Night of Miracles

by Elizabeth Berg

  “How do you know the sun will come up?” she asks him again.

  “Because the earth spins—”

  “You know the sun will come up because you have faith that it will. That’s how you know. And that’s how I know about heaven, because of my faith. And that’s all I’m going to say about it, this is not the Pentecostal Jamboree.

  “Tell you what, let’s let the pans soak and go into the living room and have some fun. Know what we’re going to do? We’re going to build a city from playing cards.”

  “No way,” he says. And Lucille, feeling as cool as if she’s wearing a motorcycle jacket, says, “Way.”

  In the living room, Lucille takes out two decks of cards and gives him one. She shows him how to balance one card against another to make walls, how, if you’re careful, you can put a roof on and then build up. “Now, you go on the floor over there, and I’ll do my city on the coffee table.”

  Lincoln sits down, leans a card against a chair to get started, and then they are both lost in their respective enterprises. When Lucille looks up, she sees that Lincoln has constructed a pretty impressive tower. She is just about to compliment him on it when it collapses. He turns around to look at her, exasperated, and she shrugs.

  “I’m going to do it again, another way.”

  Yup, smart kid.

  Lincoln has nearly completed another structure when the doorbell rings. “Oh, no,” he says. “I’m not done!”

  “Next time,” Lucille says, and walks with Lincoln to the door to deliver him to his father. “Bring him back anytime,” she says, and watches them walk over to their house. She sees Abby at the window, a scarf on her head. Lord. She’ll make them red lentil soup with apricot, and a hearty root-vegetable stew and whole-wheat dinner rolls. She’ll do whatever she can, especially when it comes to little Lancelot.

  Really, she can’t wait for next time. They’ll have macaroni and cheese and green beans and raspberry custard pie and watch an old Western, maybe with Gene Autry, whom she still has a crush on. She has never known a problem that spending time with cowboys didn’t help, if only a little. She’s going to get some bubble gum to be their chewin’ tobaccy. Also, somewhere in the back of her closet she has a cowboy hat. It belonged to Arthur Moses. He never did get to wear it, so let Link. She’ll teach him “Don’t Fence Me In.” She can’t abide the music most kids listen to these days. Rap is crap, if you ask Lucille. She’ll teach him to sing, “Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze / And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees.”

  When she lies down, she immediately drifts off to sleep.

  Set an Attractive Place

  TINY SETS HIS BAG OF groceries on the kitchen counter and slowly unpacks it. Sure are a lot of fruits and vegetables. He got some chicken breasts and some frozen fish, too. But nothing good. No chips, no dip, no cookies or pies or coffee cakes or doughnuts. He didn’t even buy popcorn for snacking, because it was too confusing trying to figure out what kind to buy. There’s not one thing here that makes him feel like diving in and eating. Nothing.

  Set an attractive place, the website for weight loss told him. Even if you’re dining alone, make yourself welcome at your own table. Put a pretty flower next to your plate, use a lovely cloth napkin and your best china.

  Tiny doesn’t have any china. He buys his dishes from the Goodwill and doesn’t mind at all that almost nothing matches. He’s not about to buy cloth napkins, and although he likes flowers, he’s not going to buy a bouquet for himself. What he has are some perfectly good white paper napkins which he now puts on the table next to his plate. He lays down mismatched silverware, and centers a glass directly over the knife, as instructed. Then he stands back, hands on his hips, and looks to see if the place setting looks inviting.

  No, it does not.

  What’s inviting at a place setting is a plate piled high with roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy, that’s what’s inviting. A wedge salad sitting next to a thick cut of prime rib and a loaded bako, that’s inviting. A big bowl of thick-cut chips alongside a big bowl of onion dip, that’s inviting. And a big slab of warm apple pie, drowning in ice cream, with caramel sauce and whipped cream, that’s the most inviting of all.

