremely valuable but as you say, it’s in great condition. Five dollars be OK?”
“Sure.”
“So you think maybe your grandmother or great-grandmother or somebody put it in the trash heap?”
“I suppose so. You know the family has lived on that land for a long time. But they wouldn’t throw out something in perfect condition. I mean, the bottle I brought you would be just an empty medicine bottle or something, not used for anything else but the medicine. But they weren’t so rich that they’d throw out something just because they got tired of it. I was lucky the shovel didn’t damage it."
“Yeah. Well, maybe somebody was just sitting outside having a cup of tea, and left it there for some reason. Set it down on the ground and forgot it, like maybe a big storm came up suddenly and she had to run to take the laundry down off the lines. Then the cup got covered over by grass and eventually more dirt. And here you have it.”
Clench laughed. “I could see that. I don’t think she’d forget the cup, though. Something else must have happened. Maybe she got hit by lightning and totally forgot about it.”
This time Clare laughed. “You know, every little thing in the store, at least all the old things I sold at the flea market, has a history and sometimes I’m curious, I’d like to follow the trajectory of every object through time.”
“So you want to know everything that’s ever happened everywhere.”
“Yeah, it makes me crazy. Well, maybe it doesn’t make me crazy, I’ve already got there, thus this job.”
“Phone for you, Clare.” The salesclerk came over to tell her. Clare had asked everyone not to yell across the store.
“Thanks. Excuse me.” She went back to the office to pick up the call.
“Hello, this is Clare Bower.”
“This is Jennifer Ebrahim.”
“Oh! Hello, uh, Jennifer. Is everything OK?”
“I was just wondering if I could drive down and see you. To talk.”
“Well, sure. When did you want to come?”
“Would today work for you? This evening?”
“Uh, sure. I’ll just wait here in the store for you. It’s not hard to find. You can Google the address. Um, are you going to tell Ali where you’re going?”
“No.”
“Good. So what time do you think you’ll be here? It’s about a four-hour drive.”
“I could be there around six.”
“OK. See you then. Drive carefully.”
She stayed in the office for a couple of minutes, wondering what Jennifer Ebrahim had to say that required her to make that drive, instead of just telling her on the phone. And whatever it was, why tell her and not someone in Akron? She had said, though, that she really didn’t have any friends she could talk to. No point in trying to predict, Clare thought, and went back into the store to talk to Clench.
“Guess who just called?”
She told him. Clench had no more idea what it might be about than Clare did.
“Too bad we don’t have a coffee shop across from the café for me to sit in. I bet you take her to the diner to talk.”
“I guess I will. I don’t want to take her home, somehow, though it would be more private. But if she sees you, she might clam up. After all, whatever it is, she’s not talking to the police in Akron.”
“There’s the Rendezvous.”
The Rendezvous was a not too seedy bar across from the Greenline Café.
“Yeah, but the window might be too dirty to see through,” Clare said.
“I’ll get ol’ Luther to clean it just for me, just this once.”
“You might have to bring your own Windex. He let me put flyers in his window a couple of times, but I taped them to the outside. It’s cleaner. Anyway, she said she wasn’t telling Ali where she was going.”
“Maybe he’ll follow her. He’s a controlling little feller.”
“I hope she has the sense to … I don’t know, send him to the store or something. And to turn off any GPS she might have on her phone or in the car.”
“You think of everything,” Clench said approvingly. “But he’s the reason I’d like to be on hand.”
Clare nodded. She accepted his role as a peacekeeper of the town, and Ali had proven himself to be a peacebreaker more than once.