Left Drowning(11)

I look up. Artemis Piccola. I shake my head. “Odd name for a restaurant. No. I haven’t been here.”

The truth is that I rarely leave campus. My life follows a direct path from one place to another with virtually no wandering, except for nights that I get drunk enough to want a second party that might have more booze. Dorm to class, class to the cafeteria, back to the dorm, a quick trip to the library when vitally necessary, a stop at the union for coffee. If there’s no keg involved, I’m not one to linger or stray. Well, until today. Today I am breaking all the rules.

“What? You’ve never been here?” Christopher’s jaw might as well have fallen open. “Good Lord, girl, we need to fix that right away. This is practically a rite of passage. You certainly can’t graduate this spring if you haven’t eaten here. C’mon. I’m buying you lunch.” He swings open the door and waves me through the entrance.

After grabbing a menu from the rack on the wall, he leads the way through the maze of tables. The way that he moves is clean, almost stealthy, and soon we are sitting at a table buried at the back of the restaurant. The room is all wood and brick with no windows, and it’s incredibly dark despite the perfect weather outside. The hard bench that I sit on gives me a good view of the space, but because I have my back to a wall, Christopher has only me to look at. I spend a full minute wishing we were sitting in opposite seats.

He holds the menu in his lap and smiles playfully at me. “So, Miss Blythe, what part of the world would you like to visit today?”

“Um … What?” What is he asking me? I assume I am missing out on a joke that most people would get. “I don’t … I don’t know what you mean.” I feel incredibly awkward.

“Pick a country. Where would you like to go?”

For God’s sake, I barely leave my dorm room on most days, so the idea of foreign travel is not exactly at the top of my fantasies. “Greece?”

“You don’t seem very sure about that.”

I fidget with the zipper on my sweatshirt. “Greece,” I repeat more definitively. “Santorini.”

“Pick one more.”

My zipper digs into my hand as I pull it up and down. “Brazil.”

“Ah. Carnival.”

“Yes. Carnival.”

He flips open the menu. “I’m not sure if we can get as specific as Santorini, but you never know here at crazy Artemis Piccola.” He scans the page in front of him. “Ahhh. Based on your choice of locations, you will be having a gyro followed by the feijoada.”

I reach across the table and take the menu from his hands. What kind of place is this? The menu is a freakish collection of dishes that have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. Spicy tuna maki is listed right after vegan lasagna, and the specials are an African curry (choice of meat!) and a bacon-mushroom bison burger. I clear my throat. “And where are you going today?”

“Nowhere.”

I look up and frown. “Why not? Is the food that horrible?”

Christopher leans back in his chair. “No. I’d rather stay right here with you.”

“Oh.” I feel heat rise in my cheeks—although I can’t quite place the emotion. Excitement? Embarrassment? Whatever the feeling is, it’s something I haven’t felt in a long time. Feelings this intense make me undeniably nervous. I wonder if there is any chance that they serve liquor here. A shot or five of ouzo to go with my gyro might help me. I glance down. “So something local then. A cheddar cheese omelet and … what else? A whole cow? Is that Wisconsin-y enough for you?”

“Perfect!” He snatches the menu and makes a rather loud display of snapping his fingers while he calls out, “Waitress! Waitress!” He leans in conspiratorially. “The service here is atrocious.”

I cringe as he begins banging his fork against the water glass. And just when I thought he might be perfect.

“Do you have to do that every goddamn f*cking time you come in here?” A thin young woman with closely cropped black hair appears at our table. Her voice is level, but the cursing makes her irritation obvious.

“Yes, I do. Otherwise you might ignore me and let me simply pass out at the table from hunger.”

She sneers. “If you weren’t making such a racket, I’d be more than happy to let you f*cking collapse. What do you want?”

“I don’t want to hear my little sister say f*cking, and I do want to introduce you to somebody. Estelle, this is Blythe McGuire. Blythe, this is Estelle. My eternally cursing sister.”

Estelle puts her order pad and pen in one hand and reaches out with the other. “Pleasure to meet you. You must have incredible strength of character to be out dining with Christopher.”

“It’s very nice to meet you,” I say, fully aware of my messy hair and baggy sweatshirt. Especially next to Estelle, who is positively stunning. Any woman with hair that short has to be, because high cheekbones and sharp eyes are required to pull it off. Even with no makeup, her features are perfect. She is thin, probably too thin, with a boyish frame that makes her look like a model. I notice a good-sized cross that hangs from her neck, but she wears no other jewelry. Her look is simple and beautiful and not one that I could ever pull off.

“Are you two hungry?”

Chris starts to order, but is interrupted by a booming voice that comes from the entrance. “Christopher Shepherd! Have you stolen my girlfriend already?”