  He sighs and goes into the kitchen to see what to make for dinner. Iris told him to buy some Brussels sprouts, cut them in half, and toss them in a little olive oil and roast the hell out of them, they’re ever so tasty. He can’t imagine that’s true. But he’ll try it. A spinach salad with strawberries is really good, too, Iris said, but Tiny can’t do that. Those two things don’t even go together. One needs to be in cream sauce to be any good; the other needs to be stuck between two layers of shortcake and topped with whipped cream. Then talk to him about spinach and strawberries.

  He turns on the TV so he can listen to the hockey game and prepares the sprouts, puts them in the oven along with a chicken breast. One chicken breast with no breading. Just by itself, as wan as could be. He never really thought of a chicken breast as a dead animal, he thought of a chicken breast as fried and as a fine accompaniment to waffles drenched in maple syrup, but this chicken breast looks like a dead animal. Poor little clucker.

  So. A dead chicken, Brussels sprouts, and one half-cup of rice. That’s his dinner. That and about thirty-five glasses of water.

  He’ll starve. He’ll be dead by tomorrow morning.

  Iris, who is always going on and off diets, told him he maybe should enter into this dieting business a bit more gradually. But he said no, he meant business, and he wanted results quickly. He’s going to quit eating and start exercising.

  “Do you really think Monica cares if you lose weight?” Iris asked him.

  Tiny figured Iris might be thinking that Monica is no lightweight herself, she could stand to lose a few pounds. But to Tiny, she is perfect. A man dreams of holding a woman who looks like that. He could save a lot of women a lot of grief if he could persuade them of what he thinks is obvious: they diet for one another.

  He told Iris, “I don’t think Monica cares if I lose weight, but I do. I want to be in shape for her. I want to take care of her. Way I’m going, I’m going to take myself right out in a few years. Heart attack, diabetes. I know all that. I just needed to feel like I had a reason to get in shape. I’m ready to try.”

  Tiny makes himself rice, then goes to sit on the sofa and watch the game while the chicken and sprouts cook. But then he quickly stands up and marches in place and feels like an idiot. After he’s out of breath, he goes to the bathroom and pees again—that damn water!

  The kitchen timer sounds. Used to be when the timer sounded to let him know his meal was ready, he would feel a kind of happy uptick inside. Not tonight. Tonight, it feels like grim duty calls.

  He sits at the table, spreads his napkin evenly onto his lap. Clears his throat. Then he leaps up and turns on the radio to the classical station. Piano. Kind of pretty. He wonders if Monica likes classical music. He pulls himself as close to the table as his gut will allow, sits up super straight, and starts eating. He takes the recommended small bites! which means that he cuts the sprouts in quarters. Looks like he’s going to have to add a microscope to his table setting.

  The Brussels sprouts aren’t nearly as bad as he thought they’d be. Which is not to say that they’re really good. He gets the Tabasco sauce and sprinkles some on to help them out a little, and that’s what it does, it helps them out a little. He puts Tabasco on the chicken, on the rice. He eats everything in less than two minutes, then sits staring at his plate. And then, by God, he picks it up and licks it.

  Now what.

  Make sure you get out and about! Move! Take a walk, take a class, meet a friend for coffee, go and get a book you’re dying to read.

  He can’t meet a friend for coffee—he’ll want pie. Plus the friend he’s most comfortable with is missing in action. He doesn’t know of any classes he might t
ake. The library is closed. He guesses he could take another walk, he took one this morning and it wasn’t too bad. He didn’t get far, three blocks, and that was it.

  Tonight, he’ll go four. Pretty soon, he’ll be able to go somewhere besides the feed store to buy britches. He’ll be able to buy a pair of regular-size khakis. Maybe throw in a belt that isn’t the length of the Mississippi River. Maybe throw in an engagement ring, too, with a diamond as bright as the sun.

  When he comes home, he eats an apple the way the website told him to, all cut up (feels like more that way!), and he eats it with a toothpick, not a confetti-topped one, like they said, but still. And they’re right. It lasts longer. It feels more like something. But it does not now and never will feel like dessert. How about this for dessert? A dream of Monica in a yellow dress.

  Monica Gets a Man

  MONICA CALLS THE ORDER IN: “Grilled coffee roll, drown it in cow paste. And two chicks and hanger steak on the hoof, whole-wheat shingles.”

