Denise’s face is on the screen and I can see into the middle of her messy room way back in Manhattan. A pang of homesickness blindsides me.
“Hey little brother,” she signs, a smile lighting up her face.
“Hey.”
“Guess what?” She’s got a mischievous glint in her eye.
“What?” I ask. “Matt give you a ring?”
“No,” she signs, like I’m the dumbest. She got to skip this year’s summer in Chautauqua because she’s twenty and she had to “work,” which actually means “make out with her boyfriend.”
“I’m coming to visit!”
I give her mock applause and she rolls her eyes at me. “Great,” I sign. “What does that have to do with me?” As siblings go, we’re pretty close. She’s only two years older than me in our relatively small school, so we share a lot of the same friends.
“I was wondering if I could bring Jolene.”
I bristle, trying to keep the teasing attitude I had before. “Yeah, sure.”
“You know, girls’ road trip,” Denise continues, too bright.
“Why not?” I sign. “Why would it bother me?”
“Carter,” she signs. “It obviously bothers you. You are so transparent.”
“Why can’t you bring Daniel?” I ask.
“Because then it wouldn’t be a girls’ road trip and he’s not really my friend,” she answers. “Plus, isn’t he at some summer camp?”
I sigh. He is at some summer camp. “Yeah.”
“So can I bring Jolene? That thing between you two… it was a long time ago and—”
“Bring whoever you want,” I sign, interrupting. “It’s fine.”
“Carter.”
“It’s fine! You’re right! It was a long time ago and I should just grow up and get over it.”
She sneaks a smile. “You said it, I didn’t,” she signs.
I mock applause again. “Very funny.”
“So I can bring Jolene?”
“You can bring Jolene. When are you coming?”
“In about a month—beginning of August.”
“Cool,” I sign, but, again, my face takes some convincing. Time to change the subject. “What have you been up to?”
“We’ve missed you! Saw the new superhero movie the today at Walter Reade,” she signs and I shake my head. There are no open-captioned theaters around here. Of course.
“Jealous,” I sign back to her.
“What did you do?”
“Hid in the house and played video games,” I sign. “Went for a bike ride. You know— Sunday. Chautauqua’s open to the public. People everywhere. Not really my scene.”
“Lots of people? Oh no! You poor baby. That’s nothing like New York,” she signs back sarcastically.
I give her a look.
“Anything else?”
“Saw some trees,” I answer. “And cows. Lakes. And… lectures. Pavilions. Amish.” I have to spell that last one. I don’t know if there’s even a sign for Amish. I pause for a minute, deciding whether I should say anything about the cute girl at the diner. I give in. “And a waitress.”
Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “A waitress?”
Big mistake. I shrug, playing it off. “Yeah. A waitress.”
“A waitress… What kind of waitress… ?”
“Never mind. Forget I said anything. No waitress.”
“Doubt it.” She grins.
She turns her head from the screen and says something with her hands and her mouth to somebody who’s out of the frame.
“Sorry,” she signs, facing me again. “Gotta go. Matt.”
“Make good choices,” I sign, and she rolls her eyes at me.
“Good night,” she signs.
“Good night.”
I reach around and click off the computer. A waitress. I wonder if she works on Monday…
Six Weeks of Summer Left
Chapter 5
Robin
“Anywhere ya want!”
The door swings shut behind me, and once again I enter the restaurant at 11:00 a.m.
“Hey, Violet. It’s just me,” I say, sliding my purse into the cubby, pulling out my apron, and wrapping it twice around me so it skirts out over my hips.
I wave hi to Elsie, who helps with lunch on Mondays, since Violet gets out early. She’s twentysomething and going through a divorce. She waves back to me as she looks through Hair Weekly while making salads.
“Anything… interesting happen on Sunday?” I ask Violet as I write “ROBIN’S MARTIN DREADNOUGHT JUNIOR FUND” across a paper cup and set it on a shelf. Twenty bucks. Gunning for twenty bucks to put toward the guitar. It’s a Monday, so that’s ambitious.
She smiles at me. “No, he didn’t come back yesterday.”
I laugh. “That’s not what I was talking about.”
“It’s not?”
She shimmies her shoulders, making a kissy face at me before staring absentmindedly out the plate-glass windows, her hands wrapping silverware seemingly on their own. It’s second nature to her, like tying a shoe or typing. Her face lights up as Rex pulls up in their old Ford pickup. Mondays are date night- he has the day off from the factory and she gets off work early. He parks the truck and busts through the door, limping on his bad leg.
“Ready, babe?” he asks.
Her penciled-in eyebrows crinkle and her shoulders droop. “In a minute,” she says, nodding at the unfinished silverware.
“Gimme that. I’ll finish it,” I say. It’s not like I have anything better to do. Who am I to stand in the way of true love?
“Would you really?” It’s like she’s a 50s Disney movie.
I nod. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it. Go be in love.”
She unwraps her loaded apron and hands it to Rex, hefting her purse from the cubby under the counter.
“Thanks, sweetie! See ya tomorrow!”
“See ya!” I yell after her.
“Bye!” shouts Fannie from the grill. “I’ll call you later with that recipe!” She seems strangely incomplete without Violet.
“Hey.” Elsie sidles up to me after sliding the tray of salads into the cooler.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Nothing. It’s dead.” She sighs and sits at the bar. Her limp blond hair hangs from its ponytail, brushing the bar. For somebody who wants to be a stylist, her own hair always looks a little lackluster.
Sometimes, on slow days, we just take a crossword and I sit at the bar and call out the clues: “six-letter word for nostalgia!” It’s not like we’ll get in trouble; there’s no prayer of seeing the boss. I’ve seen him exactly three times—once when I was hired, once when he wanted breadsticks, and once when he brought his girlfriend to lunch. They got lasagna.
But today I want to rush. I want excitement. Since “rush” and “excitement” aren’t possible on a Monday in Westfield, I take a rag and start going around the restaurant, dusting the Styrofoam-filled milk bottles, farming tchotchkes, and plastic-framed black-and-white photographs that cover the walls.
I sing along to the oldies with a porcelain cow as a microphone, upping Elsie’s tip as her one table smiles at me bemusedly. Then a noise stops me in my tracks.