“You know, I was thinking that you shouldn’t have to cook for yourself on your own birthday,” Alan said, brushing a piece of glitter from my cheek. “I was thinking you should come over to my place tonight after work so I could make you dinner.”
“Well, that’s mighty neighborly of you, Ranger Dahling.”
“Alan makes a mean lasagna,” Nate added with a wink.
“Don’t oversell it, Nate,” Alan warned him. “I’ll have to throw away the Stouffer’s box before she comes over.”
“I’m sure anything you make will be fine,” I told him. “Can I bring anything?”
“Nope, just yourself. And maybe wear the hat. It’s pretty damn cute.”
“I can’t just not bring something for my host. It’s practically against my religion.”
Nate and Alan gave me skeptical looks.
“Southern counts as a religion,” I insisted.
The party eventually broke up when some tourists came in looking for steak and eggs. Susie and Gertie tried to get me to wear my birthday hat all day, saying it would help our health-code rating if my hair was covered. I politely declined.
That afternoon, close to the end of my shift, there was a little white gift box on the bar. Inside was a spherical lump of rock about the size of a baseball. I thought it was a practical joke, until Evie, a wide grin on her face, grabbed the tool kit out of the utility room and took me out to the alley. Using an awl and a hammer, she carefully tapped at the top of the rock.
“Evie, what are you—”
“Shh. I’m concentrating,” she said, chewing her lip. “I haven’t done this in a couple of years.”
With one final ringing tap, the rock split open. Even in the dim light of the alley, I could make out the glimmer of milky crystal surrounded by dark slate-colored agate.
“It’s a thunderegg,” Evie said, her eyes twinkling. “The ancients believed that when the thunder spirits in the mountains were angry, they’d chuck these things at one another. It takes just the right geological conditions to make them, and they’re pretty rare, even around here.”
Thanks to my hippie parents, I’d seen a lot of crystals and geodes in my day but nothing compared to this. The patterns, the dance of light across even the rough slice, were hypnotic. “But why would someone leave one on the bar? As a tip?”
“It’s for you, for your birthday.”
I rolled my eyes. “Evie, it could be for anyone. Some tourist could have just left it there by accident.”
“Do you see anyone else turning thirty around here?”
“OK, if it’s for my birthday, who’s it from? Why didn’t they leave a card?” I asked.
“Sometimes the gift is message enough,” she said in her “wise” tone. “Fine, I saw him drop it off. I think someone feels a little guilty over how he’s treated you.”
“Cooper? But he—he—”
He howls at the moon and murders defenseless elk.
“He doesn’t like me,” I finished lamely.
“Aw, honey, he’s been nicer to you than he is to most of the locals. Sometimes a man just has to pull your pigtails a few times before he can deign to admit that he likes you. Honestly, I don’t know why we put up with any of them. You just wait and see. He’s coming around.”
“I don’t see how not insulting me or openly sneering at me for a few days can be considered being nice to me.” I snorted weakly. I looked down at my watch. I was supposed to be at Alan’s house in an hour. “Crap. I’ve got a date.”
“Well, that’s the right attitude to head into a date with,” she said, smirking.
“Alan’s fixing me dinner.”
Evie sighed. Loudly.
“What?”