Page 57 of Life and Death
The restaurant wasn’t crowded—this was the off-season in Port Angeles. The host was a meticulously groomed guy a few years older than me, about my height but thicker through the shoulders. His eyes did that same thing that Allen’s and Jeremy’s had, bugging out for a second before he got control of his expression. Then it was his smarmiest smile and a goofy deep bow, all for her. I was pretty sure he didn’t even know I was standing there next to her.
“What can I do for you?” he asked as he straightened up, still looking only at her.
“A table for two, please.”
For the first time, he seemed to realize I was there. The look he gave me was quick and dismissive. His eyes shifted back to her immediately, not that I could blame him for that.
“Of course, er,mademoiselle.” He grabbed two leather folders and gestured for Edythe to follow. I rolled my eyes.Signorinawas probably what he’d been looking for.
He led us to a four-top in the middle of the most crowded part of the dining room. I reached for a chair, but Edythe shook her head at me.
“Perhaps something more private?” she said quietly to the host. It looked like she brushed the top of his hand with her fingers, which I already knew was unlike her—she didn’t touch people if she could help it—but then I saw him slide that hand to a pocket inside his suit coat, and I realized that she must have given him a tip. I’d never seen anyone refuse a table like that except in old movies.
“Of course,” the host said, sounding as surprised as I was. He led us around a partition to a small ring of booths, all of them empty. “How is this?”
“Perfect,” she said, and unleashed her smile on him.
Like a deer in headlights, the host froze for a long second, and then he slowly turned and staggered back toward the main floor, our menus still in the crook of his arm.
Edythe slid into one side of the closest booth, sitting close to the edge so that my only option was to sit facing her with the length of the table between us. After a second of hesitation, I sat, too.
Something thudded a couple of times on the other side of the partition, like the sound of someone tripping over his own feet and then recovering. It was a sound I was familiar with.
“That wasn’t very nice.”
She stared at me, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“Whatever that thing you do is—with the dimples and the hypnotizing or whatever. That guy could hurt himself trying to get back to the door.”
She half-smiled. “I do athing?”
“Like you don’t know the effect you have on people.”
“I suppose I can think of a few effects. . . .” Her expression went dark for a tiny second, but then it cleared and she smiled. “But no one’s ever accused me of hypnotism by dimples before.”
“Do you think other people get their way so easily?”
She tilted her head to the side, ignoring my question. “Does it work on you—thisthingyou think I do?”
I sighed. “Every time.”
And then our server arrived with an expectant expression, which quickly shifted to awe. Whatever the host had told him, it had been an understatement.
“Hello,” he said, surprise making his voice monotone as he mechanically recited his lines. “My name is Sal, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. What can I get you to drink?”
Like the host’s, his eyes never strayed from her face.
“Beau?” she prompted.
“Um, a Coke?”
I might as well not have spoken at all. The waiter just kept staring at Edythe. She flashed a grin at me before turning to him.
“Two Cokes,” she told him, and, almost like an experiment, she smiled a wide, dimpled smile right into his face.
He actually wobbled, like he was going to keel over.
She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh. The waiter shook his head and blinked, trying to reorient. I watched sympathetically. I knew just how he felt.
