Wendy Warren - Once More, At Midnight

In addition to the money left in her account, there remained a couple thousand dollars in a savings account Grace had left for Bree. Lilah was determined not to touch that money, no matter what. Bree needed to know there was something from her mother. Grace had been so worried. Lilah had performed her best acting job to date when she’d tried to assure her friend that their finances were fine. In fact, she’d lost her waitressing job for taking too much time off when Grace was ill. Lying to a dying woman—Lilah wasn’t sure whether she’d committed her first act of mercy or sunk to a new low. The devoted mother had died assuming there was more.

For years Lilah had lied about her acting credits, simply by claiming that she had some good ones. She hoped that if she told Ernie she wanted a temporary waitress position so she could “research a role for the theater,” he might hire her, and she wouldn’t have to admit she was almost thirty, that her bank account ran on fumes and that by most standards, especially her own, she was a big fat flop.

Reaching the cash register, Lilah glanced around the restaurant, spotting Mrs. Kay, the organist at Kalamoose First Baptist Church, along with several diners who were strangers to her, and she saw a waitress she didn’t recognize…but no Ernie.

The waitress, a ringer for a young Natalie Wood, approached the register. Lilah wondered vaguely if Ernie had hired the girl knowing her looks would be good for business. Fresh and glowing with no sign yet of age or disillusionment. Lilah remembered when people had hired her based on youth and beauty alone.

Feeling a lifetime older than the flawless child before her, she fought to dredge up the smile that had made her Miss Kalamoose Creamery 1990-1992 and asked to see Ernie.

The girl stared at her blankly. “Ernie?” Wrinkling her pert nose, she cocked her head. “Um, a guy named Elmer comes in around five most nights for the chicken-fried steak. Do you mean him?”

Gorgeous , Lilah amended her first impression, but thick as a post . “Nooo, I mean Ernie the owner ,” she clarified, aiming her thumb over her shoulder. “The one whose name is on the sign out front.”

For a long moment, the girl gazed at Lilah with a little furrow between her dark eyebrows. “I didn’t know there was a real Ernie. I thought it was just a name. You know, like Burger King.”

“You mean, like Carl’s Junior?”

“Is he real, too?”

“I think so. Anyway, I know Ernie is real, so is he around? In the back, perhaps?”

Suddenly the furrow cleared. “Oh, yeah, the owner’s in back.” A bell dinged in the kitchen. “That’s my order. I’ve gotta go. Back in a sec.” She disappeared before Lilah could remind her to send Ernie out.

Sighing, Lilah turned and walked to the wall of publicity photos Ernie had hung by the front door. Gazing idly at the pictures while she waited, she leaned forward suddenly as she recognized the first picture she’d ever sent home. This one wasn’t a headshot; it was a reprint of a photo taken on the set of the only movie she’d ever done: Attack Girls From Planet Venus . The snapshot showed her and several other wanna-be starlets in scanty, strategically ripped silver attire. Lilah stood on the far right. Beneath her likeness she had written To Ernie, I’ll always love your milk shakes best. XOXO, Lilah . Then she’d drawn a star instead of her last name.

Lilah shook her head. She didn’t draw stars anymore. No one ever asked for her autograph, anyway.

“I didn’t see that movie. The locals tell me it’s a classic.”

The deep voice, low and slow and sardonic, made Lilah’s heart jump to her throat. She whirled around to find Gus standing mere inches behind her. Looming several inches taller and wider than she, he gazed over her head at the photograph then down again at her and raised an eyebrow with perfect irony.

“Was there a sequel?”

His presence seemed to surround Lilah, to press in on her, though there was a good foot and a half of air between them.

She stood dry-mouthed and thick-tongued as Gus’s prairie-winter eyes lowered slowly from the photo to her face. Not sure what to expect from him, she felt a thin, sharp stab of anxiety as their gazes met and held. In all the years she’d known him, she had never stood this close without feeling the almost electric energy that pulsed between them. It had been there ever since they’d both hit puberty. Today was no different.

When she’d pictured him over the years—and she’d be lying through her teeth to claim that she hadn’t—she had sometimes imagined him still in love with her and unable to mask the longing and youthful hunger that smoldered in his gaze. Once upon a time being with Gus had made her feel more special than she’d felt anyplace else.

Then there were the times in the past few years when Lilah could not picture Gus except as he’d looked the last time she saw him—with his eyes spitting sparks of fury and bitterness that had burned her soul.

Today if his eyes were a true indication of his feelings, he was long past the fury and resentment. Past the adolescent lust, too. In front of her was a man whose emotions were under his own control, and he looked at her with decided neutrality.

“The movie,” he murmured, nudging her focus. “Was there ever a sequel?”

“I hope not.”

He laughed at that. Easily. It was a sound she had not heard often from him. Even in their happiest moments and even though they’d almost always been alone together, away from the townspeople he’d mistrusted, Gus had rarely laughed. She remembered wanting him to, wanting to be the one to elicit a guffaw or two. Though she’d rarely been successful, she had challenged his control in other ways….

“So, what brings you back to town, Lilah?” The rich baritone, much deeper than she recalled, wrapped around her name. “Taking a break from the bright lights and big city?”

She looked for sarcasm and found none, but felt embarrassed nonetheless. Gus had no way of knowing that the brightest light she’d worked under in years was the plate warmer at Jerry’s Deli. “My family is here,” she said, striving for a matter-of-fact inflection, but to her own ears she sounded defensive. “I’ve been back many times over the years. Have you?”

She already knew the answer to that question, of course. She’d looked for him, listened for some clue to his whereabouts on most of those early visits home. But the only person in town who had ever kept tabs on Gus had been Uncle Harm, and he’d never spoken of Gus again after the time he’d called California to tell Lilah that Gus had been sentenced to one year in prison.

“My family left the area years ago,” Gus told her dispassionately. “I had no reason to come back until recently.”

No reason . Meaning she had not been a good enough reason. Lilah had always wondered if he’d ever looked her up.

Guess now I have an answer . Unwillingly, she felt hurt. As badly as they’d ended, she’d Googled him on the Internet lots of times, always warning herself to do nothing if his name came up, but never quite certain how she would react.

“Why are you back in town?” she asked. In high school, nine-tenths of their conversations had centered not on if but rather on when they planned to make their permanent escapes.

“I’m building my home and business here.”

“You’re going to stay…in Kalamoose? ” Surprise teemed with the ramifications this news posed, and Lilah felt dizzy.

God really does have a sense of humor.

With her mind a jumble of oh, no’s and what now’s , Lilah felt an almost desperate desire to rush back to the table, tell Bree they were going to dine on Sara’s Cap’n Crunch after all and get the heck out of here so she could think.