From the kitchen, a bell rang, and the cook hollered out, “Pick up!” I sighed and reached for the plates, setting them in the crook of each wing. Trying not to breathe in the tofu fumes, I hurried toward the front of the café, whizzing past the plate glass window, where was freshly painted. A real artist had done this, and each letter was formed out of green bamboo, trimmed in black; even I knew that didn’t occur in nature. Scattered around the bamboo letters, the artist had embellished the glass with palm fronds and a larger-than-life macaw.
After the tables and booths filled up, it was standing room only. The waiting customers huddled on the sidewalk in groups of twos and fours, drinking complimentary cups of fruity iced tea while they waited for an available table. Even though the cafe was air-conditioned, the patrons kept opening the glass doors, letting in gusts of sweltering air. I patted my forehead with a paper napkin. It was getting hotter and hotter inside my suit. And if one more customer tugged my feathered tail, I might squawk. Well, not really. If I ever wanted to get custody of my daughter—or even regular visitation rights—I had to act ladylike.
I glanced around the dining room and spotted Violet. She was home for summer vacation, but today she was sashaying around the dining room in her parrot suit, her wings loaded with dishes. She seemed oblivious to the heat. Then again, it was difficult to tell what Violet was thinking. She passed by her mother, who was conferring with her partner, Zach Lombard. Aunt Clancy had opened the café against her husband’s wishes. I wondered if Byron Falk might be jealous of Zach who was a hippie from New York State, with long brown hair which he tied back into a shiny tail with a piece of leather. Zach hadn’t gone to Vietnam because he’d gotton a high lottery number. He was ten years younger than Aunt Clancy, but only five years older than me. But even if I was interested in finding me a man—and I wasn’t!—he wasn’t my type at all. Personally, I thought Zach was more interested in food than women. But Aunt Clancy said I was crazy. She liked him a little too much, however Zach didn’t seem to notice.
“Miss, the soup’s cold!” cried a bald-headed man just as Violet rushed by, juggling three platters. His hand grazed her feathers, and Violet stopped. “Life isn’t perfect,” she snapped. “Deal with it!”
The customer started to protest, but Violet zoomed off. As she passed by a booth, another outraged customer grabbed her suit and began to complain about his food. “Oh, I see the problem,” Violet said in her know-it-all voice. “Gazpacho is supposed to be cold. Would you like something else?”
Before the customer could reply, a man with bushy eyebrows lodged a complaint.
“Ma’am? I didn’t want mayonnaise on my burger.”
“I’ll be right back, sir,” Violet called, hurrying to another table. Her eyes met mine, and I knew what she was thinking. In the weeds, the other waitresses called it. My cousin plunked down the plates and began sorting them, sometimes matching them up to a customer and sometimes not. I longed to be as careless as Violet—to say what was on my mind and not get in trouble. I tried real hard to get the details right, but already this morning I had made a grown woman cry over sour cream. Trying to soothe her, I’d said, “There’s nothing worse than getting sour cream when you’re not in the mood for it.” The woman had responded by picking up her plate and smashing it to the floor.
“Miss?” called a man in a navy Izod shirt. “I ordered the mango chicken salad, but I’m not sure what you gave me.”
“Oh, no. That’s tabouli.” Violet glanced around, then she snatched up the man’s plate and switched it with the one in front of a woman at the next table. The woman held her fork in midair, a romaine leaf hanging down. She blinked as Violet plunked down the tabouli.
Turning back to the man, my cousin said “All set?”
“No!” cried the man, eyeing his plate as if Violet had given him the wrong brain, rather than the wrong food. “I can’t eat this! She’s already eaten some of my chicken!”
“I’ll bring you another.” Violet turned, her tail feathers shaking. The bald-headed fellow was holding up his soup bowl.
“Sorry?” Violet asked.
“Aside from being cold,” shouted the man, tilting the bowl, “there’s a hair in here, a curly black hair. Where did it come from?”
