“We’re all missing Rainbow,” Mr. Harcourt said.
The new waitress, a thin buzz saw of a woman with frizzy blond hair fixed in a long tight braid, turned away from the counter and held the coffeepot in a manner that could only be described as threatening.
Mr. Harcourt added hastily, “Not that Linda isn’t doing a great job taking care of the customers. But Rainbow is in our prayers.”
“Amen,” Mr. Caldwell said loudly and glared at Linda.
Linda snorted, slammed down the coffeepot and delivered a plate of pancakes with such vigor that syrup leaped into the air like Old Faithful.
In unison, the customers leaned away.
Kateri raised her eyebrows at Mr. Caldwell.
He mouthed, “Meanest woman in the world.”
Coming from him, that said a lot.
“You ought to sit down before you fall down.” Mr. Setzer was a real charmer, too, and Mr. Caldwell’s best buddy.
“Thanks. I will.”
Mr. Edkvist was the fourth at the geezer table, an Oceanview Café institution that consisted of four slightly deaf old guys loudly predicting the end of America while disparaging today’s politics, today’s shiftless youth and today’s lousy manners. Their own discourtesy, of course, was never a topic of discussion, at least among them.
Kateri started toward the long counter and an empty stool, then caught sight of a beautiful woman sitting alone at a four-person table.
The woman smiled at her and using American Sign Language, spelled, “Hi, Kateri.”
Kateri blinked. She looked closer at the woman. She didn’t recognize her.
The woman spelled, “Do you remember how to do this?”
Kateri spelled, but much more awkwardly, “I learned long ago. Do I know you?”
The woman offered her iPad and gestured to the chair next to her.
Kateri seated herself so she could observe the café and read the message on the iPad. “My name is Merida Falcon. I am mute. I AM NOT DEAF. PLEASE DO NOT SHOUT!” Again she looked up at the woman. There was something about her … but she would swear she didn’t recognize that face.
The woman turned so her back was to the customers and with her hands low and swift, she spelled, “It’s been many years since we met, but I’ve never forgotten you.”
Kateri looked from those hands, at those long, nimble fingers, to the unknown face, then back at the fingers. Memory carried her to a day long ago when two giggling little girls sat in a Baltimore attic learning the manual alphabet for the deaf. They thought it would be cool if they could silently speak to each other in a secret language. The two children, one a foster child, the other an alien in her father’s home, said it would be great if no one else—parents, teachers, siblings—could understand them. Looking back, it had been silly and the phase hadn’t lasted long; they quickly discovered the manual alphabet took practice to do and to read. Still, Kateri remembered …
Reaching out, Kateri snagged Merida’s wrist and turned her left hand over. The tip of her thumb had a notch-shaped scar where she’d used the screwdriver to pry the panel off the door to the attic … She whispered, “Merry. Merry Byrd.”
The woman smiled, nodded. She touched her chest. “Merida now. Merida Falcon.”
Kateri moved her chair closer to the table. Instinctively she lowered her voice. “You’re now a person who is mute? What happened to your voice? And what happened to your face? You were always pretty, but now you’re … gorgeous.”
Merida pulled the iPad close, typed, pushed the iPad across the table. “There was an explosion.”
“What kind of explosion?”
Merida made a flying motion.
“Airplane?”
Merida nodded.
“You always wanted to fly. You dreamed of flying.” When Merry had talked about her future, it always included somehow becoming a pilot and flying high above the clouds. “And your airplane exploded? On the ground? It had to be on the ground.”
Merida spelled, “Of course.”
“Right. So you had to have plastic surgery?”
“A lot.” Merida gestured up and down at her figure, then spelled, “Too much. Too much pain. Too much anger, too much resentment. Merry is dead. I am sorry.”
“Yes. I see.” The woman beside Kateri bore no resemblance to the bright, outgoing girl she had been so many years ago.
Linda stomped up with glasses of ice water. “You want anything, Sheriff? Ask your friend if she wants anything, would you?”
“I’d take coffee, black, and a Denver omelet. And you can ask my friend—she can hear, she’s merely mute.”
Linda leaned close to Merida and asked loudly, “You want anything?” She gestured like someone drinking coffee from a mug.
Merida laughed silently, then typed and passed the iPad.
Linda read it. “Bacon, crisp. Eggs over easy. Wheat toast. Hash browns. Orange juice and hot coffee?”
Merida slapped her hands together, pointed at Linda and nodded.
“You can hear, can’t you? There’s something to remember.” Linda walked away muttering, “Every time I turn around, we’ve got more weirdoes in this town.”
Kateri blushed for Linda. “I’m sorry. Honestly, we’re not all so rude here.”
Merida typed, “Better that then the oversolicitous kindness when they think because I can’t speak, I’m mentally challenged. Or unbalanced. I love that one, too.”
Kateri glanced around the café.
Everyone was watching them, openly or surreptitiously or avidly.
“You must get tired of the curiosity.”
“I’m used to it.” Merida put down the iPad and with her hands spelled, “You’ve changed, too.”
“Yes.” Remembering Merida’s casual explanation of her transformation, Kateri said, “There was a tsunami.”
“I’ve followed your career. I know about your … mishap. I never doubted you would triumph.”
Kateri’s eyes filled with tears again. Her campaign manager would tell her sheriffs didn’t cry. And usually, she didn’t; no woman survived what she’d survived without being tough as nails. But seeing her friend Rainbow shot and in a coma, then losing John Terrance while in hot pursuit, had created a relentless guilt and pressure. Now to have her best friend from so long ago appear and express such confidence in her—turned out Kateri was sentimental after all.
Linda whipped past and tossed silverware and paper napkins on the table, followed by cups of coffee. “You girls want cream or sugar?”
“Actually, I’d like sweetener,” Kateri said. “Do you want anything, Merida?”
Merida spelled, “Cream.”
“She’d like cream,” Kateri told Linda.
“I know!” Linda left and returned with cream and a small container full of pink, green and yellow envelopes. “You know, Sheriff, this stuff will give you bladder cancer. Food’ll be up in a minute.” And she was gone once more, headed away to torment the customers at the other tables.
“Why are you here? In Virtue Falls?” Kateri put one of the yellow cancer-causing packets into her coffee, stirred and took a sip. “The last time I heard from you, you were in Baltimore going to college.”