Bob’s pouring coffee behind the counter. Three of the four gray vinyl stools are taken.
“Hey, Hope!” he calls. “Thanks for coming in.” Bob Adams looks like a happy-go-lucky butcher instead of a restaurant owner. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen him without his full-length white apron. Under the apron are jeans that are too big or too small-I can never decide which. So much of the material is taken up by the front of him that the back of him gets shortchanged. When he bends over to get clean glasses, the unlucky customer behind him sees a lot more than he bargained for.
“Looks like you got some sun, Hope,” Bob observes.
Maybe I did. Or maybe my face is red from embarrassment. I hate people gawking at me.
“I need you at the tables this afternoon, I’m afraid,” Bob says. “Sorry. I thought Rita was coming in.”
“That’s okay.” We’re lucky to have this job. I know he would let me hide in the kitchen if he could. Rita calls in sick all the time, or just doesn’t come in, and still Bob doesn’t fire her.
I put on an apron and backtrack to table four. Two little boys are shooting straw papers at each other while their mothers whisper to a woman behind them. I clear my throat, and the chubby mom with short brown hair wheels around.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Her face gives it away that the whispers were about me. “Um… we’ll just have fries. French fries.”
“ French fries? Not Spanish fries?” I ask, going for humor because humor translates into tips, nine times out of ten. “Or English fries?”
“No. Just French fries,” she answers, without cracking a smile.
Behind me, a chair squeaks, followed by footsteps. I turn to see a well-dressed woman in her forties. I recognize her from church, but I can’t think of her name. I brace myself for whatever she’s going to say.
She leans forward and gives me a hug. “How are you holding up, Hope?”
It’s about the last question I expected. “Hanging in there, I guess.”
“Well, good for you,” she says. “I want you to know that we’re praying for you and for your brother. For your mother too. Tell Jeremy we miss him, will you? Give him our love?”
“I will,” I manage.
“Tell him God hasn’t forgotten him,” she says. “But I’m sure Jeremy knows that if anybody does.”
“Thank you.” I want her to hug me again. I’d hug her back this time.
Things get crazy busy for a couple of hours. After supper, the restaurant finally calms down. About an hour later, it empties out totally, and I can retreat to the kitchen. I would rather wash a thousand dishes than talk to one more human.
As if sensing what I feel, Bob walks to the front door and turns over the closed sign. Then he joins me at the sink. “Tough, isn’t it?” he says.
“Yep.” I hand him the dish towel, and he starts drying glasses I’ve washed and set to air-dry.
“How’s your mother doing with everything?” Bob asks this like he’s twelve and has a crush on the homecoming queen.
“Rita? She’s just Rita, I guess.”
Bob has a dishwasher, but he doesn’t like to run the extra load at night. So when there’s time, we do the leftover dishes by hand. I switch to the scrub brush and start in on the plates. “Bob, how well did you know Coach Johnson?”
“John? Pretty well when we were in school. We weren’t close or anything. And we didn’t get any closer over the years, I guess. I’m not sure why.”
“Did you go to school with him and my mother?”
“Sure did. Your mom was really something.” The angles of his face soften when he says this.
“Did Mr. Johnson think Rita was really something?” I dump in more green liquid soap and run the hot water.
“We all did. John was no exception. Heck, even Matt had an eye for your mother.”
“Matt? Sheriff Wells? And Rita?” I can’t picture it, not now, not then. I shut off the water before the suds overflow.
“Uh-huh. She had those Wooster boys going too.” Bob takes a plate from me, holding it in one hand with the edge of the towel and wiping swift circles with the other end. “You should have seen her, Hope. She was a looker, I’ll tell you. And the only girl in that whole school who knew how to flirt, I suspect.”
I’d love to ask him more about Rita and Sheriff, or Rita and Coach, but I don’t because I’m pretty sure Bob had a crush on Rita in school. I believe he still does. I can tell by the way he always asks about her and the look in his eyes when he says her name.
We’re quiet for a few plates. Then he says, “I’m pretty nervous about testifying in court.” He takes another plate to dry. “You know that lawyer’s calling me as a character witness, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Bob. You’ll do great.” But I have to admit that I just don’t get Raymond’s trial strategy. First, he tries to prove Jer’s crazy. Then he calls witnesses to show what a good character my brother is? Raymond says he wants the jurors to like and trust Jeremy, but he still has to get in enough stories so the jury can call Jeremy insane if they need to. I guess it’s all part of that “kitchen sink” defense, as in throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. I don’t think I’d make a very good lawyer.
I’m not sure what I would be good at. It’s not that I’ve never wanted to be anything. Maybe I’ve thought about being too many things. I wanted to be a dancer once, but you can’t make a living at it. Well, at least I’m pretty sure I couldn’t make it pay. When I was little, I wanted to be a teacher, but that was just because I liked my first-grade teacher so much. I like art. My sea glass creations are pretty good, and I’m not that bad at drawing. But the things I try to draw never look as good on paper as they do in my head. I think I’d like photography.
Bob and I start in on pots and pans.
“I hear Rita has to testify too,” Bob says, pulling my thoughts back to dishwater. I hand him the broiler pan.
I start to explain about how it’s my fault Rita has to take the stand, but there’s a loud knock at the main door.
Bob ignores it. We closed at eight-thirty instead of nine, but Bob’s used to closing when he feels like it. The knock gets louder. “They’ll give up pretty soon,” he says.
But they don’t. They switch to the window and tap, banging with something metal, probably car keys.
“Go away!” Bob shouts. “Dang fools are going to scratch my window.” I’ve seen Bob’s temper blow a couple of times. Once, he threw a customer out-and I mean threw him. I don’t want to see that temper now.
The scratch-tapping continues.
“I’m warning you!” Bob hollers through clenched teeth. “Stop doing that right now!”
But apparently, the wannabe customer has never seen Angry Bob. Bob flings the towel down, unties his apron, and throws it to the floor. “That’s it! I warned him!” He strides to the door in four giant steps.
I peek around the corner and see Bob grab the doorknob and yank the door open.
A young guy in a white shirt and black pants almost falls on his face. He scrambles to keep hold of the camera he’s tucked under one arm. “I thought you were open until nine,” he says. “Is that girl still here, the Long girl?”
Bob pokes the guy in the chest and keeps his finger there, drawn like a gun. “There’s a closed sign on that door. Can you read, Mr. Ace Reporter?”
“Easy, fella,” says the reporter. “I just want to ask her some-”
“What’s your name?” Bob demands.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to sue you, your publisher, and the pony you rode in on. Now get out of here!” He shoves the man backward and slams the door so hard the glass rattles.
19
When I leave the restaurant a little before nine, I head north to walk home. A car starts up, and I turn to see Chase’s Stratus parked under the streetlight a few feet away. Surprised, I wave and wait for the car to pull up alongside the curb. Tiny bugs swirl in the headlight beams.
“Not stalking you, I promise,” Chase says out his window. “I drove by a couple of times and saw you in there. Thought you ought to have a ride home.”