by Lisa Samson
I grew up making my own sandwiches behind the counter, pulling up the stainless steel lid that protected the lunchmeats, mayo, mustard, and toppings like lettuce, tomato, and sliced onion. Ham on rye with mustard and mayo mixed, a red ripe tomato slice, and a hank of lettuce satisfied me more than any other combination. Man, I miss that. When Brian removed the long counter and the grill and work area behind it, I wanted to strangle him for vandalizing my memories. He might as well have removed my liver or my left arm.
But Towson turned around a couple of decades ago and became tony and smart, and Brian felt the need to follow suit. I actually have to give my brother credit. With L & N Seafood, Paolo’s, and other glitzy places across the street at the Towson Commons, we’d have gone under for sure. But he could have consulted with me about the name change. I work as many hours as he does. I do the books, seat customers, wait tables when necessary, and pay the bills. He could have called me from where I sat poolside at one of Lyra’s swim meets and checked to see if I liked the name. Instead, he ordered an expensive sign, knowing I’d just go along rather than spend more money on something we could agree to. He’s a sneaky twit.
But he always remembers the kids’ birthdays.
Mom’s apartment over the restaurant simplifies my life. And though we spent a fortune redecorating the business—chrome this, linen that—Mom’s two floors remain exactly as they were when she moved us in after Harry bugged out. The front room, the living room, still glows a sea-foam green, and everything sits properly in its place. Unless of course you look into her hall closet, which is messier than a presidential impeachment. Thank goodness she’s never been fond of vinyl slipcovers, because the couch, of heavy green-and-white plaid upholstery, uglies up the room enough on its own. She loves this couch, the first large-ticket item she ever bought for herself.
I kiss her cheek, head back down the outside stairs, and slip my key into the restaurant’s back door.
Already I anticipate that fresh pot of coffee, the newspaper, and an ample strip of sunlight unfurling across the page, transforming newsprint to parchment. I enjoy watching people scuttle by on their way to work, although some of them depress me. So put together and confident. Women with bouncy hair and fine leather pumps and stylish briefcases. Men sporting good haircuts and pressed clothing and those can-do attitudes I don’t think I’ve ever felt for more than thirty seconds. Others, well, they make me feel pretty good about myself. It would be mean to say why.
A sticky bun completes the scenario. Got to have a sticky bun.
I grab the copy of the monthly inspirational booklet I stash behind the register. It’s all I can manage these days. Never one to study Scripture, in all honesty, I’ve never wanted to be, which says something negative. Take your pick: lazy, unspiritual, apathetic, cold, hard, prone to procrastination. Which one I assign to myself depends upon the day. Today, as the coffee drips, I’m leaning toward the apathetic. The most menacing by far.
But the devotional encourages me. Talks about the enduring qualities of God’s love, about how He bases His fatherly affection not on our performance but upon His heart. After what my father did to us, I need that.
The coffee’s done, praise God from whom all blessings flow. I remember the days a fresh pot awaited me on the kitchen counter, courtesy of Rusty. We always got along so well.
Mitch and I always got along so well. That thought lasts awhile.
I tried to rejoice in my husband’s accomplishments when he first went on the road. I even possessed the energy for excitement back then, or at least what it took to fool myself into some semblance of enthusiasm. But I’m worn down like a brook stone. I need a pep pill. Whatever those are. Didn’t people in the forties and fifties take them?
After the paper and the sticky bun I head to the small office in the very back of the restaurant, turn on the computer, and look over the present state of epitome’s finances. Not good. We took out a loan for the improvements, and how each month we pay for that and our staff remains a matter of prayer. These numbers foreshadow some belt-tightening. I have a feeling I’m going to have to start waiting tables soon.
Man oh man. I’ll bet Mitch’s ex-wife never worried about having to wait tables, dahling.
I reach into my briefcase, slip out the floppy disk that holds my novel, and decide to edit for a bit. Did I say I was depressed before? But the books soon call me back, and I begin the tedious process of entering all our expenses. Nothing but red ink. We can only hang on like this a couple of months more. Maybe.
Brian and a hangover stumble in at ten.
