Because McCallum had lied; he’d never told her Marshall was going to be there. That was why. Marshall knew it instantly. And too late.
“Like nuns,” McCallum said. “We travel in twos.”
“Wrong sex,” she said, after a long pause.
She took off the parka and hung it on the tall pole with coat hooks two booths away. On the other hooks hung the pink jacket of the little girl who was tapping a chicken wing on the edge of her plate and the parents’ denim jackets, lined in black-and-white-checked wool. “How are you?” the man said to Cheryl.
She knew them. She knew the waitress, too, who raised a serving spoon in greeting from behind the counter. It was Cheryl who had suggested this restaurant.
“I’m fine. How are you?” Cheryl said, stopping at the table, her hand on top of the little girl’s chair.
“We’re about to sit here all night if she doesn’t eat her chicken. She’s had nothing but cornflakes for three days. Tell Cheryl Jean why you won’t eat nothing but cornflakes,” the man said.
The little girl squirmed in her seat. Marshall saw that her plate was almost untouched. The man’s plate was empty, except for bones, and his wife had almost finished her dinner. She reached across to her daughter’s plate and picked up a chicken breast, saying nothing to Cheryl in greeting, avoiding her husband’s eyes, saying to no one in particular, “All she eats is cornflakes. You might as well get used to it.”
“So how have things been back at the cloister?” Cheryl said, sliding in beside McCallum. As he slid sideways in the booth, he winced.
“Cheryl Jean, you tell Bobby to call me in the morning whether that part comes in or not,” the man called.
Cheryl nodded. The waitress came to the table and put a cup of coffee down in front of Cheryl. “Eating, hon?” she said.
“No thanks,” Cheryl said.
“You be in this Saturday?”
“One to nine,” Cheryl said.
If the waitress had any interest in who anyone was, she wasn’t letting on. Marshall had eaten only half his stew, but McCallum had finished. She cleared McCallum’s plate, asking if he wanted “gravy coffee.”
“One sugar cube, no milk, gravy on the side,” he said, smiling.
“We charge extra for gravy with coffee,” the waitress said. “Tell him,” she said to Cheryl.
“So,” Cheryl said. “What a surprise to get a call from you. I take it you’re headed down to Florida too, Marshall? Doesn’t sound bad.”
“Spring vacation. Ten glorious days on the road leading to the southernmost point of the U.S. of A. Going to stand at land’s end and have our pictures taken. Buy a coconut,” McCallum said.
“I’ve never been that far,” Cheryl said. “I went to Marathon to go fishing with one of my brothers a few years ago.”
Though the waitress paid no attention, the man at the table never took his eyes off their booth.
“I wait tables here on weekends,” Cheryl said. “During the week I’ve got a job in Lexington, working at a gift shop one of my cousins opened.” She looked at Marshall. “I haven’t thought about poetry in a while,” she said.
Marshall shrugged. “I can’t say I’ve thought about it lately myself. Cheryl — I thought McCallum told you I was going to be here.”
“She’s happy to see you. I knew she would be,” McCallum said.
“I’m not exactly happy to see either of you. I hope you don’t take that wrong.”
“We don’t understand why you left,” McCallum said. “It doesn’t seem right that because”—he lowered his voice to a near whisper—“because of what happened, you should be here, and Livan should have blown town, leaving whatever mess she left behind.”
“You came to Buena Vista to sympathize with me,” Cheryl said. It was the first time Marshall had heard the name of the town pronounced. It was “Buena” to rhyme with “tuna.”
“We’re stopping on our way to Key West,” Marshall said.
“No, we came because we wanted to see you,” McCallum said.
“Well, here I am,” Cheryl said.
“Though I didn’t know when I wrote I’d have the added benefit of meeting with your mother,” McCallum said.
What was this? Marshall thought. Her mother was suspicious about why two college professors would stop to see her daughter who’d dropped out? It did sound strange. He could well imagine that Cheryl’s mother would want to check them out.
“Why?” Cheryl said, ignoring the remark about her mother. “Why do you care how I’m doing?” It was loud enough that the man eating with his family heard the question. Marshall saw him kick his wife’s leg under the table.
“I want to tell you the truth about the things Livan accused me of,” McCallum said. “At the very least, you deserve to have an idea of what was true and what wasn’t, and what was an exaggeration.”
“Forgive me,” Cheryl said, “but I’ve stopped thinking about the truth. She thinks what she thinks, and you say what you say. It’s all over, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Then what’s this about, that you drop out of college—”
“You worried about falling enrollments or something?”
“Worried about you,” McCallum said.
Cheryl sighed. She looked around the restaurant, taking it in as the odd place it was the same way they had when they’d first come in. Marshall could almost feel her sudden estrangement from the place. A woman came from the back and flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED on the front door. She ruffled Cheryl’s hair but didn’t say anything. She looked through McCallum and Marshall as if they weren’t there.
“Listen, this isn’t about me. It isn’t even about me,” Cheryl said suddenly. “But since I’ve heard enough about you, and even from you, for a lifetime, let me tell you a couple of things myself. My mother has gray hair now, she had a baby last year, and she had to go half-time at the food plant. Daddy’s doing long-distance hauling on runs between here and Michigan. He’s got a girlfriend in Michigan my mother found out about, and she thinks it’s just a matter of time until he’ll find work out there and not come back. Since I’ve been home she’s had two operations to tie off veins in her legs, but she’s going back to work full-time next month. She needs the money. I’ve been taking the baby to my cousin’s shop in Lexington, because the lady who was coming in while my mother worked ran away with the Amway salesman. It’s not The Bridges of Madison County down here; everybody runs away all the time. It’s nothing special.”
“Makes it stranger you came back,” McCallum said.
“McCallum,” Marshall said, with exaggerated patience, “she wanted to help her mother out.”
“Which I very much approve of — the idea of her getting some help — because the woman was once the love of my life. When I was sixteen years old. Seventeen. Not that much younger than you are now, Cheryl.”
“I’m aware of that,” Cheryl said.
“What?” Marshall said.
“Your mother tell you we almost got married?” McCallum said.
“She’s got a picture of you two hidden in her dresser drawer. You probably know the one: the two of you in a canoe,” Cheryl said, evading the question.
“She got a scholarship to a camp in Virginia. It was my last year there,” McCallum said to Marshall. “I was a camp counsellor.”
“She told me when I was in high school,” Cheryl said. She looked at Marshall. “My mother and the guidance counsellor thought I should apply to Benson. That Professor McCallum here would be my ticket to getting financial aid.”