CHAPTER NINE
It started raining hard soon after May left, and it didn’t let up all morning.
The downpour cut way down on the number of people who came to the Saturday Greenmarket at Union Square. He and Amanda—the Figs waitress who ran the restaurant’s booth four days a week—crouched under the tent in their coats, drinking coffee from another booth and exchanging idle predictions of when the weather might clear up.
The people who did venture out to buy produce weren’t interested in standing around and chatting about honey, but they did buy a lot of honey white-bean soup. Ben had made it thick, with chunks of ham, and Amanda kept telling people it made an excellent breakfast food.
She was a hell of a saleswoman.
At ten, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and he looked at the screen. New voice mail.
It hadn’t rung. He checked his missed calls and saw two from an unknown number, the first ten minutes ago, the second just now. May.
He put his hand on Amanda’s arm, interrupting her conversation. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
“Okay.”
He ducked behind the tent.
The wind whipped up, and he had to hunch and pull his raincoat hood over his head in order to hear what she was saying in the message.
—sorry to bother you again, but I wasn’t sure—
—police report, and I don’t have it, so I don’t know—
—at a Starbucks, but it’s fine. Sorry to bother you—
—All right. Bye. Thanks again.
He listened to the message a second time, but he didn’t get much more from it than that she’d missed her flight, and he’d missed her.
Goddamn it.
Ben walked away from the booth, his loose fist curling and uncurling. Now how was he going to find her? There were a hundred Starbucks in New York, if she was even in New York. She could still be in Jersey.
Wherever she was, she was alone, and she didn’t even have a coat. She had forty-some dollars and a credit card number written on a menu.
He should’ve given her his own card. Made her wait for him to get cash from the machine, regardless of how little she liked the idea. Something.
He returned to his seat. A customer asked him why the honey from Jamaica Plain had a green tinge, and he said, “How the fuck should I know?”
Amanda gave him a look after the man scurried off.
“Sorry,” he said. “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“You can go grab lunch, if you want,” she said. “I’ll handle the honey for an hour. Or you could pack it in. It’s miserable out here today.”
If he went home, he’d just be rattling around the apartment, pissed off at himself. “No,” he said. “You go on to lunch, get warmed up. I’ll take care of the booth.”
“You sure?”
“I promise not to bite anybody.”
“There’s a comfort.” She stood and picked up her coffee. “All right. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
Ben huddled in the booth, hands jammed in his pockets, glowering. He didn’t sell any soup. Or anything else.
His phone rang again. Unknown Caller.