It was a small, insular community, still “fond of the old ways,” as the elders liked to say. Yet every modern convenience—including screamingly fast Internet service—was available to those who wanted it. A strange little town. And I adored it.
Driving back that afternoon, I took it all in, as if I’d been gone for weeks. The only road into town became Main Street, the commercial center of Cainsville . . . if you call a dozen shops and services a center. I would. Almost anything I could want was there, within a few minutes’ walk of my apartment. Life doesn’t get much more convenient than that.
Main Street looks as if it belongs in a small town preserved or restored for tourism. Except, without so much as a bed-and-breakfast, tourism wasn’t the point for Cainsville. That’s just how it looked—picture-perfect storefronts, mostly Renaissance Revival architecture. The street was as narrow as it must have been in the days of horses and buggies. In contrast, the sidewalks were wide and prettied up with overflowing flowerpots, freshly painted benches, and ornate iron trash bins.
This was a town for ambling, as those sidewalks suggested. No one was in a hurry. No one was much inclined to take their car, either, not unless they were leaving town or had the misfortune to live too far from the grocery store. There were a couple dozen people out and about, and if some of them didn’t wave, it was only because they were too engrossed in conversation with a companion.
As I drove in, I looked for gargoyles. That had become a habit. I was too old for the annual May Day gargoyle hunt, where kids competed to see who’d found the most, but I still looked in hopes of spotting a new one, because in Cainsville not every gargoyle could be seen all the time.
I turned onto Rowan. My street. I pulled up across the road from my apartment building, and Gabriel parked behind me, in front of his aunt’s tiny dollhouse Victorian. Rose’s car was gone. Gabriel didn’t suggest calling her cell to see when she’d be back. If he did, she’d rush home to help him.
Rose’s relationship with her grandnephew isn’t an easy one. Gabriel discourages emotional attachments the way most of us discourage door-to-door salesmen. They’re inconvenient, intrusive, and liable to end up saddling you with something you never wanted in the first place, at a cost far higher than you wish to pay.
If Gabriel is attached to anyone, it’s Rose. Yet when his mother left him, he didn’t tell her. When Rose found out, he ran until she stopped looking for him. That’s hard to understand, but there was something in Gabriel’s psyche, perhaps arising from his family’s con-artist past, that said you don’t take anything from those you care about. You took only from marks, and marks were always strangers. If Rose had learned that Seanna had abandoned him, she’d have looked after him, and he couldn’t accept that. Or maybe he just couldn’t believe she’d actually want to.
Gabriel stayed at my place for an hour, prowling the apartment, checking the windows, and engaging in stare-downs with the cat. Then he declared Rose wasn’t returning anytime soon and stumped off to speak to my landlord, Grace, about the security system before heading back to Chicago.
—
The next morning, I had the seven-to-three diner shift. My fellow weekday server, Susie, has a second job and we work around her schedule. Which means I have a mix of day and evening shifts that my body hasn’t quite adjusted to yet.
I don’t love my job. Oh hell, let’s be honest—I barely like it. But as impressive as a master’s degree from Yale might sound, it doesn’t qualify you for shit, especially when you have no work experience and you majored in Victorian literature.
If there was one thing I did like about my job, it was the people. The owner—an ex-con named Larry—was a dream boss. The regulars were mostly seniors—I swear half the town collects social security—and they’d embraced me like a runaway come home. Even finding out who my birth parents were hadn’t changed that.
This was my first shift back after Edgar Chandler’s arrest. Everyone had heard what happened and they were all so pleased, so very pleased. Which seems a little odd, but in Cainsville “a little odd” was the norm.
“Such an exciting adventure,” Ida Clark said when I brought her lunch. Ida and her husband, Walter, are probably in their seventies. It was their car I’d borrowed.
“A terribly exciting adventure, don’t you think?” she said to Walter, who nodded and said yes, terribly exciting.
“Liv was shot at,” said a voice from across the diner. “She watched a man die and had to hide in the basement while being stalked by a killer. I don’t think ‘exciting’ is the word you’re looking for.”
That was Patrick. The diner’s resident novelist. Also the only person under forty who’d dare speak to the town elders that way.
Ida glared at him. “It is exciting. She proved her parents are innocent.”
“For two out of eight murders,” I said.
“Still, that’s grounds for an appeal. But what exactly happened to that poor young couple? The newspapers weren’t very forthcoming. Did—”
“Good God, leave her alone,” Patrick said. “You’re monopolizing the only server, and some of us require coffee.”
He raised his empty mug, and I seized the excuse to hurry off.
As I filled Patrick’s mug, he murmured, “Don’t tell them anything. I’m sure it’s a messy business, and we don’t want to tax their old hearts.”
There was no way Ida could have overheard, but she aimed a deadly scowl his way. He only smiled and lifted his mug in salute.
—
After the lunch rush passed, I brought fresh hot water for the Clarks. Several others had joined them, most notably Veronica, one of the elders I knew best, though I can’t say I knew any of them well, despite hours of chitchat. Mostly, they just wanted to talk about me, and if I swung the conversation their way, they’d deflect. “We’re old and boring, dear,” they’d say. “Tell us about yourself.”
With Veronica, it was more of a two-way conversation, but only because she’d talk about the town and its traditions. An amateur historian. And, like all the elders, a professional busybody, though I say that in the nicest way. They don’t pry—they’re just endlessly curious.
Veronica had brought in a sheaf of papers. I only caught a glimpse of a dark-haired woman’s photo. When I filled their teacups, she said, “You’re in the city quite often, aren’t you, Olivia?”
