Chapter Eight

Throughout dinner, Quill and Everett kept up a steady stream of conversation with each other, and only with each other, in the way that nervous men who have no idea how to interact with children cling to one another like mutual rescue buoys on the open sea. Meanwhile, Twyla spent the meal begging Manny to eat something, anything; trying to get Sal to stop shooting meatballs at his older brother via his spoon trebuchet; and wiping spaghetti sauce off Teo's face and hands (and the wall). But once the older two boys got wind of the fact that Wammy's dinner guest with the funny accent studied dragon fossils for a living, they lost their ever-loving minds and peppered him with questions for the rest of dinner, all of which Quill answered with growing pleasure.

With Quill and the boys deep in discussion, Twyla studied Hope and Everett, who were in an oblivious lovers' bubble across the table. She tried to remember what it was like, the first flush of love, when all you could see was everything that was good and right about the other person.

The couple looked great together, that was certain. Hope had grown into a lovely young woman. She had inherited Doug's height, with the slim athletic build of a person who enjoyed running. Her blond hair, a gift from her paternal grandmother, framed a pretty oval face that went tan in the summer. Of all Twyla's children, Hope was the one who most resembled Doug, for which Twyla was oddly grateful. Hope's loveliness was a reminder of Doug's golden youth, of the time when he had been young and handsome and full of promise.

Everett Simms was tall and wiry, with the sharp jawline of the young and fit. With his clean good looks and his polite demeanor, he had the makings of a classy, competent doctor. He was Twyla's favorite of all the friends Hope had made since leaving home. So why did she feel anything less than happy that her daughter was marrying this truly decent young man?

She wanted to ask what had happened, how and when they had gone from being friends to being ready to link their lives together permanently. But she didn't want to cause any awkwardness for Hope by revealing she had known nothing of their romance until shortly before six o'clock this evening.

Then again, whose fault was that?

"So, Dr. Vanderlinden," Hope said conversationally, dragging Twyla out of her moody thoughts.

"Do call me Quill. No need to stand upon ceremony among friends."

"Is that what you and my mom are? Friends?"

Quill's polite smile showed signs of trepidation. "I'd like to think so. We've only known each other a short time."

"And how long is that exactly?"

Twyla did not fail to notice Everett's hand tighten on her daughter's. His own smile also showed signs of trepidation.

What was this? Had Hope decided it was her place to grill Twyla's date? That was rich. Suddenly, Twyla did not care whether she made things awkward for her daughter or not.

"Quill is carrying out research inside Tanria. We met last week. So, honey, when did you get engaged?"

"Last Wardensday. He asked me under the altar of the sky in the park where we first realized we were perfect for each other." Hope and Everett shared a gooey look that should have warmed Twyla's heart.

It did not.

"And how long ago was that exactly?" Twyla pressed, deliberately mirroring her daughter's question to Quill.

Now it was Hope's turn to squeeze Everett's hand. Her expression was more gritted teeth than smile. "A few weeks ago."

A few weeks? A few weeks was nothing. It certainly wasn't the basis for marriage. Twyla nearly said as much, but then she caught sight of poor Everett, who appeared to be sweating bullets. He ran a finger under his collar as if the bow tie were choking him. She decided her best option was to shut her mouth and excuse herself and put Teo to bed, after which she could get to work on the dinner dishes. Manny and Sal took this as permission to get into the hall closet where Twyla kept the board games. By the time she had a sink full of sudsy water, Quill's and Everett's respective competitive streaks had come roaring to life, as evidenced by the cacophony in the next room. Given Quill's cutthroat approach to Candy Cane Mystery, Twyla wondered why he'd been so hesitant to play Gods and Heroes with her and Frank and Duckers when, clearly, he was game. Literally.

Alone in the kitchen, Twyla took a beer out of the fridge and raised a toast to herself, the woman who had had to scrounge up enough food in her bare-bones pantry to cook spaghetti dinner for a large crowd when she had not anticipated having to make dinner at all that evening, the one who had to change Teo's diapers and make sure the kids were eating decently and behaving themselves, the one who was now cleaning up the kitchen while everyone else was laughing in the next room.

