§
Gayle
arrived looking terrified and excited, like anyone starting a job they have big
hopes for and really need. I introduced her to Breit. He stared a hole in her shirt
while he emphasized that everything on the menu was to be called only by the
godawful obscene name he'd given it.
Gayle
had warned us that she'd have to learn everything, and she did. Megan put her
through Cash Register 101 ("when in doubt, yell for help, and don't hand
people money without hitting some keys"). I walked her through how to make
the most common coffee drinks, how the tables were numbered, and what
abbreviations on order slips meant. By mid‑afternoon rush, though still slow
and easily confused, she was more help than not, so I figured she'd hang in
there.
At mid‑afternoon the usual swarm of
middle‑aged people with horn‑rims and piles of books, seminary students from
Iliff, piled up at the counter, just ahead of the Yakky Dumb Chicks, and the
line went most of the way to the door.
As
I was delivering a pot of Thick and Sticky Baby out to the patio, Stacy tagged
my shoulder. "Hey, once the crowd clears out, come by and say hi, I'm
doing a meeting thingie with Dr. Lang."
"Sure."
I parked the pot between three chunky middle‑aged women, all in half glasses,
jeans, and vests.
Processing the theological nerds took little time;
most of them just ordered black coffee (which Breit called Cheap, Wet, and
Dripping). That order, like
pursuing a masters in theology, is a pretty good indicator of a recent
Twelve-Step past.
Then
we started dealing with the fussy "do it just right" orders of the Ohmygaw That Is So Awesome Tribe. Finally the last Pussy Warmer was
topped with chocolate sprinkles, the last Hot Sweet Blonde was whipped, and the
Yakky Dumb Chicks went outside to find a table by the railing where they could
scream about how crazy they all were. Wiping down, picking up, and loading the
dishwasher wasn't really enough work for three people, but it was Gayle's
chance to find out where everything went.
I
asked her, "Do you feel like you'll be okay at the counter on your own?.
I'll be here if you really need help, but I'll be pretty busy waiting on the
Risk Club."
"What's
the Risk Club?"
"Breit
and some of his buds get together on Wednesday nights to play Risk ‑‑ that
conquer the world game you play on a big mis‑drawn map of the Earth?"
"Yeah,
my husband and his friends used to play that sometimes."
"Well,
these guys are all real good, and they play by Vietnam Rules." With those
rules added, the strongest player on the board has to finish each turn in a
pointless waste of armies trying to conquer a randomly-chosen far away
territory.
Gayle
obviously knew, because she asked, "So they play till dawn?"
"Naw,
they're all ace players. They play till the first one is eliminated. Then everybody who wasn't eliminated
gets one point, and the guy who eliminated the loser gets two. They've kept a running total of their
points for at least ten years. I
have to stay till they're done, somewhere between midnight and three, but you only have to stay till regular
closing at one thirty. I'll walk
you to your car when you leave – I always did that for Sarah."
She
nodded. "And Breit pays a dollar an hour extra after dark."
"That's
Breit. Jerky but sort of fair."
Gayle
nodded. "Cool. Okay, I'll take off and be back at seven when my real shift
starts. Thanks for breaking me in." She hung up her apron, carefully
punched the clock, and waved on her way out.
"She's
gonna be fine," I said.
"Yeah,"
Megan agreed. "I've got the counter, and I'm all caught up. It's your golden chance to go hit on
Stacy."
I
guess I'm just transparent, or something.
Stacy
and Dr. Lang were bent over a big pile of papers and notes. "Hey," I
said. "I didn't know you were working together on anything."
Dr.
Lang shrugged, which looked like two curtain rods trying to escape through his
sleeves. "Merely the most brilliant senior thesis I've ever seen. And I
wouldn't say we're working together.
Stacy is doing the work, and I'm validating it by hanging around and writing
occasional notes about how brilliant she is."
Stacy
made a harsh little "uff" sound. "If this is all so brilliant
why does it look so inadequate to me?"
"Because
it takes a brain as good as yours, or as well‑trained as mine, to see the
holes."
"Whatever."
But I could tell that made her happy. She turned the gray blue eyes on me.
"So, Hal, are you working late tonight?"
"Nine‑thirty
till closing or after," I said. "Private party might run late. But
before that I have Formal and Informal Logic, and then judo practice, so when I
get off here at four, I'm going to run over to the Tree Trunk and grab a
burger."
"Well,
I ought to study late,"
she said. "I'll hang out here till you're off shift, then let's go for a
burger together, and then I've got politics with Dr. Lang while you're in
logic, and then I'll come back here and study during your late shift. If that
would be okay. There's some stuff I'd like to talk over with you."
"If
you don't say yes, Hal, you're not nearly the bright fellow I take you
for," Dr. Lang put in helpfully. He was already pretty whiff with vodka,
which seemed extra‑nasty to me to dose your coffee with, but I guess it was his
taste buds and liver.
As
I punched the clock at four, Megan socked me on the shoulder. "First date,
stud, remember to keep your hind legs off the table."
"First
date?" I said. "We're just going for a burger."
"Guys
are impossible. Get moving, buster, I've got it covered here."
I
clocked out. Stacy and I woke up Dr. Lang, put another strong coffee into him,
and got him pointed in the right direction. After we said bye to him and he
crossed the street, Stacy walked so slow, looking down at the ground, that he
actually started to get a little ahead of us. I couldn't think of anything to
say, or maybe I was afraid that if I spoke it would break the spell and she
would vanish. It was still gorgeous, warm with a clear blue sky, like winter
would never come.
