by Deb Caletti
And I guess there are parfaits within parfaits, layers within layers. Downtown, you’ve got the apartments, you’ve got people who rent small houses like we did from Mrs. Jesus-Freak-Homophobe Olson, and people who own their homes, like a lot of our neighbors. And then in the other places, you’ve got the people who have the huge house but no furniture inside, the prestigious job versus just a fat check, Meer Island waterfront or just a Meer Island address. At my school, you had the downtowners under the same roof as the Midlanders and the Skyviewers, the kid whose mom waits in the food-bank line by the library in the same PE class with the kid whose mom waits in line at Nordstrom.
Apparently, there are a lot of “real worlds.”
Anyway, I didn’t have a cell phone, so when Jane called my house at six a.m. to ask me to come in to work on my rare Sunday off because Nikki has to stay home with her kid who has strep throat, and God, let’s hope she didn’t give it to Nikki and all of us while she was at it, the ringing phone wakes up Mom. By the time I get dressed, she’s making coffee, standing at the sink in her frizzled, high-voltage morning hair and the chenille robe she’d had forever. Its fuzz was worn down in spots, just like an old mule.
“Morning,” I say.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” Chico says. The cover of his cage is still on, making his tiny clown voice slightly muffled. I feel bad for him under there, just waiting to start his evil little day. I lift the fabric so he can join us. Freud walks toward Chico in his slinky fashion, sits under his cage and just stares. We have satanic pets, and I’m not sure why. I mean, we’re nice people, but our pets seem to have made a pact with the devil. Freud has some psychological issues—he’s slightly sadistic and a merciless hunter. He once sat in a tree swiping at the air in the direction of a squirrel, his focus that of a hired killer, totally oblivious to the snow that was blowing around like mad and accumulating steadily on his fur like a layer of meringue. He brings you the heads of rodents and birds, lays them down in the kitchen or on your bedroom carpet. He should have been in the Mafia.
“I got water down my sleeve,” Mom grouses. “I hate getting water down my sleeve.” She dries her forearm with a kitchen towel.
“Go back to bed,” I say.
“I can never get back to sleep after I’ve woken up. You get called to work?”
“Sorry. Yeah. Jane needs me to come in.”
“I thought so.” But even her I thought so is ragged and awake-against-your-will weary. “I’ll drive you over if you bring me home a piece of Harold’s pie. It’ll give me something flaky and fat-laden to look forward to.” Harold is Harold Zaminski, this funny old guy Jane gets our baked goods from. He likes to play practical jokes. One time he stuffed the small patch of lawn in front of the store with election signs for this baby-faced Republican running for Senate, just to give Jane a coronary. When Harold’s granddaughter visits, he’ll bring her in, walk behind her, hands up near her neck like he wants to strangle her. She’s a bit of a monster, but you can tell he’s crazy about her.
“Deal,” I say. “You have plans today?” Hopeful question. I wished Mom got out more. The last date she went on was when I still had school recess.
“Oh, I might meet Allison for coffee, or I might just have a robe day and get all the accounting done. Weed the yard with Bex, if I can bribe her.”
“Mom, I love you but you need to get a life.”
“I have a life,” she says. “And I’m getting pie-ie, I’m getting pie-ie.” She sings this and gives a little chenille-dance, neatly proving my point. One thing you can say about daughters and mothers—like it or not, they know the truth about each other.
Trina is already at Carrera’s when Jane and I arrive. She’s sitting in her car, head back against the seat, listening to music. It’s somewhere near the end of April, I don’t remember exactly, but the top of her convertible is down. She isn’t wearing her fur, even though April in Seattle can still have a bite, same as our toilet seat. Trina’s wearing these jeans that lace up the side and this white tank top that’s zingy against her tan. It’s an over-the-counter tan for the most part, kept alive with aerosol and electricity after she and her boyfriend, Roger, got back from Palm Springs a few weeks ago. She’s told us this. Trina’s a confessional person. She rarely has an unexpressed thought.
