01. sorry, we're dead: clover and curses
“Honey, you forgot something,” he called as the waitress walked past, lifting a tremulous, liver-spotted hand. A crinkled ten dollar bill shivered between his fingertips.
“Now, Fred,” Goodie said, turning away from her stovetop and leaning over the Formica counter. “You know Tony already paid your tab-tip an’ all. And he tipped nice and generous, too.”
“But I found this,” he protested in his crackling voice. “Tucked down here by the napkin dispenser. Must’ve been someone else’s tip they left behind.”
The woman sitting across from him, the younger by more than a couple decades and with vibrant red hair that could only have come from a bottle, smiled over the steam of her coffee cup. “Ain’t it strange how many forgotten tips Fred finds?” she said as the waitress, a woman with dark skin and darker hair fixed up in a no-nonsense ponytail, did a U-turn. “I tell him I pick the wrong side of the table every time-he’s always finding money shoved into the seat cushions or tucked behind the condiments.”
“Fred, you tipped me this morning, too, remember?” the waitress said. The nametag clipped to her shirt said RAJANI; the glossy state of the tag and the careful way she held her black tray said she hadn’t been at the job for long.
“Well, that was then an’ this is now,” he said obstinately. His eyes were rheumy and his teeth were yellowed and gapped, but he still met her stare with a stubborn tilt of his whiskered chin. “Go on, girl, and just take it. Give an old man a spot of pleasure in his twilight years.”
“Go ahead, Raj,” Goodie called from the open kitchen, her spatula sliding smoothly across the hot greased stovetop. “Humor the ol’ coot. If you don’t, he’ll just leave it on the table anyhow.”
“Well, thank you, Fred,” Rajani said reluctantly, taking the bill and shoving it into the pocket of her apron. “I’d be a lot happier if you gave me smaller bills, though. Your whole tab wasn’t more than five.”
“You can’t take it with you, sugar,” the old man said with a grin. “Might as well give it to those as deserve it.”
The middle-aged woman sitting across from him looked at her watch and set down her cup. “I’d best be going,” she said, sliding out of the booth and pulling on her green coat. “You take care, Fred. See you tomorrow?”
“Oh, of course. Tell Stan I said hullo, Rita. And you be careful out there-I heard on the radio that there’s a nasty snow storm coming through this weekend.”
She bent to kiss a wrinkled cheek, and then rubbed the lipstick smudge away with her gloved thumb. “And don’t give these ladies any more fuss, okay?”
He shooed her away with a flap of his hand and picked up his knife and fork to tackle his last sausage link. Goodie bustled around the counter, fresh coffee pot in hand, and paused to refill his mug. “Your son gonna stop by tomorrow and see you?” she said in her blunt, forthright way. The steam and heat of the kitchen had made her usually pristine tight black curls, pinned and fixed to her head with plenty of styling product, start to kink at the edges. Her round moon of a face gleamed with sweat and her white apron was spotted with flour and grease.
“Course he will. Roger always looks after me, you know that, Bee.”
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed in a wholly unconvinced manner. One dimpled hand rested on her waist and she planted her feet firmly on the red and white tile. There was always a lot of Goodie to go around, but when she was riled she could be a positive thundercloud. Her brown eyes would flash, her thick lips would purse with displeasure, and after that there’d be no stopping the torrent of hot words. It was always obvious that Goodie was from the deep South when she went off on a tear; her usually honeyed voice turned whip-sharp even as the edges were rounded with a Louisiana twang.
“You deserve better than that son of yours,” she said firmly. “He should be seeing right by you in your old age, not just skulkin’ about like some vulture. Positively indecent, the way he’s just bidin’ his time till you’re in the ground, just so’s he can get his hands on your money. You should march down to them lawyers down the street and write up a new will just to spite him, Fred-that’d wipe the smug smile off his fool face. He ain’t done nothin’ to deserve anything from you anyhow.”
“He’s still family, Bee,” Fred said, sipping his coffee. “You gotta stand by your family-that’s how my Daddy raised me, and I’ve always held by that.”
“Well, I’m gonna send Bron and Jacky over tomorrow to check on you,” Goodie said defiantly. “If’n we get all that snow like the weatherman says, you’ll need someone to shovel your steps. And Bron’ll bring you a nice casserole or somethin’-if the wind’s bad and there’s ice on the sidewalks, I don’t want you walkin’ down here for breakfast. You hear me, Fred? I don’t care how much you love my beignets. That ol’ hip of yours can’t take another fall like that one last week.”
“Alright, Goodie, alright,” he relented reluctantly. “But here-” he held up another wrinkled bill. “Lemme at least compensate you for that.”
“You keep givin’ these out like you do, Fred, and you won’t have to worry about no will,” Goodie said, exasperated. “These things don’t grow on trees, you know.”
“Maybe I got myself a press,” the old man said with a grin. “Maybe I got myself a vault full of the stuff-you don’t know, Bee. Anyhow, I might not got the energy to be a proper flirt any more, but I can still pay a lady favors. I always did like your figure-always liked a lady who had some full curves on her.”