  “Got it!” Roberto says, in a cheerful, birdy tone that, frankly, Monica resents. She herself has been depressed for a while now, ever since she and Polly came back from New Orleans. In her heart is a black tick-tocking, a sense that time is passing and she has got to get going on finding someone else. Tiny has been in twice with that woman Iris, and the last three times he came in alone and sat at the counter, where Janelle waited on him.

  Monica doesn’t tell anyone how she feels. It doesn’t show, either. Dimpled smiles for everyone, a cheerful refilling of coffee endless times for endless customers, Thanks a bunch! written on every check, a little bouquet of three daisies drawn beside it. She comes to work on time; she stays for as long as she’s needed; if someone tells a joke, she says, Ha-ha-ha. Tiny says hello to her when he comes in, but that’s it. Well, hello, Monica, in that way that used to zip up her spine and make her think he cared for her, or was interested in her, but she guesses now that she was wrong. Maybe he and Iris have a thing going on, even though anyone can see that Monica is a much better match for him.

  “You might have to start all over again in the boyfriend department,” Polly said. “But that could be a good thing.”

  Maybe Polly was right. The fortune-teller Monica saw in New Orleans said the love of Monica’s life would have a name starting with P. Monica doesn’t have any more faith in fortune-tellers now than she did before the reading. But here’s the thing: the day after she and Polly came back from their trip, Polly met a man at the Henhouse who kept an apartment in Paris. Just like her fortune-teller said she would. Astonishing that such a person would come into the Henhouse, but such a person did. He was a movie person, out on a cross-country trip, exploring the back roads in search of a location. Needed to be a really small town in the Midwest, which of course is exactly what Mason is. In the end, he decided not to pick Mason for the movie, but didn’t he just pick Polly for someone to spend the evening with, and they got along like a house afire. Polly came into work the next day dreamy as an old-fashioned high school girl wearing bobby sox and a ribbon around her ponytail. The guy—his name was Larry Bristol—had asked Polly to finish his road trip with him. Oh, he’d take care of separate accommodations at night, she shouldn’t worry about that, but he thought she’d be an awful lot of fun to have on the drive back out to L.A. And then he’d buy her an airline ticket home, if she wanted to go back home. “Would you be in charge while I’m gone?” Polly asked Monica. And Monica said sure.

  “I’ll pay you extra, of course,” Polly said, and Monica said never mind, she didn’t have to.

  “Time and a half,” said Polly, and Monica said all right.

  Monica has never thought of herself as a jealous person, but she has begun to grind her teeth in the daytime as well as at night and nearly weep into the bowl of chicken dumpling soup she has for lunch every day at the Henhouse. Maybe she should switch up soups.

  In fact, maybe she should switch up everything in her life.

  Wait.

  Maybe she should! Who’s stopping her? Only her! Why, she could start to change her life right this very second!

  “Two slabs, two wrecked, burned British, jam in the alley!” Roberto calls out, and Monica says, “Got it.” Which she thinks might be prophetic.

  She delivers the order and she’s suddenly thinking a mile a minute about things to do: Go after what she wants like she deserves it. Think positive. Get a new haircut, drive over to Columbia—or even St. Louis!—and get a great new haircut. Buy some new makeup, buy a pair of those sexy hoop earrings. And next time she sees Tiny alone, ask him out again. Only this time, instead of thinking, Oh, my goodness, I’m so nervous, he’s going to say no, he’s going to say no, think Say yes, you little cupcake. You know you want to. You say yes, right now.

  Buy new underwear. Buy fancy dish soap that smells as good as perfume. Go to the library and find books on…well, go to the self-help section and see what’s there.

  “Honey, you’re fine just the way you are!” her mother used to tell her, especially after she’d suffered another breakup.

  Well, no, she’s not just fine the way she is. Obviously. But she’s not going to be the calm center of a storm with everything around her swirling at a dizzying pace. She’s going to jump out there and swirl, too.

  And looky here. Look who just came in the door. Alone. Talk about the power of positive thinking.