“My God, it’s about time,” she says. She follows us in before Jane even has the lights up. Luigi, our cook, is already in back, and so is Alex, this quiet boy from my school who helps with the dishes. I hear Luigi singing. He always says, Me, I coulda been Tony Bennett. They told me I coulda made a recording, but I went into the restaurant business instead. More stable. He sings all kinds of things—TV commercials, snippets of opera, Elton John songs, stuff he makes up. Don’t leave me outta eggs, Jane, he’ll croon. But he likes Sinatra best. I know more Sinatra lyrics than any eighteen-year-old should, thanks to Luigi, not that I advertised that. All the white suburban kids who tried so hard to be gangsta and hip-hop but whose mothers all had cappuccino machines would have chewed my ass if they’d known I could sing “Dream” and “Fly Me to the Moon.”
Trina’s favorite table is Travertino Navona. At Carerra’s, every table is a different kind of marble, and the name is on a round gold plate on the table itself. It must have cost Jane a bundle to have the tables made. There are something like three thousand types of marble (called “families”), and all the families have their own “faults,” which give them their characteristics, just like our neighbors at home—Mrs. Denholm next door, who always snooped at us through the venetian blinds, waiting for us “teens” to commit some sort of crime; the Elberts, who let their dog bark all night; and the Navinskys, whose television was always on, and whose kids even have those miniature TVs for brief trips away from the real thing. If you saw Travertino Navona, though, you wouldn’t think about it having faults. It’s a creamy brown, like caramel and marshmallow fluff in a swirl.
“People are hungry here,” Trina says.
“I’ve got to go home sometime,” Jane says. “Just to get my mail, if nothing else.” She’s brought Jack, her black Lab, who gets lonely and eats things if he’s left alone. He ate the golf bag that belonged to Jane’s ex-husband, which she didn’t mind, and the leg off of Jane’s dead grandmother’s rocking chair, which she did mind. Leroy said this was better than if he’d chewed the leg off the dead grandmother, but Jane didn’t think that was so funny.
Jack follows us in (actually, he shoves his way past us), then flops behind the register and sighs through his nose as if the whole experience has been a terrible ordeal.
“Dear God, bring me coffee before I kill someone,” Trina says.
Jane sets her bag down, disappears to talk to Luigi. I get the coffee started; leave a message for Trevor to pick me up after work. “Did you have a bad night?” I ask. Now that I really look at her, I see that the underneath part of Trina’s eyes have their own coffee cup rings of no sleep.
“Bad.”
“What happened?”
“Ten signs you’re being dumped. Number one. Your lover leaves the country and doesn’t tell you.”
“No way,” I say.
“Way. I waited at home for him for two nights. Almost called the police, but finally called Myrna instead.”
“Myrna?”
“Roger’s wife. He went to Brazil, she tells me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘I tried to warn you, didn’t I? Once an asshole, always an asshole.’”
“Oh, man,” I say. I snitch the coffeepot out of the base, interrupt the drizzle for Trina’s immediate caffeine relief. I set a full cup in front of her, and she sighs. Sometimes, coffee is deliverance enough.
“Rio,” Trina says. The word is an ending.
“Why Rio?”
“He’s got another house there. Topless sunbathers, thong bikinis.” Trina rubs her forehead. “What am I gonna do?”
“Who needs him, I say.”
“I thought we had a great time in Palm Springs. The sex alone—”
�
�Whoa. I’m barely eighteen, here, remember? Jesus. I don’t want the details.”
“Your loss,” she says miserably.
“I get enough details at school, thanks. Do you know there’s such a thing as sex addiction? I saw it in some magazine. I’m thinking the guys at my school need a support group for sex addiction. Wait, forget the support group. Just make it sixth period.”
“What kind of pie is there?” Trina asks. She sounds like she’s standing at the edge of a high building. She has suicide in her voice. I know what will lure her from the edge, though.
“Chocolate cream. Apple with crumble top—”
“Stop at chocolate.”
Which I also already knew. People like to have something to turn down, though. They want to be able to say no to some things, because it makes their yes more meaningful. Even if that’s just scrambled instead of poached or fried, wheat and not sourdough or rye. And “no”—it’s also a handy, accessible mini-capsule of power. Maybe you can’t destroy your asshole boyfriend, but you can at least reject apple crumble pie.
