Last Night at the Lobster (5 page)

“Hey,” he says through the open door, “if you have time, could you help clear?”

“If I have time.”

“I’ll make sure they tip you out on whatever you do.”

She laughs, just a puff, as if that will never happen, because it’s been a point of contention forever.

Outside, the wind cuts through his thin shirt, lacy flakes catch in his eyelashes. The slushy ghosts of footprints bleed through the new cover. It’s noticeably warmer, the snow heavy as wet cake, crystals sticking together as they fall. He should probably break out the snowblower, but for now he sows handfuls of ice melter, a quick fix so no one from lunch ends up breaking a hip. Far across the lot, a big town plow roams the aisles, blade scraping all the way down to asphalt, yellow light wheeling. It peeps as it backs up, then gores forward again, the diesel softened by distance and the veil of snow, almost like fog, obscuring the mall, a dark block with floodlights burning at the corners, like a fort or a prison. He tramps out to the end of one wing where Dom’s and Roz’s cars sit in exile and works back toward the Lobster, the illusory movement of the colored string through the front doors and the glow from the windows and the candlelit faces of people eating inside all suddenly, surprisinglybeautiful to him, as if he’s still stoned. He rests for a moment to appreciate the vision and hears, in the hush, at a distance, the frantic whizzing of a car spinning its wheels. In the storm light, the restaurant looks warm and alive and welcoming, a place anyone would want to go. It looks like a painting, and he feels proud, as if this is his work, and in a way it is, except it’s over, like him and Jacquie, lost, gone forever. Is that why he loves it so much?

There’s still tonight, he thinks.

There’s still today. He still has no idea what to get Deena, and thinks that at this point he really should. He better figure out something soon. He knows from all-too-recent experience there’s nothing worse than a guilty present.

The bag runs out before he can finish the slot between the handicapped spots, and in good conscience he can’t let it slide. He follows his own already-vanishing tracks up the walk and opens the door. A foot into the foyer the heat and noise and background music surround him. The kitchen’s even louder with the grill seething, the radio pumping, the dishwasher cycling. “Where’s the salsa for this Aztec Chicken?” Ty hollers at Leron as Manny lugs a new bag from the stockroom, passing the ice maker and the snowblower under its dusty cover. “Goddammit, Frito, where’s my linguini?”

Fredo’s hurrying over, but his sneaker slips on a wet spot and he goes down hard, dropping the pot, which bounces and overturns, dumping the linguini out on the tiles.

Ty jabs his tongs in his direction. “Why are you doing this to me? Just tell me.”

“You all right?” Manny asks, and helps Fredo stand.

“This is not fucking working,” Ty says.

Roz and Jacquie come flying in for appetizers but they’re not all up yet. The kitchen’s getting hammered by the retirement party and the all-you-can-eat refills, and the servers are taking the blame.

“Come on, guys,” Roz says. “It’s a party. I can’t serve half the table.”

“Try,” Ty jokes.

“Hello,” Roz says, “I need to serve the guest of honor first?”

They’re ahead on biscuits, so Manny pulls Rich off baker and adds him to the end of the line as an extra assembler. They’re far enough into lunch that they can let the bus boxes pile up for a little bit and have Eddie give Fredo a hand with prep.

“I need someone to clear 35,” Nicolette says.

“You’re kidding, right?” Jacquie asks, because the party’s running them hard with shotgunned drink orders and Nicolette’s down to the kid’s booth and a four-top of grandmothers—notoriously cheap but easy.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“Give me ten seconds,” Manny says.

On his way outside, he passes Kendra just standing at the host stand, and he senses—and he’s sure he’s right— that the power struggle here isn’t between him and her or Nicolette and Jacquie but between Kendra and Nicolette, a long-standing beef between seater and server he’s done his best to referee. It’s their last day, so no one’s going to flinch, and Manny’s not dumb enough to try to get both of them to surrender.

He dashes a few handfuls over the spot, then stalks back in, ditching the bag in the vestibule. He grabs a tub and buses 35, loops through the break room and finds Jacquie at the bar.

“I don’t know why she even comes in if she’s going to be like that,” she says.

“Like what?” Manny says. “That’s the way she always is.”

