But when I look up at the table in the diner window above, there are three girls about my age sitting in a booth, eyes locked on the one boy sitting opposite. They’re smiling on the edge of their seats as he talks, arms moving back and forth in a big circle. When he suddenly freezes—on the punch line probably—they all burst out laughing. Totally regular kids, doing totally regular things. They’ll help us. I know they will.
“Actually, I could use a cup of coffee myself,” Doug says as he turns off the car. “No offense, but this little detour is going to add some driving time.” It almost sounds like it could be the truth, like he really just wants coffee. But truth or not, it’ll be a lot harder to talk to Jasper if we’re not alone.
“Well, I’m not staying out here by myself,” Lexi says as she undoes her seat belt and starts to get out. She’s forgotten about the baby they’re supposed to have. I watch Doug catch her eye, see her hesitate as she remembers. “Let me just grab the baby?”
My feet feel heavy as I make my way up the diner’s rickety metal steps. I’m almost at the top when the door swings open and there’s a burst of shouts and jostling as the kids from the window spill out.
“Oops,” the first girl says as they collide into one another. Their voices drop politely as they try to make way for us to pass. “Sorry.”
When I take the door from the last girl, it feels weirdly too light. Like none of this is actually real. Like it is a dream I will wake from. Help, I want to say to her. But with Doug and Lexi right there, I can’t say a word.
“Here you go,” the girl calls cheerfully when I hesitate too long. She is cute and petite with long, black hair. I stare at her and think, Please, don’t go. But all she does is smile a little more before hustling after her friends. At the bottom of the steps, they burst into laughter before they disappear. And just like that, our very best option is gone.
“Now I want a burger, too,” Doug says, positively cheerful now.
“Ugh.” Lexi sounds disgusted as she makes her way up the steps. She has the car seat in one hand, the top of it pulled low so no one can see that there’s actually nothing inside. She’s even doing a decent job of supporting herself with the handrail, as if the car seat is actually heavy. “A burger at a place like this?”
As I step into the diner vestibule, a wave of warm, damp air hits me, pumping out loudly from a radiator next to an M&M vending machine. I move on through a second set of doors into the diner, which is much cleaner and busier than I would have expected at nearly ten p.m. The half-dozen booths along the front windows are filled—teenagers, older people, a family with two young, sleepy boys, and it smells like bacon and apple pie, the walls a cheery bright red.
But not everyone in the diner is happy. One long-faced couple in the middle of the room is surrounded by a circle of empty tables and nestled in a zone of gray; their faces, their clothes, even the air around them seems coated in soot. They are utterly silent, almost motionless, their eyes on the tabletop. The woman has a full plate in front of her that she hasn’t touched, and the man is chewing slow and hard, like he’s trying to gnaw through rubber. They feel like a terrible, terrible omen.
I’m still watching them when a hostess appears in front of us. She has a dirty-blond ponytail and is cute despite her too-big eyes and crooked teeth. She’s wearing a red T-shirt with Trinity printed in big black letters, a flag on either side.
“Four of you?” she asks, smiling as she grabs up some menus.
“Actually, we’re just getting something to go,” Doug says.
Did he say that kind of too forcefully? Like he knows something is up? Who knows? It could easily be my imagination.
My heart is beating so hard, I feel like it is rocking my body as I stand there. I pray that Doug and Lexi can’t see.
“Where’s your bathroom?” I ask the hostess, hoping that Jasper will follow my lead. That he and I can talk privately back by the bathrooms, match notes, come up with a plan. Who knows, maybe he’ll even think it’s safe for us to be honest with Lexi and Doug, to tell them we know there’s no baby. Maybe Jasper will tell me that I’m being paranoid. And maybe I will even get myself to believe him.
“Sure, hon, bathrooms are right back there.” The hostess points toward a door at the far end of the counter. “Ladies’ is at the end of the hall.”
“Okay, thanks.” I avoid meeting Doug or Lexi’s eyes as I step toward the back. “I’ll just be a second.”
Lexi smiles. “Take your time, sweetheart.”