“I’m not sure,” Violet said, “but I can assure you it’s from somebody’s head.”
The man’s mouth fell open, revealing a half dozen silver fillings. He gaped up at her. “I want to speak to the manager.” he said, setting down his bowl. It clunked against the table.
“You’ll have to stand in line,” Violet said, nodding at the cash register, where a dozen folks were crowded around Zach. Clancy Jane was now waiting tables. Violet marched over to the next customers. Her pen was poised over the green tablet. The man had straight black hair, all whooshed back into a pompadour, and his female companion had a pretty face but her arms were fleshy.
“Hey,” Violet said, peering down at the portly woman. If the woman smarted off, I was pretty sure that my cousin would respond with an insult—I could just hear her telling the woman that she would roast very nicely with a sprig of rosemary. Instead, Violet offered an uncharacteristically sweet smile.
“Ready to order?” she asked the woman, “or do you need a few minutes?”
One day, when the café had been open about a month, my daddy walked in. He blinked at the mural, squinting at the palm trees, monkeys, and macaws, as if to say, Is this compatible with nature? My arms were loaded with plates, so Clancy Jane greeted him. She smiled faintly and said, “Thanks for coming, Albert.”
He glanced up, his eyelids fluttering. “Actually, I didn’t come to eat. I came to see Bitsy.”
“Certainly.” Clancy Jane led him to a table beside the window, which was lined with prayer plants and pink geraniums, and hurried away. On the other side of the café, I had been watching this little exchange. Aunt Clancy and my father had not spoken in six years. His eyes were darting around the room, and he kept smoothing back his hair with one pale hand. He wore a wrinkled summer suit and a skinny tie that had gone out of style when LBJ was president. I walked over to him and kissed the top of his bald head, which tasted slightly salty. “Can I get you a nice glass of tea?” I asked.
“Er, actually—”
“Or maybe you want a full meal? Today’s special is tabouli—just perfect on a hot day like today.”
“Can you sit down a minute, honey? Please?” He gestured at the empty chair.
“I really shouldn’t,” I told him, but then I saw the disappointment on his face and I sat down. “What’s the matter?”
His eyes looked old and sad. I steeled myself for the worst: Mack driving his truck off an embankment; Dorothy swallowing her tongue at the asylum.
“Well, it’s like this, honey.”
“Just say it, Daddy.”
His cheeks turned pink, with little red veins stitched across them. “As you know your mother and I have been separated for a long time. And I guess I got lonely. See, I’ve met a lady? You may know her, Miss June Rinehart? She works at my dime store.”
I nodded. Sure, I knew June Rinehart. The cashier at Daddy’s dime store, a short perky blonde, her hair trained into a forties pageboy, with crimped waves and pin-curled bangs, which she fluffed out with a rat comb. She wore cotton housewife dresses that flared out like bells, the waists cinched tight with shiny plastic belts. Many a time I’d seen her peer into the little mirror over the scales—for a penny the machine would tell your weight and your fortune. June Rinehart never put in a penny. She’d just gaze into the mirror, teasing her hair and rubbing lipstick off her teeth. I knew for a fact that she’d started working at the Ben Franklin the year after my mother had been sent away.
“I want to marry her,” said Daddy.
“But you’re already married!” Soon as the words were out of my mouth, I cringed. All around me, the café had fallen silent. Several people were staring—the last thing I needed. In this town, you weren’t supposed to shout unless
you were at a football game. I just hoped nobody told the Wentworths about my little outburst.
Daddy folded his hands on the table. “But that’s fixing to change. I’ve filed for divorce.”
I shut my eyes for a moment. I had just gotten a letter from my mother. She’d been writing steadily ever since I’d lost Jennifer. Most of her notes advised me to rebuild my reputation, so I could take Claude back to court and reclaim my baby. This most recent note was packed with motherly advice, and I’d been touched. “I’m so happy that you are gainfully employed,” she’d written, “even if it’s with Clancy. Just don’t scream at the customers. One of them might be related to a judge. You never know who’s related to who in Crystal Falls.”
