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“They seem to change from week to week, but they’re big. Very big.” He laughed some more.
The restaurant continued to fill up until only a few empty seats along the bar remained. Glancing at the other patrons, I discovered that they were all white. I don’t know why I found that so disconcerting, but I did. Maybe Jace had a very good reason to hide her relationship with the Hispanic kid at Fit to Print.
While Axelrod busied himself assisting the other bartender, Jace served the hot roast beef.
“Thank you,” she said when she set the plate in front of me on the bar.
“For what?”
“For what. For not blowing my cover.”
“I take it your father doesn’t know about Tapia.”
“Nobody knows. Not really.”
“Is your dad a bigot? Will he not understand?”
Jace looked at me like I had just slapped her.
“My father is not a bigot.”
“I’m sorry. I thought . . .”
“My father wants me to go to college, that’s all.”
“And you want to stay here?”
“Yes.”
“Because of Tapia?”
She nodded.
McKenzie, my inner voice told me, you’re an idiot.
Jace busied herself with other customers, while I ate. I had to admit, the roast beef was delicious, and while the mashed potatoes weren’t quite as good as mine, I ate every forkful—no Atkins Diet for me! Jace eyed the empty plate before she cleared it, glanced at my waistline, then back at the plate again.
“Huh,” she said. “You must work out.”
“Not recently, unfortunately.” I retrieved my wallet. “Should I pay you now?”
“Boss says it’s on the house.”
I opened my wallet, took out a fifty, and dropped it on the tray Jace was holding.
“I don’t imagine that includes tips,” I said.
“That’s way too much.”
“I remember what it was like to be a poor, starving college kid.”
“Thank you,” Jace said.
“You’re welcome.”
She moved away, stopped abruptly, and spun toward me.
“You’re on his side.”
“If I should have a daughter, I’d want her to go to college, too.”
“Puhleez,” Jace said.
Still, despite her outrage, she didn’t return the fifty.
In between drink orders, Axelrod came to visit. He told a lot of jokes—most could be heard by the rest of his patrons—while I behaved like I had taken Good Cheer 101 in college. Eventually, I asked the questions I had come to ask.
“Beth was pretty,” Axelrod said in reply to one of them. “Only she wasn’t very bright and she took herself way too seriously. At least that’s what I always thought. ’Course I think everyone takes themselves way too seriously.”
“How about Coach Testen?”
“Him most of all. He pretends that winning the championship ranks as one of the greatest sports achievements of all time. I can understand. I mean, it’s the only thing he’s ever done. Only you know what? It wasn’t nearly as exciting or earth-shattering as Coach and some others make it out to be. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind that he’s nurtured it, made a legend outta it. Around here some people treat me like I’m a celebrity cuz of it. It helped me make a go out of this place.” He gestured at the restaurant. “So, believe me, I don’t mind.
“What you gotta remember, small towns are different from big towns. The past is more important to us. We tend to live there longer. That’s why Coach gets nervous when he thinks someone might tarnish the legend he’s created. Have you seen his museum? Good God.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it.”
“So you know what I mean.”
“Tell me about the night Elizabeth Rogers died,” I said.
“You’re not gonna let that go, huh? Okay.”
Axelrod added very little that I didn’t already know except this: The Seven, all of them, had left the party an hour before Elizabeth had.
“We’d been hoarding beers all night without the parents or Coach catching on. Especially Coach. The man woulda freaked. When we had enough, we left and went to drink them.”
“Where did you go?”
“Josie Bloom’s basement. His parents were gone and we went down there and just got wasted.”
“Was Jack Barrett with you?”
“I don’t know where Jack was.” Axelrod seemed serious for a moment, or as close to it as he could manage. “I never asked him where he was.”
An instant later, he was back to his jovial self.
“I heard Jack was angry with Beth,” I said.
“Nah, it was the other way round. Beth was getting all paranoid on him, accusing him of things, saying how he was sleeping with another girl, stuff like that.”
“Was he?”
“If he was, none of us ever found out about it, and being as how Victoria was such a small town back then, we probably would have. I figure Beth saw the writing on the wall. She knew Jack was going to leave her for the U and this was a way of saving face. You know, dump him before he dumped her.”
“They broke up?”
“Well, sure. It was inevitable. I mean, God, they were kids. If Jamie got involved with someone at that age, I’d whack her upside the head.”