When Sadie first blew me off the day after the wine-tasting event, I started to panic about the whole Valor King idea. Getting up in front of everyone and being celebrated for something I still had conflicted feelings about didn’t seem like such an easy task once she was no longer within arm’s reach.
I wasn’t the kind of person who was going to pay somebody an obscene amount of money to listen to me bitch about my problems, but I could acknowledge that maybe I needed a game plan for dealing with this transition.
So I’d downloaded a bunch of mental health apps and tried out a process called “exposure.” I forced myself to interact with people in public a couple of times a day.
Yesterday, I managed to listen to Yvette Rogers tell me a twenty-seven-minute story about the weird noise her clothes dryer was making when I went to get gas at the Sip ’N Fill. My plan had been to chat with Marty behind the counter for a few minutes, but once Yvette saw me, I was toast.
Oddly though, listening to Yvette yammer on had been comforting. I’d done it a million times in my old life, and it gave me a weird sort of nostalgia. Like maybe things hadn’t changed as much as I thought they had since my accident.
At the end of our conversation she said, “I can’t wait to see you in that getup tomorrow. I hope they go with the feather-lined cloak this year,” and gave me a wink.
Her easy acceptance loosened something in my chest.
Today’s task was going to the Tipsy Elk. I wasn’t planning to stay long. The goal was to see if I could get to a place mentally where the stares and whispers didn’t make me want to tear my own skin off if I made an appearance somewhere more crowded than the gas station.
When I’d been with Sadie at the diner, it hadn’t even occurred to me to feel self-conscious. Going out alone was a whole different ballgame.
The drive was short enough that I didn’t have time to get too wrapped up in my own head. I pushed the heavy door open and was greeted by the smell of the lunch rush. Beer, hamburgers, and fried foods. I’d spent more lunch and dinner breaks in this place before my accident than I could count.
Paul gave me a nod from behind the bar and I headed over to him.
He lifted his brows in surprise when I plopped down on one of the stools in front of him. “Good to see you, man.” He reached out for a quick handshake. “What are you drinking?”
“Just water while I wait. I’ll get a bacon cheeseburger platter to go. That’s still on the menu, right?”
He grinned. “I’d be an idiot to get rid of one of my best sellers.”
He took a minute to put the order in, then leaned against the counter behind the bar. He regarded me casually. At least it looked casual. But Paul never inspected anything casually. He was former army intelligence, and he was always sizing up threats.
“You look good, man,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Today’s the big day, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“It’s a good thing you’re doing, helping out the town and Kobie like this. And it’s long past time you got some recognition for what you did.” He walked over to the sink and submerged a glass in the basin full of soapy water.
I got the impression he was building up to something, and a thin line of sweat broke out across my hairline.
“How much longer is Sadie going to be in town?” he asked.
“Through next weekend, I think. Until the end of the festival.”
He stuffed a towel into the glass he’d just washed and twisted it in his hand. “Your little writer friend, she gonna be a problem?”
I bristled. “How do you mean?”
“I mean,” he set the glass down and put both his hands on the bar, “half the damn town was in the diner when she spotted the Everetts there. Is she gonna blow up their spot?”
It was a reasonable question, but it still pissed me off. “No,” I gritted out, “she’s not. It’s going to be fine.”
“All right, then.” Paul raised his hands in surrender. “You know what’s going through her head better than the rest of us.”
He went back to washing dishes, and we sat there in silence until my food arrived.
I hoped I was right, and she wasn’t going to make a liar out of me.