“Please don’t rush into this, Daddy.”
“Your mother has been in Central State for two years,” he said. “I don’t think she’ll get better. And don’t forget, she and I had stopped living together long before she went…well, long before she jumped off the Ben Franklin’s roof. I have a right to be happy. That’s why I’m taking the divorce papers to her this afternoon.” Daddy patted his suit pocket. Then he rubbed the hand over his brow, messing up his eyebrows. They stuck up crazily, like cat fur licked the wrong way.
I lowered my head, trying to sort my feelings. Thinking of my mother’s letter again, I got teary-eyed.
“Oh, sugar,” Daddy said. “Please don’t.”
I wiped my face. “She’ll be devastated.”
“Where’d you learn a big, old word like that?” Daddy smiled.
“On The Young and the Restless,” I started to say. Because it was true. One couldn’t learn everything in a dictionary. Then I narrowed my eyes. “Stop trying to change the subject. Think about Mummy. She’s counting on the two of you getting back together.”
Daddy’s eyes widened and he leaned forward. “She said that?”
“No, not exactly,” I said, wiping my eyes again, “but you’ve visited her every single Sunday for the past few years. You haven’t missed a day. Surely that means you still love her. That you care.”
“I do care. I will always care about your mother—well, in my own, special way I’ll care. But I care about June Rinehart, too. Sugar, I didn’t mean to fall in love.”
“Can’t you fall out of it?”
Daddy looked at me a moment. “I want to marry June. Your mother may be ill, but she understands matters of the heart.”
“No, she won’t. Not in a thousand years.”
“Give her some credit. Dorothy’s not a stupid woman. And Bitsy, honey, just because I’m divorcing your mother and moving onward with my life, it doesn’t mean that I’ll stop being your father.”
“I know.” I gave a short, jerky nod, and a tear hit the table. “It’s not me I’m worried about, it’s Mummy. You’re all she’s got.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You’re her whole world!” I cried. Again, everyone in the café stopped talking. Even the cooks were peeking through the kitchen doors. Violet and Aunt Clancy stood next to the cash register, whispering; Zach stood next to a palm tree, his eyes bulging. Even though the café hadn’t been open long, I knew most of the customers, and they knew me. Little Bitsy McDougal, they called me, failing to add my married name, Wentworth. Little Bitsy McDougal, her daddy owns the five-and-dime, and her mama had a breakdown. They knew all about Aunt Clancy, too, and the customers left off both of her married surnames—Jones and Falk. They also knew about her dalliance with my daddy and how she’d abandoned Violet and run off to California with her no-good hippie friend, Sunny. People still whispered about Aunt Clancy taking Byron away from his wife and squandering his money to open this café. Crystal Falls was a town that thrived on knowing the most intimate, embarrassing details of your life. Nothing was sacrosanct. (A word I had memorized from the dictionary last week.) Me, I liked to keep a low profile—it was my only chance of ever winning back my daughter. Now the whole town would buzz about the McDougals and their long-awaited divorce.
Daddy ran his hand over his hair. “No, honey,” he said, “I never was her whole world. Not to be cruel, but neither were you. Dorothy worships the ground your brother walks on. He is her world.”
“That’s not true.” I was tempted to show him her letter, to prove that she loved me. To prove that he could be wrong. But suddenly I felt so tired. I just didn’t have the energy to fight him. I stood up, and Daddy reached out to grab my hand. I pulled away, and my hand went flying back, smacking firmly into the shoulder of a man at the next table. His arm cocked upward, and a spoonful of curried fruit shot into the air, hitting the neck of a chubby woman sitting across the room. She stood up, lifted a peach segment from her throat, and then began to shriek. Zach rushed over to the lady, offering his handkerchief.
“Let me get you dessert—on the house,” Zach was saying, his New York accent as strangely out of place as his food.
“Well, I don’t want this canned fruit,” said the woman, taking the handkerchief. “But I might like to try the seven-layer lemon marzipan cake.”
