“Have you heard from him since he left?”
“No, not directly. As soon as she realized he’d left, Petie went after him, her and Ron Schiffen, which is another story. Anyway, they found him in Anacortes, Washington. He said he was on his way to Kodiak aboard the Gillian, so I’ve sent him a couple of letters there but I don’t think I’ll hear from him, at least not right now. The thing is, I might never hear from him again. Pogo left us, and he was a lot easier to hold down than Jim.”
“I can’t believe that,” Gordon said.” The man seemed to worship you.
“Well.” Rose absently stirred her cold coffee.
“So what’s with Petie and Ron Schiffen?”
“That’s another huge mess. Apparently Schiff decided to meet Petie in Portland and help her track Jim down. He and Petie have gotten to be friends lately, I guess. Now Carla—Schiff’s wife, she’s awful—is telling anyone who will listen that Petie seduced him. The woman actually took out a half-page ad in the Sawyer Weekly Standard saying that Petie had stolen her husband, an upstanding citizen, a moral family man—this is Schiff she’s referring to—and that they should boycott her. She said Petie comes from degenerate stock—those are her exact words, I swear—and that honest Christian people shouldn’t so much as talk to her if they see her on the street or accept her business if they own a store or something. Not that Hubbard has too many upstanding Christian people. She used an old picture of Petie in the ad that someone took at a picnic, one where Petie has this old bandanna tied around her forehead and is holding three bottles of beer. I think Carla’s also trying to get Schiff to fire Eddie, but I’m sure Schiff won’t do that. He’s got a couple of deep rake marks down one side of his face. He said he got them riding a dirt bike through the woods, but everyone knows it was Carla and those long fingernails of hers.”
Gordon shook his head. “My God, you go out of town for a few days and look what happens while you’re gone.”
“It’s a small town, Gordon. Things like this happen all the time.”
“Not to my friends they don’t. Look, Rose, there’s something I need to talk to you about. Do you feel like you can listen to some business talk, or should I wait? There’s not a lot of time, though.”
“Lord, I wish you weren’t leaving. You still feel like you have to?”
“Paul and I signed a lease when I was there. Yes, I have to. For Nadine as much as for me.”
Rose’s eyes teared up. “I feel like I’m losing everyone. You, Nadine, Jim, Petie. And it’s all happening so fast.”
“Have you lost Petie?”
“I don’t know. I was so angry with her. I wish we could go back a week and start over.”
“If you went back a week, you’d just repeat the whole thing again.”
“Yes, probably.” Rose looked out the window over the bay. The Pixie, a pig of a sportfishing boat that wallowed even on a calm sea, was just clearing the bar. Today the tourists would be throwing up all over the place. “Anyway, what did you want to talk about?”
“Can I get you anything first? More coffee?”
“No thanks. Go ahead—you’re making me nervous.”
“Well, here it is, then.” Gordon took a deep breath. “Nadine and I have been talking about what to do with this place. We don’t want to just close it down, especially after we’ve gotten this far and people have finally begun to know about it. But we don’t really want to sell it, either, not to someone who’s going to change it all. So here’s what we came up with, that we’d like you to consider. We’d like to turn the place over to you.”
“What? Oh my God, Gordon, you can’t do that.”
“Let me tell you the terms, because you might not even want it when I’m done. We owe ten thousand dollars on a business loan. You would have to assume it and make the rest of the payments—six hundred and twenty-eight dollars a month. We haven’t had a month when we couldn’t pay it, not even December, so it’s doable. If you run the place with maybe just one other person for the summer, you’ll be fine—better than fine, we hope. There are some things we can do to help you with visibility, starting with a cookbook signing as soon as Local Flavor is released, which Paul thinks may be July, at least that’s what we’ll shoot for. We’ll get book signings in Sawyer, too, not just Hubbard, and maybe even ones in Portland and Eugene. Plus we’ll make sure all the newspapers and radio stations get press releases about the book. It might be a good idea to have another cook-off, too, to get people involved again. Anyway, there’s time to work out things like that, but the point is, once you’ve paid off the loan you’ll own the place free and clear.”