She could hear the dulcet tones of Quill's voice as he, in the role of Miss Meringue, accused Professor Chocolate Chip of stealing cookies in the dining room, to which Hope—a.k.a. Professor Chocolate Chip—shouted in mock outrage, to the amusement of Everett and Manny and Sal—a.k.a. Princess Jelly Bean, Mr. Pudding, and Captain Jack Jam Tarts. As Twyla took another swig of beer, she thought of Frank, stuck in Sector W-14 with Mary Georgina. Frank had always been good about rallying the troops to help clean up before the board games came out, even in the days when Doug was alive and Frank and Cora were married and the Bannekers and the Ellises would sometimes have cookouts together. Without him, it was too much effort for Twyla to oversee everyone else's cleaning up while doing a huge chunk of what needed doing herself.

As if in answer to her prayer to the Mother of Sorrows, Hope appeared in the kitchen doorway.

"Need help?"

Normally, Twyla would have been thrilled with the offer of assistance, but for the first time in twenty-three years, she had no idea what to say to her daughter. She couldn't sort out her own feelings at all, and she was certain that Hope would not appreciate her lack of enthusiasm. No, it was best if they didn't talk about the engagement tonight. She held up a soapy plate and said, "I've got this. You should go spend time with Everett."

"I'm afraid Princess Jelly Bean teamed up with your friend to defeat Professor Chocolate Chip, so I'm available to dry dishes."

Twyla did not miss the snarky emphasis on the word friend. She clamped her lips shut before she said something biting in return.

Hope grabbed an ancient dish towel from the drawer where the ancient dish towels had lived since they were brand-new and took her place beside her mother at the kitchen sink. But Twyla could sense that the dish drying was a front. Hope wanted to press the issue, while Twyla was too hurt and annoyed and tired to talk about it.

"Quill seems nice."

"He is."

"So he's your… what? Boyfriend? Man friend?"

"No. We were supposed to go out to dinner tonight, that's all." She handed Hope a clean plate to dry.

"Why didn't you?"

Twyla gave Hope a flat stare before motioning to the dining room in answer.

Hope shook her head as she dried. "You could have gone, you know? Everett and I are adults. We can handle the kids."

"I'm not going to make a guest babysit the second he walks in the door."

"Everett isn't a guest. He's family now."

"Right. Since last Wardensday. Or are we counting the handful of weeks you've been dating without mentioning it to me?" Twyla was about to hand the next plate to her daughter, but it slipped out of her hand and landed in the sink, sending a spray of water all over Twyla's apron.

"Is that too little time or too much?"

"Both? Neither? I don't know."

"Mom," Hope said in a warning tone.

Twyla did not appreciate the warning tone.

"What?"

"Why are you being weird about this?"

"I'm not!" She handed Hope the clean plate, or it might be more accurate to say that she shoved the plate into her daughter's waiting dish towel.

"Everett's the one."

"I didn't say he wasn't."

"You're implying it."

"I am not implying anything. Stop putting words in my mouth."

"Then put your own words in your mouth instead of hiding out in the kitchen so you don't have to talk to me."

"It took me by surprise. That's all." It was an echo of the words Frank had said to her a few hours ago when she'd told him about the date with Quill. The memory softened her. Hope was sharing good news with her; she ought to celebrate, not pitch a fit like a selfish child. She grabbed another dish towel out of the drawer and dried her hands so that she could give her daughter a proper hug. Hope sniffled over her shoulder, and Twyla squeezed her harder.

"I'm happy for you," she said, and she did her best to mean it.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"Because you don't sound happy."

"I am. You know I love Everett to bits." That much was true. That much she could say with complete honesty. Twyla had absolutely nothing against the lovely young man her daughter had decided to marry.

"He's wonderful."

"I completely agree." Twyla gave Hope one more squeeze and relinquished her. "I hate to be awkward here, but since you're staying in the same room, I have to ask: You're using protection, aren't you?"

"Mom!"

"Well?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

Hope narrowed her eyes, and a sly smile crossed her face. "What about you and your cute, tweedy new boyfriend? Are you using protection?"

Twyla blushed so hard it was a wonder the town's fire marshal didn't knock on her door. "He's not my…! We're not…! Oh my gods, go back to the dining room before your nephews upend the place."

"Okay, but you do realize that you completely undermined your own date tonight to be all freaky-deaky about my engagement, right?"

"I did not!"

"You did too!"

Twyla all but pushed her smirking daughter into the next room while she finished up in the kitchen. An hour later, she ushered Manny and Sal into her boys' old bedroom to go to sleep, a process that took an inordinate amount of time and glasses of water and stories, while Quill sat with Hope and Everett in the parlor, waiting for her.

