City of Shadows

Chapter 42

1 October 2001, Harcourt, Ohio

‘So that’s twenty-seven dollars and — ’

‘Ninety cents,’ Liam finished. He smiled at her and she blushed. ‘I know that off by heart.’

‘And I know what you’re gonna order by heart,’ said Kaydee-Lee. ‘Why do you always order the same thing?’

Liam had been up to the diner virtually every morning since they’d settled into the abandoned elementary school. It was boredom, that’s why he volunteered to do the breakfast bagel run. Maddy, Rashim and SpongeBubba seemed to be spending all their waking hours either poring over pencil-sketched schematics or huddled over a make-do workbench, carefully soldering electrical components together by the light of a desktop lamp. Sal seemed to be busy on the computers most of the time. They had a similar set-up of twelve networked PCs as they’d had back in Brooklyn, the old hard drives from the archway system installed. Once the W.G. Systems operating code had been loaded up and had successfully kicked Windows 2000 to the kerb, computer-Bob was able to talk Sal through installing all the other bits and pieces.

‘I know what bagel filling everyone likes… saves me having to, you know, disturb them from their work.’

Kaydee-Lee narrowed her eyes. ‘So, what are you guys up to down there at the school?’

‘Oh, it’s… it’s just a little science experiment, so it is.’

‘That sounds kinda cool.’

He curled his lip casually. ‘Aw, it’s nothing too exciting really. Uh, we’re… we’re measuring — ’ he scrambled to reach for a few sciencey-sounding terms and words — ‘measuring background particle emissions from, uh… from radio-micron particle toxin materials.’

She gazed at him, none the wiser. An awkward silence hung between them, begging to be filled. ‘Cool!’ she said, smiling. ‘I kinda liked science at school.’ Then she sighed. ‘Wasn’t any good at it, though.’ She huffed a little sadly. ‘Wasn’t much good at anything at school… that’s why I’m here, I guess.’

He followed her doleful gaze out of the broad window of the diner across a high street that was half made up of boarded-up stores. ‘I never see anyone else working in here. Is it just you?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Pretty much in the mornings. Arnie comes in at lunchtimes to cook. That’s when it gets real busy.’ She looked back at him. ‘We get a ladies’ sewing circle come in for lunch, regular as clockwork. Five old dears. The place is totally buzzing then.’

Liam laughed. He picked up the tone of sarcasm.

Yes, it was boredom that brought him up here, that and a chance to get some exercise. It was a fifteen-minute trip into town on the bicycle he’d found in the schoolyard. But… yes, if he was being honest, it was a chance to pop into the diner — always quiet at this time in the morning — and talk to Kaydee-Lee. Over the last few weeks they’d graduated from ‘how ya doing today’ niceties to talking about the weather, to really talking, to finally, politely exchanging their names.

‘Why do you stay here, Kaydee-Lee?’

She filled the silence with getting on with finishing up his take-out order, busy spreading a thick layer of cream cheese on to one of the bagels. She looked up at his question. ‘Harcourt?’

‘Aye.’

She hunched her shoulders. ‘Where else am I gonna go? I got a job and it’s OK, I guess. It’s not like I go home at night all stressed out or anything. I’m bored… but at least I’m not stressed.’

‘But you don’t intend to work in here forever, right? You’ve got a plan, a dream… a goal, so to speak?’

‘Jeeez! I’m, like, seventeen. I don’t even know what I’m gonna cook up for dinner tonight, let alone know where I wanna be when I’m your age.’

‘My age?’

She nodded. ‘You’re what? Like, twenty-five, twenty-six or something?’

Liam stifled an urge to gasp. Twenty-five? I’m sixteen! Sixteen!! But then he reminded himself he wasn’t any particular age. Not really. His false memory calmly tried to reassure him he was a sixteen-year-old boy from Cork, Ireland. But that was all meaningless claptrap now. Someone else’s fiction.

Kaydee-Lee looked up from her work, studied his troubled face. ‘Oh my God, did I just say something wrong?’

‘No… I just, I’m not that old.’

‘Oh God, you don’t have some kinda awful ageing sickness or something? Did I just put my foot in my mouth?’

Liam laughed. ‘No, don’t worry.’ He ruffled the scruffy mop of hair on his head. ‘It’s my grey bit of hair. Some people think I’m older than I am.’ He offered her a disarming smirk: an assurance that he hadn’t taken offence, that she hadn’t clumsily blundered on to uncomfortable ground.

‘Ahh, don’t you worry now. I’ve always had this little bit of grey. Me lucky silver streak, so it is.’

She nodded. ‘Well, I really like it.’ Her cheeks suddenly coloured a mottled pink once more. ‘I mean, you know… it looks cool. Kinda gothic.’

‘Gothic? What the devil does that mean?’

She smiled suspiciously at him. ‘Gothic? Sort of Sabbath-grungy-rocky? Kind of the whole steam-punky thing?’

‘You know,’ he shrugged. ‘I haven’t the first idea what any of that means.’

She laughed at that. ‘You’re so funny. The way you, like, talk… like a sort of young-old man — ’

‘ Old? Did I hear you just use the word “old”?’ The look of horror on his face was mock-serious.

‘No!’ she yelped. ‘No, I don’t mean that! I meant… I dunno, it’s like you’ve got old-style manners. If you know what I mean? Like you just stepped out of one of ’em ancient black and white movies.’

He spread his hands. ‘Well now, you’re never too young or too old for a dose of good manners, my dear.’

She chuckled behind the counter as she finished fixing the salt beef and cream cheese bagel, wrapped it up in greaseproof paper and put it in the plastic bag with the others. She tossed in some napkins and plastic forks and passed the bag over the counter to him. ‘I know an old-fashioned word that I can use to describe you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Enigma? That’s how you say it, right? You’re en-ig-mat-ic?’

‘You mean, a puzzle?’

She nodded. ‘Oh, you’re that all right, Liam. Exactly that. You’re a puzzle.’