Well, there they were, and in abundance. The General Store was loaded to the gunnels with Wilbur’s finest. They were everywhere – packed into booths, cruising the aisles, crowded in front of the counters. Now that Nikki looked, there wasn’t a seat to be had.
“Sit where?” Cas asked.
She pushed her way through to the food counter and yelled over the din to the woman behind it, “Syl, is there someplace we can sit down? We wanted breakfast.”
Sylvia Idoine (called “Iodine” behind her back) should have been a lot busier than she was. In point of fact, she was just standing there, leaning against the coffee machine. “Have you tried the parking lot?”
“Syl, please.” Nikki leaned way across the counter and gestured Sylvia closer. “New guy.” And she jerked her thumb in Cas’ direction.
The chances are that if they hadn’t smoked the grass, they wouldn’t have spent some part of the night in the same bed doing…whatever. And if they hadn’t done that, Nikki probably wouldn’t have said what she said that gave Sylvia the wrong idea. Getting stoned may not have been a terrible mistake for them personally – at this point we don’t know, they might have worked it out – but when Nikki used those two little words to Sylvia and gestured in what Sylvia decided was a proprietary way, a maybe-little-mistake was suddenly primed to become a great big trouble-making mistake.
“He’s cute,” Sylvia said in a stage whisper you could have heard in Dubuque. “Not Tom Cruise cute but not bad. Lemme see what I can do.” She looked quickly up and down the counter, then moved toward two men nursing coffee. “Robbie. Ben. You gonna order something or just sit there spinning your spoons? Cause I got a couple people actually wanna eat here and they’d rather not do it standing up. What d’ya say? Be gentlemen once in your life and let ‘em sit.”
“Since you ask so nice,” the one called Robbie said, “I’ll think about it. Anybody ever tell you, Syl, you got a lousy bedside manner?”
“My bedside manner is fine,” Sylvia snapped, “but this ain’t a bedside. It’s a counter. Maybe you don’t know the difference. Wouldn’t surprise me, the kind of alleys you sleep in.”
“Ouch,” Ben said. “She got your number, bro.” He turned to Syl. “We might be persuaded. Who?”
Sylvia leaned over the counter, all secretive. “Nikki and her new fella. Guess she’s trying to impress him.”
“Then what the hell’d she bring him here for?” Robbie asked in surprise. “She think a dose of ptomaine is going to turn him all romantic?”
“I’ll remember you said that next time you order the chicken soup,” Sylvia smiled, and patted his hand twice before she slapped it. Hard.
Robbie sighed. “Alright, alright. Anything for young love.”
As they got up, Ben stared at Nikki a minute before asking bitterly, “That’s one helluva beautiful girl to be throwing herself away on stupid kids don’t know the score when there’s real men around. When’s she gonna give me a chance is what I want to know.”
“When your wife wises up and throws you out,” Sylvia offered. “Mebbe. Though I wouldn’t go making the dinner reservations, I was you.”
“Gotcha!” Robbie laughed at Ben and pulled him off into the crowd. “Nikki!” he called on the way. “Got your seats right here, courtesy us. You owe me one.”
“Us,” Ben shouted. “Me, too.”
“Shut up,” Robbie said, and they were gone.
Nikki hauled Cas over to the now-empty space and dumped him unceremoniously on one of the stools. “Sylvia found us some room to sit down.”
“Nice of her. Does she know what’s going on?”
“Syl! What’s going on? What’s everybody doing here on a Wednesday morning?”
Sylvia put coffee mugs down in front of them and said, “Crisis.”
“What crisis?”
“Road crisis.”
Nikki was appalled. “They’re not.”
“Looks like they are.”
“They wouldn’t!”
“They’re gonna,” she said as she poured the blackest coffee Cas had ever seen into the mugs. It was the color of coal tar. He wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to drink it or spread it on the roof to stop leaks.
To postpone drinking it, he said, “Road crisis? Is it closed or something? Are we trapped here?”
“Would that be such a bad idea?” Nikki asked.
“No,” Cas said. “I guess it wouldn’t.”
Both were so busy searching the other’s face for clues that neither saw Sylvia’s eyebrows rise three-quarters of an inch. “Now what would you two lovebirds like to eat?” she asked, and got her pad ready. “You can’t go wrong with the ham and eggs. I make the hash browns myself. Good.”