Frank would have helped, she thought, words that popped into her head unbidden. But of course Frank would have helped put the boys to bed; he'd known them since birth. Hope had, too, obviously, but it would have been rude of her to leave Everett alone. And why should Quill help when he was her guest, not a babysitter?

Quill. What must he think of her after the debacle that was their first date?

She went to the kitchen before heading to the parlor to see what kind of drinks she could scrounge up for the adults. They had already polished off a dusty bottle of wine, which was the classiest option she had had on hand. She remembered Dr. Sellet offering Quill a brandy, and Quill did strike her as a brandy drinker, but Twyla didn't have any. She was fairly sure she'd never had brandy in her life. What she had was half a bottle of whiskey, a fairly new bottle of gin, and three bottles of beer. Hope and Everett took her up on the beer, and to her surprise, so did Quill.

"Aren't you having any?" he asked her when she handed him the last bottle and sat in the chair next to his. Hope and Everett had taken the sofa, which meant that Twyla didn't have to face the dilemma of figuring out where to sit on a sofa in relation to Quill.

"I had a beer when I was washing dishes," she admitted.

He raised his bottle to her. "Much deserved."

"To Twyla," said Everett, raising his own beer.

"To Twyla," Hope and Quill agreed, causing the recipient of the toast to squirm with pleased embarrassment.

"And to the happy couple," Quill toasted Hope and Everett, and Twyla forced herself to sound overjoyed as she repeated "To the happy couple!" with no drink in her hand.

As the evening drew to a close, Quill stood to make his exit. Twyla walked him out to his autoduck—an autoduck that, upon further inspection, revealed itself to be a staggeringly expensive make and model. Twyla had never stood so close to a duck that swanky, and she was struck speechless.

"I had a lovely evening," Quill said, holding his tweed jacket casually over his shoulder.

"Too bad our dinner plans turned into a night at the zoo. You handled the dramatic change in itinerary with good grace. Thank you."

"I assure you, it was my pleasure. Twyla." He added her name at the end, giving it its own weight and importance in a way that made Twyla's face heat. She had blushed more in the past twenty-four hours than she had in the past five years.

Quill draped his jacket over his arm and took a step closer, gazing at Twyla through his long eyelashes. It had been a long, long time since a man had looked at her like that.

"Twyla?"

"Yes?"

"May I kiss you?"

"I'm a little out of practice."

"I suspect that will not make a bit of difference." He leaned in close, so close, and Twyla stopped breathing. "May I?"

"Yes," she whispered.

And he kissed her.

And it was nice.

Not life altering or earth shattering. But pleasant.

"Perhaps we could take a rain check on that dinner," he said when the kiss was done.

"Yes, please."

"I'm leaving first thing in the morning, but I hope to return by Wardensday. Are you free that evening?"

"As long as my family doesn't descend upon me unannounced again, yes."

"Excellent."

He kissed her again—a sweet peck this time—got into his ludicrously fancy duck, and drove away.

Everett stayed for two nights before leaving for a summer internship near his home in the Redwing Islands. During his one full day in town, Hope took him to all her old haunts around Eternity, which meant that Twyla didn't have much opportunity to talk with him. Part of her wanted to get to know him better, while another part of her wanted to stick her head in the sand and pretend he wasn't there.

She wished she could figure out why Hope's engagement news had thrown her for such a loop. She hadn't reacted this way when her sons got engaged.

Once Everett departed, Hope started picking up hours at Wilner's Green Grocer, where she had worked every summer since she was sixteen, and she and Twyla fell into their old routine in the house on Cottonwood Street. Twyla did the housework and all the usual errands she ran when she was off duty, and made sure there was dinner on the table when Hope got home from work. In the evening, they read in the parlor. One night, they walked to Main Street to get ice cream. Another night, they painted each other's toenails.

And yet tension hung in the air. Twyla's inarticulate and unarticulated worries about Hope swirled inside her head at all times. She wished she could put into words this gnawing concern and anger—yes, anger—but she didn't understand it herself yet. And so it festered.

On Wardensday evening, Hope got home from Wilner's as Twyla was dithering over what to wear on her date.

"No and no," Hope declared upon seeing the two options Twyla had laid out on the bed. "And also no," she added, pointing at the blue sheath dress Twyla was wearing.