  Tiny moves to the counter and Monica motions to Janelle, who is the counter waitress, to come over. “Let’s switch sections for a while,” she says. Janelle is only too happy to oblige. So many of those counter people still think they can slide some change beneath the lip of a saucer and call it a tip.

  Tiny lowers himself onto the stool and picks up a menu. He doesn’t see Monica gliding over, doesn’t see her until she is directly before him.

  Then, “Oh, hey!” he says. “Hey, Monica. Gosh!”

  “Hey, Tiny.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “Yeah! I’m okay!” He looks at the menu again, then closes it. “Guess I’d better eat and go, I’ve got to get to work.”

  “Sure. Double pigs in a blanket?”

  “Well, no, actually. Not today. I’m kind of switching things up a bit.”

  Serendipity! Monica thinks. Talk about a sign! He’s practically hers. They’re practically married and lying in bed at night in their Sleep Number bed. They’ll get one of those, Monica has saved up enough for one, but it seems weird to get one for one person. It would be like going on a roller coaster ride alone.

  “Monica?”

  “Yes?”

  “I need to order, so could you find Janelle?”

  “I’ll take your order.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll give it to Janelle. This is her section, right?”

  “Usually, it is. But not today. Today, I’m your girl.” Look at that. Look how she did that.

  “Well…” He looks at his watch. “Oh, jeez. You know what? I guess I miscalculated. I’ve got to pick someone up in just a couple of minutes. I’d better just…”

  He lays down a five-dollar bill and races out.

  She watches him go. She guesses he’s in a hurry, all right; looks like he forgot his belt, the way his pants are hanging on him.

  “Janelle!” she calls.

  The waitress comes over and Monica says, “Let’s switch back.”

  “Aw, really? I hadn’t even gotten started over there. Can’t I keep it just for today? I’ll get some good tips with lunch.”

  “All right,” Monica says, and then, “Hey, you waited on Tiny, right, last few times he came in?”

  “Yup. He’s a good tipper. He only gets a boiled egg and dry toast, but he leaves me a few bucks anyhow.”

  “Boiled egg and dry toast?” Monica asks.

  “Um-hm, and he didn’t even put no cream or sugar
in his coffee. Skim milk. That’s it.” She lowers her voice, steps in closer to Monica. “Do you think he’s sick? Do you think he’s got some horrible disease that—”

  “No. I think he’s on a diet.”

  “Lordy! Tiny? What would Tiny be on a diet for? He’s one of those seems right stubborn ’bout his weight. I wonder what happened!”

  Iris, Monica thinks. Iris happened. Iris with her beautiful blond hair and svelte figure and high cheekbones and her big-city sophistication.

  Well, there you go. Polly is off on a wondrous adventure, having her fortune come true. Maybe she’ll stay out there in L.A. and sell her café, that was another thing the fortune-teller told her would happen, she’d sell her café, and then it would fail and go out of business.

  But maybe she’ll sell the Henhouse to Monica, and rather than the café failing, Monica will make it an even bigger success. And then she can at least be a successful business owner and her love life won’t matter so much. Who has time for a relationship, she’ll say, like all those women she’s read about in magazines. She’ll serve breakfast all day, people love breakfast. She’ll put some things on the menu that Polly never would: Sweet-potato fries. Deviled eggs with bacon garnish. Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches and deep-fried pickles, both of which Monica loves and which are surprisingly good. Veggie burgers. Polly always said if you want a burger, you don’t want it made of vegetables, you want it made of cow. But Monica will add turkey burgers and veggie burgers. She’ll put a fresh flower on every table, too, another thing Polly would never do.

  Her spirits rise, and suddenly she’s hungry.

  His name will start with a P, my eye. On the way to the kitchen, Monica looks around the crowded café. If every guy in there had a name that started with a P, she wouldn’t be interested in a single one of them. Not one.

  Her mother about her father: I’ll tell you something, honey. I didn’t even talk to him. I just saw him, and I knew. Now, I was engaged to another feller, and I couldn’t get that ring off my finger fast enough. I hated being so mean, but I’d found the one I thought I’d never find, and wasn’t any swaying me from doing what I had to do. And I have never regretted it. That’s what I want for you.