IN THE MORNING BOB WAS AWAKENED BY A KNOCK ON HIS DOOR, AND there again was Alice. She was not the playful youngster of the night previous but the sullen hotel laborer who had found him hiding behind the mountain of baggage. “You want breakfast? It’s fifty cents if you do.” She held out her hand beneath her chin, as if to catch her own spit. “It’s porridge and coffee. We’re out of cream.”
Bob disliked porridge, and had no use for coffee. “Can I have eggs?”
“No, because there are none. If you want eggs, you should go to the diner. That’s where your interesting friends went.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
Bob said he would go to the diner and Alice went away. He quickly dressed and left his room. Mr. Whitsell was sitting in the chair at the end of the hall, hands on his knees, his shoes set to the side of his stockinged feet. He was distracted by the light coming in the window but came alive when he saw Bob. “Good morning! You’re going forth? To what end?” Bob said he was going to the diner and Mr. Whitsell asked, “Are you not a fan of porridge? Well, between us second-floorers, I don’t like it much myself. The food here is fair but for the lack of variety. Actually, I’ve never once visited the diner, in all my time at the hotel. Do you know why? I’ll tell you why: because I’m afraid. Afraid of people! Can you top it?” He rolled his eyes at himself, then pulled a ten-cent coin from his vest pocket and said, “Will you be a chum and get me today’s newspaper and a five-cent cigar? They’ll both be available at the diner.” Bob agreed that he would do this and received the coin, turning and dashing down the hall and to the stairs, past the front desk, through the conservatory and into the brightness of the morning, still and cloudless. He was startled by the sight of the ocean, which in daylight took up the bulk of the vista and which seemed friendly and lazy and endless. He stared awhile, then came away from the sea and walked along the road and to the diner. June and Ida were sitting in a window booth, each with a dog on her lap, and June waved Bob over that he should join them. “I was wondering whether we should rouse you or not,” she said. “Ida thought not. Did you sleep well? Is your room satisfactory? Mr. More is not the most efficient hotelier in the land, but he has a high-quality spirit, and that’s worth something, after all.”
Ida said, “Tell him about your dream, June.”
“Should I?” asked June. “No, I shouldn’t.”
Ida told Bob, “She dreamed you were set upon by tramps.”
June scowled at Ida. “You know, Bob,” she said, “I support your project in every way. But I’m uneasy at the thought of one so young as yourself being alone in the world. Because the world sometimes is a complicated place.”
Ida said, “You always hear about tramps buggering children.”
“Ida, Ida,” said June.
“What? You do hear about it. Forewarned is forearmed.”
June patted Bob’s arm. “You’ll not be buggered, Bob.”
“But if you are,” said Ida, “don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
“Anyway, it was an unsettling dream, and I couldn’t sleep for quite a long while after, and now Ida is cross with me because I kept her up speaking of you.”
“On and on and on,” said Ida.
“We were wondering if there mightn’t be some place for you among us. You know. A job, Bob.”
“It would be temporary,” Ida added.
“But it is a quite important position, in its way,” said June.
“But there is no pay,” said Ida.
“But there must be some pay.”
“I had thought his pay would be room and board.”
“How will the boy buy his cat’s-eyes and aggies and what have you? Here is what I propose: we vouchsafe his shelter and nourishment and offer the young go-getter a full dollar at the start of every day.”
“That’s just fine, June, but who will pay us to pay him?”
“One hundred pennies, Ida. I do believe we can manage. Well, Bob, what do you make of it?”
“Yes,” said Bob.
“Yes you will work with us?”
“Yes.”
“And Ida?”
“What?”
“Are you comfortable with the arrangements and do you agree with my heart’s instinct that Bob is not some passing idler but one among us?”
Ida gave Bob a long and unwavering look. “Actually, I do agree,” she said. “You are hired if you wish it, young man, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
At this, June and Bob shook hands, and Ida began rapping an empty coffee cup on the table to commemorate or celebrate Bob’s inclusion. The waitress, a young woman with a sanguine face, came by and said, “Yes?”
“Yes what, dear?” said June.
“Weren’t you banging for me?”
“Not for you, no. Just banging.”
“Oh,” said the waitress.
“Emphasizing a point in time,” Ida said.
“I guess that’s all right, then,” said the waitress, and she went away.
Ida said to Bob, “This scenario brings another question to mind, and it is: Can you play a snare drum?”
“No.”
“Have you had any experience with any musical instrument?”
Bob shook his head.
June said, “Perhaps the question should not be, can you do this or that, but rather, would you be amenable to taking instruction that you might become competent in this or that.”
Ida asked, “Would you be amenable to taking instruction that you might become competent at putting lipstick on a dog, when the dog doesn’t want to wear lipstick?”
“Yes,” Bob said.
Ida began rapping her cup on the table again. This time it was intended to bring the waitress tableside, but the waitress, having so recently been taught the rapping was not for her, was slow to come. With the rapping ongoing, though, eventually she arrived, and Ida explained that, yes, the noise now was meant as a summons.
“This banging on the table is a new one for me,” the waitress said.
June said, “Communicative percussion predates the written word by thousands of years.”
“Well, there you go.” The waitress held her pencil to her pad and became poised to take the order. June was squinting at a menu; she asked, “What is frizzled beef?”
“It’s hard to describe,” said the waitress.
“Mightn’t you try?” wondered June.
The waitress said, “Okay, well, it’s beef, you know. The meat of a cow.”
June joined her hands together to form a temple.
“And it’s boiled,” the waitress continued, “then it’s shredded, then it’s fried in oil, then it’s salted, and then they put something that’s like ketchup on it, then set it under a lamp to warm it up and sort of soften it. And there you are.”
“It’s frizzled.”
“Right,” said the waitress. “Is that what you’d like to have?”
“It’s not, no.” Addressing the table, June said, “The word frizzled, to my mind, evokes the visual of a dish of meat with hair still attached.”
The waitress said, “There’s no hair on our meats.”
“There’s a confidence-inspiring phrase,” said Ida. “You should put it on a matchbook.”
June still was squinting at the menu. “I shall have — the Lumberjacker.”
“The Lumberjacker or the Little Lumberjacker?” asked the waitress.
“The Lumberjacker.”