Twyla looked in the full-length mirror on her closet door. "What's wrong with this?"

"It's perfect if you're going to a tea party or a funeral."

"All of these outfits are perfectly fine," said Twyla, even though she herself had been agonizing over them all of three minutes ago.

"Mom. Fine ain't gonna cut it tonight. Show some skin, for gods' sakes." By now, Hope was half-buried in Twyla's closet, examining each article of clothing in turn with a screech, screech, screech of hangers on the metal rail.

"My skin has seen better days, honey. No one wants to see more of it."

"Says you. Here." She tossed Twyla's one and only pair of dressy black pants over her shoulder. Twyla caught them in the nick of time before they hit the floor.

"Hold on. I've got the perfect blouse." Hope zipped out of the room as Twyla took off the offending outfit and put on the pants, which were too snug in her opinion. Hope returned with a slinky, silky, sleeveless white top. She pulled up short when she saw Twyla standing there in the pair of black pants and her brassiere.

"Mom, no. No."

"What?"

"Your brassiere."

Twyla looked down at the serviceable boob-colored cups. "What's wrong with it?"

"The gods have blessed you with cleavage. Let's lift those girls up!" Hope clapped her hands twice, as if the sound would cause Twyla's breasts to stand to perky attention.

"I'd need a crane to lift these girls. When you're my age, you'll understand that comfort is so much more important than cleavage."

"I will only understand that when I am dead." Hope began rifling through Twyla's lingerie drawer, uttering squeaks of scandalized horror. Twyla was also uttering squeaks of scandalized horror, mostly because her daughter was making a giant mess of her carefully folded underwear.

"This!" cried Hope, holding up a brassiere whose existence Twyla had forgotten, a pretty underwire confection with lace that she had bought in a moment of low self-esteem after coming to terms with the fact that the twenty-five pounds she had put on since age forty weren't going anywhere.

"I'm not even sure that fits."

"It is the only acceptable option here. I don't make the rules. Dare I ask what panties you're wearing?"

"What does it matter?"

"A woman is only as sexy as her underwear."

"That is a disgusting double standard. Would you say any of this to a man? Why am I sending you to college?"

"You're wearing cotton granny panties, aren't you?"

Twyla sniffed. "Every woman should wear cotton granny panties. Wedgies are unacceptable. Comfortable underwear is our gods-given right."

"Thank Grandmother Wisdom you were smart enough to buy the matching panties when you got the brassiere. Put these on. Do not argue with me." Hope shot the panties at Twyla like a slingshot.

Twyla couldn't believe she was putting up with such abuse from her own daughter, but then again, Hope knew a lot more about dating than Twyla did. Obediently, she changed into the lacy bra and panties and pulled on the blouse.

"Look who's sexy sexy-pants now!" crowed Hope as Twyla gaped at her reflection. Her hips were way too bumpy under the fabric of the black pants, and her underwear was already going up her ass crack. The underwire of her impractical brassiere cut into the flesh under her boobs, and the cowl neck of the slinky top revealed far more cleavage than Twyla was comfortable with.

"Honey, I don't know about this," she said doubtfully.

"Trust me. And you're wearing heels, by the way."

"I only wear heels to weddings and funerals."

"And now you also wear them on hot dates."

Twyla owned only one pair of dress shoes: tan leather Mary Janes with sensible two-inch heels. When she had bought them—gods, how many years ago was it?—she had thought them comfortable. Now they were torture devices strapped to her feet.

"Do these even match this outfit?" she asked Hope dubiously.

"The tan leather with the black pants? Super classy."

Hope dragged Twyla into the hall bathroom and made her mother sit on the toilet while she got to work on her makeup.

"My gods, woman, do you have any idea how foxy you look when you actually put on eyeliner?"

"I've always been terrible at makeup," said Twyla, who didn't love the sensation of having a pointy object poking around her face so close to her eyeballs.

"Fortunately, you have me, a self-taught artist, since my mother never bothered to teach me how to do this stuff."

"You don't need it. You're perfect without it."

"Says the woman who is not biased at all."

"I'm not. My daughter is beautiful."

Hope kissed the tip of Twyla's nose and commanded her to close her eyes. Twyla obeyed and felt the complex maneuvers of her daughter's makeup brush feathering over her eyelids.

"So, out of curiosity, how does Frank feel about you dating?"

"Why should Frank care about my love life?"

