vignette
I gave Irma a clean spoon.
“Thank you, dearie,” she said, patting my hand absently before returning her attentions to the booth next to her.
“You’re welcome,” I said, more for my benefit than hers. She couldn’t hear me anyway. I walked back to the kitchen, my footsteps quick.
“Dirk, get table twelve for me, would ya?” I heard Jamie holler. I groaned, but grabbed a pen and walked back out anyway.
A man and a woman were sitting together in silence, aware of Irma’s intruding ear nearby. The man’s face was long and tinted a light pinkish color. His cheeks were puffed out and his eyes were wide and darting, like a lost goldfish. One of his white knuckled hands held onto a crumpled napkin.
“Do you know what you want?” I said, tapping my foot restlessly. The woman looked up at me, her face scrunched up like a pug’s. Her short, black hair was frizzy and stuck up in odd places.
“I know what I want,” she said in a thin, nasal voice. “But he doesn’t know what he wants. He never knows what he wants!” She threw her hands up in the air and sat back in her seat.
The man turned and looked at me with a tight-lipped grin and half-heartedly rolled his eyes. “I do too know what I want.”
I stood with my pen poised over my pad and waited for them to order. Neither did. “Okay, then, I’ll come back later,” I said, and walked away.
I went to check on Irma.
“His name is Hobert,” she whispered, pointing at the man at table twelve.
“Do you need anything, Irma?”
“What kind of a name is Hobert?” she said to me, completely ignoring my question. Her gaze was still riveted upon the standoffish couple. “He calls her Tanny. She wants to break up with him.”
“That’s nice, Irma,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder to draw her attention. “Do you need anything?”
“No, no, dearie. Thank you anyway.” She turned back to Hobert and Tanny.
I went back over to them. “Are you ready yet?” The man’s face had turned a deeper shade of pink and his eyes had gone even wider. He looked slightly helpless. The woman turned to regard me with her scrunched up face.
“No,” she said curtly, and turned back to Hobert. He shrugged. She shook her head. “I’m leaving.” She stood and walked out. Hobert shrugged again.
“I’ll have the fish fillet.”