“She’s meeting the Jaw.” Mindy said this from behind her menu.
“What?” Mary asked.
“Roger. She’s meeting him.”
“Roger?” I took a hold of Mindy’s menu and lowered it so I could see her face. “What are you talking about? Roger.”
Mindy avoided my eyes. “I just heard her on her phone in the bathroom. She talks so loud. They’ve been talking the whole trip, I think. They’re going to meet somewhere.”
“Roger? Really? Are you serious?”
“That’s what I heard.” Before we could bombard her with more questions, Mindy stood abruptly and said, “I got to make a call,” and jetted off.
“Where. Mindy. Be?”
“Roger? Do you believe that? That’s crazy!” I said. “And why would she want to see him?”
Mary looked a little stunned. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You think maybe he’s following us? He must be! How else can they be meeting?”
Mary gazed intently out the window, her mouth a straight line. “I said, I don’t know.”
“I’m going to try to stop her.” I stood. “I can catch her.”
“No, you’re not. Sit down.” Mary pulled her red purse onto the table and began searching through it. “She’s almost thirty years old.”
“Are you sure?”
“She’s a big girl. Sit down.”
“Where. Karen. Be?”
I sat back down and looked out the window, at the highway, and watched cars and trucks move by. My daughter was probably already on that highway, heading to meet up with a man I detested. I didn’t like this turn of events, I didn’t like it at all.
*
After Mindy returned to the table and Mary and I interrogated her on exactly what she heard; and after I ordered the chicken-fried chicken but didn’t eat any of it; and after I asked, “She said the name Roger, you’re sure of that, I mean, you heard her say the name Roger?”; and after Mindy said/yelled, “yes, yes, yes!”; and after I cut up my chicken-fried chicken into small pieces and gave them to Ethan because he was still hungry even after his chicken-fried steak; and after we were all quiet, lost in our own, presumably-worried-about-Karen, wonder-where-she is thoughts; and after Mindy said, “What the fuck is a cracker barrel anyway?” and I said, “You know, you should be thinking about Karen”; and after I started wondering what the fuck a cracker barrel was; and after Mindy asked the waitress what it was; and after the waitress said she wasn’t sure but that it might have been a barrel used in “olden times”; and after I ordered another chicken-fried chicken dinner because despite my worries over Karen, I realized I actually was hungry; and after Mindy snorted and said, “Olden times, what the fuck?” under her breath; and after I said, “Stop acting so New York”; and after Mindy said, “What does that mean”; and after I said, “You know what I mean”; and after Mindy said, “No I don’t”; and after I said, “Yes, you do, Miss Always Dresses in Black”; and after Mary slammed the table with her hand and yelled, “Will you two please stop it!”; and after Mindy and I stopped it; and after I finished my chicken-fried chicken and briefly considered ordering the fried ice cream for dessert but instead asked for the bill (which wasn’t fried), we checked into the Hampton Inn, where I gave Ethan his bath.
“Oh, man, poor Karen,” I said, drying him off with a towel. “I hope she knows what she’s doing.”
Ethan, who seemed to understand that Karen’s disappearance was cause for concern, looked at me with wider-than-usual eyes and held up his hands in question. “Where. Karen. Be?”
“She’s with Roger, we think. Who apparently isn’t gay, by the way.”
“Call.”
“Call? You mean, Karen?”
“Yes! Me. Call.”
“Oh, sure.” I gave him his old cell phone, then sat on the bed while he punched numbers, pleased that he was doing something in context of the situation.
“Karen?”
“Tell her to come home,” I said. “Tell her Roger is a dirtbag. Tell her, once a cheater, always a cheater. Wait a minute—don’t tell her that. That’s not necessarily true.”
“Hi. Karen!”
“Tell her come home!”
“Home!”
“Tell her we love you!”
“Yes!”
“Tell her, she will get over this. Tell her to forget the Jaw.”
“Forget. The. Jaw!”
I stopped, surprised. Those were new words for him. Ethan’s vocabulary was very limited, and any new words, any addition other than possibly the f-bomb, was cause for celebration. “Right! Exactly! Forget the Jaw! That’s great! Do you know what a jaw is?”