“Hi Ive.” He winces, the words probably scraping around in his head like grinding gears.
I swivel around in the old wooden office chair Grandpa used to use. “Hey Bri.” I consider screaming in his ear, “How are you this fine morning?” but decide to exhibit a little grace. He fits into the category of the pathetic sort, after all. Good-looking, talented, and totally unfit for relating to women in a meaningful way. Unable to learn from mistakes, if he even sees them as mistakes in the first place.
Am I like that?
Dear God, don’t answer that.
“Let’s sit in the dining room.”
I pour him a cup of coffee and place it in his hand.
“You are a gift from heaven, Ivy.”
It’s the same every morning. Sometimes it goes like this (especially when he’s late):
“You’re wonderful, old Ivy dear.”
“Save it for your washed-up tarts, Bri.”
“Hey, I can get any woman I want.”
“Yeah, as long as they’re tarts.”
After idolizing a high-school friend for the past two hours, I’m glad that conversation isn’t happening today.
He’ll hold up his hand. “Can we have this conversation later when my headache clears?”
“Sure. Or we can pretend we did. It’s always the same anyway. I posit you have an inherent disrespect for women, and you end up telling me I’m judgmental, and then I have nothing to say to that.”
He’ll shake his head and fish in the cabinet under the register for some pain reliever. I’ll say, “So was it worth it?” But of course I say that almost every morning, so since we’re skipping the verbiage today, I decide to start filling salt shakers instead.
I first saw Rusty at the restaurant back before Brian tore down my beloved long counter and pie case. He tumbled in five minutes to closing time on a Saturday night. Now you can’t help but notice Rusty. Even then, at a mere hundred and fifty pounds, he somehow took up more space than anyone in the room. While the rest of us rubber helium balloons float around the world, Mylar Rusty tumbles among us, rendering us transparent and feeling a little silly, realizing our helium will be gone well before he’s even begun to pucker.
The bell slammed against the glass door, and he apologized.
His dark auburn hair, very thick, swung around his forehead like a British actor’s hair. His caramel eyes took in the room, including me, at a single glance. We both blushed. Not that he was embarrassed or anything. He told me later the first thought he had upon seeing me: “Now, that is what I call a woman!” He said his breath caught in his throat, and he felt so lacking. That lacking pushed him forward, for Rusty liked challenges even then, if only to prove he possessed more oomph than his older brother ever gave him credit for. Ten minutes later, he and I sat alone at a table for two, talking about musicians and poets.
His fingers resting on the table, raised up slightly in time to the songs, trumpet miming. Energy buzzed about him, his eyes like sparklers—so bright it hurt to look; so lively and intriguing I couldn’t look away.
I felt strange and almost desperate sitting next to this guy, but Tom Webber had broken up with me for the eighth time three weeks before, and … well, this guy loved more than sports. He didn’t use lingo. He said he liked my glasses. He told me my hair was the most intriguing shade of blond he’d ever seen. He told his roommate to go on home, he’d catch him later.
&nb
sp; I accompanied him to church the next day and watched him play percussion. He became so thoroughly enveloped in the rhythm of the songs it mesmerized me. And then, when he sang a solo written by Phil Keaggy, a man I knew nothing about at the time, I felt my heart lurch forward toward him and God. That voice watered some spot in my heart that no one had ever touched. Not Mitch, not Tom. Not Pastor Kincaid. Not Chuck Swindoll. Nobody. Afterward, we took a walk by the waters of Loch Raven. I laughed at his jokes and self-deprecating stories. We sat on the banks of the reservoir, and he pulled out a Far Side book, and we laughed ourselves silly at that, too. He didn’t kiss me, but he held my hand and told me he’d never yet met a girl who laughed as much as I did.
The next morning he showed up at the restaurant before his first class at Towson State. We served breakfast back in those days. In his hand a dozen pink roses bobbed. Pink. Not the typical red. Good, an individual. We strolled together again, this time down the streets of Towson, sat on the lip of the dry fountain in the sterile square of the new courthouse, and drank coffee. And I felt comfortable and more like myself than ever before. All soft and open and maybe even a little sweet. Tom Webber made me nervous, always wondering when he’d break my heart again.
