“Huh,” he says.

Then he turns to the nearest window and opens the pane wide. Forest air blasts in. I hear the woods roar. Ike opens another window. I step in to help. As I pass the stove, I can see it, too: a crook in the blue hose winding out of its back, the crack like a wrinkle in thick skin, letting out the explosive gas.

Ike heads to the basement to shut off the gas main. When he comes back, shoving through the swinging door into the main room, I follow. He leaves the lights out, striding through between the empty tables and upturned chairs to the patio entrance. Throws the doors wide.

Leaf-tinted light. More cool, piney air.

Ike walks slowly back to me. “Guess we won’t be serving hot food tonight.”

I nod.

He tips his head to one side. It’s only a few degrees, but for someone as stony as Ike Lawrence, it’s a tip. “How?” he says.

“My aunt Mae. Mae Malcolm. She—”

“Yeah,” he cuts me off. “I know Mae.”

There’s weight to the words. He knows. Lots of people in this town guess or whisper or imagine, but there are also a few who know.

Ike looks at me for several seconds.

I almost never look at myself. I try to imagine what he sees. Scuffed sneakers. Jeans with holes in each knee. Black thermal shirt, men’s, secondhand. My favorite old flannel, also made for a man, hanging loose and soft around me. The hair. White blond, flyaway, with wide curls. Unfashionably long.

“You know how to grind coffee?” he asks.

Not what I expected. I nod again.

“I’ve got an old hand crank around here somewhere. We’ll wait until the place airs out before we start any electrics.”

Ike turns, his broad back disappearing into the storeroom beside the kitchen.

He sets me up behind the coffee counter with a stool and a hand crank and a sack of roasted beans and a metal container to dump the little grinder drawer into each time I fill it.

I’m still there, turning the crank, when Janos crosses the room.

He stops. Does a dramatic double take.

“It’s like seeing a statue climb off of its pedestal,” he says, starting to smile. He pats the stool at the very end of the counter. “Aren’t you supposed to be sitting here?”

I smile back. “Not all the time.”

“Gas leak,” says Ike to Janos, coming out of the kitchen. “Repair guys are coming. We’ll just have drinks and baked goods for tonight.”

“Sounds good to me,” says Janos. He grins at me again. “Grilled cheese and I could use an evening apart.”

Ike goes back to the kitchen. Janos steps behind me, checking the cooler’s milk supply, sliding empty trays out of the bakery case.

“How was school this afternoon?” he asks.

“It was good,” I answer. “I’m guessing.”

Janos smiles wider. He begins arranging a row of biscotti on a sheet of waxed paper. I knock another heap of grounds out of the drawer.