“I
know
. That’s what I’m saying. Why doesn’t she just stay home? She doesn’t do anything anyway.” When she’s angry she talks fast and her island accent comes out, making Manny feel like they’re talking intimately. Even if it’s wrong, he wants to believe she wouldn’t say this to anyone else.

“She’s just trying to get to Kendra—”

“She’s useless too. They should be helping instead of messing around.”

He sees his opportunity, with the two of them here and Dom busy mixing Lobsteritas, the messy Weather Channel map morphing above the POS. He hesitates, knowing how easily she can read him. It’s not going to come across as casual, whenever he does it.

“Why’d you come in?” he asks, and when she looks up it’s clear they’re not talking about the job.

“I told you I would.”

“For a while there I wasn’t sure.”

“I always do what I say I’m going to. You should know that by now.”

“I should,” he says, reminded once again that he’s the one who couldn’t stop himself from constructing their perfect, imaginary future together, the one who made ridiculous promises and vows, the one who asked her to marry him. She’d laughed, then a week later cried after they made love, only to slam the bathroom door in his face. It still makes no sense to him: With her temper, she’s the stable one. Maybe, as he sometimes thinks, he was crazy, and entirely mistaken about her, and should be grateful he’s with Deena. Maybe he’s still crazy.

Roz comes over with a drink tray tucked under one arm. “Look what Coach gave me.” She dangles a twenty in front of Jacquie’s nose, then snatches it away, folds it into her breast pocket and pats it.

“What did you do?” Jacquie needles.

“Is he still here?” Manny asks, swiveling, and spots him crossing the dining room.

He catches him at the coatrack and walks him out besidethe live tank in his puffy jacket and Greek fisherman’s cap, shaking his hand a last time before Coach tugs on his gloves.

“We’ll beat Southington,” Manny says.

“You know something I don’t?”

“We always do.”

“There’s always a first time.” Coach looks around the foyer, hands open as if to point out the decor. “It’s going to be strange. The Olive Garden, huh?”

“Yeah. Come on by. We’ll take care of you.”

“I know you will. Take care of yourself, huh?”

“You too,” Manny says, and because the lights are blinking, they wish each other a Merry Christmas. “Hard-hittin’—”

“New Britain.”

Outside, in the snow, Mr. K. looks back and waves a last time. Manny waves and then watches him shuffle to his car the way he would his own abuelito, hoping all the while that he put down enough ice melter.

“It’s official,” Dom announces, hitching a thumb at the TV, “it’s a blizzard. Winter Storm Adrian. New York’s completely shut down.”

“Damn,” Manny says, as if impressed, but underneath he’s wondering what impact that might have on tonight. He’s been counting on this one last shift for so long, as if it might hold some final answer. It can’t, he knows, yet he feels threatened by the idea of losing his last chance.

“Since when do winter storms have names?” Roz asks, then touches Manny on the elbow and leans into him. “We’ve got a problem on 16.”

One of the office party’s tables. A man bit into a cheddar biscuit and felt something thin and smooth like plastic wrap. The way Roz describes it, en route, Manny fears that Eddie lost one of his Band-Aids, lawsuit territory if there ever was.

The man has saved the evidence for Manny, handing him the bread-and-butter plate as if only he can identify the foreign object. The whole table looks to him. The plastic is flimsy and transparent—unlike, say, the fingertip of a glove—and pliable, not like cellophane.

“It’s plastic wrap, all right,” Manny says, flattering the guy’s powers of deduction. “Sometimes we wrap the batter to keep it fresh. I’m very sorry. We’ll be more than happy to take care of your meal.” It takes Roz a second to find him in the POS. Manny makes a show of initialing the printout and giving it back, a leader signing an important treaty. The guy seems placated, shrugging as if it was an honest mistake. “If there’s anything you want or need, please just ask and we’ll do our best. Can I get you another Corona?”

“Sure.”

“Lime with that?”

“Yes.”

And Manny’s off, handling the situation personally, taking the offending plate with him—straight out of the old intern manual he used to study like a Bible when he was just breaking in: Remove food item in question— which he shows to Rich and Eddie, since they’ve both been baker today. “Who knows,” he says, “it could have been me. I mixed the batter in the first place. We’ve all got to watch what we’re doing.”

“Yes, Chef,” Ty tries, but Manny doesn’t think it’s funny.