“I can fix you a dessert sampler.” Zach’s beautiful dark eyes opened wide.
“I’m thinking.” The woman tapped her chin. “I wouldn’t mind. But could you put it in a doggie bag?”
“Certainly.” Zach stepped backward, shooting me a murderous glance.
“Now look what’s happened,” I cried to my father. “And I’ve been trying so hard to be good.”
“Well, I’m sorry. But I just didn’t think you’d react this way.”
“How am I supposed to act, Daddy?”
He was silent. Then he said, “I’ve already asked June to be my wife.”
“And I’ll just bet she said ‘yes.’”
He blushed. “Miss Rinehart is a good woman. She sings in the choir at the Garden of Prayer First Born Church of the Living God.”
“Isn’t that the church of choice for rednecks?”
“Don’t be so judgmental.”
“But you’re marrying a gold-digging Christian. Violet says they’re the worst kind. Because they know not what they do—not a speck of insight into their own behavior.” I broke off, putting one hand over my eyes. My cousin really had said that; but coming from me, it didn’t sound smart and witty. I sounded like a crackpot.
“She’s not like that.” He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple clicked. I stared at his lips, wondering if he’d kissed June Rinehart, and if she’d ever rubbed up against him in the storeroom. The very idea of my daddy being a sexual person filled me with embarrassment. Daddies weren’t supposed to act that way.
“I can’t help who I love, sugar,” he said.
My chin wove. Then I spun around and raced into the kitchen. The cooks watched in mute horror as I stripped off my big apron. Then I began to twirl it over my head, around and around, until the heavy white fabric made a snapping sound. When I let go, the ties hit the chains of the pot rack, setting it to swaying. The cooks released a collective gasp. I could just imagine them on the witness stand, giving testimony about my temper tantrum. No, Your Honor, she’s too crazy to raise a child. Jennifer is better off with rich alcoholics and woman chasers.
“Shit,” said one of the cooks. “She’s gone berserk.”
“Not yet,” Violet said, leaning into the kitchen. She lifted one eyebrow like Lauren Bacall. “But she’s close.”
I pushed open the back door, letting in a wedge of sunlight. Then I stepped into the alley, trying not to gag on the stench of coffee grounds and cantaloupe rinds. I heard footsteps and whirled around. I thought it might be Violet, but it was Aunt Clancy. “Get your ass back inside,” she yelled. “No.”
I shook my head. “I quit.”
“You can’t quit.” Clancy Jane laughed. “This is a family restaurant.”
“I’m bad for business,” I said.
“Maybe you just need a break. Hey, I know what. Why don’t you and Violet go on an errand? You guys can take a caramel cake to my beloved’s office.”
“What’s the occasion? Is it Byron’s birthday?”
“No, I’m just being wifely.” She shrugged, then laughed. “That’s what he seems to want. So to keep the peace, I’ll give him a piece. Think he’ll appreciate it?”
Byron’s receptionist cheerfully greeted me and Violet. “My, that looks delicious,” she said, eyeing the cake as Violet lifted it out of the box. I walked to the end of the hall and turned into Byron’s office. Framed photographs were lined up on the edge of the bookcase, hiding the medical texts. I ran my finger over pictures of Byron’s daughters, three blue-eyed blondes—two with dimples, one with braces. They didn’t live in Crystal Falls anymore; they lived in Michigan with their mother. Byron never saw them.
Violet came up behind me and picked up a picture of Clancy Jane. In the photo, her mother was wearing turquoise leather boots and a long sweater. Her legs were small but curvy. Another picture, taken in a Las Vegas wedding chapel, showed Clancy Jane laughing and Byron hugging her from behind. Clancy Jane wore bell-bottom jeans and a gauzy white blouse with embroidered flowers. She had daisies pinned in her hair. Byron was wearing a striped golf shirt and shorts, and his nose was sunburned.
“They look happy,” I said.
Mad Girls In Love Page 11
