Lisa Unger - Darkness My Old Friend

“Hey, Beth,” said the guy at the counter. What was his name again? Todd. That was it. “How’s the writing going?”

“Good. Thanks for asking,” she said. She walked over to the counter.

“The usual?” Todd asked. This unnerved her a bit about The Hollows. She and Willow had lived here only six months, and everyone seemed to know her name already, seemed to be familiar with her habits and things about her life, her career. Duh , said Willow. They’re reading your blog, visiting your website . Bethany found this surprising, though of course she shouldn’t. She was used to the anonymity of New York City-no one knew who you were at the neighborhood coffee shop, and furthermore no one cared. In this little town, people seemed to keep up with one another. Was it weird or normal? Did she like it or hate it, the fact that people knew who she was? She hadn’t decided yet.

“Sure. That’d be great,” she said. Todd thought her usual was a double espresso with a little splash of half-and-half to take the edge off. And she supposed it was her usual at the moment.

“Bethany Graves?”

The man with the wire-rimmed glasses had walked over to stand beside her. Willow was right. He was tall, over six feet. But more than that, he seemed powerful, with wide shoulders and thick arms. In his large palm, he held Willow’s cell phone. Bethany took it from him.

“Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate this.”

She dropped the phone into her bag. And looked up at him to see him smiling. It lit something up on his face. She found herself smiling, too.

“I didn’t get your name when we spoke,” she said.

“Michael Holt.” He offered his hand, and she shook it. His grip was warm and firm. Not too hard, nothing to prove. She couldn’t stand a weak handshake-from a man or from a woman. Limp handshakes meant weak spirits. And weak spirits couldn’t be trusted. But some men squeezed too hard, putting on a show, wanting you to know how strong they were. If she looked back, way back, she thought of it as the first bad sign about her ex-husband. From their initial encounter, she’d pulled her hand back smarting.

Michael stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels a bit. The action made him seem boyish, though she could see more than a little gray in his long dark hair, a cluster of lines around his eyes. She put him in his late thirties.

“I think I scared your little girl,” he said. “Your daughter, I mean. She probably wouldn’t want to be called a little girl.”

“You have kids?” she asked.

He shook his head, casting his eyes down. “Nieces. Twins about that age. Thirteen going on thirty.”

Willow was a very young-looking fifteen; it drove the kid nuts that people always mistook her for younger. There’s no rush to grow up, Willow , Bethany always told her. Easy for you to say , Willow would come back. You’re already grown up. Nobody ever tells you what to do . That’s what kids think it means to be grown up, that no one ever tells you what to do. There was no way to tell them otherwise, to explain the price of freedom.

“Well, thanks for this,” she said.

“Double espresso, splash of half-and-half. That’s $2.09,” said Todd.

She pulled a twenty out of her pocket and handed it to him. “I’ll take this gentleman’s check as well.”

“That’s not necessary,” Michael said quickly.

“It’s my pleasure,” she said. “I insist.”

He looked like he was about to offer more protest, but then he was wearing that grin again. “Thank you,” he said.

When Todd handed Bethany her change and she was getting ready to say good-bye, Michael pointed toward his table. “Would you like to join me?”

She sensed that he was just being polite, that he expected her to decline the offer. Bethany glanced out the window to see Willow still slouched in the seat. She had her earbuds in. She was nodding her head lightly to whatever rhythm was playing on her iPod. But she was watching, staring at Michael Holt. Bethany was surprised she’d stayed in the car. She’d half expected to see her daughter lurking outside the picture window, peering inside.

“My daughter’s waiting for me in the car,” she said. She didn’t want to seem rude. But Bethany really didn’t talk to men anymore, had decided that she wouldn’t bother for a good long time. On the other hand, there was something interesting about him. It wasn’t attraction that she felt-not at all. It was curiosity. He was odd. She couldn’t say how, exactly. She liked odd people.

They stood awkwardly a second, he looking down at his feet, she looking around the room. Todd was eavesdropping, she thought, hovering near the sink with nothing apparent to do. The toddler at the far table issued a little shriek of delight over something. “Indoor voice,” his mother whispered.

“So what were you doing out there in the woods?” she asked. She hadn’t moved toward the table. She took a sip of her espresso, peered at him over the cup. “Willow’s sure you were burying a body.”

He let go of a nervous laugh, which was kind of sweet in its way. He removed his glasses and used the bottom of his sweatshirt to rub the lenses. Bethany found herself laughing a little, too.

“Daughter of a mystery writer,” he said.

And Bethany’s laughter stopped short.

“How did you know that?” she asked. She took another sip of her coffee, looked back at the door instinctively. She could still see Willow in the car.

“Sorry,” he said. He looked sheepish and pointed back to his table at a laptop she hadn’t noticed. “I Googled. Actually, I’d already heard about you. There aren’t any secrets in The Hollows. Well, at least not when it comes to an author moving into town. And I don’t even live here anymore.”

Bethany felt herself flush. So they were talking about her. She decided right then and there that it was weird, and she didn’t like it at all. But what could she do? Maybe that was the price of the silence she so prized. Bethany gave him a careful nod.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. He seemed to mean it. She thought about thanking him again and excusing herself. But she stayed rooted, that curiosity getting the better of her.

“So what were you doing?”

“I wasn’t burying a body, that’s for sure.”

Bethany found herself staring at him as he looked down into his now-empty cup. She liked the gray rivers through his hair, the lines on his forehead. She even liked the rough calluses she saw on his hands, the dirt beneath his nails. He looked real, solid, earthy, like The Hollows itself. When he gazed back up at her, something on his face sent a shock through her. She couldn’t have said what it was-pain, sadness, fear? But then it was gone. He had that grin again. This time it didn’t seem as sincere and boyish.

“Quite the opposite,” he said. “I was digging one up.”

Maggie hadn’t said much. She was loading the dishwasher, placing the dishes in their little slots, unhurried, never banging anything together. She was always careful like that, slow and easy. Jones was wiping down the table, going over the same area again and again, just to keep moving. Her silence worried him a little, because his wife was not a woman to hold her tongue. She was a talker, a communicator. Of course she was. It was her business to communicate. He found himself rambling a little bit, going on and on about the doctor, and what a fancy-pants he was, and his manicured nails, and could she believe he’d say such a thing. He’d been there , faithfully doing the work for months and months . And maybe he was right, maybe the doctor couldn’t help him. But that wasn’t about him , was it? That was about the doctor.