The Carnival Papers

Here I Am

I had gone to the kitchen for some napkins when she came into Henry’s Eatery for the first time.  The moment I saw her standing by the front door, I dropped the napkins to the floor in a blizzard of paper.  I continued staring at her as I gathered the napkins up, hoping she hadn’t noticed my blunder.

I made my way over to her slowly, feasting on every detail.  She had milky white skin, honey-toned eyes, and carrot-orange hair.  She wore a white blouse that bulged unobtrusively in the bosom and a pair of gray slacks that encircled a wide set of hips.  Over her right shoulder she carried a tote bag that might have been white at one time, but had become a mangy tan.  With some relief, I skimmed over her slender fingers and saw no rings.  “Just one?” I asked, my voice cracking like a schoolboy’s.  “Smoking or non?”

She spoke for the first time, her voice husky like a jazz singer’s.  “Nonsmoking,” she said.

“This way.”  At three o’clock the only other people in the restaurant were Mr. Henry in the office and Miguel the busboy doing the dishes in the kitchen.

She ordered an iced tea with lemon and then hid her face behind the menu.  I filled a glass behind the counter, but couldn’t find any lemon wedges.  In a panic, I dashed back to the kitchen to find a lemon.  Miguel the busboy watched me uncomprehendingly as I flung open the door to the refrigerator and tore through the shelves in search of citrus fruit.

When I couldn’t find anything resembling a lemon, I knocked on the door to Mr. Henry’s office.  My employer and landlord looked up from an issue of Playboy he kept wrapped in a catalog.  None of his employees had the heart to tell him we knew he wasn’t reading that catalog for its articles.  “Are we out of lemons?” I asked.

“Lemons?  We don’t have any lemons.  This isn’t the Ritz.”

I trudged out of the kitchen in defeat, returning to her table with the tea sans lemon.  “I’m sorry, we don’t have any lemons,” I said.

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said.  She flashed a smile as white as her blouse, with every tooth straight and in precise order like an aspiring actress.

“Are you ready to order?”  She pointed to the grilled cheese platter and asked for a salad instead of French fries.  I wanted to tell her she didn’t need to watch her figure, but instead only nodded and promised to return shortly.

While I waited for Mr. Henry to make the grilled cheese and salad, the Sheltons came in for their daily cups of coffee.  Mr. Shelton always took his black and Mrs. Shelton with one sugar; both ordered decaffeinated because regular coffee would keep them up all night.  I thought Mr. Henry’s coffee tasted like axle grease, but the Sheltons didn’t seem to mind.  It might have had something to do with the policy of free coffee for senior citizens.

As I filled the coffee cups, I saw the woman take a hardcover book from the tote bag, followed by a pair of plastic reading glasses she balanced expertly on the bridge of her nose.  I squinted behind my own horned-rims to see what she was reading, but I couldn’t make out a title.  Then I pulled my hand back with a wince from coffee spilling over the top of Mr. Shelton’s cup.  I cursed under my breath while I cleaned up the mess and then tried to smile as I brought the elderly couple their drinks.

“Keeping busy?” Mr. Shelton asked as he always did.

“Just barely,” I said.  I looked out of the corner of my eye to see the woman lick the tip of her index finger before turning a page.  When I turned my attention back to the Sheltons, I found Mrs. Shelton engaged in a story about the new man her fifty-something daughter had shacked up with.

“I told her, ‘Debbie, the boy is half your age.  What’s Tammy supposed to think about you bringing home a boy younger than her?’  She won’t listen, though.”