The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  Jordan shook the other man’s hand. “How you doing, Bernie?”

  “Better than you,” he said, taking in Jordan’s worn clothes and ragged haircut. “I heard a rumor you moved to Hawaii.”

  Jordan slipped into a chair across from Bernie’s desk. “How come those are the ones that are never true?”

  “Where are you living now?”

  “Salem Falls.”

  “Quiet there, huh?”

  He shrugged. “Guess that’s what I was looking for.”

  Bernie was too sharp to miss the hollowness of Jordan’s voice. “And now?”

  Jordan concentrated on scraping a piece of lint off his sweater. After a moment, he lifted his head. “Now?” he said. “I think I’m starting to crave a little bit of noise.”

  Addie stuck her head in through the back door of the kitchen. “Hey, Jack, can you give me a hand?”

  He looked up through a haze of steam from the open dishwasher door. “Sure.”

  It was cold outside, and the mud sucked at the soles of his sneakers. Addie disappeared behind a high fence that enclosed the garbage bins. “I’m having a little trouble with the latch,” she said. Once Jack had followed her inside to check the mechanism, she snaked her arms around him. “Hi,” she said into the weave of his shirt.

  He smiled. “Hi.”

  “How are you?”

  “Great. You?”

  Addie smiled wider. “Greater.”

  “Well, see you,” Jack teased, grinning as Addie hung onto him for all she was worth. Bubbles rose inside him, the carbonation of happiness. When was the last time someone had so badly wanted him to stay put? “Is there really a problem with the latch?”

  “Absolutely,” Addie confessed. “I’m unhinged.”

  She kissed him, then, pulling his arms around her waist to hold her. They were wrapped tight as a monkey’s paw, secluded from public view by the walls of the fence. The stench of refuse rose around them like a dank jungle, but all Jack could smell was the vanilla that seemed to come from the curve of Addie’s neck. He closed his eyes and thought if he could hold onto one moment for the next fifty years, this might be it.

  Addie burrowed closer, and the movement set her off balance. They went tumbling backward, knocking over a row of metal garbage cans. The racket scattered the few birds who were whispering like old gossips about the two of them. They swooped over Jack and Addie, picking at spilled chicken bones and vegetable peels curled into tiny tornadoes, cawing disapproval.

  Jack took the brunt of the fall. “This gives a whole new meaning to the term trashy romance.”

  Addie was laughing, but at his words, she stopped. “Is that what this is?” she asked, a child standing in the presence of a rainbow and afraid to blink even once, for fear that it might be gone when she opened her eyes. “Are you my romance?”

  Before Jack could answer, the door to the fence—unlatched—burst open, and he found himself staring into the single black eye of a revolver.

  “Jesus, Wes, put that thing away!” Addie pushed herself off Jack and got to her feet, dusting off her uniform.

  “I was walking by for a cup of coffee, and I heard the bins fall. I figured it might be a robber.”

  “A robber? In the trash bins? Honestly, Wes. This is Salem Falls, not the set of Law and Order.”

  Wes scowled, annoyed because Addie didn’t appreciate his daring rescue attempt. “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Nothing deodorant soap won’t cure. I knocked over the trash can, that’s all. Last time I checked, that wasn’t even a misdemeanor.”

  But Wes wasn’t listening. He was staring at Jack, who’d been pulled upright by Addie and was still grasping her hand. Neither one seemed inclined to let go, and even more strange, neither one seemed to realize they were holding onto each other.

  “Oh,” Wes said, his voice very soft. “It’s like that.”

  “He works in a diner,” Whitney said, drawing on her straw until it made a slurping noise. “What would your father think if he knew you were hot for a guy nearly his own age who washes glasses for a living?”

  Gillian drew a fat J in the grease on her plate. “Money isn’t everything, Whit.”

  “Easy to say when you’ve got it.”

  Gilly did not hear her. She scowled, wondering why Addie had been the only employee to come into the restaurant part of the diner. If she didn’t even see Jack, her spell would never work. Gillian lifted her elbow and deliberately knocked over a milkshake. “We need some napkins over here!”

  Addie sighed at the mess but hurried over with a packet of napkins and a Wet-Wipe. “Let me get someone to mop the floor.”

  Jack came out then, all six-foot-two inches of him. When he bent to swab beneath the table, Gilly saw the crooked part in his golden hair, a spot she had a sudden, urgent desire to kiss. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can clean it up.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Well, at least let me help.” Gilly reached for the napkins and this time knocked over Meg’s Coke. Jack jumped backward, the crotch of his pants soaked.

  “Oh my gosh.” Gilly pressed the wad of napkins high against Jack’s thigh, until he stiffly removed her hand.

  “I’ve got it,” he said, and left for the men’s room.

  The minute he was gone, the girls began to whisper: “Jesus, Gilly, did you have to give him a hand job right in the middle of the diner?”

  “You knocked my drink over on purpose . . . You’d better pay for a new one!”

  “He does look a little like Brad Pitt . . .”

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” Gilly announced. As she reached the restrooms, Jack came out of the one on the right. “Sorry about that again,” she said cheerfully, but he didn’t even answer. He sidled past her, trying hard not to touch her in any way. Well, that didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her once she cast her spell.

  Gilly crept into the men’s room, fascinated at the site of the urinal with its smelly little cake in the bottom. The sink was still dripping water. Gilly shut the nozzle more tightly, then fished from the trash can the topmost piece of paper toweling. Surely this was the one that Jack had used; it was still damp. She tore off a square from the part she imagined had touched his skin. Then she opened up her little purse.

  Inside was a scroll of paper on which she’d written JACK ST. BRIDE, a red rose, a white rose, and a piece of pink ribbon. She tucked the piece of toweling inside the scroll and rolled it up again. Then she took a Swiss army knife her father had given her the year she was ten and sliced each rose in half lengthwise. She placed together a white half and a red half, sandwiching the scroll in between, and wrapped them tightly with the ribbon.

  “One to seek him,” Gilly whispered. “One to find him. One to bring him, one to bind him. Whoever keeps these roses two, the sweetest love will come to you.”

  She turned on the tap—it really should have been a stream, but this was all the running water she could find—and held the head of the combined rose beneath it, then tossed the remaining petals into the trash.

  “What are you doing?”

  Gilly almost jumped a foot to find Addie Peabody there. “Washing my hands,” she said, trying to hide the posy.

  “In the men’s room?”

  “Is it? I didn’t look at the sign.” She could tell Addie wasn’t buying a single word, so she decided to go on the defensive. “What are you doing in the men’s bathroom?”

  “I own it. And I clean it hourly.” Addie narrowed her eyes. “Whatever you were doing in here, just finish up and leave. . . . What’s that?”

  Gilly quickly tucked her hand behind her back. “Nothing.”

  “If it’s nothing, why are you trying to hide it from me?” Addie grabbed Gilly’s arm and pried open her fingers. “I suggest you and your friends pay your bill and leave.” Without even glancing at it, she absently slipped the posy into the wide pocket of her apron and left Gillian standing alone.

  Wes h