I didn’t laugh much that day with Rusty, for a different atmosphere pervaded, something silent and profound, but I smiled all the way down, especially when he told me his parents were still together, still strong and loving, twenty-five years post “I do.” I promised myself I’d never let him go.
Oh great. My father, Harry Starling, just walked by the front window.
Harry’s a schmo. No other way around it. And I guess because he deserted us with such glibness, the sight of him hones Rusty’s departure to a more exquisite point.
Mom, bearing the heavy load of hindsight, said lots of warning signals flashed, even during the dating months: the times he stood her up, the way money slipped through his fingers and she’d have to pay for their nights out. The way his eye wandered. But she loved him, she said. She loved his bright, good looks, his slim physique, the way he turned everyday life into a party. He ran with a wild crowd, sure, drag racing, clubbing, smoking like Robert Mitchum, but she was the woman to tame him, yes sir. Not to mention she was twenty-eight and couldn’t make babies by herself.
Even at ten years old I noticed the way he looked women up and down. And choosy? No, no, no! It didn’t matter the hair color or the build, whether a skirt hung from her hips or pants stretched tight, she demanded a look-see. I didn’t realize my mother noticed until I was twelve. Some fuse blew inside me then. Never Daddy’s girl in the first place—that was Brett’s position—I realized he’d never sit close to my heart. After that I found myself on “Mom’s side,” though no one ever demanded a choice from me. Even then I pitched my tent in the camps of “all” and “nothing” and never the fragile space in between.
My brother Brian takes after Harry, but he’s smart enough to pitch his tent in the singles’ camp, whereas Harry just kept sneaking into other people’s tents. I guess he can at least thank Harry for the gift of a negative role model.
At least Harry has the courtesy to appear after the lunch rush for his meal. We feel compelled to offer up a freebie—he’s our dad—but he always orders expensive items.
We perform the obligatory greeting song-and-dance, and Brian appears from the kitchen.
“Whatchya got in the back, Brian?” And before Brian can answer, reporting only salmon or tenderloin, Harry heads to the back like he still belongs and discovers the jumbo lump crabmeat in the refrigerator. “How about one of your crab cakes, son?”
“Well, Dad, we’re planning on just using it in the pasta special—”
“Oh, come on. Make a crab cake for your old man!” I puff out my chest. “Harry, we don’t have enough crab. Did you not hear your son?”
“Ivy, that’s no way to talk to your—”
“Old man. Yeah, maybe. Now listen, we have a business to run here. The specials are set. Maybe you can squirrel Brian into this, but not me. Now do you want a burger or a club sandwich?”
“How about a steak sandwich?”
The old coot. “Okay.”
“Don’t forget to grill the onions, son. You know how much I like them grilled, right?”
Pathetic. He’s Willie Loman without the right to be noticed.
He pushes the swinging door and heads back into the dining room.
Brian opens the fridge. “Man, he makes me mad. Thanks.”
“What are little sisters for? He’s such a loser.”
Yeah, that sounds like something Jesus would say. I should treat him like any other wanderer in need of God’s grace. But my contest with the flesh rages like thunder, and the flesh is about to spike the ball and do a victory dance in the end zone. My flesh even knows how to break dance, it’s so good at winning the skirmish.
I walk back out to the front. My father sits at one of the window tables smoking a cigar. Oh man!
“Harry, put that out. You know it’s not allowed.”
“Oh, come on, Ivy. Nobody’s here.”
I cross my arms. “Harry, please. We can’t afford the fines.”
“Okay.” He stubs it out on a bread plate.
“Thanks.” I remove it and stride toward the wait station.
“That was a Cuban.”
“Oh please.” Under my breath.
“Are you mumbling?”
“Darn straight. Today’s paper is under the register.” I should offer to bring it to him. I should honor my father so my days may be long in the land the Lord my God giveth me, even though my life is hardly the Promised Land. Land of the Lost is more like it.
“Man, you’re a piece of work, Ivy.”
