Dead Politician Society

Chapter 39: Jonathan

Jonathan put a pickle onto the plate beside the tuna sandwich, added a parsley sprig, and dinged the bell to let his mom know the ticket was ready.

She’d laid off her cook two weeks earlier. Not enough food orders to justify his wages, and not enough customers out front that she couldn’t nip back and prep a salad or a sandwich when there was an order.

But when Jonathan was home, he couldn’t watch his mom be the one-woman show to keep the roof over both of their heads. He and Jessica were only hanging out doing homework. They could do that in the kitchen as easily as anywhere else.

“I like this industrial space a lot.” Jessica tapped her pen against her chemistry textbook. “It’s really cool that you can be, like, making things, doing commerce in the real world, at the same time as studying to follow your dream.”

Jonathan smiled at her naiveté. “Yeah, the working life is pretty glamorous. We just don’t like it to get out, or you Rosedale folk would all come downtown and open restaurants instead of playing tennis at the Granite Club on weekends. Then how would we make a living?”

“Well, most of them would stay uptown,” Jessica acknowledged.

“Oh, but you’re looking for a downtown man.” Jonathan hummed a couple of bars from Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl.”

She shrugged. “I’m looking for something real.”

Jonathan had an idea. “Hey, why don’t we get away this weekend? Skip out on our catering jobs and go to Niagara Falls.”

“What’s in Niagara Falls?”

He wanted to get her drunk and marry her, but of course that wouldn’t happen. She might want a college fling with real life, but in the end, she’d settle down with a Bay Street lawyer who could offer her giant ring and a weekend wedding on a rolling hill in Caledon.

Still, he’d take the fling while it was on offer. He said, “Some grubby bars, some wax museums, those scary haunted houses.”

“It sounds like fun, in a twisted kind of way. But how about next weekend? I have that dinner with my grandparents tomorrow night.”

“We also have a work function tomorrow night. When I called to check my schedule, Elly said you’re working it too.”

Jessica smacked her forehead. “Damn. I forgot to tell her I have plans. She’s going to kill me.”

“Call in sick.” Jonathan shrugged. “You’ve never done it before. She’s hardly going to shout and scream if you can’t make it for one shift.”

“She might if she sees me sitting at one of the tables she’s serving. My grandpa bought a table at the environmental fundraiser that Elly’s Epicure is catering.”

“Oh.”

“She’ll fire me, for sure.”

The ticket machine whirred with an order for soup. Jonathan grabbed a bowl and ladled up a serving of today’s—and yesterday’s, and the day before’s—homemade minestrone. He grabbed a roll and felt it—super fresh, because his mom wouldn’t compromise on daily bread orders, even if half the stock got thrown out or turned into croutons at the end of the day. Stuck a pat of butter beside the roll, and dinged the bell for his mom.

He turned back to Jessica. “What about Brian Haas? I’m sure he’d take your shift.”

Jessica leaned into a large bag of flour like it was a beanbag chair. Which was fine—the thing was triple sealed and could take her light frame easily. “He’s not a society member.”

“So?” Jonathan said. “That’s Easton’s thing. Elly doesn’t care who dishes up her chicken. As long as they’re polite and not an idiot.”

“Brian’s a bit of an idiot.”

Jonathan laughed. “I think he could handle the shift.”

“Yeah, good point. Maybe I’ll ask him. You want a game of Who’s Got the Power?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Jonathan pulled out a stool and set up his computer on the giant wooden baking table. Not that they baked on it much anymore. Most of the desserts out front came from Costco.

Jessica booted up her netbook. “I admire your mom, the way she throws all her energy into this place. What does your dad do?”

Jonathan shrugged. He made his opening move as Israel. “You want the real story, or one of the ones I made up for myself as a kid?”

“You did that too?” Jessica, as USA, countered by confirming South Africa as an ally. “After my parents died, I invented all kinds of crazy fantasies to bring them back to life.”

“Like what?”

“My dad loved to play piano. The sheet music from his lessons as a kid was still in the bench of my grandparents’ baby grand. I started to play his old lessons in order, from the beginner books to the classical pieces he played as a teenager and an adult. I told myself that if I could master it, get every lesson perfect in sequence, he would walk through the door and explain that there had been this huge mistake, that he wasn’t really dead.”

Jonathan’s hands froze on his keyboard. “And when that didn’t happen?”

“I started again from the beginning. I told myself that I must have skipped a beat or missed a sharp or a flat. The magic combination required perfection, and sometimes I still—god, you’re going to think I’m really stupid.”

“It’s okay. I still invent stuff too.” On screen, Jonathan patented a line of Kosher food and organized international distribution. “The difference is that my dad left by choice, so I really should stop with the illusion that he might be a great guy.”

Jessica made a broad move to the north to commandeer the armies of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. It was a good start. If he didn’t watch out, she might take this game.