“I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe you and Nadine are serious about this. What about you? What will you live on?”
“That’s the last thing. We’d ask you to pay Nadine five hundred dollars a month until I’ve died.”
Rose shuddered. “Oh, Gordon.”
“It will help her in the months at the end, when she may not be able to work regularly if she’s looking after me. She’ll have plenty of money from my life insurance after I’m gone. So that’s pretty much it. We figure you should be able to clear a thousand a month even in winter, and conceivably five or six thousand a month in summer and during spring break.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything,” Gordon said. “Just think it over. And if you decide to say no, we’ll certainly understand.”
“You know I love this place.”
“Yes.”
“And you trust me not to fuck it all up?”
“More than I trust Nadine and me, as far as that goes.”
“I don’t know,” Rose said, and wrapped her arms around herself.
“God, my heart hurts.”
“It’s either panic or love,” Gordon said, grinning.
Rose smiled, too. “You really think I can do this?”
“No,” said Gordon. “I know you can do it. The only question is whether you will do it.”
PETIE STOOD on the spongy old floor in her laundry room, sorting socks. She liked finding all the mates and marrying them. It appealed to her sense of order; if no sock was left alone at the bottom of the basket, then, at least on some level, all must be well. She remembered Ryan by the socks he wore and how he wore them. First, the tiny elasticized baby socks, white with blue heels and toes, making arcs in the air as he kicked and kicked until, by the time he was a toddler, he had learned to kick them right off so he could walk in his bare feet, small toes fanning and gripping every which way for balance. Within a year he rebelled against socks altogether, unable to bear even the slightest wrinkle inside his shoes. Petie still watched him sometimes when he didn’t see her, putting his sneakers on over and over again until each sock inside lay perfectly smooth.
When she and Old Man had lived in the woods, she took their clothes to the laundromat next to the Diary Queen twice a week, soothed by the warmth and dryness, the mindless drone of the dryers, the whoosh and rumble of the wash cycles. Sometimes young women were there, mothers who folded their children’s clothes with pride, smoothing and evening and squaring corners in a way Petie never remembered Paula having done. Sometimes fishermen would come in reeking of diesel and guts, heaving mountains of filthy clothes into the commerical-size washers, smoking and flipping through the nickel ads or some NAPA Auto Parts catalog while they waited. None of these people took much notice of Petie, except once when a young woman asked her if her mother would be back soon, or did she need a ride home. Petie had lied and said her mother was just down the street, buying them ice cream sundaes. She’d slipped out the door when the woman wasn’t watching, humping her laundry basket the mile home.
Over the noise of the dryer Petie heard the door open. Eddie was supposed to be working and the boys were in school. She heard Rose call, “Hello!”
Her heart made a little jump. It was the first time Rose had sought her out since Christie left and everything turned to crap. She put the rest of the dry clo
thes back in the dryer and hurried into the kitchen. “Hey,” she said.
“I need to talk to you,” Rose said, shucking off her raincoat.
“No you don’t,” Petie said.
“What?”
“You don’t need to talk to me, because I know everything you’re going to say. About how wrong I was, and how I had no right to say what I did to Christie and how even when I found the man I fucked up and didn’t manage to bring him home. Did I get most of it right? Jesus, my hands are shaking. Oh, and if Jim never comes home, I’ll have fucked up your entire life.”
“Would that be an apology?” Rose asked, starting to grin.
“Yes. Wait, shall I throw myself on the floor at your feet?” Petie said, smiling the first real smile in three days.
“I don’t know what I would do without you, and that’s a fact,” Rose sighed. “Look, I need you to help me think about something.”
Petie bowed.
