What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright (most read books txt) 📗

with custom cakes and desserts, located directly across Division Street from where I was sitting. I was watching the front door because I wanted to see Elliot when she arrived; I wanted to see who her friends were. Mostly, though, I wanted to see if she drove there from Carleton College, where she was majoring in English with a minor in creative writing. A license plate number could be very helpful, I told myself.

Elliot appeared a good ten minutes before I was scheduled to arrive, which I thought was intentional. She did not drive. Instead, she had walked the half mile from the dorms at Carleton. She had four friends with her, three guys and one woman. I identified her by the way she seemed to be giving instructions to the others. The three guys were big enough that they could give me a hard time if they knew how to handle themselves, which I doubted. The woman was petite, with bright blond hair cut short. Elliot had long auburn hair that she wore in a ponytail.

All five of them went inside the CakeWalk. I took my time finishing the burrito and a bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola, which was sweetened with cane sugar instead of that high-fructose corn syrup crap you get in the United States, policed my table, and stepped across the street. I arrived at CakeWalk two minutes before the appointed hour. One of the guys and the woman I had assumed was Elliot were sitting together on a black leather sofa in front of a coffee table. The other two guys were sharing a small table against the wall. The petite blonde was sitting between them at an undersized pink picnic table beneath a sign that read I NEVER MET A PROBLEM A CUPCAKE COULDN’T FIX.

It was the blonde who stood when I entered.

“Mr. McKenzie?” she asked.

“Ms. Elliot?” I said.

She stepped toward me as I approached. She seemed to be debating whether she should hug me or not. I solved the dilemma by offering my hand.

“Thank you for seeing me, Elliot,” I said.

“You’re welcome, cousin. Should I call you cousin?”

“McKenzie is fine.”

We sat at the table and stared at each other for a few beats. She had one of those round faces that made it easy to imagine what she had looked like as a baby—dimples, big bright eyes, easy smile. She was cute. She’d be cute when she was sixty.

I gestured toward the glass cases at the far end of the café loaded with desserts. Two employees were standing guard behind them.

“May I buy you coffee?” I asked. “A cupcake?”

“Thank you,” Elliot said. She gave me her order and I stood. “What about your friends?” My wave carried over the three men and the second woman. “What can I get you guys? Know what—just order what you want. I got this.”

They glanced at one another as if they were surprised while I made my way to the glass cases. I bought a café mocha and a cupcake called a Sassy Cass with a raspberry on top for Elliot—kids, I thought—and a black coffee for myself. I left my credit card with the waitress and motioned at the others. They were already lining up to order. The young woman with the ponytail said, “Thank you. You’re very kind.”

“Not at all.”

“How did you know we were together?”

“Experience.”

“You’re an interesting man.”

Did she think you were interesting in the way that you might think someone you just met at a party was interesting, my inner voice asked, or did she Google you? Take my word—search for McKenzie Minneapolis and you’ll find all kinds of weird stuff.

While the CakeWalk staff made the mocha, I took the cupcake and black coffee back to the pink picnic table and set them down. Elliot smiled at me.

“I hope you don’t mind that I brought my friends,” she said.

“Truthfully, it would have broken my heart to learn that a woman who was related to me would be dumb enough to meet a stranger alone.”

Elliot scooped the raspberry out of the frosting of her cupcake with her index finger. “Cousins,” she said, and ate the raspberry.

We chatted mostly about Carleton College. Elliot liked it there. It was a good school, she said, and small. “Intimate, you know?” It was far enough from her home in St. Paul that she could get away from her nosy family, yet close enough that she could reach out whenever she needed help.

While we chatted, two of the guys returned to their stations. The third said, “Ellie.”

She didn’t move.

“Elliot,” he barked.

Elliot’s head came up as if she was surprised to hear her name spoken aloud.

“Your café mocha.” The man gave her a white cardboard coffee cup with a brown cardboard sleeve.

“Thank you,” she said.

Meanwhile, the other young woman had settled back into the leather sofa. She was behind me, yet I was aware that she was leaning toward the picnic table, trying to hear every word we spoke while pretending not to. I nearly asked her to join us but decided against it. Why ruin her fun?

“About your family,” I said.

“I’m not sure what to tell you,” Elliot said. “I texted my father after we chatted online, but I couldn’t get ahold of him.”

“Instead of texting, did you think to actually call him?”

Elliot had a quizzical expression on her face, as if I had suddenly switched from English to a foreign language.

“I’d be happy to speak to your father,” I said. “I’ll give you my number. You can have him call me. It might be better that way. Secrets have been kept from me for forty-four years. No doubt they have been kept from much of your family for the same length of time. You don’t necessarily want to be the one to reveal them. It’s liable to cause a lot of tension. I know I’m tense.”

Elliot tilted her head just enough to look past me without seeming like it. I realized that she was taking cues from the young woman