The motions of the brush stopped, and when Hope didn't answer her, Twyla opened her eyes. Her daughter stared at her with a skeptical pursing of her lips.

"What's that look about?"

"I don't mean to pry, but I always assumed you and Frank were good friends."

"We are."

"Really good friends."

"We are."

"With benefits."

"With…? What? No!"

"If you say so. Close your eyes."

"I do say so," Twyla huffed, but she closed her eyes obediently.

She didn't know what to make of Hope's line of questioning. Obviously, she and Frank had taken romance off the table from day one. That sort of thing ruined friendships, which was the last thing either of them wanted. And yet even now, Twyla could hear the shock and anger in his voice when she'd told him about the date, the way he'd taken offense to the very idea before he'd calmed down and apologized. But he had been surprised, not jealous.

Hadn't he?

Twyla was relieved when, several minutes and many products later, Hope said, "There. Have a look."

She stepped aside so that Twyla could stand up and study her reflection in the mirror. The makeup made her look younger and prettier than she was. And yet that face did not look right to her, did not resemble the person she was in reality. The smoky eyes and black lashes and dark lips belonged to a woman who was not her.

"Do you think the lipstick is too much?" she asked, watching her maroon lips form the words in the mirror.

"No, I think the lipstick is sexy as all get-out, and I'm putting it in your purse—that cute clutch, not your worn-out Mom Bag."

Twyla wrung her hands as she turned to her daughter. "I never know where to put the clutch."

"Set it on an empty chair."

"And nothing fits in the clutch."

"Except for your compact and a tube of lipstick, which is all you need tonight, because you can't tell me Professor Hot Tweed isn't paying."

"I don't know how I feel about that."

"I think you should feel pretty great about that." Hope put her arm around Twyla's waist and gave her an affectionate shake.

"But—"

"Mom, let this classy man take you out in style and treat you like the god you are. And feel free to bring him home."

"Bring him—oh! How can you…? I am not bringing a man home on our first real date."

"Why not?"

"Because!"

"When was the last time you got it on with a living, breathing human being?"

Twyla was mortified to be having this conversation with her daughter. Hope might be twenty-three years old, but she was still Twyla's baby. "I am not answering that."

"If the answer is thirteen years, that is a crying shame." Hope turned Twyla toward the mirror, forcing her mother to look at her made-up self. "You deserve sexy times, Twyla Banneker."

"Even if I was going to have ‘sexy times' with a man on our first date—second date?—I wouldn't bring him home with my daughter in the house."

"He's got a hotel room, doesn't he?"

"Hope!"

"I'm not waiting up for you. That's all I'm saying."

A knock came at the front door.

"Good, there he is!" Hope pushed her mother out of the bathroom and into the parlor and opened the front door before Twyla had so much as a second to mentally prepare herself.

"Quill, hello!" said Hope too ebulliently. "Come in!"

Once again, he was dressed in a way only a truly rich and dapper man could pull off. He wore a tweed sports coat over a camel sweater vest over a gray-and-white striped shirt. The dark gray tie knotted at his neck and the brown pocket square with a red-and-gold pattern on it should not have matched the jacket and shirt and vest, and yet they did. His hair was neatly pomaded, his beard trimmed. She had never stood so close to a man who was this well groomed, much less gone on a date with one. She felt positively shabby in her aging prêt-à-porter pants and her daughter's borrowed top.

"You look marvelous." He leaned in to kiss her cheek and handed her a bouquet of lilies of the valley and delphiniums and peonies.

"How lovely!" said Twyla. She had never received such an expensive bouquet of flowers, the sort that came from an actual florist's shop. Doug used to pick up a ready-made bunch of daisies for their anniversary, but since he bought the flowers at Wilner's Green Grocer, usually from Twyla at the checkout counter, they had never seemed terribly romantic.

"I'll put them in a vase. You kids scoot along and have fun." Hope plucked the bouquet from Twyla and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Twyla alone with Quill and her own fraught nerves.

"Shall we?" said Quill, gesturing for her to cross in front of him out the front door. He put his hand at the small of her back to walk her to his waiting autoduck, and it all felt incredibly gentlemanly.

