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CHAPTER SEVEN
A Second Later
The waitress stepped back and swept out her arm. "Welcome. I'm Beverly. Call me Bev."
Ganet smiled. "I'm—" She stopped. No sense inviting the quizzical stare that usually resulted from offering her distinctly non-Western name. Instead, she adjusted her response to, "I'm pleased to meet you. May I use your phone?"
"Not from out there, you can't. The phone's attached to the wall." Bev leaned forward. "You're not one of those people who's going to ask to use my cell, are you? What's wrong with you guys? We're a pub not a jail, thank you very much. And don't try to describe some science fiction gizmo. No, ma'am. Not to me. Next you folk'll be asking to use my tricorder! Here we have one phone and one phone only—and it's firmly attached to the wall." She slapped one hand against the other as if brushing off foolish notions. "That's how it is and that's that."
Ganet stared, not sure if she'd just witnessed another amusing anecdote for her cousins or a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Before she could think of an excuse to keep walking, another waitress stepped through the doorway and squeezed Beverly's shoulder. Her eyes held the no-nonsense look of someone incapable of ever losing control over what she said.
"I'm Jennifer Rochester. Don't call me Jen." She tipped her head toward the pub—a gesture not as expansive as Beverly's but an invitation nonetheless. "I never owned a cellular phone myself—too bulky to be practical—but the bar's phone is at your disposal."
Ganet let Jennifer's dismissal of cell phones slide. Only so many odd things I can process at a time. Assured the older waitress had calmed her co-worker, she took a deep breath and entered the Biergarten. As she passed, Jennifer murmured, "Welcome to the tea party."
One Minute After
The clock above the bar said eleven a.m. No wonder the place was empty. The telephone Jennifer offered was the bar's private line. As Bev had noted, a wire attached it to the wall. One detail she'd forgotten to mention was that it was rotary—something Ganet had only seen in old movies.
"It may take me more than one call to reach my family." She gave Jennifer her best apologetic smile.
"People trying multiple numbers isn't unusual. Don't worry. We don't get many calls—and fewer that I care to answer. Use the phone as long as you like."
Ganet didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until her gratitude made her release it. On a Sunday, no telling which aunt, uncle, brother, sister, cousin or church friend her parents might be visiting. She just hoped she could remember enough numbers to locate them. "My calls will all be to the Los Angeles area, but I'll reverse the charges."
"Ah, California." Jennifer smiled. Then she turned around to straighten the liquor bottles lining the back of the bar. "Don't bother calling collect. The phone is on the house."
Twenty Minutes After
Ganet exhausted all the numbers she remembered. Dammit. I need the contact information on my cell. But still—having called her parents, Rahel, Yonas, eight aunts and uncles, six cousins, three college friends and manager Judy for good measure only to hear endless ringing was… odd. At least one call should have triggered a voice mail.
As Ganet returned the receiver to its cradle, she saw Jennifer busily polishing the same section of mirror as the last time she'd looked. When she caught her eye, the waitress strolled over.
"No luck." Jennifer didn't make the phrase a question. She made it a statement of fact.
"Is the line working?" Ganet asked.
Jennifer returned a lopsided smile. "Try dialing 'O' for operator. That's always a treat. I'm here if you need me." Picking a new section of mirror, she gave it a vigorous rub.
Forty Minutes After
The second time Ganet hung up the receiver, she felt as shaken as she had when she'd veered out of the path of the eighteen-wheeler. Nobody completely trusted technology—not really—so twenty-one telephone calls leading to nothing but endless ringing was easy to explain as a messed up connection. But a phone company employee calmly assuring her that she had indeed gotten through to Los Angeles and indeed had reached no one, well—that was eerie.
"No luck," Jennifer repeated. This time, she made it sound final.
When Ganet had felt woozy in the hospital, liquids had helped. She reached for the glass of water Beverly had set beside her and took a long sip. Funny that the waitress had known to warm it first.
"Wayward Pines… what the hell is this place?" Ganet asked.
"Good guess," Jennifer replied.
From the far end of the bar, Beverly drew a sharp breath that sounded like a sob.
Ganet looked from one woman to the other. "Come on, now. Don't be ridiculous."
Jennifer shrugged. "I prefer to think some long-eared gentleman in a waistcoat with a fancy gold watch is loitering somewhere nearby."
Ganet gave a breathy laugh. Even though Rahel was the literature major in the family, that didn't mean Big Sister hadn't read an old book or two.
Jennifer wrung out her bar rag. "And if I can't find him, maybe I can find the right looking glass."
Fifty Minutes After
Ganet sat at the bar considering her situation. Despite Jennifer Rochester's Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole allusion, she had a few sensible options left. Her purse and suitcase had been absent from her hospital room. They were probably still with the elderly couple who ran the Wayward Pines Inn. The rented Subaru held enough gas to get her back to Bierce. All she had to do now was keep going down Main Street until she reached the rundown section of town, and she'd be on her way.
The only problem was that Ganet didn't know what illness she'd had. She wasn't sure she could walk much further than the three blocks it had taken to reach here. When she swiveled on her barstool to ask Jennifer whether Wayward Pines had a taxi service, she saw the older woman reading in a booth. Her book was "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
Before Ganet could catch her eye, Jennifer looked up at someone coming in the Biergarten's front door. "Sheriff Pope. We've been expecting you."