“Yes,” Dini said. “That’s part of it. In the book she writes, ‘When truth and love wrap themselves around the same stone, together they can propel it to fly, or drag it to the lowest sand.’”
“ ‘In truth is beauty and beauty is truth. That is all ye need to know.’”
Dini looked and said, “Hey, math teacher quoting Yeats,” before returning to the image on the flimsy cardboard. For the first time in a long time, Dini saw something new. Not a new face, but a new time. No wonder Hedda Krause looked so elegant in this photograph—her chin up with pride. She was a woman of prosperity at the time, a wife to a man of substance. This was who Hedda had been before the story started, before being relegated to the shadows. In this photo, she and Dini were the same age. Seeing this Hedda put a bit of salt in the sea of sweet familiarity. Dini had a new light in her brain, blinking in anticipation for the next one to make a new path. A whole new thread to the story she knew so well.
“I have to see more,” she said, and when Quin didn’t reply, she dragged her eyes away from Hedda’s image to find him tapping on his phone keyboard again.
“What’s that?”
“I said”—and then she stopped until he looked up at her—“I have to see more. Everything you brought. Let’s go, just promise you won’t make me run.” She held out her foot, showcasing the heel of her boot. “I’ll never make it.”
“I—” He glanced at his phone, then back at her, his expression dampening Dini’s enthusiasm. “I can’t. I have—something’s come up.” He rummaged in his bag, produced a leather money clip, and peeled off a twenty. “Breakfast is on me, of course. Thank you for making me change my order.”
His words and demeanor didn’t match the morning. He sounded like this was over when, really, it hadn’t quite started.
The battered book still sat in the middle of the table, more to his side than hers. He picked it up with the reverence it deserved. “I’m not leaving. I’ve just had something come up now. Something I have to…deal with. So—we can meet up again? Later?” He brought out his phone again and handed it to her. “Text yourself so I’ll have your contact, and I’ll text you when I’m free later today. Fair?”
The phone showed a blank message screen to an empty number. This she filled in, then tapped down to the waiting box and typed: DINI, I KNOW ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS PICTURE. MEET ME IN THE LOBBY BY THE COWBOY PAINTING. Q
She handed the phone back, leaving the message as a draft. “Don’t send this until it’s true.”
He read it, smiled, and tapped the screen. Within seconds, Dini’s phone buzzed in her bag. She nearly bounced in her booth. “You know about it?”
“I’ve seen it. I have it.”
“Is it—wait. Don’t tell me. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shook his head at the rapid redirection of her response. “You never asked.”
“Aha,” she said, triumphant that he still had so much more to learn. “Give me your phone.”
Without question, he did, and as she prepared to write a new message, it vibrated, and a ribbon of text unfurled across the top. YOLANDA: WHAT’S YOUR ETA? DYING OVER HERE.
The heart-eyed emoji made it clear that the sender of the text, Yolanda, wasn’t literally dying. Wasn’t lying somewhere, pulse dangerously low, world going dark. Yolanda was dying the way Dini had, during those moments when she didn’t think Quin was going to show. Or like the way her heart stopped when he stood to leave with such finality.
She closed the message app and handed the phone back. “Just text me whenever.”
“Might be this evening.”
Dini worked to keep her face neutral. Should she mention what she’d seen? Something flippant like, Are you sure Yolanda will survive? But she had no right, no reason—when all she cared about was the Christmas picture. Well, maybe not all …
“Evening’s fine,” she said, hoping to hide her disappointment in a cool-girl shrug. “I have stuff to do too. So anytime after six?”
“Sounds perfect.” He wrapped My Spectral Accuser back in its towel and stashed it in his bag before standing. “Can we call it? Six o’clock.”
“With the Christmas picture?”
“It’s a date.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, picturing Yolanda’s name and the kissy face emoji. “It’s the next part of the story.”