“What is this we? She told me Gabe sleeps over.”
“What about it?”
“You can’t play house with someone else’s kid! You could get in big trouble. And what will you do when your field season is over?”
“I haven’t told Ursa yet—don’t freak out . . .”
“What?”
“I might try to become her foster parent.”
Tabby slapped her hand to her forehead. “Holy fucking shit. You’re serious.”
“I am.”
“Frances Ivey said no kids.”
“Do you think that’s going to stop me? I love this kid.”
They both went silent, Jo as shocked as Tabby.
“Jo . . .”
“What?”
“I think you should call that doctor you saw up in Chicago.”
“I had lots of doctors.”
“You know what I mean,” Tabby said.
“The psychologist—the one you used to call Dr. Death?”
“Yeah, her.”
“You know what she told me? She said survivors can live and love more fully than people who haven’t stared death in the face.”
“Seriously . . . what are you doing?”
“I guess I’m being a survivor.” She opened the door and strode down the walkway.
“I love you, Jojo!” Tabby called from the porch.
“Love you, too, Tabs.”
Suffering wounds large and small, the three of them kept silent during the drive to Interstate 57. Not a word was spoken all the way to the town of Mattoon.
“My dad liked a barbeque place here,” Gabe said.
Jo hit the brake pedal. “Should I stop? We need gas, and Ursa is hungry.”
“I wanted pizza!” Ursa said.
Gabe turned around to look at her. “There’s a good pizza place coming up down the road. It’s one of those old-fashioned places that has a jukebox.”
“I want Tabby!”
“I don’t think they serve that,” he said.
“Shut up!”
“Hey, that’s not nice,” Jo said.
Gabe turned back to face the windshield. The car fell silent again. Jo drove past Mattoon.
“I’m sorry, Gabe,” Ursa said a few minutes later.
“Apology accepted. And I’m sorry I messed up your plans.” He twisted around to look at her again. “Do you want to try the pizza place up ahead? I used to go there when I was your age. I liked to play the jukebox, too.”
“I bet they don’t have ‘Purple People Eater.’”
“We’ll find something good.”
“You better make sure this place is still in business,” Jo said.
“It will be. It was huge with the locals and always crowded.”
He used his cell phone to find the restaurant. Jo glanced in the rearview mirror at Ursa. She was drawing again. The colored pencils and art pad had been great purchases. “What are you drawing?” Jo asked.
“A purple people eater.”
Art was a form of self-soothing for Ursa. When she wanted something or missed someone, she would often draw whatever it was to satisfy her need.
They arrived in Effingham at dusk. At that late hour, Jo would rather have gotten fast food than stop for a sit-down dinner. But if Gabe was up for seeing a childhood haunt, she was, too. Connecting with his dad might be just what he needed.
While Gabe navigated to the restaurant, Ursa hunched over her art pad, wholly focused on her drawing despite the failing light. “Bring your art stuff inside,” Gabe said as Jo parked. “The pizza takes a while to cook, and it’ll give you something to do.”
Jo surveyed the long row of motorcycles parked beneath the multicolored bulbs strung along the eaves of the restaurant. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“This is it,” Gabe said. He opened Ursa’s door. “Thank god they haven’t changed it. The parking lot is still all gravel. And look how many cars are here.”
“Look how many Harleys are here,” Jo said.
“I know. Isn’t it great? It’s straight out of the sixties.”
“I wouldn’t know how authentic it is.”
“Arthur did. Too bad he isn’t here. He loved this place at night.”
“It looks a little rough.”
“You see, that’s the problem with people now. They glimpse a little color in their gray fast-food world and they panic. Places like this are too real for them. But this is the kind of place where the really interesting stories of humanity play out.”
“I think I’m getting one of Dr. Nash’s lit lectures.”
“You are, and I completely agree with him. Imagine this place described in a book you’re reading and try to put McDonald’s in its place.”
“I think those two restaurants would be used for very different purposes in a book.”
“Exactly. No comparison. One would be a metaphor for all that’s dreary in our lives and the other for what little unpredictability still exists.”
“As long as the unpredictability doesn’t include a biker knife fight, I’m up for it.”
“A biker knife fight—now that would be excellent!”
“You know, the Arthur side of you is a little scary,” she said.
“Ursa, are you planning to come out of the car anytime this century?” he said.
“I don’t want to eat here,” she said.
“Not you, too!”
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “I want to go home.”
“This place is perfectly safe.”
“It’s not that. I’m just not hungry.”
“What’s with her tonight?” he asked Jo.
“She’s in Tabby withdrawal—it can be rough. Go inside and get a table and let me talk to her.”
“Should I give you the tire iron for protection first?”
She swatted his shoulder. “Go. Make sure there’s a table before I expend a lot of energy out here.”
Jo leaned into the open door and said, “Gabe really wants to do this. Can you cooperate, please, just for him? Even if you’re not hungry?”
“This place looks stupid,” she said.
“Bring your pencils and paper and don’t look at it.”
She didn’t move.
“You heard what Gabe said—his dad loved this place. His father died two years ago, and this is a way for Gabe to connect with him. Do you understand how that would be?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then come on. Do it for Gabe. He’s in there waiting at a table.”
Ursa reluctantly slid out of the car. Jo reached in and got her box of colored pencils and pad of paper. She looked at the purple people eater on the top of the pad. “That’s great,” she said. “I love how you did his mouth.”
“It has to be that big because he can eat people whole.”
“The teeth are pretty scary.”
“He doesn’t actually eat people anymore. He went to the magic forest where Juliet and Hamlet live, and they taught him to be nice.”
“He’ll be in your play about Juliet and Hamlet?”
“I don’t know. I only pretended he was in the magic forest while I drew him.”
They mounted a worn plank porch lit with colored bulbs. Jo pulled back the heavy wooden door, and as soon as she stepped inside, she understood Arthur’s fascination with the place. The interior was mostly made of timber—plank floors, paneled walls, and wooden booths and tables—and the scoured wood seemed imbued with the smell of time, of people’s stories, as Gabe had said. The place was redolent of pine and pizza grease, and of sweat, whiskey, and tobacco, the mingled smells aging like wine in an old oak barrel. Nancy Sinatra’s sixties hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” was playing on the flashing jukebox. It perfectly suited the vibe, but the song was nearly drowned out by laughter and voices. The atmosphere was dark, mostly lit with colored lights, except for billiard lamps over three pool tables at the rear of the room. Around the tables, a group of tattooed men and women drank beers and gabbed as they watched the pool balls roll.
Many eyes followed Jo and Ursa to Gabe, seated at a table in the middle of the room. The patrons—mostly locals from what Jo could tell—probably knew she and Gabe were tourists. Their jeans and T-shirts blended in, but Jo’s AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY shirt certainly outed her.
Jo sat opposite Gabe, and Ursa took the chair between them at the little square table. “Great, isn’t it?” Gabe said.
“I have to admit, I feel like I’ve gone back to another era. But I think they all know we’re time travelers.”
“They don’t care. We’re supporting the local economy.” He picked up Ursa’s hand and looked at her lavender fingernails. “That’s a nice color. Did Tabby do your toenails, too?”
Ursa nodded. “They’re dark purple.” Pencil in hand, she bent over her purple people eater again, her face hovering close to the paper so she could see in the dim light.
Gabe opened the menu. “What do you want on your pizza, Ursa?”
She didn’t lift her head. “Whatever you want.”
Because Jo ate little red meat, especially cured meat, they ordered a large pizza that was half vegetarian and half sausage and pepperoni.
“What to drink, darlin’?” asked a fortyish waitress with heavy makeup and burgundy pigtails.