Goodie snorted and stomped away, fanning herself with the money. “You’re a caution, Fred, and no mistake.”
“Goodie?” Rajani said, setting her tray down on the counter and rubbing the back of her neck. “Mind if I take a smoke break?”
“Go ahead, hun. Hey, Jacky!”
A small head crowned in shaggy hair and a battered Yankees baseball cap ducked around the doorway to the supply room. “Boss?”
“You lay salt down on the front sidewalk nice and thick? I can hear that wind picking up-storm’s comin’.”
“Yep,” he said with a quick bob of his head, tight-lipped as always.
“Good. And you got them potatoes all peeled?”
“Yep.”
“Good boy. Tables four and seven need bussed.”
He nodded, rolling his ever-present toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other, and grabbed a bucket and washrag. With quick, efficient movements he stacked the dirty dishes off to one side, pushed the sleeves of his Henley up past his many tattoos, and started scrubbing at the coffee rings and sticky syrup puddles. Goodie nodded with satisfaction and went back to her griddle to start a stack of pancakes for the last customer in the corner.
She and Jacky got along just fine: he was a hard worker, never shirked a job, and hopped right to any task she set for him. Unlike most of his kind, he was laconic and sober-she’d only ever seen him take a drink the once: last year at Mother’s birthday party, and only after much urging to ‘loosen up’. She didn’t know much about his life before he became the diner’s busboy, fry cook, and all around odd-job man-Jacky wasn’t the sharing kind-but she suspected he must’ve had a wild youth. All those tattoos and the scars around his wrists… Still, it wasn’t her place to pry: so long as Jacky O’Malley did his job and did it well, she was content to let him stay close-mouthed about the past.
The bell at the door jingle-jangled, the sound accompanied by a sharp whistle of freezing air, and the entire atmosphere of the diner changed. All diners have a hollow, neglected feel around this time every night, when almost everyone’s gone home or headed off to work; when all that’s left is stale grease and half-burnt coffee. But as soon as she stepped through the door the place started to feel like home again. Warm, welcoming, and soft-edged. The man sitting in the corner straightened up immediately, shoulders relaxing unconsciously, and Fred set down his coffee mug with a wide, gap-toothed grin.
“Lookin’ gorgeous as ever, Mother,” he said. “A sight for sore eyes, fine eyes, and every kind of eye in between.”
“Bless you, Fred,” Mother Molly Mason said with a laugh, patting his shoulder and stooping to kiss his cheek. “Bee lookin’ after you alright?”
“Why you gotta ask that? You know I am,” Goodie shouted from the kitchen.
“Rita been and gone already?” Mother asked.
Fred nodded. “And Leo, and Tony. Everyone stopped in tonight.”
“My, my, they must’ve kept you busy holdin’ court. Surprised you even had time to eat before your food went stone cold. Shall I top up your cup?”
“Only if you let me slip somethin’ into your garter belt,” the old man said cheekily.
“Shame shame, Fred,” she said, lightly slapping his arm with mock surprise. “Bee, can you make this ol’ flirt a batch of beignets to take home? How’s that sound, sweetie? Somethin’ for when your sweet tooth perks up later tonight, hmm?”
“It ain’t like I’ve got fifty other things to do,” Goodie grumbled from the kitchen, banging a pot around for accompaniment.
“Well, that’s why you’ve got me and Jacky to help out, sister,” Mother said smoothly. “Oh, before I forget: did you see that story in the newspaper this morning? Mighty strange how someone would break into the museum and not take anything, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think,” Goodie said waspishly, mixing up choux pastry dough. “Unlike you, Molly, I ain’t got an unhealthy fixation on the criminal element and all their comin’s and goin’s. I couldn’t care a fig about any of that nastiness if you paid me in solid gold bricks.”
Mother pulled an apron off a hook and tightened the laces around her waist. Goodie made a tch-tch sound-it was obvious she’d just come from meeting with a client; she was in one of her nicest red houndstooth dresses. “You’ll ruin that frock,” she said. “And take your rings off before you knead that dough. You know what a devil it is to clean around those gemstone settings.”
“Fred’s looking a little peaky, don’t you think?” Mother asked her in a careful undertone. “He’s shaking a little more than usual.”
“It’s also several rungs below freezing and the man’s ninety-two if he’s a day,” Goodie retorted.
“A little health charm mixed into the batter won’t do him any harm,” Mother said good-naturedly. “We swore to look after the forgotten, didn’t we?”
“Fred ain’t forgotten-you know how many people come in and pass the time with him, keep him company. And that son of his practically lurks-”
“Beatrice, you know what I mean,” Mother interrupted her. “There’s a lot a ways a body can be forgotten and ignored, some big and some small and all bad. We look after our own. And don’t act so grouchy about it. I know you like helping others, so there’s no need to put on such a show.”
Goodie shook her head and stomped to a cupboard full of mason jars, rummaged about for a moment, and returned with one in hand. They each took a pinch of powder, closed their eyes, and sprinkled it into the bowl while their mouths moved around unspoken words. There was a very faint glow that only lasted a heartbeat or two. Then it was nothing more than a bowl of choux.