“Get this. Nadine and Gordon want to give me Souperior’s.” She repeated what Gordon had said while Petie watched her through a rising ribbon of cigarette smoke.
“Whoa,” said Petie, and whistled. “It’s fairy godmother time. Oops, bad pun, but you know what I mean.”
“I’m going to miss him so much.” Rose gazed off into space for a minute. “Do you think God plans our friendships, makes sure we meet certain people at certain times?”
“No.”
“No, I guess not,” Rose said.
“Will you do it, take the restaurant?”
“I don’t know. It makes my hands sweat just thinking about it. Feel.” Rose held out a palm.
“It’s panic,” Petie said.
“That’s exactly what Gordon said.”
“You should do it,” Petie said. “Souperiors, I mean. You’re already running the place. How hard can it be to own it, too?”
“It can’t possibly be that simple.”
Petie shrugged. “If you want it to work out, it’ll work out. It’s not like you’Il need to hire a cook. Plus Carissa can help waitress in the summer and on weekends. Hell, Ryan could even be a busboy sometimes.”
But Rose’s attention had wandered. “Cordon was talking about telling the newspapers and stuff when the book comes out. I didn’t understand some of it, but he said we should do a book signing. Hey, Petie, wait a minute—I’ve got the best idea. You know how the walls at Souperior’s have always seemed kind of bare? Let’s show your work there. Let’s put it up with price tags, so people can buy it right from their tables. It would make the place so much brighter, and it would be a good place for you to start. You wouldn’t need Pica Talco or anyone. Doesn’t that sound good?”
Petie looked doubtful.
“What,” Rose said.
“I have a hard time believing anyone would pay money for one of my pictures.”
“Paul did.”
“Pretty pictures in a book are much different than hanging by themselves on a wall,” Petie said.
“Well, if it doesn’t work we’ll take them down.”
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Petie said, giving Rose a look. “You’re going to own a goddamn restaurant.”
“Am I? Yes, I guess I am. Holy shit, huh?”
“No,” Petie said, suddenly serious. “It’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time. If you have to go back to waitressing, you might as well do it at your own place. Hell, maybe we can get Schiff to hold the Kiwanis meeting there every month. Rotary, too. The place is big enough, and everyone’s been bitching forever about the crummy food at the Anchor.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Who?”
“Schiff?”
Petie flushed. “No. It seemed like it would be better right now if I didn’t.”
“Is that okay?”
Petie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It was nice of him to help you find Jim like that.”
“It was suicidal. Who would ever have guessed he’d turn out to be a good man. Not to mention an upstanding citizen and moral family man, in case you didn’t know that about him already.”
“Oh, right,” snorted Rose. “I read that someplace.”
“Goddamn Carla,” Petie hooted.
“Goddamn Carla,” Rose shrieked.
They laughed until it hurt.
“Oh, baby,” Rose finally said, fighting for breath. “Let’s never break up.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Petie said, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “Nobody else on earth would put up with me.”
STEPPING OFF the bus at the Greyhound station, Marge opened her arms and drew Petie in, enfolding her in a real hug, a generous hug, a hug you weren’t capable of until you were middle-aged and had died once or twice and risen once or twice and learned that what life dealt you wasn’t necessarily going to be good.
She had called the day after Petie returned from Anacortes. “Hon, I’m coming north,” she’d said, “and I’m scared to death to do it, so if you could keep me company a little I’d sure appreciate it.”
“You know I will, but what are you afraid of?”
“That Larry won’t be there.”
“He’s in every loop of carpet and every washcloth and pillowcase. Of course he’ll be here.”
“I’m counting on that, honey, but it scares me, too, knowing I’ll have to lose him all over again when I leave.”
“So don’t leave.”
“DeeDee and the kids, they’ve fixed up a real nice room for me here.”
“How are you getting here?”
“DeeDee’s taking me to the Greyhound in the morning. She said I could take her Camry if I wanted, but I’d be scared to. Larry, he was the driver, not me. I drive some in Tempe, but only around the neighborhood, you know—where the kids need to go, and the Safeway and that.”
