Natalie answered, “Yes. He is.”
Owen lifted his eyes heavenward. “Owe ya one, Big Husker.”
“Well, this is real seldom for us here,” Dick said.
Everyone in the café groaned.
He ignored them. “Just how long did you plan to stay?”
Pierre sourly told him, “We have miss-ed our bus.”
“Owen, when’s the Greyhound due next?”
With a grin, he answered, “Way afterwards.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“We are on the same page, my friend.”
Worriedly, Pierre whispered to Natalie, “Qu’est ce qui se passe?” (What’s happening?)
She shrugged.
Watching intently from the kitchen, Carlo Bacon—whose real name was Carl—thought it high time to insert himself into the plot, and he walked out into the dining room, wiping his hands on the “Kiss the Cook” apron he wore in hopes that Iona would one day take the hint. He’d been a high school classmate of the waitress, and he hankered for her in the worst way, but he was skinny as a clarinet and toad-eyed and shrewd, with a Dick Tracy mustache and dyed black hair that he slicked back with Wildroot, and whenever he was around Iona he was so jittery that people said he made coffee nervous.
“So they’re waylaid here?” he asked Owen, and Owen gave him a coded look. Carlo nodded, tilted toward Iona to confide, “I’ll go get your Grandma,” and then hurried outside to the three-story rooming house next door. But when he was hurtling up the front porch steps, he saw the paisley See America bus warily rolling into Seldom, all its windows filled with faces hunting the lost Europeans.
Wildly waving his arms, he jumped to the lawn and sprinted toward the tour bus, halting just in front of it. The brakes whined and a side door wheezed open as he went around to it. “Are you looking for a French couple?” Carlo asked.
With irritation the bus driver turned to his paying customers. “Were they French?”
Opinions were multiple.
“Had accents,” the bus driver told him.
“Well, they’ve decided to stay in our Arcadian greenery for a while. The Revels and all. So: mystery solved. Au revoir.”
Eyeing him with suspicion, the bus driver asked, “Do they know there’s no refund?”
“Oh, they’re real cavalier about that.”
A funk settled on the See America man as he shifted into reverse. “But they were just about to meet Little Miss Middle-of-Nowhere!”
Carlo ticked his head. “That’s why it was such a thorny decision.”
In the Main Street Café, Pierre heard a familiar noise of grinding gears and squeezed his face against the window to get a view south as he asked, “Est-ce que c’était notre auto-car?” (Was that our bus?)
“Vous le détestiez.” (You hated it.)
“Mais c’était avant que je ne sois venu ici.” (But that was before I came here.)
Dick heard their fractious tones and asked, “Excuse my being so personal, but you two married?”
And Pierre said, too fiercely, “Ha!”
Natalie scorched him with her eyes. “Ha?”
“Oui,” he said. “C’est très drôle.” (Yes. It’s very funny.)