“Besides,” Mother added. “The amount of time he spends here, he’s practically family.”
While Goodie worked on the beignets Mother started on a cake. One of her clients had just given her happy news, and she wanted to surprise them with a little something. The poor dears had been trying for so long-they were due for a proper celebration. She waved at the basket of eggs on the counter, coaxing four up and into the air, guiding them to the mixing bowl where they each delicately cracked themselves on the edge, the yolks slipping smoothly into the hollow she had left in the flour. Goodie, on her way from the sink back to the stove, ducked with an irritable mutter as cups of sugar and teaspoons of vanilla zoomed overhead, quickly followed by the rest of the ingredients.
Mother whipped up the batter and deftly poured it into a greased baking pan, pivoting on one glossy heel and popping it into one of the ovens, which opened obligingly for her. Dusting her hands off on her apron she started taking stock of the supply levels. Tomorrow was ordering day, and she always liked to have her list prepared in advance; ever since the fiasco with the butter, Goodie wasn’t allowed to do the shopping for the diner. “I still maintain that that was a flyspeck and not an extra zero; I never wrote two hundred down,” Goodie always retorted when reminded of the month they’d practically drowned in vats of the stuff.
Dropping the sugar-frosted sieve with a clatter-the more annoyed Goodie was, the louder her kitchen became-the rotund cook folded the lid of the pink cardboard box closed and swept it up from the counter with one hand. “Alright, Fred, you ol’ coot,” she announced, free hand firmly on her hip. “Box of beignets for your midnight snack.”
“You’re a peach, Bee,” he said with a tremulous smile, palsied hands fumbling with the scarf he was trying to loop around his long neck. Something about him put Goodie in mind of a turkey-the wrinkled skin that drooped from his throat, how he’d become little more than string and brittle bones over the years, his way of bobbing his head in a birdlike manner.
“I’m gonna have Jacky walk you home,” she said in a don’t-even-think-about-arguing tone. “You still got that cane the doctor gave you?”
“Ah, it’s by my radio chair,” he said dismissively, climbing stiffly from his booth. The depression left behind in the red plastic didn’t bother to smooth out-it had been his regular seat every day for so many years that it remembered him the way a dog remembers its master; it would wait patiently for him to return.
“Fat lot of good it’s doin’ you there,” Goodie snorted. “I know you don’t like relyin’ on a crutch, but if you don’t use that cane when it’s slick out like this, you’ll end up with a real pair of crutches. Or a full body cast. Or worse.”
“See, that’s what I love about you, Bee,” Fred said with a grin. “You’re always so positive. It’s downright uplifting, hearing you talk-”
The grin froze. Stretched into a terrible parody of a smile, a skeletal rictus. One bony hand reached up and clawed at his scarf and coat, pulling at the fabric. The other grabbed at Goodie’s arm, his blunt nails scratching across her soft skin.
“Fred?” she demanded in alarm, catching him by his shaking arms. “Jacky! Molly!”
His whole body had begun spasming, herking and jerking like an uncoordinated marionette, when the side door banged open and Jacky hurried over. Mother snatched the telephone off the wall and told the operator, voice brittle as chilled glass, to send an ambulance straight over. Goodie knelt beside the old man, hands cupped beneath his head as he shook, doing everything she could to keep him from cracking his skull against the linoleum tile. She was muttering a blessing spell as quickly as her numbed mind allowed, but without any of her potions…
“Jacky, could you-” Goodie began, face drawn and pinched.
“Luck’ll do him no good,” he said quietly, crouched beside him. “Look at his chest, Bee.”
Something moved beneath the parchment skin and spidery blue veins. There was a sickening crick-crack-CRACK, the sound of dry twigs snapping underfoot. Fred’s back arched unnaturally, his arms scrabbling at the air. When he settled back against the floor he seemed to almost collapse inwardly, his already sunken chest cast into shadow in the fluorescent overhead lights. The clawed fingers and splayed feet still twitched fitfully-but only because the nerves hadn’t caught up with the rest of his body.
“Goddess, isn’t there something we can do?” Molly whispered, telephone still in hand, the line beeping loudly in the sudden silence.
Jacky shook his bowed head, eyes hidden by the brim of his hat, and reached out a gnarled hand to close the staring rheumy eyes. Only to freeze, fingertips hovering above the eyelids, as the old man’s mouth suddenly gaped open.
A sharp black beak appeared between the chapped lips, followed by a sleek feathered head. As they stared, aghast, the black bird heaved itself up and out of Fred’s stretching mouth, clawed feet gouging bloody furrows in the whiskered chin. The ruff around the raven’s neck was clotted with blood; its shoulders were streaked with pink foam. With a harsh croak that made them all flinch, it unfolded wet wings and launched into flight.
The crunch it made as it struck the plate glass window, and the soft thump as it fell onto Fred’s table with a broken neck, was a sound Goodie knew she’d have echoing in her ears for weeks to come.