CHAPTER ONE
Customers filed into Del’s diner in droves daily. They came for the gossip but stayed for the food. Plus, they loved the consistency of it, or at least I assumed they did because I did. The diner hadn’t changed since the day it opened unless you considered normal upkeep change.
It still smelled the same way it did every morning, too, of bacon and coffee and that lemon cleaner she bought in bulk and swore was hospital grade. Beanie trotted ahead of me to our regular table, gave the room her usual once-over, and settled underneath it with a groan that suggested she'd worked a double shift instead of sleeping fourteen hours on my bed.
It was hard being a dog. She’d made that perfectly clear.
"Well, look what the dog dragged in," Del called from behind the counter. “Literally.” She already had the coffeepot in her hand. "Sit down before I sell your table to a payin' customer."
"I pay."
"You tip. There's a difference."
Olivia walked through the door a minute later with Thelma on her arm, and the whole diner brightened the way it always did when Thelma made an entrance. That morning's Dolly Parton wig was the honey-blond one with the curls stacked high enough to need its own building permit, and she'd paired it with a purple blouse covered in rhinestones and a scarf that didn't match anything she owned, which I suspected was the point.
Only one other person wore a Dolly Parton wig better than Thelma, and that was Dolly. God rest her soul.
I stood and helped her into her chair. "Morning, sunshine."
"Morning, darlin'." She set her cane against the table and patted my hand. "Did y'all hear about the Watermelon Queen crown?"
Del poured our coffees. "Here we go again."
"The what?" Olivia asked, which was her job at the table, encouraging Thelma to tell her stories because they always made us giggle, and she performed it beautifully.
"The 1971 Castleberry Watermelon Queen crown," Thelma said. "It went missing the night of the pageant, right off the judges' table, and this town has never recovered."
"This town recovered fine," Del said. "I was there."
"You were runner-up," Thelma said. "And I may not be good at math, but I’m pretty sure that's not the same as recovered."
Olivia choked on her coffee.
Del pointed the coffeepot at her. "I was robbed, and everybody knew it. Patsy Turnbull's talent was baton twirling, and she dropped that baton twice."
"Three times," Thelma said. "But she cried pretty, and the judges were all men." She stirred her coffee, tapped the spoon on the rim, and set it down. "Anyway. It was 1971, and the crown disappeared between the swimsuit portion and the crowning. Mrs. Hargrove said she saw the Wooten boy near the judges' table, but the Wooten boy was in Vietnam at the time, so that theory had holes. My aunt Beryl said it was the Methodists, on account of the pageant being held at the Baptist pavilion that year, and feelings were raw. The Methodists and Baptists were always at war back then. They’re not now because Pastor Frank, from the early 80s, reminded them we all use the same Bible and pray to the same Jesus, who doesn’t like fighting amongst his people.
“You’re getting off track,” Del said.
“I am not. And Mr. Pittman, who ran the feed store, told anyone who'd stand still that a crow took it. He'd seen a program about crows on the television and never got over it."
"A crow," Olivia said.
"Crows love shiny things. That part's true. The rest of what Mr. Pittman said, you had to take with a grain of salt, because he also believed the moon landing was filmed in Ellijay."
"So who took it?" Olivia asked.
"Nobody knows to this day. Patsy Turnbull got crowned with a tiara from the five-and-dime, and she wore it to church for a month like it was the real thing." Thelma stirred her coffee again. "It was 1971," she said, "and the crown went missing right off the judges' table."
I glanced up. She'd already told us that part. Del caught my eye across the table, then looked away and busied herself with the sugar caddy.
"Well, I think Del would've made a lovely queen," Olivia said.
"Don't butter me up. It won't get you extra whipped cream."
Charlie, Thelma’s deceased husband, hovered behind Thelma's chair. He was there most mornings, arms folded, wearing that easy grin he always wore when she got going on a story. Except that morning, he wasn't grinning. He was watching her stir a cup of coffee she hadn't taken one sip of, and his face was still in a way I knew wasn’t good.
Beanie noticed him too. Her ears perked up, and her tail thumped once against my foot, then stopped.
Del walked back around with the pie stand. "Fresh peach this morning. Thelma, I saved you the corner piece with the extra crumble, so don't say I never did nothin' for you."
"Oh." Thelma looked at the pie and something crossed her face too fast for me to name. "Not today, sugar. I'm not real hungry."
We all lost our ability to speak. In all the years I'd known Thelma, through funerals and floods and one memorable stomach bug that she blamed on a gas station burrito, she had never once turned down Del's peach pie.
"You feelin' all right?" Del asked. For once there was no salt in it.
"Fit as a fiddle. I had a big supper is all." She smiled and adjusted her wig, which had drifted a hair to the left. Olivia reached over and straightened it without being asked. "Thank you, honey."
The conversation moved on. Olivia talked about the new exhibit cards for the museum, Del threatened to put something unspeakable in a customer’s gravy, and Thelma laughed in all the right places. But she held on to the table when she laughed, and when we got up to leave, she gripped my arm harder than she normal. Her hand was cold.
I walked her to Olivia's car and buckled her in myself, which she allowed, and was its own bad sign.
Charlie hovered on the sidewalk as they pulled away. He didn't shimmer off the way he usually did. He turned to me instead, and for the first time since I'd known his spirit, he looked scared.
"Keep an eye on my girl," he said. Then he was gone.
I stood on that sidewalk in the morning sun with Robert Hale's last words repeating in my mind and an unease crawling up the back of my neck.
Be careful. Someone you love is in trouble.
