The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(21)

Vernon found the word stellar and circled it.

“They can’t all think the Mills is a great place to live. Can they?”

Lizzie Lovett must not have thought so. She left after graduating. Though, admittedly, she didn’t get far. Only down the road to Layton and a job at the Sunshine Café. Where, apparently, her boyfriend Lorenzo would visit her sometimes.

I wondered how much Lorenzo Calvetti loved Lizzie and if her turning into a werewolf would ruin his life forever.

“Why didn’t you leave Layton, Vernon?”

Vernon finally looked at me and said in a high, crackly, old man voice, “Did leave. Fer nearly thirty years. Din’t git far though. Come back in the end.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Cuz it’s no difference wheresabouts yinz live, girlie. Zak same trouble everywhere.”

I sighed. “Well, that doesn’t give me much hope for the future.”

“Hope? Wah good ya think hope gonna do?” Vernon said, then threw back his head and cackled.

I laughed too. Because maybe, probably, it was a better response than I’d get from anyone else.

I spent the rest of my first waitressing shift reading The Book of Werewolves by this guy named Sabine Baring-Gould. It was written a long time ago but is still considered one of the most important werewolf texts. Every once in a while, I jotted down notes in a composition book.

“Is that something for school?” Christa asked.

“Uh. Sort of.”

“Looks like a lot of work.”

It was. I didn’t mind though. I wished I could show my teachers and Emily and everyone else that I could apply myself. I just needed the right subject to come along. Werewolves seemed to be just my thing.





Chapter 9


Lorenzo Calvetti

Sometimes, I thought I was really observant, like I saw all this stuff that other kids at school missed, like how ninety-five percent of what they cared about was actually totally pointless. Then there were other times when I missed something so super obvious that I wondered how observant I was after all.

What happened was, on my fourth night working at the Sunshine Café, I walked right by Lorenzo Calvetti without noticing him.

I spent so much time wondering about him, what he was going through, how he was dealing with having a missing girlfriend who was possibly dead but more probably a werewolf, that I had a whole picture of how I would meet him and what we would talk about. I thought of Lorenzo Calvetti only slightly less than I thought about Lizzie. But I still walked right by him.

Christa was the one who pointed him out while I was putting on my apron in the kitchen. I’d gotten to work late, since my car keys had gone missing again.

“Did you see who’s here?” she whispered, nodding toward the dining room.

I glanced out the little window. Vernon was at his usual place, and a guy was sitting alone at a booth near the door. I shrugged at Christa, who was acting weird and flustered, like Adolf Hitler was out there chowing down on biscuits and honey butter.

“That’s him,” Christa said. “Lizzie’s boyfriend.”

I froze.

“He probably killed her, and I’ve been bringing him coffee for the last hour. That’s all he wants. Black coffee.”

I looked out at the dining room again. Lorenzo Calvetti. Lizzie’s boyfriend. It was him in the booth. I’d only seen him twice, once in a newspaper picture and once from far away at the vigil. He looked even skinnier up close. His hair was greasy. His clothes looked slept in. But since he was maybe, probably, going through a really awful time, I figured I should cut him some slack. I shouldn’t expect him to look the way he did in the newspaper photo when Lizzie was snuggled up next to him. That picture had been taken when he was happy. When he had a girlfriend. When he didn’t have half the county pitying him, which was better than the other half, who thought he was a murderer.

Christa moved closer to me, as if Lorenzo could hear us from across the diner. “He totally creeps me out.”

“I’ll take over,” I said.

I could tell Christa was relieved, which sort of made me feel good but sort of made me feel guilty, because Christa’s discomfort hadn’t inspired me to make the offer.

“Really? You don’t mind? My shift is almost over anyway.”

I told her that it really wasn’t a problem until she looked like she believed me. I just had to make a quick phone call first.

? ? ?

“Emily? You won’t believe who’s here,” I whispered.

“Who’s where?”

“At the café. I’m working.” I’d gone into Mr. Walczak’s office to make the call, because I’d forgotten to charge my cell phone again. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind, due to the obvious importance of the situation.

“Is it Lizzie wondering why you stole her job?”

Since when was Emily such a comedian?

“This is serious, Em.” I was so anxious that I was practically bouncing. The conversation was taking too long, and if Lorenzo was gone by the time I got back, I was pretty sure my plan would be ruined.

“OK, Hawthorn. Who’s there?”

“Lorenzo Calvetti.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Lizzie’s boyfriend?”