Inside, the space is long and narrow, with a high, darkly painted ceiling that looks like it was made of pressed tin. Crudely constructed plywood booths form an L on the right. There's a long mahogany bar on the left, with two swinging kitchen doors and a short corridor leading to the restrooms located at the rear. The remaining floor space is occupied by a number of Formica dinette tables. The accompanying chairs have chrome legs and upholstered marbleized gray plastic seats, variously split and subsequently mended with duct tape. The air always smells of spilled beer, popcorn, ancient cigarette smoke, and Pine-Sol.
Monday nights are generally quiet, allowing the day-drinkers and the usual sports rowdies to recover from their weekend excesses. My favorite booth was empty, as were most of the others, as a matter of fact. I slid in on one side so I could watch the front door for Reba's arrival. I checked the menu, a mimeographed sheet inserted in a plastic sleeve. Rosie runs these off on a machine at the back, the blurred purple lettering barely legible. Two months before, she'd instituted a new style of menu, closely resembling a leather-bound portfolio with a handscripted list of the Hungarian Specialties du Jour of the Day, as she referred to them. Some of these menus had been stolen and others had served as hazardous flying missiles when opposing soccer teams enjoyed a hot dispute about the last big match. Rosie had apparently given up her pretensions to haute cuisine and her old mimeographed sheets were back in circulation. I ran an eye down the list of dishes, though I'm not even sure why I bothered to check. Rosie makes all my food decisions for me, compelling me to dine on whatever Hungarian delicacies come to her mind when she's taking my order.
William was now working behind the bar. I watched him pause to check his pulse, two fingers of one hand pressed to his carotid artery, the other hand holding aloft his trusty pocket watch. Henry came in and flicked a look in his direction. He chose a table near the front, pointedly turning his back to the bar. As I watched, Rosie moved out from behind the bar bearing a glass of lip-puckering white wine that she passes off as Chardonnay. I could see an inch of gray hair growing in along her part. In the past, she's claimed to be in her sixties, but now she's so quiet on the subject I suspect she's slipped over the line into her seventies. She's short, pigeon-breasted, and the red portion of her red hair is dyed to a hue somewhere between cinnabar and burnt ocher.
She placed the glass of wine in front of me. "Is new. Very good. You sip and tell what you think. I'm saving two dollar a bottle over other brand."
I sipped and nodded. "Very nice," I said. Meanwhile, enamel was being eaten off my teeth. "I see Henry and William aren't speaking."
"I'm telling William to mind his own business, but he's no listen to me. I'm shock to see a woman can come between them two brothers."
"They'll get over it," I said. "What's your take on the situation. You think Mattie has designs on Henry?"
"What do I know? That Henry's a catch. You should hev seen little old ladies flirt with him on cruise ship. Was comical. On other hand, her husband die. Meybe she don't want to connect with some guy. Meybe she want freedom all to herself and Henry for a friend."
"That's what I've been worried about, but William's convinced there's something more going on."
"William's convince she won't be living two more years. He wants Henry to hurry in case she's dropping dead already."
"That's ridiculous. She's barely seventy."
"Very young," Rosie murmured. "I myself hope to look so good when I'm getting her age."
"I'm certain you will," I said. I picked up the menu and pretended to study. "I'm expecting a friend so I'll hold off on ordering. Actually this all sounds pretty good. What do you recommend?"
"Lucky you esk. For you and your friend, I'm fixing Krumpli Paprikas. Is stew made of boil potato, ongion, and what you call weenies cut in pieces. Is always serve with rye bread and on the side you hev choice of cucumber salad or sour pickle. Which you want? I'm think pickle," she said, scribbling a note on her pad.
"Sour pickle, my favorite. So perfect with the wine."
"I'm bring you food as soon as he come."
"It's a 'she' friend, not a 'he.'"
"Is pity," she said, shaking her head. She added an emphatic mark to her pad and then returned to the bar.
At 7:15 Reba appeared, pausing at the door to scan the room. She saw me waving from my booth and made her way toward the back. She'd changed out of her jeans and T-shirt into slacks, a red cotton sweater, and sandals. Her color had improved and her eyes looked enormous in the perfect oval of her face. The spikes were gone from her hair, strands of which she'd tucked behind her ears, causing them to protrude like an elf s. When she reached the booth, she slid in on her side, saying, "Sorry I'm late, but I ended up taking a cab. Turns out my driver's license expired while I was in the can. I was worried I'd be pulled over if I tried driving without one. I could have applied for a renewal from prison but never got around to it. Maybe tomorrow we can go to the DMV."
"Sure. No problem. Why don't I pick you up at nine and we can take care of your license and then run any other errands you have in mind."
"Maybe some clothes. I can use a few things." Reba craned her head, doing a quick survey of the room behind her where the patrons were starting to trickle in. "Would you mind switching seats? I hate sitting with my back to the room."
I slid out on my side of the booth and traded places with her, though in truth I wasn't any fonder than she was about sitting with my back to the room. "How'd you manage in prison?"
"That's where I learned to keep an eye on my ass. I trust what I can see. The rest is way too scary for my taste." She took up a menu and ran her eye down the page.
"Were you scared?"
She lifted her enormous dark eyes to my face, her smile fleeting. "At first. After a while, I wasn't scared so much as cautious. I didn't worry about the staff. It took me about two full seconds to figure out how to get along with them."
"Which was what?"
"Compliance. I was nice. Polite. I did as I was told and I obeyed all the rules. It was really no big deal and it made life easier."
"What about the other inmates?"
"Most of them were okay. Not all. Some of the girls were mean, so you didn't dare let 'em see you as weak. You backed down on anything, they'd be all over you like flies. So here's what I learned. Some bitch gets in my face? I get right back in hers. If she escalates, I do the same and keep on upping the ante until it finally dawns on her she'd better leave me alone. What made it tricky was you didn't want to be written up, especially for anything involving violence – there was hell to pay for that – so you had to find a way to stand your ground without calling attention to yourself."
"How'd you manage it?"
She smiled. "Oh, I had my little ways. The truth is I never messed with anyone who didn't mess with me first. My goal was peace and quiet. You go your way and I'll go mine. Sometimes it just didn't work out that way and then you had to move on to something else." She glanced down at the menu. "What is this stuff?"
"Those are all Hungarian dishes, but you don't need to fret. Rosie's already decided what we're having. You can argue with her if you like, but you'll lose."
"Hey, just like prison. What a happy thought."
I saw Rosie approach, bearing another glass of second-rate wine. Before she could put it down in front of Reba, I reached for it, saying, "Thanks. I'll take that. What about you, Reba? What would you like to drink?"
"I'll have iced tea."
Rosie made an officious note to herself like a proper journalist. "Sweet or no sweet?"