I open the refrigerated cupboard, remove Harold’s chocolate cream, cut a wide triangle of comfort. By the time I have it on the plate, Joe Awful Coffee is ambling in, and so are two women who hang around by the door, even if it’s obvious that Carrera’s is a seat-yourself place. I grab two plastic-covered menus and lead them anyway to Grigio Fumo, since Leroy Richie likes Verde Classico, and Nick Harrison likes Rosso Verona, and Funny likes Calacatta Fantasia, and Joe sits at the counter, which is all Carrera No. 2.
Within moments, I’m flying around, and so is Jane, and we’re zipping past each other like experienced dance partners, and Luigi is belting out something he must have heard on the radio on the way over “Why buy a mattress anywhere else!” and there’s the sound of frying and plates and conversation and silverware clinking against glass plates and the smell of butter and coffee and sizzling bacon, the melded recipe of morning. Funny Coyote comes in and talks to Trina, and the two new ladies surprise me and order full stacks (when I took them for the fruit-cup type) and Joe shows Jane and me pictures he just got of his new baby granddaughter. Nick Harrison arrives and sets a section of folded newspaper down beside him, and Leroy must be sleeping late, and a couple with a toddler wants a table and I have to fetch a booster seat.
So, who needs a gym, right? First off, I’ve never been the show-your-body-off-in-stretchy-fabrics type, even if I’ve got an okay one. (My ass is maybe a little wobbly, but big deal.) I went to one of those places once, and there were just too many guys in tight tank tops strutting around and looking at themselves in mirrors. Great big old narcissist party, minus the booze and cocktail wieners on frilly toothpicks. But man, I get plenty of exercise waitressing. It’s hard work. Lifting, bending, constant motion. I give Nick his oatmeal, coo-chie-coo the toddler, take the parents’ order, go back to find a pen that works, refill Joe’s coffee cup. The full stacks are up and I have my back turned when I hear Nick Harrison say, too loudly, “Vespa alert. Curbside.”
I’m registering what this means when in a flash, the bells on the door jangle. When I turn, there’s the guy again, in tan slacks and a white shirt, a sleek leather jacket over one arm. He’s everything new and clean and crispy—shopping bags, clothes with just-ironed creases, things wrapped in tissue paper. Trina’s chin pops up, her head swivels, and you can practically see the circles of her radarscope following the movement of his body. Code red. She sets her fork down. She’s only one bite into her pie, since Funny came in to hear her blab about Roger in Rio. Trina’s a backward pie eater. She starts at the corner, leaves the point of the pie, the tastiest bite, she says, for last. This probably says something about her, only I don’t know what.
People are creatures of habit, and you learn this quickly if you work in a restaurant. Maybe we have just so much change that we can take, so much that’s out of our control, that we need to keep the same what we’re able to keep the same. If someone sits at a table once, there’s about an 85 percent chance they’ll sit there again if they can, and this man is no different. He slides into the window-side chair again at Nero Belgio, a marble that is almost pure black. It’s all shiny elegance, and it’s a good match for him. There’s also about a 75 percent chance that a person will order the very same thing as he did before, but I’d just have to see.
“Morning,” I say.
“Good morning.” He smiles his closed-mouth smile.
I set a menu at the table, wait.
“Just coffee,” the man says again. My inner crowd cheers. It’s the gleeful rise of I-knew-it, mixed with the gladness of a continuing mystery. Eggs and sausage would have meant no more questions. A regular guy finds a new place to eat, big deal. But no, he’s still here with Just coffee.
I pour, then set his cup down in front of him. He doesn’t have a newspaper, anything. He just sits and stares out the window. Joe wipes his fingers free of bacon grease on his napkin before he puts the photos back away in their envelope. “Sad,” he whispers to me, flicking his head back toward the Vespa guy.
“Maybe,” I say.
