Chapter 4: The Diner

I didn't argue with him.

I pulled the towel off my hair and pushed up the left sleeve of my T-shirt.

The scar ran from my wrist almost to my elbow.

Shiny and pink, stretched thin.

I held my arm out under the lamp so he could see all of it.

Thatcher looked.

He kept looking.

"I was nine," I said. "Ask her to show you hers."

Then I pulled the sleeve down and opened the door for him.

He went.

In the morning, Anne was alone at the breakfast table with the paper and a pot of coffee.

She poured me a cup before I sat down.

"I owe you an apology," she said. "Last night I looked at you as though you were a thief. For about four seconds."

"Five," I said.

Her mouth twitched.

"Five. I've had the earrings cleaned. I'd like you to wear them to the gala in October."

"No, thank you."

"I'm not giving them to you. I'm lending them. You'll give them back."

I thought about it.

"Then yes," I said.

She went back to her paper.

I think she was pleased.

Classes started on Tuesday.

I walked up the hill to campus with a used backpack and four used textbooks I had bought with my summer money from the garden center.

On Wednesday afternoon I walked down the hill to Wickenden Street.

The diner was exactly the same.

Red stools, a cracked pie case, a bell over the door that stuck halfway.

In my first life, I had worked here four nights a week for three years.

The cook was the same too.

Big gray beard, forearms like hams, a toothpick he had been chewing since before I was born.

He'd taught me how to carry four plates. He'd fed me every shift I couldn't afford to eat.

He didn't know me now.

"Help you?" he said through the window.

"I was hoping you were hiring."

"Were. Hired a girl Monday. Real sweet. Cried at the interview."

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