Driving back that afternoon, I took it all in, as if I’d been gone for weeks. The only road into town became Main Street, the commercial center of Cainsville . . . if you call a dozen shops and services a center. I would. Almost anything I could want was there, within a few minutes’ walk of my apartment. Life doesn’t get much more convenient than that.
Main Street looks as if it belongs in a small town preserved or restored for tourism. Except, without so much as a bed-and-breakfast, tourism wasn’t the point for Cainsville. That’s just how it looked—picture-perfect storefronts, mostly Renaissance Revival architecture. The street was as narrow as it must have been in the days of horses and buggies. In contrast, the sidewalks were wide and prettied up with overflowing flowerpots, freshly painted benches, and ornate iron trash bins.
This was a town for ambling, as those sidewalks suggested. No one was in a hurry. No one was much inclined to take their car, either, not unless they were leaving town or had the misfortune to live too far from the grocery store. There were a couple dozen people out and about, and if some of them didn’t wave, it was only because they were too engrossed in conversation with a companion.
As I drove in, I looked for gargoyles. That had become a habit. I was too old for the annual May Day gargoyle hunt, where kids competed to see who’d found the most, but I still looked in hopes of spotting a new one, because in Cainsville not every gargoyle could be seen all the time.
I turned onto Rowan. My street. I pulled up across the road from my apartment building, and Gabriel parked behind me, in front of his aunt’s tiny dollhouse Victorian. Rose’s car was gone. Gabriel didn’t suggest calling her cell to see when she’d be back. If he did, she’d rush home to help him.
Rose’s relationship with her grandnephew isn’t an easy one. Gabriel discourages emotional attachments the way most of us discourage door-to-door salesmen. They’re inconvenient, intrusive, and liable to end up saddling you with something you never wanted in the first place, at a cost far higher than you wish to pay.
If Gabriel is attached to anyone, it’s Rose. Yet when his mother left him, he didn’t tell her. When Rose found out, he ran until she stopped looking for him. That’s hard to understand, but there was something in Gabriel’s psyche, perhaps arising from his family’s con-artist past, that said you don’t take anything from those you care about. You took only from marks, and marks were always strangers. If Rose had learned that Seanna had abandoned him, she’d have looked after him, and he couldn’t accept that. Or maybe he just couldn’t believe she’d actually want to.
Gabriel stayed at my place for an hour, prowling the apartment, checking the windows, and engaging in stare-downs with the cat. Then he declared Rose wasn’t returning anytime soon and stumped off to speak to my landlord, Grace, about the security system before heading back to Chicago.
—
The next morning, I had the seven-to-three diner shift. My fellow weekday server, Susie, has a second job and we work around her schedule. Which means I have a mix of day and evening shifts that my body hasn’t quite adjusted to yet.
I don’t love my job. Oh hell, let’s be honest—I barely like it. But as impressive as a master’s degree from Yale might sound, it doesn’t qualify you for shit, especially when you have no work experience and you majored in Victorian literature.
If there was one thing I did like about my job, it was the people. The owner—an ex-con named Larry—was a dream boss. The regulars were mostly seniors—I swear half the town collects social security—and they’d embraced me like a runaway come home. Even finding out who my birth parents were hadn’t changed that.
This was my first shift back after Edgar Chandler’s arrest. Everyone had heard what happened and they were all so pleased, so very pleased. Which seems a little odd, but in Cainsville “a little odd” was the norm.
“Such an exciting adventure,” Ida Clark said when I brought her lunch. Ida and her husband, Walter, are probably in their seventies. It was their car I’d borrowed.
“A terribly exciting adventure, don’t you think?” she said to Walter, who nodded and said yes, terribly exciting.
“Liv was shot at,” said a voice from across the diner. “She watched a man die and had to hide in the basement while being stalked by a killer. I don’t think ‘exciting’ is the word you’re looking for.”
That was Patrick. The diner’s resident novelist. Also the only person under forty who’d dare speak to the town elders that way.
Ida glared at him. “It is exciting. She proved her parents are innocent.”
“For two out of eight murders,” I said.
“Still, that’s grounds for an appeal. But what exactly happened to that poor young couple? The newspapers weren’t very forthcoming. Did—”
“Good God, leave her alone,” Patrick said. “You’re monopolizing the only server, and some of us require coffee.”
He raised his empty mug, and I seized the excuse to hurry off.
As I filled Patrick’s mug, he murmured, “Don’t tell them anything. I’m sure it’s a messy business, and we don’t want to tax their old hearts.”
There was no way Ida could have overheard, but she aimed a deadly scowl his way. He only smiled and lifted his mug in salute.
—
After the lunch rush passed, I brought fresh hot water for the Clarks. Several others had joined them, most notably Veronica, one of the elders I knew best, though I can’t say I knew any of them well, despite hours of chitchat. Mostly, they just wanted to talk about me, and if I swung the conversation their way, they’d deflect. “We’re old and boring, dear,” they’d say. “Tell us about yourself.”
With Veronica, it was more of a two-way conversation, but only because she’d talk about the town and its traditions. An amateur historian. And, like all the elders, a professional busybody, though I say that in the nicest way. They don’t pry—they’re just endlessly curious.
Veronica had brought in a sheaf of papers. I only caught a glimpse of a dark-haired woman’s photo. When I filled their teacups, she said, “You’re in the city quite often, aren’t you, Olivia?”