The duck looked even more intimidatingly luxurious in the evening sunlight, a compact model with a polished olive-green exterior composed of aesthetically glorious lines and curves. When he opened the passenger-side door for her, she saw that there were two bucket seats upholstered in tan leather rather than the typical bench found in more economical models. She was so impressed by the fact that a man had opened a door for her that she sank into the seat without thinking much of it. It wasn't until the leather had enveloped her in sumptuousness and Quill had shut the door that she worried that she might accidentally sully the interior of the duck with her mere presence.

You didn't roll in mud to get ready, she reminded herself. She deserved to have some fun tonight. She had earned a little pampering, for gods' sakes.

Quill came around to his side and sat behind the wheel. The leather of his seat made a satisfying leathery poof as it hugged his posterior, and his door shut with an expensive, muted whump rather than the thunderous slam of Twyla's autoduck doors. "I have been informed that Proserpina's is the place to take a beautiful woman to dinner," he said as he started up the engine, which purred to life.

Twyla experienced two knee-jerk responses to this statement:

1. I'm not beautiful.

2. Proserpina's is way too expensive.

She bit her lip against both of these assertions. Quill must find her at least moderately attractive, or he would not have asked her out. And if he wanted to spend money on a fancy dinner, she would not stop him.

"Is that all right?" he asked her.

"Proserpina's? I've never been."

"Then this will be a culinary adventure for both of us." He looked boyish as he grinned at her and put the duck in gear.

Proserpina's was located on Main Street in Argentine, the northernmost of the border towns that had popped up like mushrooms around the West Station over the past quarter century. The drive took only twenty-five minutes, but twenty-five minutes was an awfully long time when one was riding in a spotless and expensive vehicle with a man one barely knew. Somehow, Quill didn't strike her as someone who would burst into a campy song.

"So, Twyla Banneker," he said as he merged onto the highway. "What is your story?"

"Me? I don't have a story."

"Everyone has a story."

"If that's the case, mine is more like a children's picture book than a great work of literature."

"I doubt that. You said you were from Medora originally?"

"Yes, my parents are in Diamond Springs—Nancy and Chip Memford—and so is my brother, Greg."

"How long have you lived on Bushong?"

"Twenty-seven years, ever since the portals into Tanria opened."

"You've been with the marshals for twenty-seven years?"

"No, not even close. My husband moved us here. Wade—you met Wade the other day—he was five at the time, and my oldest, Doug Jr., was six."

He kept his eyes on the road, but he raised his eyebrows. "I didn't realize you were married."

"Not anymore."

"I should hope not. That would make our dinner plans rather awkward."

She giggled nervously and inwardly berated herself for tittering like a green girl rather than behaving like a grown woman. "I'm widowed. My husband, Doug, sailed the Salt Sea thirteen years ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It is what it is."

"Why did he want to move to Bushong?"

"He had hoped to set up shop selling life insurance to the people pouring into Tanria."

"That makes sense, given the undead problem."

"I thought so, too, at the time. Unfortunately, Doug's ideas were better than his follow-through. He never made a go of it."

"Is that when you joined the marshals?"

"No, I worked nights and weekends at the local green grocer. By the time Doug passed away, my boys were mostly grown. DJ had already graduated high school and joined the Naval Guard, and Wade was working his way through trade school—he's a mechanic. But Hope was only ten years old, so it was tough for a few years. By the time she was in high school, she had started talking about going to college. I didn't know how I was going to afford it, until Frank came to my rescue."

"Marshal Ellis?"

"We've been friends for a long time and next-door neighbors for even longer. He knew my predicament, so when his partner retired from the force eight years ago, he recruited me. Now I make a decent salary, and Hope is in her second year of med school. In two years, I'll be fully vested, my daughter will be Dr. Banneker, and Frank and I can retire and open up a bed-and-breakfast on an equimaris ranch somewhere on the coast."

"Ah."

Quill truly had a knack for making the word ah say so much and yet so little. Even so, her muscles slowly began to unclench as she grew more comfortable in Quill's presence. She melted into the plush leather of the seat as they continued to chat, and soon enough, they arrived at Proserpina's.

Twyla nearly let herself out of the car, when she recalled that she was dating an actual gentleman this evening. She waited until he came around to the passenger side, opened the door for her, and handed her out of the duck. She couldn't decide if she liked this sort of formality. On the one hand, she enjoyed being treated as if she were a precious, worthwhile human being. On the other hand, she did not require assistance to open her own door and get out of the duck. In either case, she was not here to pass judgment; she was here to have a good time. And so far, she was, in fact, having a good time.

