I shook my head, pushing us past the candy section towards appliances. “They sell better names here than at Park Mart. More chance we’ll find one her highness approves of.”
“Adjustable dial,” he said, in a flat voice. “All I am asking for is an adjustable dial.”
We found one on the third model we saw, a shiny chrome number that also sported slick black trim, an expanded-size broiler pan, and, inexplicably, a digital clock. “So you can time your toast, I guess?” I said.
“You can never have enough clocks in the kitchen,” Theo told me, twisting the dial back and forth to test it. “It’s where the entire day begins.”
“Wow,” I said. “You are, like, a motto machine. You should write bumper stickers or something.”
“It’s because of my parents,” he explained. “They were old.”
“What?”
“Older,” he corrected himself, “than, you know, just about everyone else’s mom and dad. My father was forty-eight when I was born. He wasn’t the best on the basketball court, but he had a saying for everything.”
“I don’t think my father would have been much for basketball either,” I said. “Even if he had been around.”
“You didn’t grow up with him?”
I shook my head. “Didn’t even meet him until I was ten. My stepdad adopted me at three, did all the heavy lifting.”
“Wow,” he said. “I never would have guessed, just from meeting him in the parking lot that night. You two seemed close.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“That,” he said, pointing at me, “is one of my father’s favorites.”
I smiled, then nodded at the oven. “So, you think this will work? She’ll approve?”
“Yep. We’re good.” He picked it up and slid it into the cart. Problem solved. If only they were all so easy. “You need a vat of Tide before we go?”
“Just stocked up last week,” I said, as a guy in a baseball hat rounded the corner beside us, pushing a cart packed with paper towels and various cleaning supplies. He had his head ducked down, studying a list he was holding, but I still recognized Clyde instantly. “Yeah, so,” I said, starting towards the register, “let’s just get this back, and we’ll see what—”
“Emaline?”
To say I was surprised that Clyde had spoken to me was an understatement: he wasn’t exactly known for his outgoing nature. I glanced at Theo, who was reading the fine print on the oven’s box, with no clue whatsoever to who was standing right in front of him. “Hi,” I said, as casually as I could, “how are you?”
“I’d be better if that storm the other night hadn’t busted a hole in the ceiling of the Washroom,” he said. “Place is soaked. Your dad still doing some contracting?”
“Um, yeah,” I replied, as Theo slid his hands in his pockets and stepped back to stand by politely. “He’s framing a job over on Summerhill right now, I think.”
“Sound or ocean end?”
“Sound.”
“Maybe I can convince him to stop by, take a look. Can I get his number?”
“Sure,” I said. He flipped his list over to the blank other side, grabbing a pen from behind his ear, then held both out to me. I wrote the number quickly, wondering if it was actually possible that we’d be able to part ways with no one the wiser. Then, though, just as I handed it back, Clyde gave Theo a polite nod. Next thing I knew, Theo was sticking out his hand.
“Theo Burns,” he said.
“Clyde Conaway.”
The shock that went through Theo as he heard this was like a gunshot: I literally felt it hit him, then reverberate all around us. “You’re . . . ” he said, then stopped. I could suddenly hear him breathing. “You’re Clyde Conaway?”
“Well, we better go,” I said quickly. “It was good to—”
“We’re doing a film about you,” Theo blurted out, a bit of spit flying along with it. Oh, dear. “A documentary. Ivy Mendelson is the director, she did Cooper’s Way? We’ve been trying to reach you for months.” He started digging in his pockets, for God knows what, still talking. “You have no idea how hard it’s been to track you down. And now, here you are, with the toaster ovens. I mean, it’s unbelievable, I can’t even . . .”
He was still talking, still breathing, still searching for something on his person. Just a hot, sputtering mess, and I wanted to die, right there in Big Club. I looked at Clyde, trying to convey my deepest apology, but he was just studying Theo, his face impassive. Then, in a voice as casual as Theo’s was on the verge of hysteria, he said, “Oh, right. The documentary. How’s that going?”
“Oh, it’s amazing! Just fantastic. I mean, we’ve hit some local opposition in terms of willingness for interviews and providing information. But apparently that’s typical when a subject is, um, as private as, well . . . you are. Really, though, that’s exactly why we came down here, to get a sense of the community, you know, immerse ourselves in your world, your people, and—”
I was beginning to think he was never going to stop talking, even though—judging by the raspiness of his voice and dropping volume—he desperately needed to take a breath. “Theo’s very, um, passionate about the project,” I said, hoping to give him a chance to do just that. “He’s working really hard.”