Bruce
"For only one dollar extra you can get a green salad," she said with optimism.
"A green salad," I said, buying time until I would inevitably have to reject her offer. "No, I think I'll just stick with the club sandwich, but thank you." I nodded appreciatively with meaningful eye contact and she slapped closed her order book, put her pencil into her apron, and walked away.
I perused the sweetener options, my iced tea in front of me. No Sugar in the Raw, I noticed with chagrin. Not in this place. I liked the way you really had to go to town with your straw to get it all to dissolve and even then you'd find yourself with a great mouthful of crystallized sugar now and again. That left Equal or Sweet and Low or the big silo of straight sugar on the table next to the ketchup bottle. I went for the sugar, naturally. Club sandwich? No green salad? Who was I kidding.
The man in the booth across from mine was reading a newspaper and savoring a red plastic basket of chicken fingers and a cup of coffee, black. He ignored the honey mustard and barbecue sauce-filled ramekins alongside and ate his chicken straight. He had a gray handlebar mustache and was squinting into the obituary section, reading line by line, his lips moving. He kept clearing his throat and he had a paper napkin on one knee.
Behind me were the voices of two older ladies. They were discussing a friend, Fran, who was in the hospital with pneumonia. They were very worried about her husband and if maybe they should bring around some casseroles or something. There was some concern that he might not be much of a casserole eater, that maybe they'd be better off forgetting the whole thing.
I'd always had a thing about booths in restaurants. A deep-seated fear that something bad was way in there and, intellectually, I felt that I could only be correct. I could only sit on the outside near the aisle and I couldn't let my knee ever touch the underside of the table. I tried desperately not to even think of it.
The last restaurant I went to had a clown loose in it. It was too late- Sharon and I had already accepted our table and our menus and were staring down a couple of glasses of water with lemon floating in it when we saw it. We plastered on our constipated faces willing the balloon animal-making clown to go bother someone else, someone with children for crying out loud, can't anyone just eat in peace anymore?
My club sandwich arrived. I smiled up at the waitress.
"Can I get you anything else?" she asked, already leaving me, already leaning toward obituary man with her coffee pot, knowing my answer would be no.
"No, this is great," I said, making a big show of opening up my napkin, nodding vigorously. She attempted a smile and crossed the aisle to make the man an offer of a piece of pie for dessert. I wouldn't be getting any pie. I was already busy wrapping the pickle spear up in my napkin and shoving it down into the seat.
"A green salad," I said, buying time until I would inevitably have to reject her offer. "No, I think I'll just stick with the club sandwich, but thank you." I nodded appreciatively with meaningful eye contact and she slapped closed her order book, put her pencil into her apron, and walked away.
I perused the sweetener options, my iced tea in front of me. No Sugar in the Raw, I noticed with chagrin. Not in this place. I liked the way you really had to go to town with your straw to get it all to dissolve and even then you'd find yourself with a great mouthful of crystallized sugar now and again. That left Equal or Sweet and Low or the big silo of straight sugar on the table next to the ketchup bottle. I went for the sugar, naturally. Club sandwich? No green salad? Who was I kidding.
The man in the booth across from mine was reading a newspaper and savoring a red plastic basket of chicken fingers and a cup of coffee, black. He ignored the honey mustard and barbecue sauce-filled ramekins alongside and ate his chicken straight. He had a gray handlebar mustache and was squinting into the obituary section, reading line by line, his lips moving. He kept clearing his throat and he had a paper napkin on one knee.
Behind me were the voices of two older ladies. They were discussing a friend, Fran, who was in the hospital with pneumonia. They were very worried about her husband and if maybe they should bring around some casseroles or something. There was some concern that he might not be much of a casserole eater, that maybe they'd be better off forgetting the whole thing.
I'd always had a thing about booths in restaurants. A deep-seated fear that something bad was way in there and, intellectually, I felt that I could only be correct. I could only sit on the outside near the aisle and I couldn't let my knee ever touch the underside of the table. I tried desperately not to even think of it.
The last restaurant I went to had a clown loose in it. It was too late- Sharon and I had already accepted our table and our menus and were staring down a couple of glasses of water with lemon floating in it when we saw it. We plastered on our constipated faces willing the balloon animal-making clown to go bother someone else, someone with children for crying out loud, can't anyone just eat in peace anymore?
My club sandwich arrived. I smiled up at the waitress.
"Can I get you anything else?" she asked, already leaving me, already leaning toward obituary man with her coffee pot, knowing my answer would be no.
"No, this is great," I said, making a big show of opening up my napkin, nodding vigorously. She attempted a smile and crossed the aisle to make the man an offer of a piece of pie for dessert. I wouldn't be getting any pie. I was already busy wrapping the pickle spear up in my napkin and shoving it down into the seat.