He delivers the beer, almost salaaming, and the man thanks him—a sign that everything’s cool. Bow-tie boss is fine, back to chatting with the guest of honor, and Manny decides to bounce instead of pushing it with a double table touch.

Up front, Kendra’s standing with her face inches from the front doors, watching something outside. “Someone’s stuck,” she says, and he lifts a hand to black out the reflection and sees Mr. K.’s dinosaur of an Olds sideways across the lanes and struggling in the slush.

“Motherfuckers,” Manny allows himself once he’s outside—meaning the plow guys, still missing in action. The Olds revs and its tires whine. Rear-wheel drive is useless in this shit, and the old boat must weigh a couple of tons. Coach is just digging a hole, sending up an ozone of smoked rubber.

Manny slaps at the passenger window and shows him the bag of ice melter. “Let me put some of this down and I’ll give you a push.”

He stalls for a few seconds to give the pellets a chance to work. “Okay, now put it in reverse and just let it roll back a foot.” He throws some in front of the wheels on both sides, then coaxes him forward with a hand, stops him. “Okay, now back again. Okay. Now straighten out the wheel. All right, let’s give it a try.”

Manny heaves against the trunk of the Olds as Coach inches it forward. His work shoes are treadless and don’t grab, so he digs the sides of his heels into the snow like starting blocks. By now all the wheelspinning has built up an icy hump they have to clear. Between the ice melter, Manny getting some leverage and Coach nursing the gas pedal, they nearly have enough momentum, but at the last second they start to fall back, and Coach can’t help but gun it, shooting twin streams of slush past Manny, swinging the back end to one side. The next try’s the same. “Wait,” Manny says, holding up a hand, but Coach doesn’t hear him, and goes again. He’s just making it worse.

“Try and rock it,” Manny says, because one of the holes is a good foot long now and the melter seems to be working.

Coach rolls it back, then chunks it into drive, rolls it back, almost clearing the rear of the hump, then rocks forward, the tires catching asphalt and traction as Manny shoulders the trunk, the taillights flaring red in his face, and finally pushes weakly off the bumper as the Olds climbs and surges free, leaving him nothing but air to hang on to, and he falls on his hands and knees in the slush. He pushes up, swearing, cuffs and pants soaked. Mr. K.’s afraid of getting stuck again and doesn’t slow, just honks, turns at the end of the row and rolls through the stop sign onto the plowed access road and away.

“Aw, man,” Manny says, arms out to check the damage. His tie is ruined, he’s wet and freezing, but he also feels like he’s won something, being able to pay Coach back in some small way. The snow is falling softly— Charlie Brown snow—and there’s almost no wind. It may just be the lull before the heavy stuff, but, waggling his hands at his sides to warm them, he thinks it’s too pretty to be a blizzard.

Inside, he cleans up in the men’s room, rinsing his tie, lifting his knees like a drum major so the blower can dry his pants. He polices the sinks with toilet paper, finger-rolling a wad into the trash before washing his hands. Less than a minute later, he scoops a wayward french fry off the floor by the kid’s table and has to wash them again, and then again after he wipes down a drink-and-dessert menu the big party somehow gobbed with tartar sauce.

Lunch is under control, for now. The big party’s finally quiet, busy eating their entrees. The kid is sitting still, gobbling down popcorn shrimp. It’s one fifteen and the snow is keeping people away. Here it is the last day and he’s still sweating the guest count; with the holiday crowd he was hoping for a packed house, just to shove it in corporate’s face. Kendra seats the stragglers, then, with nothing to do, gives in and clears Roz’s last four-top. The kitchen’s caught up; Ty’s already put Eddie and Leron back on dishes. Fredo’s clearing the line, Rich is cleaning the baker’s table. Sensing a chance to get ahead, Manny tries the plow guys, gets the machine again and leaves a second message, checks to see if his tie is drying—it’s not—then glumly putters around the bar, watching with Dom as the white and pink storm sweeps across both screens.

Jacquie finds him eating beer nuts—something she tried to get him to cut down on—and he ditches the rest of the handful on a napkin as if he’s done.

“We got any lighthouse glasses left?”

“How many you need?”

“It’s got to be a special one, number seven or something, I don’t know.”