“When’s the bus coming in? I’ll pick you up.”
“Oh, honey, that would be a relief. Just let me look for the ticket—you know, I lose everything now, even when it’s right under my nose. I don’t know why that is.”
Petie heard drawers sliding in and out, and at one point the receiver banged down on something hard and she heard Marge clucking to herself the way she did when she was exasperated. “My Lord,” she said breathlessly when she finally picked up the phone again. “Have you ever known anyone so scatterbrained? You know, I think some of it might be the pills they have me taking. I carry a little card in my purse now, honey, with DeeDee and the kids’ address on it in case I forget. I probably ought to write my own name on it, too, I’m that bad. Looks like I’m getting in at two-thirty in the afternoon, day after tomorrow.”
“All right. Look for me there,” Petie said. “Don’t give it another thought.”
Marge sighed deeply on the other end of the line. “Thank you, honey, I feel easier already knowing you’ll be there. You and DeeDee, you’ve taken real good care of me. Don’t think I don’t know it.”
Now, outside the shabby Greyhound station in Sawyer, she held Petie in her embrace a minute longer than usual and then held her at arm’s length. “You look real good, honey.” She was dressed in her usual pastel stretchwear and a self collar sweatshirt that said, in sequined letters, I’m Shelley’s Grandma. “Isn’t it the cutest thing?” she puffed as Petie grabbed her suitcase. “She and DeeDee made it for me last Christmas, but it’s too warm to wear down in Tempe, so I’ve been saving it.”
Petie led her back to the car, trying not to give away just how bad Marge looked. Her face was thin and the skin seemed to have found new wrinkles and lost most of its color. Larry had always joked that there was just enough of Marge to get a good hold on, but Marge had anguished over those thirty pounds ever since Petie had known her. Now that they were gone she just looked old and baggy. She had used some kind of eye shadow, too, something Petie had never seen her wear before. DeeDee must be working on her. Petie helped her with her seat belt and pulled out onto the highway.
“Ever sinc
e Larry passed on,” Marge said, “DeeDee and the kids have been real good to me, but I swear to you, honey, I don’t know how I’ve done it.”
Then she sat up a little straighter and said brightly, “How are your boys? They’re just growing up so fast.” Marge had seen them just weeks ago. DeeDee must have instructed her to be cheerful so she wouldn’t wear on people.
“Look,” Petie said. “You don’t have to pretend for me. You don’t have to act like you’re okay when you’re not. Okay?”
Marge dove into her bag for a Kleenex and nodded, overcome. She patted Petie’s hand hard and held her Kleenex to her mouth until she’d composed herself and drew a deep, quavery breath. “I’m just not myself right now. Lord, Larry would give me such a talking-to. I miss him, honey.” Tears ran down her face. Petie touched her cheek with the back of her hand and brought away a river.
“Don’t mind me. Seems like I’m always crying,” Marge said, waving her hand. “Sometimes I don’t even know it till I’ve got a lapful of tears. DeeDee and the kids, they’ve gotten used to me by now. Little Shelley, she just looks at me and says, There goes Grandma again, and runs to get me some tissues. I swear I don’t know what I’d do without that sweet angel.”
“Are we taking you to the Sea View?”
“Yes,” Marge said, and put both hands to her mouth. “Look, we’re home.” Petie drove by the Quik Stop, the Wayside, the Anchor. Marge turned her head away, looking out the window. Petie could feel her tremble.
“Did you remember your car keys?” Petie said. Marge had left her car in the Sea View parking lot when she took off for Tempe.
“I never even took them. They’re hanging in the office, right where they always are.”
“Okay. Look, I’ve got a couple of things I need to do, but I want you to come for dinner. Rose and Carissa will be there, too. Rose has been through some tough times lately. I thought we could cheer her up.”
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