“I don’t remember. I just thought—well, I thought it would make an impression, if I found this movie she was talking about.” This smile feels more genuine. “At least it would prove that I’m listening to her, right?”
Bob nods, as if he has as much experience with women as this older man. He hasn’t had a girlfriend for eighteen months. He’s dated here and there, but his job is a catch-22 when it comes to a social life: Women want to date Baba O’Riley at Video Americain, but if he wants weekends off, he can’t be Baba O’Riley at Video Americain. He’s going to be Bob Riley again.
This guy could probably get women if he worked the midnight shift at the sanitation department.
“Did you say Paris?”
“Yeah.”
“Could the guy be a musician?”
He shrugs.
“Paris. A bonfire.” Something is flicking Bob’s imagination, he can almost hear the movie’s soundtrack in his ear. Bernard Herrmann. He’s hearing Bernard Herrmann, but not this film, yet he’s also seeing an actress who is integral to a pretty famous film with a Herrmann score. “Are you sure it’s Paris?”
“I’m not sure of anything.”
Bob pages through some of the video guides they keep behind the counter. His mind is racing along, hearing music again, but this time he has finally identified it—the score of My Darling Clementine. Everything clicks into place, cylinders sliding into a tumbler. My Darling Clementine. Chihuahua. Linda Darnell. Linda Darnell, with her pout and her put-upon act.
“Hangover Square,” he says, snapping his fingers, as pleased with himself as if he were a doctor solving a medical mystery. “Not Paris. London. It’s whatever that day is in England when they celebrate that guy not blowing things up.”
“Guy Fawkes Day,” the customer says. “So do you have it?”
“I’m not even sure it’s out on video. The director didn’t have much of a career, I don’t think. But if you really want it, I can look into it.”
“I live downstate, in Belleville, almost an hour’s drive. If I opened an account—could I overnight the movies back to you? There’s nothing near us like this, of course. But my”—that pause again—“girlfriend, she likes old movies. Obscure ones.”
“Clearly. But as for mailing the movies back, all I can give you is a very flabby maybe. I’d have to ask the owner. We take a credit card for all accounts, you lose a movie, we charge your card, but I’ve never had anyone ask if they could mail it back. I know this much—if it got lost in the mail, that would be your problem.”
“As you said, you don’t even have it in stock. But if you find it, yeah, I’d like to know.” He takes out his Visa card, fills out the paperwork. Bob can’t help noticing he lists his home address as Baltimore, which has its own Video Americain.
As he’s finishing up, he asks: “What about She?”
“Who?”
“She. The movie. Do you have that?”
“Oh, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ursula Andress. That might be in.”
He finds it in general horror, which strikes him as sloppy. They should have a Christopher Lee shelf.
“Another kind of bonfire movie,” he says. “Your girlfriend have a thing for fires?”
The guy’s smile flickers, slow, like neon blinking before it reaches full tilt. “You know, I should probably wait to check this out until I find out what it’s going to cost me to mail these back overnight. I work almost every day.”
“Who doesn’t?” Bob asks agreeably.
“Is there, like, a vintage store nearby? With household items?”
“Household items?”
“I’m looking for an old sprinkler bottle, the kind women used to use to wet down clothes when they ironed. My girlfriend talks about how much she wishes she had one.”
“She likes to iron and watch old movies. Dude, you have hit the jackpot. Does she have a sister?”
“I have no idea.”
35
Polly pulls two drafts for Max and Ernest. The High-Ho is quiet tonight. It’s quiet almost every night now. The youngish couples in town might come in on Fridays and Saturdays, but weeknights are slow. Adam has been making old-fashioned comfort food—brisket and chicken pot pies and what locals call Maryland stew—but it is, as he keeps pointing out, a small town. That’s why they need to make the restaurant a destination unto itself. She has been reading up on a restaurant-hotel in Virginia, the Inn at Little Washington. It opened in a garage in 1978 and, in less than ten years, became the first restaurant to earn five diamonds from AAA. They could do that here if they had some cash. You don’t have to have water views to have a successful inn if the restaurant is good enough.
Meanwhile, Mr. C seems to be getting whiter and whiter with each passing day. Adam is careful with the budget, and the kitchen doesn’t cost that much more to run than it did when it was all hamburgers and chili and frozen french fries. But the biggest line item is Adam. Mr. C doesn’t want to go back to cooking, and if he does, it won’t be like Adam’s cooking. Whatever reputation the High-Ho has earned over the past few months will be lost. Maybe the townies won’t complain and, come summer, the tourists won’t know it ever took a downturn. But Polly can almost see the wheels turning behind Mr. C’s ghostly white face: Can he get Adam back if he turns him loose? What happens to Polly if Adam leaves?
Yes, what happens to Polly? She stayed here for Adam, gave up Reno and her quickie divorce. Will he stay here for her?
Max and Ernest like the bar in its near-deserted state. They were unhappy when the restaurant section was filled with noisy diners, out of towners who said things like Does the television have to be on? And Is the corn Silver Queen? They mocked the specialty drinks the nonlocals ordered, things that Polly had never heard of, like a cocktail made with vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and lime. Polly never minded learning how to make a new drink, but Max and Ernest resented these requests. It was their bar, Polly was their bartender. Now they have the bar and Polly back, all to themselves. Hip hip hooray.
And they still don’t tip her well. They seem to think their company is compensation enough. It’s not, especially given their obsession with politics, a topic that bores Polly silly. The last few days, all they want to talk about is Delaware’s attempt to encroach on the New Hampshire primary in February. The plan has backfired, and politicians are now falling in line with New Hampshire’s demand that candidates skip the Delaware primary or rue the day. Dole, the Republican front-runner, has pulled out of Delaware. Max and Ernest are outraged on behalf of Delaware, which they note is officially the first state, the first to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Why shouldn’t they have the first primary?
“Why is everyone kowtowing to the Granite State?” Ernest says. “What’s so great about New Hampshire?”
“I like its state motto,” Polly says. “Live Free or Die.”
They pay her no heed. She’s not supposed to insert herself into their serious discussions, only indulge their jokes. She knows that. But she feels ornery tonight.
“If you ask me, small states are like small men. Big chips on their shoulders. Something to prove. Also—wasn’t New Hampshire’s claim to fame that every president first won his party’s primary there?”
“Not Bill Clinton,” Max says.
Oh, right. Hillary Clinton on 60 Minutes, eating humble pie because she dared to say she wouldn’t bake cookies and stand by her man. Polly had watched that with Gregg, whose only comment was: “I wouldn’t fuck her.”
“Slick Willie,” Ernest mutters darkly. “I wonder if we’ll be stuck with him for another four years.”
“Clinton,” Max says. “A sweet talker. How I hate a sweet talker.”
“They’re all alike,” Polly says. They assume she means politicians, so they nod.
*
Mr. C comes in just after the kitchen closes, most unusual. Sure enough, he summons Adam and Polly to the office.
“I’m bleeding money here,” he says. “I never kept a cook past Labor Day before, I always did the cooking myself through the cold months. We just don’t do enough business. Adam, it’s not personal—”
“I know it’s not,” Adam says.