Dr.
Lang, up ahead of us, wasn't exactly staggering but one leg was dragging a
little and he kept correcting his direction a little harder than a sober man
would.
"I
wonder how that's going to end," Stacy said.
I
shrugged. "It's not a mystery. He'll keep drinking and die, or he'll stop drinking
and die of something else later."
"That's
kind of cold. He's done a lot for you."
"Yeah,"
I admitted. "You're right. Righter than you
know." Then before I really
thought about whether I wanted to say it, I said, "Coming back to college
was harder than going into prison. As soon as the guards saw that I was going
to do my time straight and careful, they were on my side. The only prof so far
that's on my side is Lang."
"Isn't
that weird? When Chelsea was alive
the profs pretty much fucking hated
Chelsea," Stacy said.
"Chelsea
always said that."
"She
was right. I got some of the same
shit. You walk in here nice
looking, with this year's clothes, and good at your classes, and some of them
hate you for that, you've already got what they busted their asses for for
twenty years and probably still won't ever have. They got over it with me cause
I sucked up pretty hard, but Chelse, no way. Not after she had that bad-girl spoiled-brat snotty thing
going on."
I
thought about that for a moment; if anyone besides Chelsea was responsible for
the way she'd been, those last few months of her life, that would be me. I
wondered if that was what Stacy meant. I decided to be a chickenshit and not
ask. "When I came back from
Cañon," I said, "Lang was the only guy that was decent to me. I wish
he didn't have that problem. I don't know why I talked so harsh about it."
Most
profs hate jocks for a lot of reasons. We get all the money, attention, and
pussy at a college. Our coaches get paid like ten times what they do. We remind
them of all the bullies from middle school. Most of all, profs hate that we're
what college is fucking about –
without sports, face it, college is just extra‑hard high school.
So
when the athletic department and the administration wanted to let me back in,
and there'd been this big ass uproar about it with a lot of profs saying that
none of them would be my advisor, Lang had volunteered.
Now
I watched Dr. Lang slouch along on the sidewalk across the street; he hunched
forward like there was a high wind blowing, or like he thought there might be
an open manhole in front of him, arms wrapped around himself to the elbows.
Then a girl in a white sweater, low‑rise jeans, and thick clunky heels ran up
to him, frantic with some question, and it was like he took a dignity pill that
second. He stood straight and listened carefully and whatever the matter was,
you could see her relax as she talked to him. "He is a good guy," I said, "and I am too harsh. I guess I'm kind of suspicious and
cynical."
"Good,"
Stacy said.
"Good?"
"Suspicious
and cynical is what I really need in a friend right now."
"I'm
just glad to hear we're still friends."
"I
can't really afford to lose any friends, any more than you can," she said.
"I mean I have people to talk to and I can find a party but … well, things
haven't gone very well, especially after some shit that happened while you were
away. These last few months have been pretty lonely."
I
didn't ask.
After
another block, her hand slipped into the crook of my arm and it was like a
chick flick montage moment, with the leaves all red and gold on the big old
trees that arched the broad, busy street. The day was so beautiful that the
college buildings on the far side really looked like they were all full of
knowledge and tradition and shit, and the old‑style storefronts on our side
looked welcoming like a small town in some movie. (Just before the thing
from the lake starts eating virgins, or the escaped convict breaks into the
pretty girl's house, I added
mentally, keeping that suspicious cynical thing going.)
"Do
you remember how much time we spent hanging out?" she said, her fingers
just pressing the inside of my elbow. "You know, freshman year."
"Yeah."
No, I haven't forgotten, I thought about hanging out with you, and our silly
jokes, and having you for a friend, every single day while I was in Cañon. Most days there, I thought about every nice thing
that had ever happened to me, and then ran through the whole list again, over
and over. I was usually in re‑runs by ten a.m.
One
thing about Stacy, when she looks serious, she stops being all cute and starts
looking like one of those old Greek statues that don't smile or frown or have
any facial expression at all, and then all of a sudden you see she's not cute,
she's beautiful, I mean not Playboy‑beautiful
the way some girls look in bars, when they look like angels are constantly
invisibly airbrushing them, but beautiful like – well, beautiful.
"Well,
shit, I missed you." She
rubbed my arm and walked a little closer. "I liked that you cried at About
a Boy when I talked you into going
with me."
"I
did not."
"You
did too go to About a Boy with
me."
"No,
I mean I didn't cry – "
"Oh,
right, I forgot, I really liked
the way you tried to tell me that your eyes got all moist because your allergies
were acting up. And I liked the geek‑boy that could name all the different Star
Trek crews, and listened to me classify all my high school boyfriends till
three‑thirty in the morning and then didn't try to trade that up for sex at the
door. I missed the shit out of
you, Hal. Truth, I knew you were working at Nasty John's, and when I asked Dr.
Lang how you were doing, he pretty much hassled me into coming over and seeing
you myself."
Sweet
Jesus fuck. How many more favors could one old guy do me? "Okay," I said. "The next time I
talk cold about the man, I want you to hit me on the head with something big
and hard, 'kay?"
"Deal."
I
suddenly couldn't think of anything stupid to say to ruin the moment, so I had
to walk with her on that nice Indian‑summer afternoon with that movie‑set
college campus, all red and gold, sharp like it was cut into the air with a
knife. Fucking awesome or what?
