Page 38 of The Woman By the Lake

I must have been staring at it, because she didn’t greet me.

She said, “My real name is Maggie. But tips are better from the tourists if I go the extra mile.”

This explanation caused a wave of relief to hit me, and I smiled at her.

“Get you something to drink while you look at the menu?” she asked.

“Do you have Perrier or San Pelligrino or something like that?” I asked in return.

She just stared at me.

I decided that was a no.

“Tea?” I requested.

“Iced and sweet?”

“Um, no, like chamomile or mint.”

She stared at me again.

“Just water,” I said.

She nodded, turned, filled a milky-turquoise plastic tumbler with water, which sloshed with the ice from the pitcher, and set it in front of me.

She then took off.

I looked at the menu and decided what I wanted immediately, so I put it back.

Dot/Maggie returned and raised one brow along with the pad in her hand with her pencil on it.

“Can I have a patty melt, without the onion, and instead of the fries, maybe a side salad?”

She sounded part offended, part astonished when she queried, “A patty melt without onions?”

I shrugged. “Onions aren’t my favorite.”

“I don’t recommend our salad,” she went on.

“Cottage cheese?” I tried.

She stared at me some more, mumbled, “I’ll see what we got,” then took off again.

Barely surviving that, I was rethinking my foray into Misted Pines, because it didn’t seem big-city girls were super welcome, as I reached for my water and took a sip.

I nearly did a spit take when a woman hopped onto the stool beside me, and she did this by putting both her hands to it, swinging her legs out to the sides as she hefted herself over it, and landing on her behind on the seat.

I stared at her in shock because, not only was this a strange thing to do, she wasn’t young, though she wasn’t exactly old, but she was quite a bit older than me.

That wasn’t the half of it, though.

She was wearing a white T-shirt with a red Santa face emblazoned on the front and the words Smells Like Christmas Spirit surrounding it. Dangling from her ears were lines of little gold, red and green bells, and on her head was a slouchy red beanie with an edge of white fur.

All of this, and it was mid-May.

“Hey,” she greeted, sticking a hand toward me aggressively for a shake. “I’m Kimmy.”

“Uh…hey,” I replied, hesitantly taking her hand because I didn’t want to seem rude.

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