Part 5 (1/2)
Jack shoveled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He wondered if Stuart had gone on vacation. ”So,” he said. ”How did I die?”
”In my dream, you mean?”
”Yeah.”
The old man leaned closer. ”Scabies.”
”Scabies?”
”Uh-huh. They're bugs-mites-that get right under your skin. Burrow up inside your bloodstream and lay their eggs.”
”Thanks,” Jack said dryly. ”I know what they are. But I don't think they kill you.”
”Oh, sure, wise guy. When's the last time you saw someone who had them?”
Jack shook his head, amused. ”I have to admit ... never.”
”I did-in the navy. A sailor. Looked like someone had drawn all over him with pencil, lines running up between his fingers and toes and armpits and privates, like he was being mapped from the inside out. Itched himself raw, and the scratches got infected, and one morning we buried him at sea.”
Jack wanted to explain how following that logic, the man had died of a blood infection rather than scabies. Instead, he looked Roy right in the eye. ”You know how you get scabies,” he said casually. ”From sharing clothing and bed sheets with an infected person. Which means if I had really died of scabies, like in your dream, you wouldn't be that far behind me.”
Roy was silent for a moment. Then he stood and cleared his place. ”You know, I've been thinking. There isn't much point in both of us buying milk when we can't each get through a half-gallon in a week. Might as well do it so you buy the milk one week and the next week it's my turn.”
”Seems economically sound.”
”Exactly.” Roy rinsed his bowl. ”You still wash your own sheets, though.”
Jack stifled a grin. ”Well, of course. You never know what you're going to catch from someone else's laundry.”
Roy eyed him, trying to decide whether Jack was being sincere. Then he shuffled toward the living room. ”I knew I liked you for a reason,” he said.
Roy, who categorically refused to work in the kitchen, manned the cash register under the watchful eye of his daughter. Addie let him out of sight only briefly, and even then with warnings: ”It should only take you ten minutes to run to the bank, Dad, and I'm going to be counting.” Mostly he sat and did crossword puzzles, trying to pretend he wasn't looking when Darla, the relief waitress, bent down to tie her shoe and her skirt rode up.
It was nearly 11 A.M.; A.M.; a time that was slow for the waitresses but frenetic for the kitchen staff. Roy could hear the oil in the deep fryer heating up infinitesimally, degree by degree. He would sometimes remember how he was once so good he could cut inch-long segments from a carrot with a cleaver, blindfolded, and end the last slice a half inch from the hand that held it in place. a time that was slow for the waitresses but frenetic for the kitchen staff. Roy could hear the oil in the deep fryer heating up infinitesimally, degree by degree. He would sometimes remember how he was once so good he could cut inch-long segments from a carrot with a cleaver, blindfolded, and end the last slice a half inch from the hand that held it in place.
A coin rang onto the Formica beside the cash register. ”Penny for your thoughts,” Addie said, stuffing the rest of her tip into her pockets.
”They're worth a quarter.”
”Hustler.” Addie rubbed the small of her back. ”I know what you were thinking, anyway.”
”Oh, you do?” It amazed him, sometimes, how Addie could do the most ordinary thing-blink her eyes or fold her legs beneath a chair-and suddenly Roy would swear that his wife had come back. He looked at his daughter's tired eyes, at her chapped hands, and wondered how Margaret's losing her life had led Addie to throw away her own.
”You're thinking of how easy it is for you to slide back into this routine.”
Roy laughed. ”What routine? Sitting on my b.u.t.t all day?”
”Sitting in the diner diner on your b.u.t.t all day.” on your b.u.t.t all day.”
It was impossible to tell Addie what he really thought: that this diner meant nothing to him, not since Margaret's death. But Addie had gotten it into her head that keeping the Do-Or-Diner open would give him a purpose he wouldn't find at the bottom of a bottle of vodka. What Addie didn't understand was that what you had could never make up for what you'd lost.
He and Margaret had closed the diner for a week each summer to take Addie on a family vacation. They had driven by car, to towns with names that drew them: Cape Porpoise, Maine; Egypt, Ma.s.sachusetts; Paw Paw, Michigan; Defiance, Ohio. Roy would point out a flock of Canada geese, a looming purple mountain, a sunlit field of wheat-and then he'd glance in the back to find his daughter asleep on the backseat, the whole world pa.s.sing her by. ”There's an elephant in the lane next to us!” he'd call out. ”The moon is falling out of the sky!” Anything to make Addie take stock of her surroundings.
”The moon is falling out of the sky,” Roy murmured now.
”What?”
”I said, yes, there are advantages to being here.”
A customer came in, ringing the bell over the door. ”Hey,” Addie called out, her smile set firmly in place like a child's Halloween mask. As she went to seat the woman, Jack poked his head through the double doors.
”Roy,” he whispered. ”Did Stuart come in today?”
”Stuart, the old guy?” Roy said, although he himself couldn't have been much younger than Stuart. ”Nah.”
”I, uh, I'm worried about him.”
”How come?”
”He hasn't missed breakfast a single day since I've been working here. And I didn't see him out with the cow this morning, either.”
Addie walked up to the two men. ”What's the matter?”
”Stuart,” Roy explained. ”He's gone missing.”
She frowned. ”He wasn't in today-you're right. Did you try calling his house?”
Jack shook his head. ”I don't know his last name.”
”Hollings.” Addie dialed a number, her expression growing tighter with each ring. ”He lives by himself, in that old farmhouse behind the pharmaceutical plant.”
”Maybe he just went away for a while.”
”Not Stuart. The last trip he went on was to Concord, in 1982. I'll go check on him. Dad, don't let Chloe sneak any snacks before lunchtime, no matter how much she says she's starving.” She reached around her waist to untie her ap.r.o.n, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s thrusting forward in the process. Jack didn't want to notice, but he did, and he grew so fl.u.s.tered that it took him a moment to recognize her intentions. ”Here,” she said, tossing the ap.r.o.n and order pad at him. ”You've just been promoted.”
Stuart's farmhouse sat at the crest of a hill, snowy pastures draped around it like the settling skirts of a debutante. Addie parked in a hurry and got out of her car. His cow was lowing angrily from the barn-something that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck, since nothing meant more to the old man than caring for that cow.
”Stuart?” Addie let herself into the barn, empty save for the swollen cow. She raced up the path to the house, calling his name. The front door was unlocked. ”Stuart, it's Addie. From the diner. Are you here?”
She moved through the puzzle of the unfamiliar house until she reached the kitchen. ”Stuart?” Addie said, and then she screamed.
He was lying on his side in a pool of blood, his eyes open but half of his face curiously wooden. ”Oh, G.o.d. Can you speak to me, Stuart?”
Addie had to lean close and focus hard to understand the mangled word that crawled from Stuart's slack mouth. ”Sauce?” she repeated, and then she realized that the spreading red had come from a broken jar and smelled of tomatoes.
The phone was an old 1950s wall-mounted rotary. It took forever to dial 911 and get an ambulance dispatched. She returned to the pantry and got to her knees right in the puddle of spaghetti sauce. She stroked the fine silver hairs that glimmered over Stuart's scalp. To how many deaths would she have to bear witness?
Roy untied the strings of the waitress ap.r.o.n and handed it back to his daughter. ”How come you were waiting tables? Didn't I ask Jack to do it?”
”He was a mess. Practically broke out in hives every time he had to go over to a customer. He's shy, you know, not nearly as charming as me, so I decided to put him out of his misery.” He nodded toward the swinging doors. ”You gonna tell him about Stuart?”