The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

saw Ben glance over at her, not sure what to make of her comment. She laughed, so that he’d know she was joking at her own expense. “The bastard charged me for the full booking anyway.”

“You’d have thought he’d have given you fifty percent off.” He flashed her a smile, and it was as if everything came into focus. His tousled brown hair had gray flecks that had become more pronounced in the time she’d known him.

She took a too-big sip of her wine and watched Ben talk. He was boyish with soft blue eyes—you could almost picture his sixth-grade photo. In fact, there were youthful versions of Ben in photos all around Delilah’s. The walls were decorated with local photos from the town’s past, grainy 1970s snaps, sharp black-and-whites where people dressed too formally and posed in awkward clumps. Near the wooden hostess station, there was a photo of a young Ben Archer from the 1982 Kerrigan Falls High baseball team lineup, kneeling and holding his glove in his lap.

Since Todd’s disappearance, Ben Archer had been her lifeline to any details on Wickelow Bend or the case. In the weeks after the non-wedding, the mere sight of Ben Archer in her driveway had made her pulse quicken—hoping some thread of evidence of Todd’s whereabouts would come to light. They worked together to formulate new and wild theories about the disappearance, often talking well into the night.

His apartment was only five houses from Lara’s Victorian. Often they both worked late and then hit Delilah’s for a few drinks. After missing each other or arriving just as the other was leaving, a few months ago, they began making plans to show up at the same time. Now their dinners had become a habit.

Del interrupted again and launched into a description of the special: Southern mac and cheese casserole with ham and shrimp.

After they’d ordered, Lara leaned in conspiratorially. “You never told me about the funeral.”

Over the weekend, Ben had gone to his college roommate’s funeral in Charlottesville. The roommate, Walker, had only learned he’d had stage four pancreatic cancer two weeks ago.

“Well, it was a keen reminder of my mortality.” He hesitated. “His wife propositioned me at the luncheon.”

Lara’s eyes went wide. “No!”

“She did.” He nodded shyly. It was rare that he was divulging something like this to Lara.

“How?”

“How?” He looked perplexed and his eyebrow raised.

“I mean, did she let her hand wander while trying to secure a cucumber sandwich?”

He shook his head and took a sip of his Jameson, wincing as it went down. “No. She put her hand on my ass.”

Lara doubled over laughing. “Ewww, her husband was just buried.”

“I know,” he said gravely.

“So?” Lara pressed. “What did you do?”

“Oh, nothing.” He shrugged a little too vaguely for Lara’s liking.

As the conversation went on, he continued to gloss over the details of what had actually happened after the wake. That he’d slept with the widow was a real possibility. As their mac and cheese arrived, Lara had begun to care about this detail—it needled at her—and the vexation surprised her.

Over the hour that followed, Lara found herself noticing things about Ben Archer that she’d never paid attention to in the nine months that she’d known him well. There was a growing energy she felt, like the first flicker in a tinder nest. For the first time, she hadn’t asked him for news on Todd. To her surprise, she was living in this moment. It was so unexpected that it only made the attraction she was feeling more interesting.

Well, that and the wine.

They traded favorite Hitchcock films (hers North by Northwest, his Vertigo), favorite James Bond films (his Dr. No and hers a tie between Diamonds Are Forever and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service—to which he claimed there could be no tie for a favorite James Bond film, so she hesitantly chose Diamonds). He challenged her to recite the fifty states in alphabetical order (a rare skill she possessed from the song “Fifty Nifty United States”) and wrote out each of them on a napkin, insisting she’d missed one. (She hadn’t.)

As the evening wore on, Lara found that she cared about his answers to these mundane questions. With all these details, she was connecting the dots that formed Ben Archer. Stories he’d told her in passing—usually when she was crying and blubbering on about Todd—came flooding back to her as patchy memories. In her head she tried to reassemble them, because they mattered now. What had he told her about his first girlfriend? Where had he proposed to Marla? As she watched him talk, she strained to recall every detail from seeing Marla earlier today and wondering how she measured up to his rather stunning ex-wife. She racked her brain to remember their every conversation. In the early days, she cared less about his stories and more about how they related to Todd. But tonight, over dinner, their relationship began to shift. And she’d allowed herself this change.

She scanned the room, suddenly self-conscious about what people thought of them.

Hours later, after finishing the macaroni and cheese special, brussels sprouts, and another glass of wine that was definitely giving her a headache, Lara began to gather her purse.

Del presented one bill, and Ben Archer reached for it.

“You don’t have to do that.” Lara reached for the pleather holder with a faded Amex logo to pull it away from him.

“I know. I should make you pay for both of us.” He lifted one eyebrow, something that Lara marveled he could do. “It occurs to me that among my recent loot, there was no birthday present from you. I’m a little hurt. I could have used a lighter.”

“You don’t smoke.”

“For barbecuing and lighting candles,” he said as he scanned the bill.

“I’ve never seen you barbecue anything and I’m pretty sure you don’t own a single decorative candle, Mr. Archer.”

“Quit being so smug that you know me so well. An oven mitt, then.”

“You don’t cook. You come here every night.”

“A blood pressure cuff, then.”

“Eh.”