I jumped. “Oh, sure,” I said. “That would be nice. Cream and sugar.”
“What’s that you’re reading about?” she asked. She was scanning the Colby story, probably wondering why she wasn’t seeing the word “linoleum” anywhere.
“Gang shooting,” I said. “I was thinking, an interesting way into the feature would be, what kinds of linoleum are most resistant to bullets and bloodstains.”
Frieda was getting downright scared.
I forced myself to call a couple of flooring experts, just to keep Frieda from siccing security on me, and when it was cookie time in the afternoon, I updated her on my progress. I asked her if she knew, for example, that linoleum had been invented in 1863, in England, by Frederick Walton, who had come up with the word by taking the Latin names for flax, which is linum, and oil, which is oleum, and putting them together. She did not, and seemed absolutely fascinated, offering me another Peek Frean.
I’d had no further communications from Sarah, and I’d sent nothing to her. If she could get something to eat on the way home, then I didn’t see why I couldn’t do the same. I managed to sneak out of Home! a little after four, and as I was heading out of the parking lot in our Virtue, I remembered that Paul was going to be working at his new job after school today. I thought maybe it might cheer me up to see Paul gainfully employed, and get myself a cheeseburger and fries. We never knew whether Angie would be home for dinner, so I didn’t feel any obligation to get home and make sure there was something on the table for her when she returned from Mackenzie University.
I wheeled into the oil-stained parking lot of Burger Crisp. The lot was about half full, and there was trash spilling out the tops of trash containers that looked sticky with old soda. Flies buzzed around the opening.
The squat, square building, all glass up front, looked as though it might have been, in a previous life, a doughnut franchise. There was a row of tables along the front window, then down the right side, in an L shape. At the left end of the long aluminum counter was a cash register, and above it a menu made out of little black plastic letters that fit, crookedly, into grooves on a white background. Written in marker, on a sheet of cardboard and taped to the wall, was the special: “Ch’burger/fries/Coke/$5.49.”
At the cash register must have been the woman Paul said could stand in front of a moving tank and total it. She appeared, in a word, formidable. She was shorter than I, but standing there behind the cash register, she seemed rooted like an oak. Stocky, fridge-like, with thick fleshy arms that hinted at considerable muscle underneath. Slavic looking, late fifties, early sixties maybe, gray hair pinned back, a severe, weathered face devoid of anything you might call makeup, deep creases running down from her nose on both sides of her mouth, and piercing black eyes.
She fixed them on me and said, “What want?”
Some kind of accent, Russian, Turkish, Croatian, I had absolutely no idea. “The special,” I said, looking around, wondering where Paul might be. “The cheeseburger special.” There were people sitting on swivel chairs bolted to the floors, eating burgers, dipping fries into tiny containers of ketchup, off chipped Formica tables.
“Here or go away?” she said, her words clipped as if each one were chopped off at the end with a butcher’s knife. For a moment, I thought she was asking me to leave.
“Uh, to go,” I said. I thought the ambiance at home might be better, although the way things were these days, probably not by much.
I handed her a ten. She dug her short, thick fingers with chipped nails into the cash register tray and handed me my change.
“Thanks,” I said with my usual charm. She didn’t even look at me.
Next to the register the counter was raised up, and it was like a salad bar in reverse. Before me, behind glass, were the toppings. Pickles, onions, relish, tomato, hot peppers. Two identical-looking women—these had to be the twins Paul had mentioned—were working shoulder to shoulder. They were younger, but not necessarily more attractive, versions of the woman who’d taken my money. Large, soft, and doughy looking, with arms like hams. They both had their blonde hair streaked with black, pulled back and tied into short ponytails.
They were being handed burgers fresh off the grill, asking customers how they wanted them garnished. That’s when I spotted Paul, standing at the grill, flipping burgers, living his life’s dream.
“Hey,” I said.
He didn’t hear me the first time, so focused was he on his job. He had a huge apron, which years ago might have been white, tied around his waist, a white cap pulled down over his hair.
“Hey!” I said, again, and Paul looked over, and his eyes went wide and his mouth opened.
“Dad?”