Chapter 13: Not Your Call

"No," I said.

Magnus blinked.

"No?"

"You don't get to decide that." I came around the counter. "You've been deciding things about me for thirteen years. It's my turn."

"Darby, they egged your mother's handwriting."

"I can see that."

"Next it's the door. Then it's you." He pushed off the flat-top. "I'm not going to be the reason somebody throws something at you."

"Randall's the reason. You're just the excuse."

He didn't answer.

He walked out the back door, and a minute later I heard the truck start.

Gretchen leaned in from the front with a sponge in her hand.

"Did the giant just dump you in a kitchen?"

"He didn't dump me. He protected me."

"Same face," she said. "Different speech."

I scrubbed the window until my arms burned.

Then I went back to Gretchen's and stood under her shower until the hot water ran out.

At seven I put on the green wrap dress again.

"Oh no," Gretchen said from the couch. "Oh, I know that dress. That dress gets photographed."

"Good."

"Quarles, what are you doing?"

"Going to dinner."

Hearth's Saturday book had been empty that morning.

It wasn't empty now.

Every table was full, and none of them looked like Hearth people.

There were couples holding their phones low.

There were three women in a booth who stopped talking when I walked in.

The host saw me and closed his eyes.

"They came to look," he said quietly. "Every cancellation got rebooked in an hour. By people who wanted to see him."

"Then let's give them something to see."

I walked down the middle of the dining room.

Forks stopped.

Somebody whispered my name, and it carried.

Behind the long marble pass, the kitchen was working.

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