Through the Heart by Kate Morgenroth Page A

that I’m here.”
    “No,” I said. “I’m not upset.”
    The understatement of the century.
    “So can I take you for a coffee?”
    Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see him, but for some reason I was also glad to be able to turn him down. “I can’t. I’m here alone this morning. I can’t leave the store. And even if Neil were here, I couldn’t just leave like that again.”
    “Then can you come sit down with me at one of the tables?”
    I shook my head. “Sorry, but I’m supposed to stay behind the counter, or if the store is empty, I can clean the tables or the windows.”
    “I’m not used to people telling me no,” he said, but he softened the remark by smiling as he said it.
    “You’re taking it well.”
    “I’m on my best behavior right now,” he admitted. “So is that no a real no or a no to coffee?”
    “It’s a no to coffee.”
    “What about dinner then?”
    “Yes.” I said it calmly, but if my insides were outside, I would have been doing backflips.
    “Good,” he said with obvious satisfaction, though not, I noticed, much surprise. “You’ll need to give me your address and tell me what time to pick you up.”
    “Why don’t we meet at the restaurant?” I suggested.
    “I like to pick my dates up.”
    “You might like it, but it’s not going to happen.”
    He didn’t like that. I could see it in his face. It’s not that he showed it exactly. But something went still.
    He took a moment, as if he were deciding which tack to go with. I think he chose honesty, but it’s so hard to tell. And if you chose honesty as a strategy, is it still honesty?
    “You’re going to make me suspicious. What are you hiding?” He said it lightly, but I could tell he wanted a real answer.
    But I wanted to hide everything for as long as I possibly could. If I could hide it all forever, maybe I could leave it behind as well.
    “If I told you, I wouldn’t be very good at hiding it,” I said.
    “Do you have a husband or boyfriend at home?”
    “Sadly, no. It’s much less interesting.”
    “I prefer less interesting. So no skeletons?”
    “No boyfriends or husbands anyway.” Maybe I should have dissembled more. Played the game. Been more mysterious. Pretended that there might be someone in the wings. But I couldn’t do it.
    “So you’re a woman who walks out, without other prospects. I was sure that you walked out on me because there was someone else.”
    “No, there’s no one else. But it can’t be so unusual for a woman to walk out without other prospects.”
    “Unless she’s just not interested . . . ?” he suggested in a half question.
    I just looked at him.
    “It’s unusual,” he assured me. “Most people don’t want to be alone. But it seems like you don’t mind.”
    That’s when I told him my first lie. “Not really,” I said.
    “Well, tonight I hope you won’t mind the company. But since I am a bit old-fashioned, and you won’t let me pick you up at your house, would you meet me here, and then we can drive together to whichever restaurant you choose? My one request is that it’s not Joe’s Diner.”
    “You’re afraid of Jeanette,” I said laughing.
    “Terrified,” he agreed.
    The rest of the day seemed very long. But finally the sun dropped in the west, and its rays slanted across the empty lot and through the windows into the store. The rays, as they reached the windows and then made their way across the floor of the café, told time like a sundial, and at this time of year, I noticed, when they reached the counter it was time to go home.
    I had a couple of hours before I had to be back at the store to meet Timothy, so I took the long way home, which is to say I drove past our street and out into the plains. Just outside of town, there’s a turnoff from the main road onto a gravel road that goes out into the wheat fields and dead-ends at an old grain silo. I took that turnoff, drove to the end, parked the car, and walked out into the fields.
    The weather