Nick’s taking it all in. He’s filtered out the ladies talking, the toddler twisting around and dropping crusts to the floor, and he’s listening to Joe and me. He nods. Depressed, he mouths, overemphasizing the first syllable, Dee, from across the room, his top row of teeth showing wide and white.
Trina suddenly needs to use the restroom, which is past the guy’s table, naturally. It’s a pheromone parade—they’re waving and throwing their batons and eating flames and doing cartwheels as Trina saunters by the guy’s table. Roger who?
But Nick’s the only one watching Trina’s ass in those pants. Well, me too, but I’m not watching in that way so it doesn’t count. The guy doesn’t even blink or break his gaze from the window. “Full and resounding failure,” Jane says next to me, behind the counter.
Trina takes about two seconds in the bathroom, obviously not long enough to do anything legitimate in there. Then she’s out again, swiveling those pheromones like lassoes. She stares directly at the guy, but it’s Trina’s eye contact zeroing in to its target, and zing! Hitting the side of the guy’s head.
Funny Coyote’s breakfast is up, and I set the plate in front of her. Trina slides into her adjacent booth. “Gay,” Funny Coyote proclaims.
“You think?” Trina says. She sounds hopeful, but it looks like she might cry. She pushes her plate away from herself.
“You’re not done.” I can’t believe it. Trina usually eats every bite. I’ve seen her put her finger to a bit of crumb and lick when she thinks no one is looking. Harold’s pie—nobody pushes away Harold’s pie. You eat it even if you have to unbutton the top of your pants to make room.
“I’ve got to go on a diet,” she says.
“My God, don’t be crazy,” Funny Coyote says, which is pretty hilarious, because she calls herself Bipolar Babe. “Relax. He’s gay, I’m telling you.”
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” Trina moans.
“Trina, you’re talking about a couple of guys. Big deal. A man is not water or shelter. Or a lottery ticket,” I say.
“Maybe the kind of lottery ticket you spend a hundred bucks on, just to win five,” Funny says.
“Harold’s pie is a requirement for living,” I say.
“Really,” Funny says, munching on a piece of bacon. “Give it here if she doesn’t want it.”
“Maybe I need a boob job,” Trina says.
“Oh my God,” I say. “Don’t even joke. I hate fake crap like that,” I say. “Sure, I’ll take a little cancer from silicone just to have some cleavage. Sheesh.”
“No kidding,” Funny says. “And what happens when you’re sixty and have forever-twenty tits? Freak show.”
Trina moons into her coffee. Funny pulls out her notebook and starts to write. The man stays longer this time. The two ladies leave, and so does the couple with the toddler, who went from cute to monstrous in fifty minutes as his parents did the N
ow-honey-that-makes-Mommy-upset public parenting routine that always causes Jane to turn her back and pretend to stick her finger down her throat. Thanks to little Hitler, the floor looked like its own galaxy of toast crumbs and scrambled egg bits. I consider asking the Vespa guy if he’s all right, but he seems to be in that private place you shouldn’t just barge in on. The only privacy some people ever get is in their thoughts. So instead, I wipe the floor clean and curse at parents who grow little dominatrix children and then set them free in the world to be the kind of adults who let everyone else pick up their messes. You get some pretty strong ideas about child rearing when you work as a waitress, let me tell you.
Finally, the guy lifts one long, elegant finger in the air, gestures for my attention. Sometimes that kind of thing can piss you off, but it all depends on how it’s done. Some people have a demanding stab-the-air finger that makes you want to flip your middle one back at them. They are usually the people who ask you for this or that on the side and cooked this way or that way, and with the strawberry pointing counterclockwise and the parsley with two leaves only. Most often, this kind of thing happens with large, pompous men with large, pompous voices, and with spatula-thin women whose lack of food has turned them into restrained, yet rage-filled, maniacal bitches.
Anyway, the guy was obviously raised right, because even his finger has manners. I bring him his check, and there’s the crispy bill again. He smiles, I smile, and we all watch his suit-jacket-flaps flap as he speeds off on his Vespa.
For a few minutes, it’s just us. The regulars, as Jane says, which caused Leroy to dub us “the Irregulars.”