Twyla had no idea what to expect from a posh restaurant, as she had never been to one. The interior of Proserpina's was at once intimidating and comforting. The walls were painted dark blue, and the chairs were wood with plush green seats. Each table had a votive candle and a dark gold tablecloth draped over its surface. There were potted palms near the large windows on the east side of the building and old landscape paintings and vintage portraits of people and horses and dogs in ornate frames on the wall.

"Vanderlinden, party of two," Quill informed the ma?tre d' at the front podium, a pale woman dressed in black with straight brown hair pulled into a tight ponytail. She consulted the notebook on the podium.

"Yes, this way, please," she said, leading them to a table near one of the windows. Quill held out Twyla's chair for her and helped her scoot close to the table. No one had ever held a chair for her, and she wasn't terribly sure how to navigate this social nicety. She managed to be seated without falling face-first onto the tabletop, so she decided to call that a win. The ma?tre d' placed a small cardstock menu before each of them and left a black folder that turned out to be the drinks menu to the side.

Twyla had never been to a restaurant that featured only five items on the menu, and while she didn't know what half the ingredients were—Girolles? Caciocavallo?—she could read the price tag attached to each meal. She had spent most of her adult life clipping coupons and stretching her food budget in creative ways to feed her family, and here she was, ordering one plate of food that was equivalent in price to an entire week's worth of groceries.

It's too expensive, she thought in a panic, and a smaller, more insidious voice whispered, You don't belong here.

There, she stopped her spiraling thoughts. Why didn't she belong here? Why couldn't she have an extravagant meal? What if it were Frank sitting across the table from her? Would she feel out of place then? Was this really about food, or was it about the fact that she had no idea how to go about having a love life in her fifties? And why should she hide her nerves, when she could be perfectly… well… frank with the dashing dracologist having dinner with her?

"I'm very nervous," Twyla blurted out after the server brought her a glass of wine she couldn't pronounce and set a snifter of brandy in front of Quill. "I haven't been on a date since my husband died, and I don't know what I'm doing."

Quill took a fortifying gulp of brandy. "Is it barbaric of me to admit that I am glad to hear it? You seem so poised, and here I am, an absolute wreck."

Twyla grasped the stem of her wineglass as if it were a lifeline. "No kidding? You're nervous, too?"

"Incandescently so."

"I make you nervous?"

"You have no idea."

"But I'm only me."

"Exactly. You are you, a whip-smart Tanrian Marshal with a kind heart and a sense of humor who manages to balance a challenging career with a full and busy family life."

It was stunning to hear herself described this way, and by a man who had seen more of the world than she had. Most of the people Twyla regularly encountered thought of her as Doug's wife, the mother of three children, the sort of town matron who dutifully supplied cheesy potatoes at every funeral. But Quill knew her only as she was in the here and now, and he saw her as an independent woman who had her act together. She sat taller in her chair, feeling a tiny bit sexy in her slinky blouse and vivid lipstick.

She picked up her wineglass and studied him across the rim. "You seem so at ease. I assumed you were used to dating."

"I must admit that I have dated my fair share of women over the years. But as I have gotten older, I have found it all so much more difficult and tiring."

"Have you ever been married, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I don't mind at all, and no, I have not. Never found the right person to settle down with. And if I am being perfectly honest, marriage has not been at the top of my priorities. I often travel in my line of work, and my scholarly pursuits keep me busy for much of the time. It seemed unfair to inflict that life on another, and so I never put my mind to it—marriage, that is."

That was the swooniest statement Twyla had ever heard a man utter. Imagine giving consideration to how one's actions might affect another human being. Twyla resisted the urge to fan herself. And since he was speaking so openly, she thought it only fair to reciprocate.

"I've never been to college, you know," she admitted, bracing herself in case this was a deal-breaker for him. In the microsecond before he answered, she imagined him wincing and trying to hide the fact that he was wincing as she shriveled in shame on the inside.

"And you think that should matter to me?" he asked her.

Twyla saw no sign of wincing.

"You're a professor. At the best university in the Federated Islands."

"If you don't mind my saying so, it seems to me that you do not give yourself enough credit."

She thought of herself standing before the mirror in a sexy outfit, wearing makeup and worrying that she was not enough. "Maybe," she conceded.

"There are many kinds of learning. Tanria itself is an education, and a daunting one at that. I imagine motherhood is an education as well, and if it were a doctoral program, you would no doubt be dean of the department."

