Chapter 6: The Lumberyard Cafe

"Tomorrow," Gabe said. "Nine o'clock, at the cafe by the lumberyard. Mindy will be there. I'll tell you what I can."

"Why not now?"

"Because I need her in the room when I say it."

He picked up his phone and turned the screen face down.

I went upstairs and did not sleep.

The cafe stood beside a lumberyard on Trent, a low brown building with a hand-lettered sign and a line of pickup trucks outside.

It was full at nine, mostly contractors with coffee and women from the nursery down the road.

Gabe had taken the booth at the back.

Mindy sat across from him with both hands around a mug. She watched me come in and she did not smile.

I slid in beside Gabe.

"Before anyone says anything," I said, "I want the answer to one question. Did you tell me what yet?"

Mindy looked at Gabe.

Gabe looked at the table.

"I think I'd like to be the one," Mindy said, "when it's the right time."

"This is the right time. We're all sitting here."

"Not in front of people."

"Then why did you pick a cafe?"

"Because you won't scream in a cafe," Mindy said. "Probably."

"I scream everywhere."

"I've heard."

Gabe made a sound that might have been a laugh, and I turned on him.

"Don't."

"I'm sorry."

The bell above the door rang.

I knew who it was before I looked.

Helen came in wearing her navy cardigan and her pearls, with two women from her church behind her, one carrying a casserole dish.

She stopped in the center of the room.

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