“I’ve learned from the best.” I march back into the kitchen. Brian throws onions on the grill. “He makes me sick.”
“I know.”
“At least I don’t drag a wife and kids through my exploits.” What can I say?
He shakes his head and gently works the ground sirloin into a patty. He’s a pro, right? Personally, I’d work the thing down to the seventh circle of hell and back, ensuring the most unsatisfactory hamburger on York Road. “No matter how bad I feel about myself and my life, Dad always puts me to shame.”
And Mom thought surely she’d be the one to bring Harry Starling to Jesus. Missionary daters possess the best of intentions, don’t they? Sometimes it works out, and sometimes others bear the fallout. Like me and Brian. And Brett. For crying out loud, I don’t have enough time to start thinking about my sister, who messes up just about everything she touches. And it’s never her fault. Maybe she just touches the wrong things.
She’s working on marriage number two, and the fog alarms are beginning to blare. Marcus is okay, if you like plastic men. He actually gets pedicures and waxing: brows, chest, and back. Can’t blame him for the back.
I’ve got it good compared to my siblings. But they have no idea how hard it is to be the responsible one without truly major issues. I get no easy outs.
“Did he forget your birthday last week, Bri?”
“Of course.”
“He forgot mine in May.”
“Figures.”
I head back out to the dining room, praying with fervor that more diners have materialized during my absence. No such luck for Ivy Schneider.
“Ivy, come on over and talk to your old man.”
He never uses the word father or dad with me. Maybe even he realizes he shouldn’t assume.
“I’m busy.”
“Oh, come on. There’s nobody here.”
One of our waitresses arrives. Unfortunately, the boot will find her first as the kitty dwindles. “Hi Flannery!”
“Hi Ivy! Gorgeous day, isn’t it?”
“Couldn’t ask for better!”
I love Flannery. She always wears trendy hairstyles, cool jewelry, and hand-painted clothing. She’s an art student married to an oceanographer—isn’t that the hippest combo imaginable? And she�
��s one of those naturally happy people. I love that about her. She comes from big-time money through her grandmother, but you can’t tell.
Harry taps the table. “See, kid? Reinforcements have arrived.”
Nothing else to be done. I sit opposite him, place my chin in my hand. “What do you want to talk about?”
He never asks me about my life. He only talks about himself. Gee, who does that sound like?
“You can congratulate me for starters, Ive. I’m getting married next month.”
“Oh.”
“Yep, a real sweetheart. Reminds me of your mother.”
“Don’t even go there.”
“You’re not happy for your old man?”
“It’s number four.”
“Hey, the last two were not my fault. Now, I admit, I ruined it with your mother, but I was young, and we messed up.” He shrugs. “What can I say? I won’t make excuses for myself.”
How about an apology? Even one.
“So, Harry, got any more contracts?”
“Oh yeah. Lots of brickwork down in Canton these days.”
Brian sets down his plate. “Enough to pay for a sirloin burger?” He turns around right away.
Three ladies with shopping bags enter. God bless you, girls.
“Gotta seat these customers, Harry. Eat up.”
Dear God, let him leave soon.
4
People wonder how I can be so sure of Rusty all the time, with him traveling all over the place, hanging around lonely women who flirt and make sweeping hints that usually begin with talk of “a cup of coffee.” It amazes me here in America we initiate so many of our mating rituals with “a cup of coffee.” I mean, it yellows our teeth, makes our hands quiver like a ninety-year-old’s, and gives us dog breath. But for many of us, it’s our first date. Well, it’s a surefire method of avoiding kisses you’d rather keep to yourself.
You’d assume Rusty’s obesity would be a deterrent. But you’d be about as close to the truth as Tim Robbins to a speaking engagement at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Think about men like Orson Welles, or even that Meatloaf guy. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the ladies, although I could be wrong. Or maybe he’s actually a nice guy with a sweet wife who realizes the thing that pays the bills is only his schtick. He probably gets in the shower right away and washes all that grease out of his hair. And I’ll bet Meatloaf’s wife doesn’t mind his concert tours. I’ll bet Meatloaf’s wife goes with him everywhere she can!