"You say that like I know what I'm doing."

"You do. I've met two of your children and three of your grandchildren. They are far more impressive than any article or book I have ever written."

This time, she really did fan herself, and Quill chuckled. He looked handsome by the votive's warm, flickering light. Maybe the candlelight flattered her, too. She began to enjoy herself. This was what she wanted, a lovely evening out with an interesting man who found her equally interesting. She asked him about his schooling and about dragons and how he came to study fossils and ancient texts recounting tales of the Old Gods' battle dragons.

They had finished most of the meal when Zeddie Birdsall came out from the kitchen to stop by their table and say hello.

"You must be Dr. Vanderlinden. Pen said I might see you this—Twyla?" Zeddie looked askance at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Having dinner?"

"Wait. You're the big date?"

Twyla laughed and turned to Quill. "So when you said you had been informed that Proserpina's was the place to take a beautiful woman to dinner, I'm guessing that Duckers was the one doing the informing?"

Quill raised his snifter. "Perhaps."

Zeddie extended a hand to the dracologist. "I'm Pen Duckers's boyfriend, Zeddie Birdsall, one of the sous-chefs here. He told me to keep an eye out for you."

There was a glint in his eye as he spoke, and Twyla was certain that Duckers had told him all about Professor Short-Shorts.

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," said Quill.

"Likewise. So, Twyla, when did you and Frank break up?"

Quill's snifter froze halfway between the table and his mouth. Twyla stared at Zeddie in horror. "I think you have to date someone in order to break up with them."

"Weren't you two a thing?"

"No. Never. At any point in time."

"Huh. This is awkward." Zeddie coughed into his fist. "Would either of you like to see the dessert menu?"

"I think we'll take the check," said Quill.

"Righty-o." Zeddie grimaced an apology at Twyla and fled to the kitchen.

Feeling a need to salvage the situation, Twyla slid her hand across the table and was gratified when Quill placed his own over hers. "You know, Frank and I really are just friends."

"I don't imagine I would get to enjoy a lovely evening with you if you two were anything other than friends."

"Eh, if we were mortal enemies, you and I could probably go out for a couple of beers."

Quill laughed, the fine lines around his eyes and mouth crinkling with amusement.

Honesty had served Twyla well this evening, so after Quill helped her into his duck and took his place behind the wheel, Twyla admitted, "Your autoduck is so high-class, I was terrified to set foot in it when you came to pick me up."

"What is a duck for but to transport a person from one place to another?"

"Okay, but this is an amazing way to transport a person. How is it on the waterways? I bet it cuts through the sea like butter."

He cocked one roguish eyebrow at her. "Care to find out?"

"It's an hour's drive to the coast."

"I'm game if you are."

She was about to say no. The word hovered on the tip of her tongue. But then a voice in her head, one that sounded an awful lot like Hope, asked, Why not?

"All right."

"You're sure?"

"Let's do it."

He took the nearest exit heading west, the motor purring as the duck ate up the miles between land and sea. They talked of all sorts of things as they headed to the coast, the windows rolled down, the air growing saltier with each passing minute until Quill merged onto the waterway an hour later. The ocean stretched out before them, as vast as the sky above. They drove south, parallel to the coast, feeling the sea spray mist their arms as the duck plowed through the gentle waves.

When was the last time Twyla had driven on the sea, she wondered? Not since she and Frank had decided to take a day trip to one of the outer islands when the kids were all in town. They had taken both of their ducks and Wade's besides, and they had packed them full of sandwiches and sodas and beer and bathing suits and floaties.

Why on earth didn't she come this way more often? The ocean was only an hour away from Eternity, and yet she always stayed where she was, living the same life she'd always lived.

Quill pulled off to the side of the waterway and cranked down the convertible roof, and they floated there on the sea, staring up at the stars—at all the gods who had come and gone before and ended their lives on the altar of the sky. The waves rolled beneath the duck, rocking them like children in a bassinet. Quill kissed her then, a soft beginning that grew hot and sharp. She knew he'd ask her to come to his hotel room, and she was prepared to tell him no. She thought about her extra pounds that weren't going anywhere, the flesh of her body that seemed to be oozing downward like a lava flow, the way her skin was becoming crepey, the incomprehensibility of any man finding her sexy. But then he kissed her again, kissed her with passion and with wanting, and for the second time that evening, she thought, Why not?